For God's Sake !

Thus went the popular joke - why is God happy when a girl gets molested- because she cries 'let me go for God's sake'. Pathetic taste but essentially revealing the contemptuous humor towards the unseen, unheard person (if one is allowed to call him/her/it so) who is responsible for the most number of unnatural deaths (read murder) in the history of mankind. As a staunch atheist, I am amused at the recent Ram controversy. Clinically dissecting the whole issue one can see that it is about everything other than religion.
A disturbing factor associated with religion is purity. Originally it may have referred to the purity of soul. But now it’s anything but that! All this talk of purity is quite frightening! Be it the holocaust, the ethnic cleansings in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia or Closer home in Godhra, it has always been about ‘purity’! What is this obsession with purity that megalomaniacs try to propagate! From the inquisitions and countless crusades of the dark ages to the contemporary ‘Jihads’- it has always been about politics and subjugation. Another strange aspect of any religion is that purity stops at men. Women, as a precondition, are considered ‘impure’! This goes on to demonstrate the power asymmetries. The binaries of male/active, female/passive is a reality, no matter what anyone might say.

Yes that's true. Religion has been the most frequent source of friction in the human history, much more than any other motive. From politics to festival it has invaded every sphere of our life. It has defined the pivotal aspects of our cultures, influenced our behavioral patterns, shaped our social identity and yet it continues to thrive. By the sheer volume of the economics associated with it, it qualifies as one of the largest business sector around the globe, if not at par with defense then certainly with retail.Yet the ridiculous point is no other human activity has exposure of such magnitude without its central principle even remotely close to being qualified! No one knows whether he/she/it exists or not, and none has been able to prove unequivocally his/her/its absence too. So does that mean we come back to square one again? Guess so. I don’t know further. If you do please add on from here!

(Photograph by Marc Riboud )