Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The Hindu editorial [May 17, 2013] invokes Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase, ‘the banality of evil,’ in order to underscore the corruption that has infiltrated Indian cricket, particularly the IPL.  In simple words what Arendt meant by the phrase was that monstrous evils are not usually perpetrated by fanatics or psychopaths but by ordinary people who fail to think deeply or seriously enough. Failure to think seriously enough is a very common trait of our contemporary civilisation.  Ours is a civilisation which has nearly killed philosophy and serious literature.  It is a civilisation built up on the single premise of materialism and propagated assiduously by the United States of America using institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.  It is a civilisation which encourages consumerism and superficial pleasures of life.  It is a civilisation whose singular password is commerce. Trade greases the wheels of our civilisation.  And everything is a commodity which can

Shades of gods Every normal human being desires to understand and have a control over his environment or surroundings.  Science and technology are the tools that help us achieve that understanding and control.  Religion was the earliest science and ritual was its technology. I’m continuing with my reading and interpretation of Grayling’s book introduced in my last post.  Grayling argues that the earliest science and technology were “stories, myths and supernaturalistic beliefs.” The stories, myths and beliefs gave purpose and meaning to life’s experiences.  For example, the Ramayana gave us the meaning and purpose behind the battle between good and evil.  Krishna of the Gita taught us to kill irrespective of our personal relationships so long as our duty mandates the killing.  Let’s forget for now that the same religion which evolved out of these scriptures later taught us the superiority of vegetarianism over killings of human beings. We are discussing the origins of

Just moved from one to the other Religion has never ceased to fascinate me.  Probably because I have often been a victim of religion and the attitudes it breeds among people with whom I have been condemned to live. It’s no wonder then that I placed a pre-publication order for A C Grayling’s latest book, The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism . The book was delivered promptly yesterday.  I have just started reading it.  And here are some of the thoughts that the book provoked in me. “Religion is a pervasive fact of history, and has to be addressed as such,” says the author right on the first page. I loved that.  We can’t ignore religion, whether we are religious, agnostic or atheistic.  By the way, Grayling is a professor of philosophy at the New College of the Humanities, London, and author of many books. In the introduction to his latest book Grayling argues that religion has contributed much to the suffering in the world.  Individuals ha