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| Source: WHO |
About 800,000 people commit suicide every year in the world. That is,
one person chooses to die every 40 seconds. More than 20 times that number are
attempting suicide.
This is not the statistics of one particular year. This is happening
every year. Every second somebody somewhere on our planet is pulling the
trigger on himself or consuming poison or slipping on the knot round the neck
or…
There are over 4,000 religions in the world. Between them they have over
10,000 gods [not counting the dead gods like Zeus and Isis or neglected ones
like Indra]. Add to all these the countless religious cults that mushroom year
after year.
Isn’t something wrong somewhere? So many gods, so many religions, so
many cults, and yet so many people losing hope and choosing death.
Isn’t something seriously wrong somewhere? So many gods, so many
religions, so many cults, and yet so many people dying of starvation in the
world.
Albert Einstein reportedly defined insanity as doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting different results. We clutched the same or similar
idols for thousands of years. We uttered the same prayers, chanted the same
mantras, and performed the same rituals over and over again. And expected a
better world! Are we insane?
Sometime in the evolutionary line the ape mutated into our first
ancestor. Ever since, this new ape called man became more and more intelligent.
More and more crooked, if you wish. More and more vile.
The brain evolved while the heart did not. On the one hand, we created
scientific wonders and, on the other, we remained savagely fierce and
destructive. The skyscrapers and the atom bombs coexist in the human world.
Our religions and all their gods failed to tame our hearts. Our hearts
still belong to the ape.
Or is it the other way around? Our hearts are savage and hence our gods are
failures? After all, what kind of gods can savages create?
Is that why 800,000 people find life unbearable every year?
Can we make the world a kinder place for those sensitive souls who
choose to leave it before time?
I think we need to work on our gods.
That is an alarming number of suicides. Religion and god mean different things to different people. Even the cruel minds pray to the same gods as the good ones do. I doubt if the gods have anything to do with how the minds develop.
ReplyDeleteAren't gods creations of our own minds? The good minds have good gods and the gods of the bad minds help them justify themselves. God is a tool to ease our conscience with.
Delete'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion.' - Robert M Persig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
ReplyDeleteHahaha. That's the best definition of religion.
DeleteAbout 800,000 people commit suicide every year in the world. That is, one person chooses to die every 40 seconds. More than 20 times that number are attempting suicide.scary figure
ReplyDeleteShouldn't we care?
DeleteMental health is the last priority on the minds of people. In India even more than several other nations. Suicide is a result of poor mental health.
ReplyDeleteI can't comment on the aspect of God but I do know that we have invested too much time on building IQs and too little on EQs. Hence the evolvement of brain over heart. For me God and religion are different.
If one can separate God and religion, one is already on the right path, I think. I'm also happy you mentioned EQ. That's precisely where the problem lies: the neglect of the heart and the onslaught of the brain. Our gods will evolve only when our hearts do.
Delete