Skip to main content

Heaven and other Strategies


Sunday Musings

If I do not want to go to heaven, whose business is it to decide otherwise for me?  I have come across scores of people who insist on deciding what I should or should not do so that my soul is saved from perdition. They have taken much pain to attach too many strings all along my way and pull them in certain directions applying the torque of their calculation so that my soul is not lost for eternity.  It always baffled me why my soul was so important to them when there were/are millions of other people who stand in genuine need of benevolence.

When I stumbled on Emile Durkheim recently I got some kind of an answer.  God is a lever with which people are elevated to heaven using the fulcrum of religion.  No, Durkheim didn’t say it in those words.  I’m paraphrasing him. 

But why does anyone take the trouble to do all that leveraging?  Because every society seeks order, a social system.  And God is the most effective tool for forging that system.  All those properties of the conscience and morality that are assumed to be the properties of God are, really, the properties of society.  For example, the dominant section of a particular society may decide that vegetarianism is superior to non-vegetarianism.  It is almost impossible to prove such a claim.  What cannot be proved should be enforced if it is to become a norm.  Religion is an ideal tool for all enforcements.  Anything can be enforced in the name of that omnipotent power sitting beyond all human understanding, promising the ultimate fulfilment of the infinite human longings.

But why would anyone want to enforce something as trivial as a culinary choice on people?  The more restrictions you impose on people, the greater your power over them.  It is all the more valid when you are dealing with people belonging to religions other than yours.  For example, when you impose vegetarianism on a people who are used to a non-vegetarian staple diet you are killing two birds with one stone: you are depriving them of their food and thus weakening them, and you are demonstrating to them that you are much mightier than them.  And God sits in the luridly diaphanous background smiling beatifically at the number of souls being added to His heaven, even if it means pilfering souls from some other God’s heaven.

Religion is about power.  Durkheim thought it was about moral power.  But a century has passed between him and us.  Now religion is about political power.  We live in a time when morality is being saved in high-security bank vaults in the form of non-vegetarian currency.  We live in a time when strings and levers have gone digital and all-pervasive.  God reigns supreme even in the virtually real world.  And God continues to be immensely concerned with every soul, even mine no matter how insignificant I may consider myself.




Comments

  1. Your views are perfect. i'm sure many share the same view. People have used religion to gain power, misuse it as they please!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It has done pretty much harm to me personally too.

      Delete
  2. The things from which we run, somehow find their way into our lives. I think, may be I am wrong, but that's what is happening with you. You understand what this game of religion and power is all about. So, instead of running from or hating such entities, better not to give them any footage in life, not even by criticizing them, that is if they have started bothering you. At least in these times of over-population and peace, we can afford to be invisible. I turn zombie for things that spreads negative energy and those things then overlook me thinking that m brain dead when the fact is I am much alive :) But yes, if you want to bring about some positive change than of course, you have to enjoy all the thrashings. It's again a matter of choice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess you're right, Roohi. It's better to ignore certain things in stead of fighting them.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

War and Meaning of Victory

In the summer of 1999, while the rest of India was soaked in monsoon and Cricket World Cup, the country’s soldiers were clawing up frozen cliffs daring the bullets that came shooting from above. India’s incorrigible neighbour had sent its soldiers and militants to capture the snow-covered peaks of Kargil. It was an act of deception, a capture of India’s land stealthily. The terrain was harsh and hostile, testing the limits of human courage with every jagged step. The Kargil War was not just against a human enemy, but against peaks of stones and snow where the air itself was an adversary. Three months of bitter conflict and subhuman killing ended in India’s victory over the invading Pakistan. Victory! July 26 is celebrated ever after as Kargil Vijay Diwas by India. What is victory, however? Philosophically, I mean. We are supposed to be rational (philosophical) creatures, after all. “ W ar does not determine who is right,” Bertrand Russell said famously, “but who is left.” Every...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

The RSS and Paradoxes

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation. Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final asses...