I try to, but it's hard to avoid talking about religion. A few weeks back, gay sex was finally allowed in India, and the debates happening on TV, were real fun to watch. I actually felt a bit of pity for the people defending the religious viewpoints, because they were so easy to prove wrong. A big problem with relgion is that they're atleast 500 years old or more, which makes their teachings hard to associate with today's world. The weird part is, the more they get out of sync with today, the more fiercely some people fight to keept them in place. If you think I'm referring to Islam, you're sadly mistaken. I've seen zealotry displayed by Hindus, Muslims, and Christians alike, and other relgions too, so no side really has a high moral ground here.
The interesting part about seeing such debates and arguments is the examples and similarities given in the debates. I've seen people compare gay sex to sex with animals, among other things. I remember only this example because of this funny pic I saw on this page, about sodomy. The weird desire of people to control others' lives astounds me even today, I mean, let people do whatever they want, it's not like they're going to stop because you tell them to, it's simply going to push these activities under the radar. The other weird fact is how sometimes these are not even arguments or debates, they're simply shouting matches. This, weirdly, is most apparent in USA. Switch on a news channel, and all you will see is opinion shows. Every channel seems to have taken a side, and they will bash up the other side, and glorify theirs, no matter the issue, no matter the incident. Common sense things get pushed back, and I'm almost left to wonder, where is the so called difference with the Indian government that everyone keeps talking about. All democracies seem to be crippled by people pulling strings from behind the scenes, by using corruption, and god knows what other means (pun unintended :) ). At least, in India, I can switch on a news channel, and see news, a report of what is happening, unblemished in most cases, by personal opinion. Also, if something is clearly wrong, all channels will uniformly portray this. Weirdly enough, the best news I get in the USA, is from news comedies on Comedy Central, they atleast uniformly bash everyone, or from print agencies.
Coming back, the odd fact that I realised is that, people are more or less the same everywhere. You'll always have your share of the ignorant, who are manipulated by those in power, and those who are immune to it to a certain extent, or atleast feel they are. Why you do not see this always, is marketing, the media likes to highlight the ignorant of other countries, and the sensible (and ignorant) of your own. All religions can be equally stupid at times as well. It's interesting, and mostly futile to argue that a prophet or a god, who had an opinion a few hundred or thousand years ago, might not have changed now. Such an argument can never stick, especially since it's an opinion someone says the gods have, and unless religious leaders acknowledge that, or atleast concede this much that they are simply interpreters and not gods themselves, they cannot win over all of the population. Somehow, I feel that this divide will remain, and if people are still educated free from religion and purely by science, they will always protest against it. But, everyone is never educated, it hasn't happened in 2000 years, and there's no reason to believe it's going to happen anytime soon. The sad part is, there are some really nice parts to religion too, and they tend to get lost in all of the brouhaha over the controversial ones. I'm not particularly religious, mostly superstitious, but still like some aspects of religion, particularly the inspirational stories that encourage you to do good. I do hope all the nonsense ends someday, but I'm not holding my breath.
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3 comments:
these days, even indian news media are opinionated. most of them are discussions over issues rather than actual news being presented.
secondly, i feel, religion will always come the way as u'll take it. it's the series of laws which u form to govern urself. but unfortunately "the others" won't give u tat freedom at times
I feel the fault lies with the people rather than the religion. People interpret religion according to their own convenience, which at times is even opposite to what was meant in the first place.
Of course there are some things relating to religion, that even i feel are less applicable(i wont say not applicable because i believe that they always are), but these certainly outweigh the ones which will always be relevant.
In my opinion the only way to peace, harmony and everybody's well being is that everyone follows the correct path set out by their religion and respect what others are doing within the boundaries of their own religion.
In the end everything boils down to tolerance.
True, religions do say some nice and useful things, but they also say some things which everyone may not find relevant in this day and age. I'd definitely like it if the freedom of interpretation is left to the everyday person, but sadly, the guardians of religions do not always let that happen, as it'd leave them without a job :) But the truth is that we as people go to them for every small thing, if people use their common sense, things might not be so bad. And of course, common sense is not that common to begin with.
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