Thursday, July 24, 2008

Religion Blinds

Religion comes with theology; but most religious people do not indulge in it. Religion comes with spirituality; but very few devout people actually concentrate on it. Religion however comes with huge paraphernalia of rituals, customs, traditions seeped in blind belief and superstition. And most believers actually practice this kind of religion.

This ritualistic and superstitious facet of religion is the most prevalent form the believers practice. It blinds people. It blinds them from receiving new knowledge, stops them from becoming wiser, and curbs originality and creativity. It forbids them from thinking farther and beyond, and makes them more of a robot and less of a thinker.

Religion stems wisdom, stops people from making sense, rationalize, think and reason. It makes them unreasonable and dogmatic. These people refuse to change views in spite of counter evidence. It makes them hang on to blind belief, orthodoxy and superstition.

There are many ideologies and belief systems that make a person blind to reason. So why single out religion in my attack?

Many other ideologies qualify for the same problems posed by religion. However, there is no other potent force on earth that comes close to religion in terms of its extent, depth, longevity and effectiveness. Religion is altogether a different beast.

For example, people who subscribe to an ideology like communism tend to face the same problems cited above. They are blinded. They do not reason, they are dogmatic, and unreasonable. However, communism as an ideology started less than hundred years ago, gripped only certain portion of people, and is already dying. The newer generations coming from the shadow of communism tend to detest it with more vigor than others.

Religion is embraced by more people than any other ideology, and exists for much longer time and continues to increase in efficacy with time. It has killed more people, made more people act barbaric, act uncivilized, commit genocide, rape, and murder than any other ideology.

These are some attributes where religion beats all other ideologies.

Kill and Die

No other ideology produces people with the same level of commitment and fanaticism to kill and die. More religious fanatics are ready to kill and die to defend their belief system and impose their belief system onto others. Unlike adherents of capitalism, communism, or globalization, the adherents of religion are ready to kill and get killed much more enthusiastically. The only other ideology that comes close to this is patriotism (but it ranks lower than religion).

Inheritance

No other ideology gets inherited the way religion does. A child in Christian family is invariably a Christian. For ages, kids born into Christian families tend to be Christians. (In some cases, proselytizing and conversion tend to change the ratios, but the neo-converts tend to practice this inheritance with more vigor). People born into a religious family tend to be religious. That is not true to most other ideologies. A son of communist need not be a communist. A son of capitalist need not be capitalist.

Catch them young

No other ideology seems to target young children the way religion does. Unlike most other ideologies, religion is taught to young children. Indoctrination of religion starts very young and the concept of God and the concept of heaven and hell, sin and blind rules are introduced to kids who are just two or three years old. They are told, ‘God forbids this, God likes this. Do it this way, God will reward you! Don’t do this, God will punish you!’

Not many communists teach their young kids Communism. Nobody says to his three-year old kid, ‘Don’t do this! Lenin will not like it’ or ‘Do this! Lenin will praise you for it’

Curb creativity and original thought

No other ideology curbs creativity and original thought the way religion does. Though patriotism qualifies for the above three attributes, religion beats it on this. Also, it starts doing its job attacking people at a quite young age. By answering most mundane questions by saying ‘God said so, and hence it is so!’ and ‘God created this, and hence it is so!’ the original thought is curbed. By forbidding people from doing things calling it a sin, and imposing mundane habits as if they are unquestionable diktats of god, and introducing prejudices quite early on as if they are unchangeable rules, religion curbs creativity, makes people illogical, prejudiced and unreasonable.

Blind belief is a virtue in religion. Faith in extremely nonsensical things is hallmark of devoutness. Subscribing to most ridiculous practices is hallmark of piety. Many other ideologies seem to prescribe these attributes, but religion does this more effectively – affecting the state and its apparatus, the institutions, society, and the individual.

Abandon and reject rational thought

Other ideologies such as communism, patriotism, nationalism and even racism seem to have evolved and at some level they have incorporated rational thought and results of science, sometimes flawed. But not religion! Religion stands against all rational thought, suppresses debate, discourages empiricism, thwarts logical reasoning, and in most cases rejects the theories and results of science.

Longevity

We have had problems with other ideologies, either it is nationalism, fascism, Nazism, or communism, but many of these ideologies have not been there forever. They had their own times when they reached the pinnacle and then they subsided. Not religion. People have been fighting over religions since the inception of religion itself. And it has not subsided and it has not let up. More and more people join in throngs and swell the ranks. It has more adherents than any other ideology and the enmities and persecutions continue for thousands of years. Casteism in India would have not have survived for two thousand years if it was not made a part of the religion itself. The same is with persecution of Jews.

Intelligent but lack in reason

It’s not that religious people are dumb. In fact, they can be very intelligent. Some of them could be more intelligent than the entire non-religious people combined. What the religious people lack is not intelligence. What they have given up along the way is their ability to reason when it comes to certain issues of life and society. In face of counter evidence, instead of looking at it and inspecting it, the religious people would like to dismiss the evidence as false. They would like to say, ‘Look! What you say seems to make sense, yet I would not like to get convinced by you’. Religion legitimizes foolishness like no other. It’s like saying, ‘what you are doing is actually foolish, but since it is prescribed by religion, I respect that!’

29 comments:

  1. Science also comes with tons of theory.When i switch on my computer i do not think of principles of electromagnetism of generation of electricity.We just do it?

    Science without religion is lame
    Religion without science is blind
    I think the above quote is given by Einestasin,I heared it from one of the greatest scietists of our time:APJ Kalam sir (I bow my head on his feet for his contributions to the indain society)

    Let us consider the view of another great scientist Nikola Tesla(inventor of Arc lighting,AC Motor,High frequency currents and many more):Universe is a kinetic system filled with energy which could harnessed at any location.Sounds familliar?.These are the thoughts of Tesla after he met another great social scientist Swami Vivekanada.He started using sanskrit words in his research as the meanings of English was not suffeciant.(Ishwara for Primal creative energy,Prana and Aksha for Energy and matter).Einestain later related these two with the equation E=mc2.The relation of this equation with Ishwara completes the ultimate physics of the universe,which is yet to be formulated.may be at this stage we understand what happens to the energy(Prana)after death.(I also suggest the description og god from Bhagawat geeta at this point)

    Religious people are blind to reason,We can see the same with non believers.Despite of so many problems like Security,Environmental,Economic reasons,they think destruction of Ram sethu is scientific.

    Science and religion do not contradict(At least Hinduism and other indian religions).Science and technology caters to the materialistic needs of humans,Religion caters to the Social,Psychological and Spiritual needs of humans.(Another indain thinking?Who feel indain thoughts are un scietific read Maslowes hierarchy of human needs)

    Religion is monolothic,long lived,does not change:How do you explain coexistence of Dwaitha,Adwaitha and Tantric phiosphies?How do you explain continuity of vedic dharmas like Hinduism,Bhudism,Jainism,Sikhism and thier variations?Why so many religions like Bhahai,Sufi,Ahmadi,Zorastrain religions flurish in india when they are being troubled in the countries of thier origion?

    I hate religion when worlds first university Nalanda was burnt.I love graet indain tradition of placing Teacher before God,the religion which considers knowldge as godess.(I HATE people who sees her nude for the purpose of few rupees.Beggers? or Cheeters?)

    I like the science which created Nuclear energy.I hate the science which created Nuclear bomb

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  2. I think there is something deeper than reason that needs to be active in a person if he is to be a humanist, regardless of whether he be religious or not. People follow religion, despite the blindness it causes, because of the advantage of certainty to their emotional (and spiritual?) well being. Few men can simply live accepting the brute reality of death and non-existence. The positive effects of certainty is difficult to trade off for uncertainty and pure reason. Only a few are game for that.

    I was recently introduced to the works of Scott Atran. Have you read about his works on the adaptive advantages of religion?
    Google for 'Darwin
    s God'.

    Lastly, can pure reason give us a moral basis that has some degree of stability and permanence in it? I doubt it.

    ~ Vinod

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  3. Yeah, the state of affairs is such that the Central Government has to actually quote other mythological sources such as Kamba Ramayan and Padma Purana to assert that Ram himself had destroyed the Bridge after the war. This kind of idiocy can be perpetrated only on the basis of religion. People are actually making the government to quote from other story books to refute the claims made by the followers of one story book. Imagine if someone said Gotham city exists just because the Batman comics says so. How ridiculous does that sound? Or if thousand years from now on someone said Harry Potter will be the basis on which people can can construct or destroy something because the books are "holy" and they have a cult following. I have nothing against people believing in God but organised religion dumbs down people.

    "ew men can simply live accepting the brute reality of death and non-existence. The positive effects of certainty is difficult to trade off for uncertainty and pure reason. Only a few are game for that".
    Aren"t you accepting that religion is an escapist's fantasy? So why construct or destroy something based on a person's figment of imagination?

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  4. "Aren"t you accepting that religion is an escapist's fantasy? So why construct or destroy something based on a person's figment of imagination?"

    I fully agree with the second rhetorical question.

    Religion can be an escapist's fantasy. But I've seen many religionists take a metaphorical view of the religious stories and extract something that is more in line with their experiences and common sense. I've seen some who clearly perceive the social advantages of rituals and approach them with that viewpoint. Such people do not lose their common sense and conscience. In general, it really comes down to what someone makes of his religion. The examples you've given above are clear cases of religion taking over common sense and messing with the minds of people. That I do not subscribe to.

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  5. i had an argument with my roommate. he being the devout god person and me the voice of atheist reason. we reached a stalemate as he refused logic in lieu of belief. something he said made me realise why religious people are religious.
    he said that when im a moment away from death and when i feel the pain of life going away...at that moment i'll understand the existence of god.
    in one brilliant masterful stroke our ancestors created heaven & hell -afterlife- and connected god with death. that unstoppable, irreversible, inevitable part of life - DEATH.
    ppl cling to this hope of life after death and something wonderfully ethopian beyond that drives them to insanity in earthly life.

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  6. Religion comes with spirituality; but very few devout people actually concentrate on it.

    Sujai, I'm assuming here that you think the spiritual part is good and beneficial - your statement seems to suggest that. So, encourage more people to concentrate on the spiritual part and not so much on the harmful and meaningless superstitions. You seem to think that focusing on the spiritual part is possible since some people do concentrate on it. Ergo, more people can do the same if encouraged.

    Your posts on religion chronically suffer from a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" knee-jerk syndrome without proper analysis. Perhaps you should indulge in some svadhyay on that.

    I could also mention that religion has played an important and positive role in the civil rights movement in the US; in South African anti-apartheid movement; and in Central America (Liberation Theology) - along with inspiring Gandhi, but you're probably already aware of that.

    ==========

    i had an argument with my roommate. he being the devout god person and me the voice of atheist reason.

    Smitha, perhaps you over-rate human beings' capacity for rational thinking and/or confuse rational with reasonable. ;)
    Perhaps not accepting, or being surprised that there are people out there who may think irrationally (according to you) is also quite irrational.

    Though when I go to bed, I still expect the earth to continue going around the sun when I wake up. Is that *faith* in science and theories of gravity, and as they explain the movement of planets and other celestial bodies?
    -chirkut

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  7. Oh, and any discussion which mentions "religion" as a big umbrella without being specific about which religion is being talked about, is somewhat useless, as not all religions are the same in their philosophical and spiritual ideas, as well as the impact of organized religion (both negative and positive) on society and the world.

    Unless an until a definition of "religion" is presented in the post, readers and commentators will take away and talk about their own *limited* *perspective* on religion, and will likely talk past each other without stating their assumptions.

    Anyone who clubs all religions together is simply displaying intellectual laziness.

    Ditto for "science."

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  8. Chirkut:

    Though when I go to bed, I still expect the earth to continue going around the sun when I wake up. Is that *faith* in science and theories of gravity, and as they explain the movement of planets and other celestial bodies?

    It is not faith in science. Science does not expect faith in itself. It’s not a precondition to believe in its efficacy in explaining the nature. Science in fact expects the exact contrary, if ever. It expects that its practitioners constantly doubt everything – including all the theories, hypothesis, and results of science from the beginning.

    When I go to sleep, I do believe that earth will continue to go around the sun the next day. But that does not mean it is an inviolable truth, or something that comes as a guarantee. A person watching swinging pendulum will know where it will be the next moment just because he has seen it for quite some time now and got used to its periodicity. He need not have faith to guess where its next position is going to be.

    However, if a person approaches that swinging pendulum wearing the necessary gear which looks like he may open the case holding that pendulum to repair it, the observer who was quite assured of this swinging pendulum till then may start doubting its next position. There is a very good possibility that this repair man may hold this pendulum and stop it from swinging further. In all these actions, there is no divine intervention. There are no miracles. There are no unnatural occurrences that can be attributed to a divinity that intervenes into human affairs to do extraordinary things.

    In the same way, if I were to know that an asteroid the size of moon is hurling itself toward Earth and that it would hit Earth in few days time, I may go to sleep everyday not knowing what the future will be. A person believing in science would calculate the trajectories of this approaching asteroid and the Earth, if it is certain (beyond approximations) that this asteroid will definitely hit Earth, and that there is no help coming – in the form of other heavenly body or a solar wind or some other natural phenomenon that can avert this collision, this person may want to take evasive action on his own – such as sending nuclear weapons into space to steer this asteroid.

    A religious person as characterized by me in the discussion above who is not ready to listen to reason, and has not spent enough time trying to reason, may do something different. He may run to the nearest temple or church and start praying to God to somehow thwart the imminent danger. And that is called *faith*.

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  9. "A person watching swinging pendulum will know where it will be the next moment just because he has seen it for quite some time now and got used to its periodicity. "

    A very superficial understanding.

    What is the basis of belief that cause and effect relationship will ALWAYS hold good?

    What is the basis of belief that logical propositions are ALWAYS true?

    Please read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Inductive logic is always- repeat ALWAYS based on belief. Only deductive logic such as that used in geometry is free from belief. However, on a deeper level all such logic is mere tautology.

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  10. Sujai, I think you missed my point, probably because I didn't do a good job of explaining it.

    I don't disagree with your comment re: pendulum, and neither with your example of someone going to pray vs. someone firing a missile at an incoming asteroid - though those are somewhat superficial examples. I already know and understand that.

    I was trying to get at something deeper re: knowledge and faith, and if I can formulate my thoughts, I'll post them here.
    -chirkut

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  11. Chirkut

    "Inductive logic is always- repeat ALWAYS based on belief. Only deductive logic such as that used in geometry is free from belief."

    I think you mentioned something very important. There are some axioms/beliefs of the natural world that science has. But these beliefs are a result of observation and the basic narrative drawn around it by human cognition. When it comes to religious beliefs, the connection between the formation of the belief and observation starts to get weaker and in many aspects non-existent. No doubt, there is an intrinsic capacity to form beliefs in us, that tells us a story of the world around us. As the story gets grander and grander science and religion start to approach a common territory. I believe that this intrinsic capacity is what drives both science and religion. Having said that, the methodologies of the two are very different. Holding the two of them together i.e. rational thinking and religious faith is no mean task. While the former is about doubt the latter is about certainty. The comfort of certainty often overrides the discomfort of doubt and I think that is what Sujai is referring to as 'blindness'

    ~ Vinod

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  12. Religion blinds

    Religion opens the eyes.

    So why single out religion in my attack?

    Attack as much as you could Sujai.

    It has killed more people, made more people act barbaric, act uncivilized, commit genocide, rape, and murder than any other ideology.

    It has given birth to more happy families, made more people tolerant, act civilized, commit love, generosity and happiness.

    Kill and Die

    I thought you were the one "attacking" here :). Tell me one religious scripture (except kuran which I have not read so do not refute the claims made by some) where they teach you to kill?

    Inheritance

    Dude the language that you are using the science and mathematical conventions that you use are all inherited. Why do you say that only religion is inherited? The culture and traditions are inherited as well - would you like to "attack and kill" all local traditions as well which are inherited from one generation to the other.

    Catch them young

    Based on your blogs you were caught young by atheism. Is it not true?

    Curb creativity and original thought

    What does this have to do with religion? I have not seen any correlation between your belief and your creativity. I have seen the most rigid and dumb atheists and the reverse as well.

    Abandon and reject rational thought

    I think Gita said that one should abandon and reject rational thought. Awesome.

    Longevity

    People had been "fighting" - they would fight irrespective of what you do. Religion tries to get rid of "attacks".

    It’s not that religious people are dumb.

    It's not that all the atheists are dumb. It is just that they have decided to close all their senses and not listen to anything.

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  13. "Inductive logic is always- repeat ALWAYS based on belief. Only deductive logic such as that used in geometry is free from belief."

    Vinod, that wasn't me. :)
    -chirkut

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  14. the first paragraph by sujai..

    "Religion comes with theology; but most religious people do not indulge in it. Religion comes with spirituality; but very few devout people actually concentrate on it. Religion however comes with huge paraphernalia of rituals, customs, traditions seeped in blind belief and superstition. And most believers actually practice this kind of religion."

    what on earth does it even mean? seriously..it is nonsense and nothing more than a string of words that end up meaning absolutely nothing. so the rituals and customs dont come from theology and spirituality..suddenly, they come from ignorance? wtf?

    you dont even know how to make sense in english..seriously..give it up until you want to make sense rather than sound important.

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  15. I think what he was trying to say was most people usually restrict themselves to the superficial aspects of religion like rituals and traditions without actually wondering why they were following those customs and do not delve deep into the spiritual aspects of religion.

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  16. "It has killed more people, made more people act barbaric, act uncivilized, commit genocide, rape, and murder than any other ideology."

    This one sentence alone exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of Sujai and his brand of rabble rousers.

    Greatest violence of human history was perpetrated by communism and nazism - both atheist ideologies, BTW.

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  17. It is very strange that even after two consecutive serial blasts Sujai has not yet come up with an article showing their connection to Hindu fascism. Usually, after every blast Sujai comes up with a piece of gem informing us how poor Muslims were pushed to the wall by fascist Hindus forcing them to blast bombs in self-defense.

    The only silver lining is that now people even like Sujai are running out of excuses in support of jihadis.

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  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  19. Greatest violence of human history was perpetrated by communism and nazism - both atheist ideologies, BTW".

    Try doing some google searches or reading books on communism to know what communism really is before jumping to conclusions. It is an absolute fallacy to assume that all Nazis were atheists. Most of them were Chrisitians and during his early days Hitler called himself a Christian and had the active support of the Vatican. Nazism was more about racial purity (this kind of thought process exist in many religons too) than atheistic beliefs.

    There is no such thing as an atheistic ideology. Atheism means non-belief in God. Period. Most imperialistic countries were religious. So can I jump to the conclusion that it was their religious beliefs which caused so much of bloodshed and wars?
    Besides I'd like to add that communism was never actually practised in Russia. What was there was a totalitarian regime which believed in ruthless suppression of the people. Stalin defied the Church because it was acting against his interests and not because of some principled stand against all religions stemming from atheistic beliefs.Atheism actively encourages free thinking rather than subscribing to blind beliefs and these are things (freedom of speech and free thinking) which Stalin was totally against.


    Just because a person of a particular ideology happens to be an atheist doesn't mean that his atheistic beliefs have influenced those ideological principles. Try to see the difference.

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  20. "Just because a person of a particular ideology happens to be an atheist doesn't mean that his atheistic beliefs have influenced those ideological principles. Try to see the difference."

    Yet another idiot sticking his neck out!

    You are missing the point dude. Please see the context. The original blogger here claims about religion:

    "It has killed more people, made more people act barbaric, act uncivilized, commit genocide, rape, and murder than any other ideology."

    Now add up number of all the people killed in all religious wars of history and compare it with people killed under communism and nazism. After you are done, let me know which religion, nazism and communism belong to. If you can't then what does it mean to claim that no other ideology has brought as much violence?

    - Amit

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  21. Your first post was:

    "Greatest violence of human history was perpetrated by communism and nazism - both atheist ideologies, BTW".
    You shouldn't have idiotically called them atheistic ideologies and expect people who know better not to refute it.

    Besides coming to your point, what makes you think killings made on relgious grounds are less than those of nazism and communism? Did you do a head count? The answer is obvious isn't it? Nazism and communism (it should actually be called totalitarianism) were ideologies which were restricted to aparticular timeframe and were unequivocally condemned by everyone. Not so with religion. Religious persecution has been going on for thousands of years. No one has made a head count of all those killed through all these years in the name of God but you can safely assume that it is unrivalled by any ideology because of the persistence of religion through all these years. People kill in the name of religion, even now. Nazism and communism on the other hand is non existent, even if they do they are not used for killing people. I can't believe soemthing as obvious as this needs to be explained. If you have actually done a head count I want to know the details.

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  22. I think everybody here could benefit from this video on the Occult History of the Third Reich'.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3014581497309209211

    That link has only episode 1. You can get the other episodes once you get to that.

    ~ Vinod

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  23. If you can't get the link working, just search for 'Occult History of the Third Reich'in google video.

    ~ Vinod

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  24. Hmmm... Pretty interesting. I didn't know the Nazis were dabbling in occult beliefs and practises.

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  25. "Please read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Inductive logic is always- repeat ALWAYS based on belief. Only deductive logic such as that used in geometry is free from belief. However, on a deeper level all such logic is mere tautology."

    This is an example of how to trivialize a discussion by mixing up perspectives of different orders.

    Your objection would be valid if the discussion were about the nature of absolute reality. Hello. We are not discussing here metaphysics. We are discussing how we live our day to day life, which is bound by limitations of practical reason. A physicist writing a thesis in a high end scientific journal may be justified in treating elementary particles from different sources as identical. However, he would still prefer eating steak over shit even though both have same elementary particles.

    Note even Kant made a distinction between pure reason and practical reason. At an absolute level, science may not be more than reasoned conjectures backed by limited empirical data. However within the bounds of practical reason, it is as near to truth as possible.

    -Vievk Behal

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  26. "However, he would still prefer eating steak over shit even though both have same elementary particles".

    That was funny!

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  27. Most wars/bloodshed in history/mythology have occured over women or land or pure vendetta.."religion" comes in picture as it is the easiest way (after nationality) to distinguish between large sects of people. Jews crucified Christ..so Christians - become anti-semitic -..bloodshed..then more bloodshed to avenge the earlier bloodshed..

    It is also because of the inheritance factor (as Sujai rightly said). It is the commonest identifying factor for a person - sometimes not only religion, but caste as well. so who was that who shot Gandhi? Godse? ..oh...Maharashtrian? lets avenge bapu's death..kill them, but wait..they cant be distinguished by appearance..but by their names..so take their jobs away, read their nameplate and maybe then kill them?
    then again..who killed Indira? a Sikh? oh..they are easy targets...kill anyone who wears a turban...simple.

    So its not religion that blinds. Hatred blinds. Religion just has divided people into managable targets of hatred. Religion in itself does not teach it. People become blindened by trying to establish their superiority over others - by way of religion - again because its the single most identifiable factor about a human being. Go to some other country, and then your nationality becomes that factor.

    As far as rituals, customs, traditions are concerned- they are sometimes fun to follow..i always look forward to holi, diwali or simply an ekadashi (i wud have waited for id with the same spirit was i a muslim)- sometimes it gives more pleasure than watching a movie or reading a book - a weekend does not always kindle the same spark as a rakhi ki chutti does...dont you agree?

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  28. You rock Sampada. I am a fan now after this comment of yours!

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  29. hey..thanks (whoever you are)

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