Religion is supposed to be a positive force in the human society. It is supposed to be a moral guide, helping people do the right things in their life. It is supposed to be the “bedrock of moral order” in Regan’s words. It is supposed bring peace to the world.
Every religion says that one should help and serve people in need. Every religion says that one should promote peace. Yet wherever I see, I find people fighting in the name of religion. We kill and rape and pillage in the name of God; our God; a God that we inherited through nothing more than a random event of being born to a specific religion.
Three crusades were launched by the Holy Christian Church over a span of two centuries, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Many of these deaths were those of innocents who were dragged out of their homes, tortured and slaughtered.
I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t know about the atrocities committed against the Jews. Hitler’s Holocaust is only one among the many painful incidents this society has been made to face.
Hindus and Muslims in
The Muslim “jihad” against the Christian world has resulted in thousands of deaths, the highlights of which have been the violence perpetrated by the Al-Qaeda and similar militant organizations, and the WTC attack.
Even within the same religion, people of different sects have warred. The different sects of Muslims – Shiite, Sunni, Sufis, etc have slaughtered each other. Different sects of Hindus – Vaishnavites and Shaivites have killed each other.
There have been countless acts of violence arising out of religious superstitions. Even if some people do not perpetrate violence, they harbor intense hatred and anger towards what they believe is against their religion.
5 comments:
Religion is what you make of it, how much importance you give it in your life, what it means to you, whether you believe in it at all in the first place!
I could go on and on about this! But I'll say one thing, hating hatred wont cancel it out! I don't think religion is the purest thing in the world, love is!! :)
Guess a lot of people give it a bit too much of importance. :)
My point was not to support atheism. I respect religion, and its purpose in the society. It is just that the very people for whom religion is an important part of their life are ruining it for themselves.
And its not hate. More like I pity them. They are just deluding themselves that after spreading all the violence, hatred, pain and suffering they will be forgiven if they invoke HIS name.
Its not just the people who go on a rampage and kill people in the riots/wars. Every one of such person is backed by a thousand who silently sit at home and approve such sentiments. It just goes on.
Unfortunately, I don't think even love is very pure in this world either.
Oh don't be so negative! Not everyone who's religious is bad!
What has happened though is that we, as a society, have become numb to such happenings because they've become so frequent. So no one really bothers, no one is alarmed, its no surprise. Whats sad is that people have stopped demanding an explanation and being proactive about such things.
:) Not everyone is bad. But there are quite a few on the other side of the fence too.
I know a lot of people, who believe they are ultra modern and still proclaim India is rightfully "The Land of Hindus".
Anyway, my hope is that this post will in its own small way help the cause - turn a few similarly inclined proactive, convert some from the opposite camp, etc. :) In fact, one such would make my effort worth it.
Thanks for writing this.
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