Skip to main content

Religion and Intolerance


The book which I am now reading is God is not great: How religion poisons everything by Christopher Hitchens.  In the very first chapter the author says: “Religious faith is, precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, ineradicable.  It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other.  For this reason, I would not prohibit it even if I thought I could.” [emphasis in original]

The author is an atheist.  His book is a serious philosophical critique of religion.  Yet he is generous enough to let religions be.  That is the spirit of all genuine atheists.  All genuine atheists I have come across so far display similar generosity and tolerance.  By genuine, I mean atheism chosen by an individual after due consideration, reflection and understanding. 

Hitchens goes on to ask a question: But will the religious grant me the same indulgence?”  A few lines later, he says that religion is incapable of leaving others alone.  Religious people, he says, are always “in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments... Religion poisons everything.”

The attack on a publication in Paris is yet another tragic proof of what Hitchens is saying.  Religions are by their very nature intolerant.  We are witnessing the rise of such intolerance in India too. 

I fail to understand, however much I think about it, why religious people can’t leave others alone.  What makes the religious people think that their truth is the sole truth, absolute truth, nothing but the truth, when there are so many ways of disproving most of their claims?  I would be thrilled if any religious person can answer this one question to my satisfaction.

PS: I admit that there are religious people who are very tolerant.  A few of my close friends are very religious and they never question my lack of religious faith.  May their tribe increase!



Labels:

Comments

  1. surendraJanuary 9, 2015 at 8:21 PM

    Icc Cricket World Cup 2015 Schedule

    ReplyDelete
  2. KalpanaJanuary 10, 2015 at 4:52 PM

    I really resonate with your blog post. I've written about the over zealousness of religions. I'll link this blog post to my latest one. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 11, 2015 at 10:53 AM

      Thanks, Kalpanaa. I had a rapid glance at your blog and will return to it more diligently soon.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2015 at 10:03 PM

    loved it Sir!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 11, 2015 at 10:54 AM

      Thank you. I'm soon following it up with another post titled 'Hindu students in Muslim madrasa'.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2015 at 12:38 AM

    Very nice post! Religion should lead us to the path of humanity but unfortunately from most recent 9/11 to most recent Charlie Hebdo massacre prove it otherwise. too much of everything is very bad...even religious faith!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 11, 2015 at 10:55 AM

      The media highlight such conflicts and problems. I came across a very interesting report in today's 'Hindu' and am writing a post on that.

      Delete
  5. UnknownJanuary 13, 2015 at 4:47 PM

    Religious people believe in god, When I ask them why they believe in god. They said its our belief. You dont understand.

    And I got my answer, they do not have ability to think before believe in something. While an atheist people think if their mind give them approval after that they believe in it.
    Bottom Line: I am not sure nut atheist are wise than Theist, all have different views..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more