Re: [mukto-mona] How to follow religions correctly

Since Dr. Jiten Roy's comments below and my comments on them fit the headline "How to follow religions correctly" better, I am putting my comments in this thread.

 

As I wrote before, I do not wish to open up religious books and criticize them, because I do not think those old books had to be great or perfect. I know they are not perfect; most of them are not great either. So, here are my thoughts on Dr. Roy's comments, without going specific on anything from the religions.

 

"We have head, that is why we have headache" is a very inappropriate metaphor for "we have religions, that is why we have religious communalism/hatred"; although both statements are actually correct.

 

Our head does not come with headache. Headache is an acquired ailment of the head. It can be cured by therapies that we have invented/discovered through our good old human intelligence; and we do not have to worry about some imaginary almighty getting angry with us for doing that.

 

Most religions do come with a good deal of hatred, both intra-religious, and against people of other faiths and no faith. To the serious believer, the imaginary almighty would get angry if the religion is not followed in totality, including the hatred part. The religion prohibits changes, including getting rid of the hatred part.

 

Again, I do not have to give examples of hatred in religions. I am sure intelligent and rational people do not need my help to find them in the religious books. To me, people who do not follow the hatred parts of the religions are better. Of course, they are not totally "God fearing"; they are probably "borderline" among the religious people.

 

The bottom line is, if we do not wish to criticize religions, let us at least refrain from giving them a clean chit against our honest minds.

 

Sukhamaya Bain 

 

============================================

From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 8:47 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fwd: a video: "HINDU BASHING IN PAKISTANI SCHOOL BOOKS"

 

I understand the confusion from my recent post. That's why – I gave two examples to show that actual God fearing people are not generally communal; it's the borderline religious people, who do not hesitate to exploit religion to achieve their goals. Following that observation, I have concluded that religion can survive without communalism, but religious-communalism cannot survive without religion. As a result, religion is at the core of religious-communalism. There are other sorts of communalism also, like racial-communalism, tribal-communalism, etc. Let me give another example of religious-communalism. When Khaleda Zia says – if you vote for Awami League, you will hear "Uludhoni' from the Mosque - that's a communal exploitation of religion. But, we cannot blame religion for her misuse of religion. This is what I meant by religious-communalism.  In previous posting - I also said that if there was no religion, there would have been no religious-communalism. It is like – we have headache, because we have head. - Jiten Roy   ============================================= --- On Wed, 4/25/12, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fwd: a video: "HINDU BASHING IN PAKISTANI SCHOOL BOOKS" To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 10:24 PM   I am confused by quite a few postings recently in Mukto-Mona, especially by Mr. Subimal Chakrabarty and Dr. Jiten Roy. Look at Dr. Roy's comments below.   Here, he wrote, "Religion is not the cause of communality." However, only a few days back (April 21, 2012) in the thread "Religion & Communalism, he wrote, "Therefore, religions are at the very core of communalism."   In the posting below, he thanked Mr. Q. A. Rahman. Is it for Mr. Rahman's regret that the Pakistani politicians were not smart enough to have a bigger Islamic haven in the subcontinent? Just read Mr. Rahman's posting below a little carefully. He did not criticize the Pakistani leaders for any other faults.   Mr. Rahman expressed his opposition to "faith based bashing." Well, looks like the Maharani of Tripura was as stupid as Jogen Mandal for the Namashudras and Tridib Roy for the Jumma people. Aren't she and her people lucky? If her wish of 1947 came true, today some non-Muslims intellectuals of Tripura would be exchanging these academic talks with Muslims like Mr. Rahman, just like what Dr. Roy, Mr. Chakrabarty and I are doing. But the people of Tripura would be as sorry as the Hindus and the Jumma people of Bangladesh/Pakistan due to real "faith based bashing."   I do not think a two-nation theorist can be a real challenger of "faith based bashing."   Sukhamaya Bain   ================================================= From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com> To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 7:15 PM Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fwd: a video: "HINDU BASHING IN PAKISTANI SCHOOL BOOKS"   Thank you. Let me say this. Communalism is a different entity from religion. Religion is not the cause of communality. It's the victim of communality. People exploit religion to foment communality. Those who follow religion correctly are not communal. It's the borderline religious people, many of who has propensity to become communal for their own self-interest. I my youth, we used to play soccer and volleyball with the Moulavi-teacher of our Primary School; he was our buddy. Also, Moulavi-teacher of our high school was my school-hostel super. He was a very strict religious man, but - used to love me like his sons. He used to guide me like my parents. I have written articles about him in Mukto-mona, and elsewhere before. I believe - the trouble is with those who are borderline religious. They do not hesitate to use religion to foment hatred to achieve their political or self interest. Truly religious people will not dare to do so.  Mostly, communality has been a tool for political leaders to achieve their goals. In case of Pakistan, it was the military rulers, who found this tool to bring majority population under their control at the expense of religious minority, in this case Hindus. Those military rulers were not religious, but used to act like one in public. There are other batch of people also, who would show their ultra religiosity outside only to exploit religion. These are dangerous people. This is the truth – religion can exist without communality, but communality cannot exist without religion. Jiten Roy =============================== --- On Tue, 4/24/12, qar <qrahman@netscape.net> wrote: From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net> Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fwd: a video: "HINDU BASHING IN PAKISTANI SCHOOL BOOKS" To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 3:50 AM   While I agree with most of what you said about "Pakistani politics", I think many Indian politicians are "Play" with religion frequently. Even today Muslim bashing goes on unabated when the time is right. Frequent riots in India says a lot about the problem in "Modern India". The major difference in early India and Pakistan was India was blessed with Gandhi (Nehru, Indira, Rajiv etc) family and Pakistan did not have such seasoned leadership. In reality many Muslims also suffered for lack of good leadership in Pakistan. The "Maharani of Tripura" wanted to join the then East Pakistan and patiently waited almost two years to get some invitations (Around that time India swallowed Hyderabad and Kashmir with VERY different excuses) but our leaders back in Pakistan did not have the skills required to show statesmanship with people of Tripura. Specifically leaders of Bengali origin (Mostly Muslims) were pathetic in negotiations and lost (To newly founded India) more of "Undivided Bengal" and Pakistani Punjab gained more land as a result.  Murshidabad was a Muslim majority state but somehow it stayed with India, defying all logic!! We can certainly criticize and "Bash" criminals but harassing people for their religion is unacceptable. Those of us blessed with some education have to stand united against all faith based bashing. It does not diminish anything from any faiths but exposes ignorants and cowards among us. Shalom!

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

.