Keep God Out Of Schools: Prayer Idiocy Indoctrinates Impressionable Minds And Benumbs Them
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
4 January 2022
I concur with Mr Ghulam Mohiyuddin that god
must be kept out of schools.
The great French existentialist and Nobel
laureate Albert Camus opined the same. Call it a coincidence, today (Jan 4) is
his death anniversary.
The most asinine tradition of prayer assembly
at schools must immediately be stopped. Whether it's Iqbal's religio-moral Nazm
or some mumbo-jumbo from Gita or our 'Father in heaven' (morons don't know
that their fathers are in this world!) from the Bible, this prayer idiocy
indoctrinates impressionable minds and benumbs them.
A
few years ago, a 14-yr-old Tamil boy in Sri Lanka, refused to participate in
any kind of prayer/s at his school and wrote to the headmaster that it was a
sheer religious indoctrination and as a free individual sans any religion and
god, he had the right to skip prayer meets. The headmaster had to relent. I
never attended prayer assembly when I was in Iran (of course, those were
different days) and requested the principal to exempt me from this veritable
nightmare. My Shia headmaster allowed me happily as he himself was against this
rigmarole of prayers in schools. A child's mind is a clean slate ( Tabula rasa
in Latin, coined by the English philosopher John Locke). Don't pollute it with
prayers. I used to teach Agams and Sutras at a Jain institute where I'd explain
extremely recondite Jain Sutras in Prakrit to the Jain munis. I made it a point
that no Navkar Mantra would be recited before, after and during the
sessions.The reason being, Jainism, like Buddhism, is an atheistic faith (
though all Jains regardless of their denominations, religiously worship Hindu
deities and believe in eating the cake and having it too!) and there were a
couple of British students as well who were studying Jainism but were not
Jains. I'm not against prayers and those who pray to a higher power. I'm
against the imposition of it, esp. when young and unwilling minds are forced to
pray in the morning. You cannot make kids/individuals morally upright by
subjecting them to heartless prayers either at schools or at homes. You've a
coruscating example of Albert Camus as perhaps the greatest moralist and most
humane human the world has ever seen. Read his profound essay, ' Reflections on
the Guillotine.' He was a pacifist who was rabidly against war and capital
punishment. The point is, humans sans any faith can also have moral rectitude.
Prayers don't ennoble you. Lastly, one must read Algeria-born Camus' "
Underbelly of faith, " in which he condemned clergy and how religious
people sexually exploited the gullible followers.
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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/god-school-prayer-indoctrinates-/d/128797
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