Religion

Scenario I: Millions of people throng to a city called Allahabad.
Mission: Maha Kumbh.
Reason: To take a dip in the holy Ganga on the occasion.
Belief: This would help them to get rid of their sins.

My take: Wastage of Time.

Scenario II: Thousands of karsevaks throng to a place called Ayodhya, birthplace of Lord Rama.
Mission: Demolition of Babri Masjid.
Reason: Paying back in the same coin for demolition of a temple at the same place earlier.
Belief: Lord Rama is possessive about Thy birthplace?

My take: Wastage of Energy.

Scenario III: A minister in state of UP declares a prize of Rs. 51 crore, on the head of a Danish person.
Mission: Taking the life of person who ridiculed the image of God.
Reason: The person made a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad.
Belief: God should be angry for this, so should be the followers.

My take: Wastage of Money.

Do I sound blasphemous?
May be you would say, "Yes".
But then I would argue on the definition of religion and blasphemy.

Do you think that bathing in some water can get rid of your sins?
Sounds pretty naive. May be this is the belief of people of who like committing sins. And when their conscience bites, they want to feel smug by thinking that they took a bath in the holy river and hence their sins are forgiven.
I ask, why to commit sins in first place? And if at all you think you have committed one, there are many better things that can be done in remorse, rather than dirtying a valuable source of drinking water.

Do you think that God would be possessive about Thy birthplace?
Well, if you believe in God, tell me a place which doesn't belong to Thee. And hence, would Thee want people to die for this cause? This sounds more likely of a human dictator rather than God.

Do you think that God would be angry just because someone made a cartoon of Thy?
Being made the centre of a ridicule, I know people, who would easily join the resulting laughter.
And you think the almighty God would not do the same. A joke is just a joke. It does not change what you are or what Thou Art !

So if at all there is a God, (Being agnostic, this debate doesn't amuse me) and Thou art worthy of being worshipped, Thou would be above petty human emotions. It is only human imagination that ascribes human emotions like possessiveness, anger etc. to God. I would go on to say that thinking on these lines is demeaning God and hence tantamount to blasphemy.

My definition of religion would comprise of compassion, discipline, self-restraint, pragmatism and common sense. Updation with changing times using contemporary wisdom would be absolutely vital. No ritual should be followed without understanding the reason behind it. And any kind of vandalism, brutality and fanaticism should be rendered as blasphemy.

Worrying about whether you land up in Heaven or Hell, please don't make the present abode, a Hell. Rather try to make a heaven here itself. Can you think of any task which could not be accomplished with the volumes of time, energy and money we were talking about? Just wonder about the results, had these efforts been made for a real cause.

Now, I ask you again.

Do I sound blasphemous?
I think it depends on your definition of religion and blasphemy.

But in case your answer is still "Yes", please go and get a bath in the nearest holy river so that your sin of reading this blog is forgiven.

And if your answer is "No", don't worry about the people who just dirtied our source of drinking water. It was already dirty with reasons more than religion. We just saved a bucket of clean tap water!

Sunsigns

Ever since my childhood, the most amusing idea for me has been, "What is going on in the mind of the person next to me?"

In the quest to find out the same, I came across the world of sunsigns. To start with, I thought it is the dumbest thing to assume that the entire world has 12 kinds of people. Not that I would completely disagree with the statement today. Of course, the social-political-economic environment, parents, family, friends and a lot of other innumerable factors are important in the formation of a single personality. But then, an insight into this world of sunsigns, and my views changed to some extent.

What is a sunsign? Putting simply, when you are born, the sun is in one of the 12 divisions of space made by the astrologers. And that particular division determines your sunsign. Whether astrology is a science or not, whether you should believe in it or not, I would keep all this discussion outside the scope of this blog. Since I found it worth spending my time, no prizes to guess my views on this.

Predicting future on the basis of Sunsigns is almost impossible. And that is why you might feel that all those forecasts on Sunday Magazines or elsewhere are rubbish. I agree. For predictions, Indian astrology could be better as it encompasses the effects of planets other than Sun. But at the same time, saying that it is complex, would be an understatement. And for the same reason, it has been abused by people claiming themselves to be astrologers not even knowing 5% of it actually. They remind me of this quote, "For every complex problem, there is an easy, simple to understand and wrong solution !"

It is believed that the Sun influences your personality more than any other planet. So, taking sunsigns as a basis, if you predict personalities, it would not meet the same fate as predicting future. It would be somewhat realistic.

Even more interesting is the compatibility of sunsigns. Of course, a wise person can adjust with all sorts of people. But then, sometimes you meet people and strike the right chord immediately. You seem to be speaking each others mind. They are the ones with whom you don't need to adjust. Somebody else has adjusted them to you. Probably, the Sun.

Add numerology to the sunsigns, and the predictions about personalities would get even more realistic. Given the kind of complex creature a human being is, would it not be really great if you can predict something about a person with the birthdate, notwithstanding that it is only 40-50% correct? The only reason which keeps me going on ...