Antibiotics don't work; drinking plenty of water with rest doesn't make it go away; and, once the virus takes hold of its host, it feeds to fulfillment before propagating to find new victims. People who are carriers of the virus but do not consciously infect others recognise that spirituality is a personal pursuit, and thus have a respect for others' beliefs. I have mutual respect for those who respect me and accept me for who I am. But, I have serious gripes with over-zealous religious extremists and evangelists: people who believe that they are doing the right thing and 'helping' others (and their own supposed salvation) by 'spreading the word' of their chosen Lord to all and sundry, regardless of peoples' existing cultures, beliefs, and religions. And, what exactly is the difference between religions and cults? Because one labels the other as so is but a weak retort; many religions often start as a 'cult',and morph into classification as a religion as the mainstream population is indoctrinated.
Religion, the oft-proclaimed saviour of human souls, is often the cause of more grief than grace; food for thought can be harvested from the Crusades, Saxon Wars, the various Inquisitions, The Troubles, the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict - the list goes on. Following a doctrine that wages wars and commits genocide, all for the cause of mono-religious ideals, doesn't sound like a doctrine that values and appreciates differences in people, cultures, and philosophies. Such seemingly noble belief systems that led to essentially inhumane actions would appear to be rooted in hypocrisy, if not also in irrationality and justified only by blind spiritual faith.
So why are the most brilliant of scientists also the most evangelical followers? How do they separate the unquestioned faith required for religion with the rational, evidence-based mindset of science? Some insist that religion stems from proven historical events, but history itself often has the bias of whoever authored the text. Spirituality is also a vulnerable human asset: someone who, or something that, can seemingly provide answers and a path to follow can easily target the emotional comfort of wandering souls who are vulnerable, gullible, and unable, unwilling, or choose not to find and forge their own yellow-brick road.
Manipulation and taking advantage of another's mindset or situation (religious aid, anyone?) is not a very nice thing to do; to think that one's beliefs is the only right set of beliefs is myopic, closed-minded, presumptuous, ignorant, arrogant, and just plain rude: no one has the right to tell anyone else what is right for them; especially in such personal choices that affect one's ideologies and life philosophies. Such spiritual imperialism is surely a contradiction of the religiously independent, human 'moral values' of acceptance and tolerance, or are these values malleable and subject to selective and contextual interpretation at will?
So thanks but no thanks: please keep your germs to yourself. I appreciate that you are trying to help me (and help you), but I am quite content to be condemned to all the different Hells, wherever they may be. Or are they all the same Hell, with one suburb for each religion and cult? That's no problem: I like travelling - just blame it all on my morbid, overbearing, and insatiable sense of curiousity. Curiousity killed the cat, right?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment