Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Here is a little story from the novel, The Palace of Illusions, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.             Once a boy came running in from play and asked, Mother, what is milk?  My friends say it is creamy and white and has the sweetest taste... Please, mother, I want milk to drink.             The mother, who was too poor to buy milk, mixed some flour in water, added jaggery, and gave it to the boy.             The boy drank it and danced in joy, saying, Now I, too, know what milk tastes like!             And the mother, who through all the years of her hardship had never shed a tear, wept at his trust and her deception. I am amazed by both the jejune credulousness seen in the country today and also the amount of deception being perpetrated...

The book which I am now reading is God is not great: How religion poisons everything by Christopher Hitchens.  In the very first chapter the author says: “Religious faith is, precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, ineradicable.  It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other.  For this reason, I would not prohibit it even if I thought I could.” [emphasis in original] The author is an atheist.  His book is a serious philosophical critique of religion.  Yet he is generous enough to let religions be.  That is the spirit of all genuine atheists.  All genuine atheists I have come across so far display similar generosity and tolerance.  By genuine , I mean atheism chosen by an individual after due consideration, reflection and understanding.  Hitchens goes on to ask a question: But will the religious grant me the same indulgence?”  A f...