The Religious Truth

The religious truth is that there are no excuses for failure or giving up on life whatsoever. Whatever condition you are in no matter how bad, true fact is someone has probably being in worse and triumphed. Now I am not one for motivational talks, but the reality of how little of a time on this earth we have and how much we tend to waste every second, minute and hour of it on things with such mundane trivialities, is indeed appalling. And I’m saying this pointing a finger at you, there, but fully aware that four more are pointing back at me as well.

We spend so much time counting our losses in life that they soon enough become our sole purpose –our destiny. I’m not big on religion, and to be honest, I don’t care for any other persons preference, but so what if heaven and hell does exist; so what if they don’t; so what if the two biggest religions in the world don’t see eye to eye; how does that affect the itty bitty Joseph in Haiti who hasn’t had a meal in days and hence hits the streets to scavenge for food, but not for himself, for his mother in the gutters somewhere who is seriously ill.

How does religion’s blind issue of conflict do any good to Sophia whose eyes has grown emotionless as the smelling hundredth man, plump and irritatingly drunk, gets up from her fragile frame and adjusts his trousers in satisfaction, after raping her and driving her innocence far into the abyss all in the name of sexual gratification?

Truth is, religion changes nothing; the world is a cruel place and by the days it gets worse. I know some die hard Christian conservatives would want to step up to the pedestal and talk about just how important believing in God is and what not. And their Muslim contemporaries would also be of the same thoughts but channel theirs through their own faith. But let me hush each group and go straight to say this…

“…If truly there is a devil; an evil mastermind that seeks to damn mankind, then, creating religion is still his greatest masterpiece yet.”

Every day our news channels are riddled with war tales; turmoil, angst and miss-directed hatred; and it’s sad that half of the people in the centre of all this have basically no idea for what course or reason they have immerse themselves into the core of all these violent indifference. Most of them probably believe they’re in it for the good; that they’re doing justice in a world filled with injustice. They claim to be protecting and marking their territory as they vow to make those who try to infringe on their rights pay dearly. But killing a rat because it’s coming into your kitchen, eating and making a mess of your food doesn’t imply justice. The truth is that if you probably haven’t neglected the dent or hole in the wall that goes straight to your kitchen in the first place then, probably a rat would not have had any way to come into your kitchen and eat your food.

In other words, most often the problem is not others, but us.

The trouble with the world is not global warming; or the devil on an apocalyptic rage to doom mankind. The trouble with the world is simple stupidity. And it comes as a result of the immense ignorance that blinds even the most elite of individuals. Without doubt, I believe there is indeed a supreme being somewhere or some place; what I however find very difficult to believe are the selfish-ended interpretations that we humans have formed of this being for centuries on end without any real proof whatsoever. If there is one thing I know and I’m sure of, it is that the definition of something doesn’t actual define anything. Definitions are just mere interpretations and interpretations are just sugar-coated bias.

As far as I’m concerned, life hands us two options: either take control or be controlled. With religion, 99% of the human population fall under the latter, the remaining 1% pretends they don’t. I do not write this to proclaim any aggravated angst channelled towards religion and its vices, because to tell the truth, as much as everything about it is riddled with human selfishness, menacing manipulations and infuriating hypocrisy, it also is a statute of unity for a lot of people. I admire that about all religious institutions; in fact, to be truthful, I admire the core beliefs of all religious institutions. And I can proudly say I share a belief affinity with one of them. However, this right here is just a statement that is meant to simply say…

…live and let live.

…and that’s just the religious truth.