Namaste, I hope you are doing OK. Today is the last Monday in November and for me it has been an exhilarating month. What about you? What is your biggest achievement or lesson this month? Come on, share.
I apologise for missing out on last Monday's map. Maybe burnout came through unsuspectingly. I am not so much at my best, but I have a commitment to keep. For today, I just want to write from the conversation I had with a friend yesterday. We spoke about religion and human nature.
Religion and Human Nature
To start with, I commend the legendary propaganda I was exposed to as a teenager. It was common to think that atheists and antireligious folks were more intelligent than religious people. I sincerely believed that religious people (myself included) were dull-brained sheep who could not think for themselves. I'm glad I know now that it is a lie. Being religious or antireligious has no correlation with intelligence. Spouting big words is a good way to confuse people.
People like to blame religion for the world's ills. Sadly, they have sufficient evidence to point to as far as the shortcomings of religious people are concerned. There is no lying about the fact that people have done dastardly things in the name of deities. But we conveniently blind ourselves to those who perform dastardly acts even without a deity in the equation.
I posit it that humans are the flaw in a perfect system. And that whatever we touch and use can be as imperfect as ever. I point it out to you that while religion may give a good cover for people to cause ruin in an act of righteousness, it is only a crutch. Human beings are just as bad, monstrous and violent without religion. And even those who claim to be humanists, denying the importance of religion as a consequence, are not the compassionate saints they want you to think they are.
And here is the most important thing to know about human nature: human beings can make anything a religion. It is evident in our nature that we look for something to worship, something to enthrone. It doesn't have to show any magnificence. It just needs to portray that it is something that transcends the individual. So you have people who have faith in science. Ironic. And yes, they won't go about telling you they have 'faith' in science. But people telling you to "follow the science" or "trust the science" betray themselves when they can't see how their beloved system of knowing is subject to manipulation from people.
Science is a way of knowing. It is a way of objectively organising and replicating information about our natural world. But human beings get to interpret the results of the findings. And it is passionately naive to think that this is beyond possible manipulation or that projects happen without agendas.
Many people accept scientific findings (whether true or false) that they personally cannot replicate in good faith. I see people who believe Darwin's evolutionary theory to the letter even when they can neither prove nor replicate Darwin's theories. I say that evolution is a fact, theories of evolution are not. Yet they chide those who can afford to be skeptical without dire consequences as unbelieving or as unintelligent.
When all attempts fail, we make religions out of ideologies. From communism to socialism and even the common humanism, we can shift anything into the center and make them objects of worship. So folks may not claim to believe God but watch out for what they value as infallible; that is who their god is. This can be epistemologies, technologies, notable figures, ideologies, and my best "the greater good."
Lastly, it is in the annals of history that atheistic countries of the 20th century (mostly Marxist systems) occasioned massacres that claimed the lives of over 120 million people. But antireligious people will have you believe that nothing wastes lives and potentials like religious systems. They lie.
As a religious person, it is your duty to stand your ground and defend your faith against such purveyors of lies. And it is a big delusion, and half a story, to believe that religion is the problem not human nature.
Everything will go to shit, no matter how perfect, if human nature is involved. Have a big week.
Hold this pic as we go closer to Christmas
"Gib me that for free.” - Hungry Santa
Great writeup