To stop the flow of poisonous belief it is
imperative to keep religion under constant criticism
Many maintain the belief
that the matters of religion are quite delicate and sensitive to begin with.
Many maintain that it is unwise to keep ‘bashing’ it with heavy words,
imprudent to make fun of it in any way, devalue it, and of course downright
reckless to criticise it in some capacity. Even if you want to discuss it you
have to tread lightly, and probably ‘cleanse’ yourself in some holy capacity to
begin with.
It’s amazing how laughable
these matters are. There is nothing in the world which hasn’t undergone criticism
at least once. History teachers don’t criticise Chenghiz Khan, out of fear that
it will rile or offend someone who idolizes his ethos. Someone who practices
history never feels for a second that he is offending someone whenever he
criticises the barbarism of the Nazis or the Japanese, or of the sadistic
actions of the Pakistani army during the liberation war of 1971 in Bangladesh. In
fact newspapers like the Daily Prothom Alo tend to churn out provocative
articles like this on a daily basis. Instead of say, serving them with a
lawsuit, we tend to bring in our rational or logical side and attempt to
comprehend what they are trying to comprehend from a scientific viewpoint no
less. Why is it that the rules of engagement are different for religion?
It takes little to rock the
fragile sentiments of the believers. They get rattled whenever someone
questions them about the raw injustice upon the non-believers during religion
induced warfare. They also tend to get uptight whenever someone points out the
inhuman antics of their Gods/Goddesses or their prophets/messiahs, or the how
women have been deprived of their sovereignty, or how unscientific or illogical
the directives in their religious books are. If you indulge in making fun of
religion, well, let’s just say that the deep blue sky that “God has adorned as
his roof” comes crashing down on top of them. It is astonishing how reciprocal
the believers are whenever somebody resorts to poke fun at religion in
parallel, and they feel the irresistible urge to turn the world upside down in
response. And yet if someone does the same thing to issues in literature,
economics, politics, sport, the general social infrastructure amongst others no
one is bothered in the slightest. Except of course when it comes to religion.
Let me elaborate a bit more.
If you pick Bangladesh for sample representation, we’ll find that the Awami
League is in constant criticism of the country’s other major opposition party
BNP, while the BNP is engaged in vice versa. Similarly in America the Republicans
are either criticizing or downright opposing the ideologies of the Democrats,
while the Democrats are engaged in vice versa. Socialist and capitaliost oppose
each other from their respective viewpoint. Society, literature, history,
science, sports, technology – none of these aspects are above constructive
criticism save religion, which is living under the protective shell of its
blind believers. They will strive protect its integrity from any form of
criticism at any cost. They are prone to using sentiment as a viable excuse, at
times implying their strength in numbers (opinions in favour), and at times by
maintaining the whimsical stance that it is “crucial” to maintain “law and
order in society”. In that case am I too wrong to say that religion is analogous
to a wax doll that people like to hone and polish or like an obnoxious and
spoilt pet that you like to keep around anyway? Not that they don’t indulge in
criticism themselves, oh no. They are ever ready and jump at the first
opportunity to thoroughly scrutinize matters of science or technology,
especially anything which opposes religion in parallel. They are prone to lend
their opinions and poke fun at the same time, be it drawing Darwin’s head on
top of a baboon’s body, telling girls what to wear and what not to and if they
don’t comply, resort to ordering a ‘Fatwa’ (religious instruction) on them. Not
only that they are quick to identify ‘Murtads’ and issue random kill orders on
them but when it comes to religion, they want to play by different rules.
Although it is true
religious believers think that they can bend the rules a bit (or bypass them if
needs be). They assume for instance that the Lord created the world with the
utmost of caring and love in mind. But what if someone asks who created the
Lord then? Funnily enough, more often than not the answer is, “normal rules do
not apply to the Lord. Do not ask these questions, say no evil and think no
evil”. But in conjunction the believers want everything in this world to be
scrutinized with a fine tooth comb save religion, which “does not fall within
the rules”. If I am being honest forget those who have faith or want to have
it, even us free thinking spirits can’t help but fall into the cleverly hidden
traps of these carefully disguised ruses they tend to call logic. As a result,
more often than not we orchestrate our downfalls. Barrister and humanitarian
worker Mr Edward Tabas has clarified this matter in an article titled “Atheist
Must Not Self-Censor” that he wrote for the Free Inquiry magazine quite
recently. He wrote –
“There is no reason at all
to be submissive to the inadequate theories of religion. There is nobody that can provide any concrete
reasons to stop criticising religion or examine it scepticism. Instead all
religious publications are filled with accounts of tyranny and barbarism. They
are also comprised of instructions ranging from ideas on how to suppress the
freedom of women, while simultaneously containing dire warnings for the
non-believers and also instructions on how to subjugate lower caste people.
Thus it is unfair that everything else in this world, save religion, is liable
to be scrutinized. But sadly in countries like Bangladesh where religion has
nestled itself so deep into the social system, that we find ourselves automatically
refraining from criticizing it at all there.
I’ve talked about the
sentiments of the believers, what about the non-believers? Atheists like us,
who are hurting every day. Our sentiments are dented on a daily basis too, just
by turning on the TV every day. We flick through channel after channel where
each show starts with a recital from the Quran or the Bhagvad Gita all done, in
the name of appeasing an invisible, cryptic and silent deity. Our sentiments
are further played with when we see religious studies forced upon children
during their secondary level education. We are most perturbed when religious
fairytales like the ‘Meraj’ and ‘Burak’ are unwittingly compared with
Einstein’s theory of relativity in order to validate that they actually happened.
We get aggrieved when the theory of evolution gets erased from school
textbooks. But nobody is concerned with that. They might have been had it been
the opposite case.
A few years ago Professor
Humayun Azad wrote an article titled “Dhormanobhutir Upokotha” (Sentimentalism
in religion and its folklore). He certainly raised some interesting questions
in his article, which can be related to on-going issues today,
“There is a phrase which we
hear constantly these days, something called ‘religious sentimentalism’.
Usually the phrase isn’t alone. It tends to be accompanied by the words
‘bruise’ and ‘’scathe”, which form into the words ‘hurt religious sentiment’ or
‘scathed religious sentiment’. It seems today a lot of people are being hurt
and being scathed over something called ‘religious sentimentalism’. Mankind is
a sensitive species; they have as many emotions as flowers have pollen; deprived
of entry into heaven human beings now live in a world worse than hell, where
barbarism and tyranny are endless: as such, it is safe to assume that their
fragile sentiments are being bled dry every day. When the day of salvation
comes he will enter the heavens, where he will find true peace; where nobody
will hurt his sentiments, no one will poke fun at it. There he will have all
the luxuries he ever dreamed of. But the world is a stagnant place, his
sentiment is being scathed here, being hurt here, being bled dry, it’s a sad
truth altogether; but the brunt of the damage is being sustained by another
completely different type of sentiment, which is frankly the stuff of myths or
folklore for that matter. It’s called ‘religious sentimentality’.
Now humans ‘feel’ the
universe around them with the help of five different senses. These senses
enable humans to touch, hear, smell, see and taste the universe around them:
but humans are also the only species who possess countless other ‘senses’
outside the naturally inherited ones; we can categorize our abilities to
measure beauty or our ability to be creative which when combined, enables us to
appreciate works of art. Similar to these senses and perhaps our most developed
and effective one yet, is our ability to ‘sense’ religion. And today in this
ever-growing world of our religious ‘senses’ and by extension our religious
sentimentality, is being dented on a daily basis. Our religious sense is the
prolific of senses in our arsenal today. It does not rest, it does not stop, it
constantly guards our religious sentimentality; if under attack it responds
with physical stimuli just like any other sensory organ would. And sometimes it
agitates us enough so that we spring into action. Unlike other ‘senses’, when
hurt, it is capable of inducing anger and become vengeful. The world today
shakes in fear of the unpredictability and vindictiveness of religious
sentimenmtality.”
Our country today vehemently
celebrates religion, the blind faith and the ignorance that accompanies it. And
yet we abstain ourselves from understanding science, when it has helped us
cross oceans, build bridges and with no help mind you from some prophet or a
religious publication. All we need to do to understand it is keep our eyes and
ears open. Again not to be repetitive, we constantly chose to lead our lives
without committing to this this simple task. Under pressure from religious
sentimentalism, schools and colleges today refrain from teaching the theory of
evolution to children. They have stopped printing it in Biology textbooks when
much of the study of biology itself is based on this theory. Our religious
sentimentality tirelessly works to decide what we should see , what we should
read, what we should listen to and what we shouldn’t listen to.
Government sponsored media
outlets in the country have already stopped criticizing religion as a whole.
But what about the internet? Isn’t it necessary to stop it there? The sentries
guarding religious sentimentality thus became concerned. They are so deeply entangled
in the country’s affairs after all. These sentries have no trouble belittling
those of other faiths all day and night long, but tendency to feel abashed
whenever someone on FaceBook types up an article criticizing the very thing
they are supposed to protect. Do they actually, honestly feel abashed?
No, they don’t. But their
superiors do. You see these sentries have superiors and these superiors by
extension run organizations. Nothing in this country is more powerful than
organizations and that is why the government gives them freedom and breathing
space. The government is not concerned with overall development or
technological advancements. It’s more concerned about the minority whose
religious sentimentalities have been hurt, and that is something that can
prompt the government into immediate action. As such, activities on the
internet are under constant surveillance. The internet as a whole is being
slowly pushed under the vicelike grip of “religious
censorship”.
