From: kumar@ug.cs.dal.ca (kumar yelubandi)
Subject: RELIGION:  The Opiate of False Believers
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 16:28:03 GMT

>From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
>Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
>Subject: Events in other countries (Was Re: Secularism.. Overkill.)

>
>On the other hand, the destruction of a mosque in our country is
>something we completely control.  It happened on our watch.  We take
>full responsibility for it.  (BTW, one thing that really bothered me
>personally was that it was a 16th century structure of much historical
>value...  trashing something religious doesn't touch me personally
>otherwise).

>Pointing to the treatment of other religions in the Muslim-dominated
>countries is essentially irrelevant for discussing _our_ problems. 
>We all know they have a barbaric streak :-), so what do their actions
>mean for us?  Is that any example to be emulated?
>Does the routine chopping of hands by the Law in Pakistan somehow make
>the blinding of pretrials in Bihar more tolerable?  Does their 
>treatment of women as cattle justify the Rajasthan sati episode?

>We need to look to stable, civilised societies for clues on how better
>to run our shop; hardly the religion-crazed setups of the middle east
>(Boy, am I happy the religious right and George Bush lost the election
>here :-)).

>Hope you didn't waste your time hearing me...

        -ans.
>-- 
>Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@rcf.usc.edu



	Here's a lad I don't mind sharing vodka with.  I can only
hope that others, too, will open their minds.  Religion, foax, is the
opiate of false believers.  But it is more toxic than any drug because
whole societies are prey to its "high", not just addicted individuals.
	
	To truly believe in GOD is to shun religion in favor of the order 
and beauty of the nature around us, ie. the birds, the flowers, the sun,
the moon, the water, etc.  It is these things that provide evidence of 
the existence of GOD and GOD within us, ie. goodness, virtue, love, 
compassion, etc.

	Religion, on the other hand, is an attempt to "confine" GOD
within the narrow limits of man's prescription.  This begs trouble
no matter of you look at it.

 	As I see it, religion is an artificial spirituality created by man 
to gain control over man.  It is constructed in such a fashion as to 
appeal to the goodness within us.  I don't have problems with this, 
necessarily.  But where it fails, and has failed I think - and I am 
alluding to all religions here (Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, 
Judaism, etc.) - is that religion has always ended up substituting for 
the goodness within us, substituting for GOD within us.  And this most 
definitely invites trouble. 

	Keep an open mind, foax.  Enjoy the bounty of Nature.


	Kumar

ps:  	...who's to say that Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, or
	Raoul Wallenberg, will not become revered objects of religion
	a thousand years from now.... 
-- 
                                ********************************************
   Kumar Yelubandi               **  A wise man learns more from a fool  **
   (good wines = good times!)    **  than vice versa...or so they say    **
   ...in the year 2525...        **           -  Drink up -              ** 
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