Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Let me start with a disclaimer. This is not a book review though I’m relying on Royston Lambert’s book , Beloved and God (1984) for most of the information contained in this post. The eponymous hero of the book is Antinous who died in his early 20s. Soon after his death he became a God in the Roman Empire because he was the beloved of Emperor Hadrian . What I wish to highlight is how a god can be created pretty easily and how the religion founded in his name can become popular too as easily. I think my country’s present leaders can take some lessons from here. Hadrian was quite a good emperor. A benevolent dictator, in the judgment of many historians. He did very many good things for the benefit of his people instead of going around conquering more territories. [China too can learn something.] One of those many things was giving the people a new god and religion. He did much better things earlier, of course. Antinous was an adolescent boy when Hadrian’s eyes fell on him first

Yahweh by Michelangelo Recently I stumbled upon a quote from Robert G Ingersoll’s book, Some Mistakes of Moses .  The quote which puts the Jewish God on a dissection table is reproduced below: It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch. There are people who believe in such a heartless, mirthless, starkly absurd God too.  It is then that I fell on the contemplation whether most gods aren’t similar one way or

Killing has always been the job of the religious.  They kill for their gods and the gods are always happy.  Death is the pastime of the gods.  And of those who are close to the gods.  Remember the sacrifices stipulated by the Vedas? Remember the crusades made by the Christian missionaries in the medieval period? At least, remember the terrorist attacks of our own days? The politics of the gods.  If you're not sick of them, you have mastered the art of killing. 

Chandigarh has a series of museums all adjacent to one another. They are an excellent place to spend a day especially if you are in Chandigarh during summer.  You can engage yourself learning much about history, music, art, architecture, and so on.   The Goddess welcomes you to the Museum The Buddha - 2nd century AD sculpture Maitreya Maitreya, according to Buddhist literature, is the future Buddha. He will come when people will have forgotten dharma and will be living in sheer evil. Similar beliefs are found in many religions. Didn't Lord Krishna promise Arjuna, "... Sambhavami yuge yuge"? The Bible promises a Second Coming of Jesus.  People were always aware of their own innate wickedness.  But instead of working on it in order to alleviate it if not eradicate, people chose to believe in some deity who would come and eradicate it.  Just one of the many futile absurdities of human existence! Gods are the most potent tools for man's escapist gam

“Welcome to the Land of Gods” is a signboard that will greet you the moment you reach the Garhwal Himalayas.   What Arun Kolatkar wrote about Jejuri is quite true about the Garhwal Himalayas too: “what is god / and what is stone / the dividing line / if it exists / is very thin / at jejuri / and every other stone / is god or his cousin” (in the poem, A Scratch ). On my way to Gomukh from Gangotri My recent trekking to Gomukh with a group of 35 students taught me quite many a lesson about gods of all hues including wealth. We started our trekking from Gangotri soon after breakfast.   Gangotri, as the name implies, is (supposed to be) the origin of the holy river Ganga.   We had reached Gangotri a day before our trekking with enough time left for a wandering in the holy mount.   One of the places that caught our fancy during our wandering was the wooden cabin of a Baba (sage) who lives very close to the place where the Ganga spouted forth lustily through the gap between two r