Skip to main content

Gods of Savages

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.



Comments

  1. DashyMay 5, 2020 at 2:13 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 5, 2020 at 3:40 PM

      Aren'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
  2. magiceyeMay 5, 2020 at 6:46 PM

    '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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 5, 2020 at 7:21 PM

      Hahaha. That's the best definition of religion.

      Delete
  3. Yogi SaraswatMay 5, 2020 at 10:15 PM

    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.scary figure

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sonia DograMay 6, 2020 at 6:21 AM

    Mental 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.
    I 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 6, 2020 at 7:32 AM

      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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...
7 comments
Read more

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...
6 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