Saturday, July 21, 2007

Behavioural Pattern

Man, victim of religion?

By Sher Leopold


Terror has a strange effect.
Not only does it influence an individual in the obvious manner, that is through driving fear in the hearts of the weaker ones, but it also introduces confusion in the minds of people, including those who boast of being tough-hearted.
The prevailing conditions are driving everyone to suspect everyone else of having terror links. The most targetted are those belonging to a particular religion, I mean Islam.
Most unfortunate, but true, though such suspicions are rank baseless, stretching it as far away as possible from ground realities.
Remember, the infamous communal clashes? A more 'decent' way to identify who is a Muslim and who is not, is first from whether he has grown a beard, and the second is the darkened mark on the forehead resulting from the contact that part of the body a Muslim makes with the ground while praying.
The gross way is to force the man to drop his pants and everything inside to reveal whether he is circumcised or not.
What do you say to that?
There cannot be a more primal mind than that in determining who belongs to what, because that almost always resides in the mind and the heart, not in the features of the body.
Firstly, Muslim men are not the only ones who get circumcised. There are some other communities too. Besides, in several countries including India doctors prescribe circumcision for a male baby, though the theory is doing a ding-dong of sorts on whether it is actually good or not.
Lately though, the medical fraternity is against it. But there may be a time when it comes up again.
It is remarkable how religion induces irrational behaviour, making the individual a victim of an overpowering sense to belong somewhere.
That leads to a convincing understanding on why so many around the world relate growing a beard to being a Muslim, and therefore a probable suspect in the terror sphere. But in doing so, they easily forget that almost all the terrorists including those who caried out the 9/11 attacks were completely clean-shaven, as far as official understanding goes.
So deep has religion driven wedges within the human community that it has come to a point where hatred towards each other has today become a cliched feature. Talks revolve around that as and when it gets aroused.
However, there is a strong resurgence of everything scientific, luckily. Take for instance, the consumption of red meat, a sure-fire give-away of such consumers belonging to particular religions, like Islam or Christianity, though quite a few Hindus do too.
Lately, there is a decline in red meat consumption after medical researches proved its connection with Coronary Heart Disease. Where does religion appear in that?
Hindus might have a we-told-you-so attitude with a complete feeling of vindication while seeing red meat consumption on the decline. But they forget that coconut which is widely consumed by them, especially those hailing from the coastal regions, and gains mythical values during pujas is equally harmful to health, and is found to be a major contributor to the bad cholestrol that leads to vascular problems.
The human body's maintenance has much to do with science, while the human mind qualifies as the best candidate for spritual nourishment.
Between these two, religion has increasingly gained notoreity of being a divisive factor, though there are ongoing efforts to influence people that sprituality is a part and parcel of religion.
Sadly, for them, they completely miss the point that religion has nothing to do with spirituality.
And that is what the Vedas have proved - that knowledge is supreme.
Or else, we would continue to adhere to a miserable existence of mutual suspicion and hatred, as is happening around.

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