Skip to main content

For a world of thinking people


After reading a blog post of mine (Legal Lawbreakers), an ex-colleague of mine sent me a message yesterday that the criminals would be punished by God.  She has absolute faith in her God, she wrote. 

Is there any justification for such faith?  Nowhere in the history of mankind do we get any reason to believe that divine intervention has awarded justice to any people at any time.  On the contrary, we have infinite examples to show how the wicked flourish and the naive perish. 

It is easy to delude ourselves with such beliefs as divine justice after death.  Hell and heaven, the Judgment Day, Karmic consequences, and other such religious carrots-and-sticks don’t serve any purpose to make human life more equitable on the planet.  Religions also offer believers ways to circumvent the stick and secure the carrot: a confession or a bath in the Ganga or some other ritual can wash away your sins. 

If religion were indeed effective in helping people resist evil with the carrot-and-stick eschatology, the world would have been a holy place long, long ago.  For centuries, religions brought terrifying notions about life after death.  But the evil in the world has only increased by diabolic leaps and bounds. The situation is as hilarious today as it is alarming because it is the religious people themselves who are the biggest swindlers.  Examine the assets of some of the religious institutions in India, for example, and one will be astounded by their enormity.  Even the Ambanis and Adanis would want to rethink about their entrepreneurial strategies!

That’s why I always recommend the cultivation of rational skills.  People should be taught to use their rational faculties in order to understand why evil is undesirable and how goodness can be cultivated if we all choose to leave gods and demons to themselves and exercise our reason and imagination. 

Have you ever wondered why religions never encourage people to think?



Indian Bloggers


Labels:

Comments

  1. Ankita VermaMay 26, 2016 at 7:53 AM

    AGreed

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pranju chakrapaniMay 26, 2016 at 8:36 AM

    Very true, sir. Carl Sagan in contact said the exact same thing. I believe an alien invasion would definitely end the blindfaith people carry towards their religion. Life in other planets would make them believe in the theory of evolution and Big Bang :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 26, 2016 at 10:18 PM

      Quite many people want to remain blind when it comes to scientific truths. They prefer the delusion provided by religions and their gods. Psychological reasons. I think only an evolutionary mutation will change people. :(

      Delete
  3. UppalMay 26, 2016 at 10:47 AM

    Religion is only a palliative to promote enduring injustice in the hope of better days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 26, 2016 at 10:20 PM

      Very correct, Uppal ji. I hope more and more people realize that.

      Delete
  4. RakeshMay 26, 2016 at 8:55 PM

    It's funny what people will believe! God may exist, but it's really hard to believe that first He makes one commit 1 crime, then goes about punishing one. I mean, there doesn't seem any logic to it! It's like I first ask my son to kill a kitten, then starve him for doing that!

    Religion is just an opium and the religious are simply an addict to believe those narcotic induced hallucinations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 26, 2016 at 10:22 PM

      There's no logic in religion, Rakesh ji. Look at the religious stories. God sending his own son to save the world which he created in his omniscience and omnipotence... It's all so absurd.

      I agree with you that it's just a narcotic with which people delude themselves.

      Delete
    2. RakeshJune 1, 2016 at 8:29 PM

      Agreed!

      Delete
  5. UnknownMay 27, 2016 at 11:37 AM

    i think the same is the thinking of our Rushi's ,these are concepts to understand common people & to correct their understanding stories are created .

    ReplyDelete
  6. Neha SharmaMay 27, 2016 at 1:05 PM

    Couldn't agree more!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alok singhalMay 28, 2016 at 1:35 AM

    I think if we all do what is logically, practically, and morally correct, we would all do better collectively...and the world would be a better place!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sneh AsnaniMay 30, 2016 at 10:40 AM

    I think more than belief, it is consolation. Sometimes we are unable to punish those who wronged us. And at that moment we want to push it to God!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownJune 1, 2016 at 9:11 AM

    It was okay till we were told the stories about God and his justice and love. All of it went wrong as soon as we were made to believe that we belong to a religion and this is how we need to pray, think, eat and shit.

    We have forgotten that the God lives within us. Our decisions and choices matter.

    I agree to all that you said.

    ReplyDelete

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
47 comments
Read more

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more

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...
19 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more