Skip to main content

Freedom and religion

This is one of the thoughts that amuses me again and again: Suppose we give absolute freedom to people in matters regarding religion. No force of any kind. You go to temple or church or whatever only if you want. There are no priests. No preachers. No godmen or ammas.  No theology. No rituals. You do what your heart tells you to do in the temple or church or whatever. You and your god. Nothing in between. No middleman. Just you before your God.

How wonderful that would be!

Or

Will the temple and the church or whatever remain desolate once there are no power brokers to perform their rituals?

Is religion merely another power structure that holds people together for certain worldly benefits and nothing more?

At least, will the killings in the name of gods stop? Will people rediscover love or compassion?

I'm amused to ponder.

Comments

  1. Durga Prasad DashJuly 3, 2016 at 1:20 PM

    Absolutely. In an evolved society there should be absolute freedom to worship. That is the only way to end any kind of fanaticism. But, will the vested interests allow it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2016 at 5:54 PM

      No, I'm sure the vested interests won't. That's precisely why religion is a terror today more than anything else.

      Delete
  2. Pranju chakrapaniJuly 3, 2016 at 1:33 PM

    It is definitely for the worldly benefits, excluding a select few who wants to attain the highest peak of maslow's hierarchy, that people buy this stuff and sellers sell this stuff. And thus forming a vicious syndicate and thus enter the Godmen and the likes of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2016 at 5:58 PM

      I have seen people with criminal minds acting as the spokespersons of a Baba. They make use of religion for nefarious purposes with total impunity. A lot ordinary mortals join them for petty benefits some of which are assumed to be spiritual!

      Delete
    2. Pranju chakrapaniJuly 3, 2016 at 6:47 PM

      Yes, in that sense the seekers of spiritualism can as well fall in their trap. I guess that's where the use of common sense comes which many of us fail to apply to our beliefs

      Delete
  3. Anupam PatraJuly 4, 2016 at 9:30 AM

    The last one is a worthy hope. If that could happen then all relinquishment will be worth it.

    Beautiful thought Tomichan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 4, 2016 at 8:32 PM

      If people would stop harming others in the name of religion and gods,the world would be a far better place.

      Delete
  4. Swati BatraJuly 4, 2016 at 4:54 PM

    Religion is something which connects us to God, it should not be there to create boundaries. Spiritual connect is of supreme importance rest is baseless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 4, 2016 at 8:34 PM

      Spiritual connect - if only a fraction of believers really longed for that!

      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
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
14 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more