Humans Are Violent Because Of Their Beliefs
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
30 June
2022
What
Makes Humans So Violent And Sanguinary? The Answer Is: Because Of Their
Beliefs, Esp. Religious Beliefs In All Irrational Things And Phenomena
Main
Points:
1. What
happened in Udaipur (Rajasthan) has shocked the whole 'civilised' world.
2. Because of
this collective belief in god and religion, humans have been killing each other
since time immemorial.
3. Man can
never be completely emancipated from all his beliefs.
-------
" So long as our meaningless beliefs
remain
All efforts to get rid of them will go in vain
"
-William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and Nobel
laureate
What
happened in Udaipur (Rajasthan) has shocked the whole 'civilised' world. Now
people with a modicum of sanity are asking: What makes humans so violent and
sanguinary? The answer is: Because of their beliefs, esp. religious beliefs in
all irrational things and phenomena. An interesting story will help you
understand this whole business of belief/s.
A very
religious-minded old lady was dissatisfied with all existing religions, so she
founded one of her own. A reporter, who genuinely wanted to understand her
point of view, said to her, " Do you really believe, as people say you do,
that no one will go to heaven except you and your housemaid? " The old
lady pondered the question carefully and said, " Well, I'm not so sure of
Mary."
However advanced, liberal and forward-looking
one may be, the inveterate prejudices will always beckon him back. What we
create as something altogether new and different has the distinct elements of
our past beliefs. There's no relief from belief. Neurologists are of the view that
if a person wants to relinquish all his beliefs at the age of 25, it will take
nearly 200 years to completely get rid of those beliefs he/she wanted to part
with, though there could be exceptions. It means most of us will never be able
to get rid of our unwanted beliefs and prejudices in our lifetime because no
one has that much longevity. And this neurological observation is quite
incisive.
We talk
about equality, egalitarianism, anti-capitalism, Marxism and what not but how
many of us will allow our maids and domestic help to use our restrooms or sit
cheek by jowl? The ingrained prejudice that they're servants and can never come
up to our level and status will always be there in some corner of our
collective mindset. In my life, I've come across so-called non-believers and
atheists and I've seen many of them take umbrage when something not so
complimentary was said about their 'erstwhile' faiths. I call them fashionable
atheists.
Dropping
all beliefs ostensibly, yet sticking to some of them deep down is the tragedy
of mankind. Beliefs engender stereotypes and we all have stereotyped opinions
about people, objects, races, countries and communities. Even those who call
themselves 'global citizens', like Socrates, are racially, regionally,
linguistically and nationally prejudiced.
Man can
travel to space. He can reach the moon, Mars and other far-flung planets but he
can never be completely emancipated from all his beliefs. And when the beliefs
have a religious ring to them, it's just impossible for anyone to discard them
completely. They remain in your consciousness to pop out at an unguarded
moment. At least a remnant of them will remain to remind him of his
limitations.
Because of
this collective belief in god and religion, humans have been killing each other
since time immemorial. I still remember somewhere I read, " Beliefs are
hard bricks, the building of human nature is built of." I've no doubt
about the profundity of this statement. The beheading of a tailor has only made
my belief in beliefs even stronger! Today, I'm terribly sad and not very
hopeful of mankind's evolution.
----
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
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/humans-beliefs-udaipur-atheists/d/127363
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