It’s been more than a year since I last wrote a blog and I hope to make it up by writing something thought provoking in my first comeback (always wanted to say that) blog. Anyways, first things first, let me take this opportunity to wish you a very happy new year. Hope the coming year brings with it, lots of joy and prosperity for you. Now that we are done with the formalities let’s get down to some serious stuff.
I am not sure whether many people will be comfortable with the topic I have chosen. And I want to assure you that all I write here is my view of things and I fully respect that people might differ in opinion. In fact, I would be the first one to welcome a difference in opinion. Only one request, if you are ultra-sensitive to the topic of religion, please do not read further. I would really appreciate my readers to have an open mind while reading this material.
You may ask why I want to write on something like this and not on some light hearted stuff. For starters, it is something that I feel very passionately about and I believe everyone should write with passion and not just for the sake of writing. Growing up as a young child, it would have been easy to do what others did. Leave everything to god and just relax; have the copybook lifestyle. Why I chose differently is a story in itself, but that some other day.
The biggest problem that I have when it comes to religion is that people seem to have very fragile ego when it comes to it. Suddenly, they become intolerable on the smallest of issues. A wise man once said “Tell a man to kill someone and maybe he won’t do it, but tell him it’s in god’s name and he would be glad to kill”. The question I have is how someone can be so blinded by faith that he loses all sense of logic. Would you believe me if I said I saw a monkey-man fly in the sky yesterday. But it’s so easy to believe if the same thing is said by religious texts (which by the way make no sense at all).
Being a science student (and this even applies to many others), I just cannot help make fun of the “all faith, no questions approach” that religions around the world are more than happy to preach. What I don’t get is how people believe that crap? At one time, the Vatican church said that the earth was flat and it was the center of the universe. And when a certain genius Galileo proved otherwise, what did he get in return. The guy was punished for contradicting what the church said. This is just one of the many incidents in history when the rigid approach of religion got the better of mankind and although the truth was eventually found out, the church has still not apologized for the treatment meted out to Galileo and the thousands of others like him who suffered the same fate.
During the early years of his papacy, the late pope John Paul II was once shot by a crazy lunatic. A team of four doctors struggled for hours in the operation theatre to revive him and later eventually succeeded. At a later sermon, the pope in all his grandeur said that he believed it was only due to God’s will that he was saved. It is interesting to note that it is enough for him to “believe” (for everyone to be sure) that it was indeed God’s great deed and no credit was given to the brave doctors that actually did everything. What I wanted to demonstrate by this is that religion does not require logic to operate. You just have to say you believe in something and that’s it, end of discussion. While science on the other hand has to back up everything it says with proof. I am no expert, but even to me that seem unfair. Is science being punished for being the sane one? Common people think rationally for once and you will realize the sham going on in the name of religion.
I would like to state that religious is the biggest scam in the history of mankind. It was thought of by crazy people in the early centuries and eventually passed on from generation to generation. And I can understand it is very easy to believe what it says. The world seems so perfectly designed that you are almost certain that it was hand crafted by someone. But then doesn’t the question arise that if someone was so perfect in designing the world and everything in it, then the guy himself must be so perfect. And most religions describe God as the most near things to perfection as can be possible. Then logically, who created the creator? And who created the creator’s creator and so on? These questions are never answered. The reply you mostly get is “Don’t ask too many questions. Just believe what is being told to you.” This is mostly followed by a glamorous statement like “For there is no greater gift than the gift of faith”. Well I have two words for you: Not Interested.
I have to appreciate religions around the world for one thing. The way they have people hooked onto them. Trust me it’s not easy to convince people of this shit. And they have done a wonderful job at it. Even Shakespeare himself could not achieve such perfection in his plays. It truly is a Mass Hypnosis.
All religions around the world say there is only one god and yet fight for the supremacy of their own gods. It is the biggest hypocrisy I have ever seen. Almost every religion preaches peace and tolerance towards others. And you know what the ground reality is. I don’t even want to comment on that. The priests are supposed to lead a life of sacrifice and in denial of worldly gods. Try visiting a priest’s house (of any religion in the world) and you would be surprised at his wealth. Trust me on that one. Life is filled with examples that expose the hollowness of all religions and yet people conveniently overlook it all.
Come to think of it, religion has been the biggest mass murderer in history. Lets take a look at the biggest problems in the world today. It may be the Israel-Palestine issue or the India-Pakistan problem and so on; the core issue is always religion. Truth is that religions around the world are nothing more than giant political parties with each party aiming to destroy the other. Just imagine a world without religion, no conflicts, no problems; just everlasting peace. As a matter of fact, religion has often been used to justify some of the most evil deeds in history; right from the holocaust in Germany to jihad of the present day terrorists. Can you still say that religion is not the root of all evil in the world?
The only reason that religion continues to enjoy such loyalty from people around the world is just one word: Fear. That’s right, its fear. I can be very sure when I say that almost every one of the so-called “theists” has had some moments in life when they had doubts about religion. But why those doubts never grow is because of the fear of the unknown that people have. They are just afraid just in case what religion says might be true. Nobody wants to take a chance. That like it or not, is the mass perception. At times religion is the easy way out. But as I see it, it is the cowardly way out. How convenient is it that when things are going good, god gets all the credit. (“Its all because of god’s grace”). But when things aren’t going so smooth, the problem always lies with the person. Its ridiculous. I cannot help but laugh at such ignorance.
At this point I would like to quote George Carlin who said “Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man – living in the sky – who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time . . . But He loves you!” And that for me really sums up the sorry state of affairs that religion has put all of us in. It’s sad but it’s the reality of life.
Before I conclude, there’s one question that I would like to ask: is it necessary that you vote for the same political party as your mom and dad vote for (for those of you who don’t vote at all, you get the question I hope). My point is that in case of other decisions in life, parents don’t interfere (almost all times I hope). But when it comes to religion, any difference in opinion is taken as an insult. Before young kids are mature enough to understand the difference between right and wrong, they are fed with all crap about religion that it just hampers their sense of judgement. In The End of Faith, Sam Harris writes:
“The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who would have thought something so tragically absurd could be possible?”
With this I would like to conclude my latest blog hoping that I made some sense to the reader. If you have read it till now, I would thank you for your patience and request your feedback in the form of comments or emails. And if you like what I had to say here, I recommend you read the book “The God Delusion” By Richard Dawkins. It’s a treat for the open minded people.
