Skip to main content

Good and Evil

“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” 
― J.K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Examine history and we will be amazed by enormity of the evil that man has inflicted upon his fellow creatures mostly in the name of gods and creeds.  A lot of good people perished being labelled as heretics and witches.  Thousands of innocent people have died and continue to do so to please the gods of fanatics and radicals.

The Pope has apologised for his Church's inhuman attitude towards homosexuals.  Pope John Paul II had made quite a number of apologies.  Most religions will have infinite sins to atone for if they are willing to undertake an honest introspection.

And yet religion is about goodness, compassion, and what not?  That's what we have been told at least.

The plain truth is that religion, like most other man-made institutions, is about power. If you have power, what you do is right and good!  Rather, it's not about good and evil; it's about who wants to be the boss.


Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. Yes. Manay religious organisations are becoming power centric in stead of propagating human values.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This reminds me of Grand Inquisitor in Brother Karamazov who reprimands even Jesus of depriving church of its full power.But that's just fiction and the truth is much more harsh, I guess

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dostoyevsky was a genuinely spiritual person who was tormented by the problem of evil. Ivan Karamazov's quest is spiritual though he is an atheist. Real spiritual seekers are tormented souls who will not run after power. Yes, truth is much more harsh...

      Delete
  3. The examples of the brutality you speak of are numerous. It's always good to remind ourselves of these evils. Makes us want to change things.

    Nice write up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The atrocities still go on. The common people are helpless, powerless.

      Delete
  4. Very well said.

    Religion might have been born to unite people under the fear of god. But now it is causing division. Its time to evolve to humanity.

    ReplyDelete
  5. well, rightly said, religion is nothing but just a glorified and fancy name to hide the dirty game of power and politics.
    Very much like terrorism, religion also every year kills large amount of people, but no-one bothers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You gave it the right name: "a glorified and fancy name to hide the dirty game of power and politics."

      Delete
  6. Now this reminds me of a quote by Gibran, which I mention:
    Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If only the religionists understood that, Chaitali!

      Delete
  7. That is the crux of the matter, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Religion did not start as a way to grab power but it has become a short cut to it now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You have rightly threw a light Sir but question in my mind is the religion is wrong or the humans who involved in it are ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The problem is wit people. Give any system to them and they will pervert it.

      Delete
  10. Some people are using religion to remain in power......

    Natureram

    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

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

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

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

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