One of my close friends, Richard - a brother - wrote this recently:
Religion promises people eternal life when they actually just steal your money and cant even deliver you a cold pizza.
To which I had to reply and which reply I have fleshed out a bit thus:
Reply to Richard on Religion
by Mohamed Jiwa
There is a position that religion takes on the question of material things which is, in the West, too often left as the provenance of politics.
Politics promises and delivers classist comforts by stealing land and resources from their rightful custodians and enjoying them to the hilt:
The ulterior motive of such a survivalist approach to life is lined by the thought, "
Damn the consequences!
"
Religion,
if studied with care, promises the same consequences
for the same acts and omissions, except that the logic is a Superhuman one that can be analysed and cut into digestible morsels
, given several conditions are fulfilled - worth it only to people who are very serious about the value of the planet we live on and the creatures who belong to it and are supposed to inherit it.
Give me religion any day, every day, in the knowledge that when I negotiate the
challenges it poses with a consciousness (which, by the way, even scientists have referred to as a miracle), an intellect and faith as a practice, I'll ultimately have every reason to
tell myself calmly, "I'll have acted conscientiously to the hilt and
when I die I'll have every reason to tell myself, "I couldn't
give a Damn what happens now!"
Adherence to religion is thus a more intelligent response to the questions of
humanity and environment than all other philosophies, which amount to
a hybrid of self-centredness, over-confidence and complacency - with whatever level of conviction anyone tells oneself that s/he is addressing them as a daily practice.
Politicising religion, on the other hand, is a figment of yet another story!
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