The time has come for the world to reject religion in its various forms and guises. The proposed beneficial aspects of religion have been far out-weighed by the violence perpetrated against 'outsiders' by 'fringe' elements of these religions.
The Buddhists kill Hindus, the Hindus kill Muslims, the Muslims kill the Christians who kill the Muslims. And if any of these people don't have outsiders to kill, the Catholics kill the Protestants,the Sunnis kill the Shias, and the Brahmins kill the Pariahs. What gives these 'fringe' elements the gall to take power over the lives of others? A belief that their path is righteous, that they have a monopoly on the 'truth'.
Why do they think that their path is righteous? Because they have some holy man, holy book, holy rock, or holy shit, telling them that theirs is the one true belief.
Why do we allow these false beliefs to perpetuate in this age of reason? Is it because 99% of the religious do not hurt anyone? But aren't they the people the 1% brazenly claim to protect? If we get rid of the need for 'protection', would we not get rid of the justification of the 1%?
Secularism as practiced in India, and elsewhere, is a failure. It has merely kept the poor and oppressed, poor and oppressed. While before they were oppressed by the proxies of the British, today they are oppressed by their successors and ruling classes directly.
Why do we pay so much attention to religion? There are far more pressing problems that need attention. People all over the world are starving, and a god-man here says he can produce statuettes out of his ears, a god-woman here claims that her hugs can cure all, a god-man there claims that he has found the correct way to live life.
Let us destroy all temples, all mosques, all churches, all gurudwaras, and all synagogues. Spend the money and effort in bringing humanity to a higher plane. Why should there be a single starving child in the world, while millions and millions pour into the Vatican and Tirupati?
Let us destroy those who claim to have the unprovable truth. Let us build a foundation of reasoning. On rationality that transcends boundaries and depends only on formal logic. On a humanity that allows every human in this world to live life in the best manner as possible.
Let us destroy government which allows all manner of superstition. Let there be a government of people who acknowledge and dwell in science and rationality. Even Chanakya would have been aghast at seeing a state killing or allowing people to die simply because they had a different set of stupid beliefs.
The only way out of this millennia-old quagmire is to destroy it. Non-violence and rationality can work with rational people, but these sheeple have already demonstrated that they are not rational. Hence let us show them what irrationality truly leads to. You cannot train a dog by giving it a powerpoint on potty training. You must discipline it and demonstrate the stick and the carrot. The carrot is a world with peace. The stick is the destruction of all religious artifacts.
Yes, this is violent. Yes this is unjustifiable. But this may be the only way to get the hell out of this hell.
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4 comments:
Came across this blog surfing the web on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I think the argument that religion is the root-cause of most violence and suffering is somewhat flawed. Also, I believe that even if religion were not to exist and people believed in, say, Science as the answer to all the questions, we would have invented some alternate reason to fight against each other. That is simply human nature. Besides, a large number of current world conflicts have no base in religion (ex: sri lanka, north korea, north east india, ...)
PS: I used to be an atheist for the first 21 years of my life (now, I am spiritual but still don't believe in religion).
Thanks for your comment.
Nowhere in the blog have I suggested that religion is the root-cause of all or even most violence and suffering. Nowhere have I said that Science has the answer to all questions.
What I do say is that rationality is the tool to find answers to all questions.
It is not human nature to fight against someone - unless there is a reason - unless there is oppression. Religion has been the cause for that oppression and injustice for a very, very, long time.
While destroying religion will certainly not solve every conflict - imagine that the middle-east crisis was solved, the Kashmir problem never happened, the IRA never flared up, the Taliban did not destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas. The world would certainly be a better place.
Religion provides an excuse for fringe lunatics to legitimize their aspirations.
I would like to see that excuse wiped out.
The problem with posing issues of violence or oppression as a an outcome of a single or even a dominant cause and offering rationality as an only or even dominant solution is that such an approach ignores that neither religion(as mankind has practiced it) nor rationality(as we understand it) have succeeded in being complete theories of the world and all its phenomena.
There are evoultionary explanations for violence.There are some explanations,I believe,that are emerging that justify collaboration as having some evolutionary advantage.Do compassion and violence have no known rational basis outside evolution?
Religion,at least,has the antidotes to the very problem that it inadvertantly creates.To throw it out may amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
What exactly it is in religions that creates the fringe groups is worth reflecting upon.To my mind it is the inability of religious institutions and practices to evolve themselves to changing conditions.Generalising it further it is the inability of any set of practices that have the dubious glory of getting instituitionalised.
Has science done any better?
May be not!Else why would there be a necessity to invent the word paradigm?
i strongly disagree with you on your idea that human nature does not include the greed for power and money. It does. why would being rich matter then? people have always had conflicts, even before religion was introduced to this world. conflicts were alive back before jesus, mohammed, david and buddha...humans have always fought for power..for control..over issues as small as domestic violence to larger ones such as world war 1 & 2...funny how 2 of the world's greatest wars had nothing to do with religion, eh? :)
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