Thursday, July 26, 2012

Today, I hate religion


Today, I hate religion.

I hate it for defining a way of life for people. I hate it for defining different ways of lives for different people.

I hate it for creating a sense of belief. I hate it for creating a sense that my belief is different from yours.

I believe in God.

But today, I hate religion.

I hate it for creating divides. I hate it for making it okay to divide you and me.

I hate it for creating multiple gods, and believing that mine is different from yours.

I hate it for deciding the way someone lives his life. I hate it for making it okay to demand that a person lives his life a certain way.

I hate it for making it compulsory that I believe in it.Or believe in yours. Or mine. Not both.

I hate it for forcing me to make a decision I really would never have wanted to make. I hate it for making me doubt my decision.

I hate it for making me think about it, to give it importance, when really, there should be none.

I should have hated it a long time ago, when I lived in Delhi or Ahmedabad or Mumbai, and saw the scars religion had left there. I should have hated it the day, when as a kid, a friend showed me photographs he had clicked of charred bodies justified in the name of religion.

But I am a selfish person, I didn’t hate it then. I just didn’t believe it then.

Today, I hate religion.

For deciding my life. For making rational people believe in superiority and inferiority on the basis of religion. For causing rifts where there should be none. For bringing emotions, when truly, there is no place for emotions. For making me stand for a principle I never chose to believe in to begin with.

Today I hate religion.

Because it matters.

To everyone except me. 

And hence it should matter to me.


18 comments:

  1. If only everyone could think this way...

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  2. That is such a strong message! And yes, I hate it too!

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  3. Never took it seriously in the first place...

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  4. I hate it because it's totally imposed upon us even before we develop our thinking capabilities!

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  5. The sad part is that all the Canadian shadows the humanitarian doctrines upon which any religion is built ! Very well written !

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  6. I have hated it ever since I knew its meaning and now it's slapping me in my face in my personal life making me hate it more and more with each passing second. I can say that that's the maximum hatred I have felt towards anything till now.

    Keirthana

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  7. Nicely said - "I believe in God. But today, I hate religion"

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  8. religion is disciplined way towards God and thats all!Classification is human and religion is just a major category! Where religion is not it is the skin colour and job type..(caste system).... hatred should apply to the behaviour classification which is human !Bottomline is its not the religion but our thought process of classification which is to be blamed ! Well a very nice poem.....narrating the pain of being classified ! Well done !

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  9. Loved the way you narrated your feelings, felt so true!
    As far as I am concerned, I don't believe its the religion which has done all these things, its always the people. I haven't seen any religion professing to kill/hate another person because he doesn't belong to it! The people manipulated the documents for their own purpose.
    I remember the discussion I had with my friend and he told how the image of Lord Rama has been changing as per the motive of the person using it.
    Some very old images have been shown where Rama is calm, patient and is considered as a perfect man with no hatred for anybody. And then there are images of angry Rama with his Bow and he looks like he want to kill everyone. These images are used nowadays for all the wrong reasons.
    This is the classic example of how people manipulate religious myths for their own purpose.

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  10. Religion teaches us to be satisfied about not understanding our world. It teaches the power of faith over the power of humanity. Religion and reason are corrosive to each other.

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  11. Hate not the religion, for religion teaches us tolerance, acceptance, and the oneness of all Gods. Sad then, that not one of us can truly say that he/she is ready to accept beliefs imposed upon him/her by another religion.

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  12. @Sumitra - Then we'll have a new religion full of hatred towards religion, I guess :)

    @Nirvana - Thank you! It's good to know I'm not alone.

    @Phatichar - You're lucky if you were never forced to.

    @Sohini - I know! And by the time you realise what it really is, it might just be too late to even revolt!

    @jaish_vats - Thank you!!!

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  13. @Ghazala Hossain - Thank you. I guess you're not one of the fanatics then :)

    @Confused Soul - Thanks!! :)

    @Keirthana - I never really bothered with it, because it never really bothered with me. But right now, at this moment, I know EXACTLY what you mean.

    @Vikram Karve - Thank you Sir! Means a lot to me coming from you!!

    @Bikramjit - To be frank, I guess it isn't really religion. It's just that it's taught wrong at most times, and used as a pretext to kill, That's the sad part!

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  14. @mysay.in - I completely agree!! It really is the people who are turning into a classification to begin with. And that's just sad.

    @Pradyumna Dandwate - I know! At the end of the day, I don't think any of the religions ever ask you to discriminate or look down upon anyone else. Nor do they profess closed-ness. It's how they have been interpreted over the years. To suit man and his needs. And that's killing so much that it really shouldnt.

    @sandeep ingilela - I frankly feel it can be reason, if read in the correct way. But how many of us really know how to do that?

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  15. @Shikha - I guess imposition is the problem, to begin with. And tolerance, is a term much abused, till it actually falls upon us to be the one to possess this particular virtue. I'm sorry, but if no one can understand the purpose of a religion, I can't understand it's use, except as a way to define me as part of the majority in this country.

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  16. Thx for your post, I really enjoy your blog. Long time lurker, first time commenter, you know the drill. I tried to share this one time before, I don’t think it posted correctly…hopefully it will this time!

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