When Cricket and Religion Don't Gel
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
25 July
2023
Young
Pakistan star cricketer, Ayesha Naseem, retired from international cricket
citing religious reasons for her decision, saying she wants to live her life
"according to Islam."The girl is just 18-yr-old.
A couple of
years ago, Bollywood actor Zaira Wasim also retired at 18. The Dangal fame girl
also cited the desire to follow her religious belief. While there's nothing
wrong if one chooses to serve one's religion, giving up a promising career for
the sake of one's faith is fanaticism.
Ayesha Naseem and Zaira Wasim
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Mind you,
here I'm not condemning Muslim youngsters for this bizarre religious mindset.
The same proclivity is quite rampant in Jainism as well. In Jainism, even
children are initiated into the austerities of religion and young successful
professionals become monks.
This religious
idiocy (I won't call it a phenomenon because it's not natural) was studied and analysed
by Dullen and Morgan in 1989. They concluded that young people in a religious
set up, would often feel 'erroneously puffed up' and think that it was the sole
objective of human life.
All
religions have a common peculiarity. They don't offer alternative paths. The
religious emphasis and assertion that it's the only way is quite appealing and
exciting to the impressionable minds. That doesn't mean, 'mature' people are
not affected by it. They too get influenced, but the youngsters get
egoistically as well as egotistically impacted by the overwhelmingly negative
influence of a religion.
To the
unfortunate people like Ayesha Naseem, Zaira Wasim and scores of ill-fated
child monks in Jainism, religion is a proverbial ego-booster or massager.
That's why, Scandinavian countries don't expose youngsters to religion before
the age of 21. You can jolly well study religion at Uppsala University in
Sweden or at Copenhagen University, Denmark, but only after a certain level of
maturity. Otherwise also, religion is basically for those whose brains are
still not fully developed- most of the humans in the world are living happily
with ill-developed brains and they've no knowledge of it- and who love to
wallow in its muck and miasma. When exposed to young minds, religion can churn
out more Ayesha Naseems.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/cricket-religion-ayesha-zaira/d/130296
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