STOP BEING SO WOUND UP WITH RELIGION 

•  (Relevant for Sociology Syllabus: Paper 1- Religion and Society & Paper 2- Religion and Society)
•   (Relevant for GS Syllabus: Paper1- communalism)
  • We have all seen the headlines from France yesterday, “Knife-wielding man shouts `Allahu Akbar` before killing three in Nice”. France has seen several similar headlines over the past few years. So have many other countries, as has India.
  • As long as people are uptight about their own religion, WHICHEVER religion, this is bound to happen. When friends or people make fun of certain aspects of my religion, I laugh with them if it is funny.
  • If it is not funny, I ignore or correct but usually, I don’t care. After all, all religion is a matter of faith, not reason or logic. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so easy to find fault with it.
  • My religion does not represent who I am. I am not identified by my religion. I am not a representative of my religion. To me, religion is just a collection of prayers, of rituals, of a way to worship God, nothing more. I am identified by the goodness of my thoughts and deeds, by what and how I do, what I produce and achieve.
  • That is what I wish to be identified by, not by my religion or caste or class or race. That is why I will never murder people for drawing cartoons of my faith or my God.
  • They can insult, mock, ridicule my religion or any other religion all they want. But please, my only request is, please make it funny and clever, so I can at least laugh about it. Go ahead, knock yourself out, I love humour. Somebody on Twitter responded to my above tweet:
  • “You must have duties!! You can’t just live like that and do what you want!! Why is heaven expensive then!”
  • HERE IS MY REPLY: ‘Heaven’ is expensive because you have to pay for it by a full lifetime of good thoughts and deeds, by honest and hard work to achieve your best potential. Believing in God means being a good human being. You don’t need religion for all that.
  • You will reach ‘Heaven’ when you die knowing that you have always tried to live as a good human being. ‘Heaven’ is not something in the sky, it is inside you, in your heart, within your soul and you have to live your entire life trying to reach it.