Body and Mind

“When a thousand people believe some made-up story for a month--that is fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years--that is a religion, and we are admonished not to call it fake news in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful.”

-  Yuval Noah Harari

As never before the nature has now indicated that there is a need to recognize the limitations of humans. Forces beyond the immediate control of man do not differentiate by wealth, religion, colour, creed, caste, sex and such material realities of the world. We also know that matters of the body are controlled by science and that of the soul by your thoughts. Your thoughts are shaped by many things including religion. Your thoughts (mind) can control your body only to an extent beyond which may be only science can revive it.

 Why are we scared of religion? Why are we scared to debate religion and religious practices? If we had started the discussion a decade back, we would surely have made a lot of ground in understanding religions better. It is apparent that followers of the same religion have differing perceptions of their respective religion. Perceptions are a combination of knowledge and sentiments. Sentiments are transient, fickle and most times do not follow any logic. Accumulation of knowledge is a deliberate and continuous action. Where knowledge is shallow, sentiments override thoughts and actions. There is a constant need to reinforce knowledge. This can be done only through continuous learning – public debates facilitate learning. As a consequence, hurting religious sentiments is a misnomer.  Psychologically sentiment is an abnormal condition. While there can be a condition of religious sentiment, being abnormal it cannot be hurt but only aggravated.  Sentimentality is an emotional state disproportionate to the situation, and thus replaces extreme and generally unthinking feeling for normal ethical and intellectual judgment 

As such, it is very important that we debate religion.

Being critical of religion and religious practices is a must for an evolving society to free itself from archaic practices of the medieval era. Instead of shying away, discussions on religions and methods should be encouraged in a thinking (wo)man.

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