Friday 19 April 2013

Religious dogmas and rituals : Pseudo-Science

I have a bad habit of running into trouble with the guardians of religions. More than that I run into my own parents and family members, and some friends, and other people who know me (and vice versa). Everybody seems to have closed their eyes of logic and rational thinking. There used to be a time when people knew that Sun travelled on Seven Horses around the Earth. Now we know what the truth is. Unfortunately most people still believe that Sun goes around the Earth. 

Now look at this.

I am a bengali Brahmin by birth. During my baptism ceremony (janeyu sanskar) I was told that for the next one year "you are not to eat, chicken, mutton, eggs, onion, garlic and masoor dal". But "you can eat fish". That I could never figure out why was fish exempted. It is more alive than an egg. Most eggs released in the market are unfertilised eggs and hence eating them would not KILL any life.  But a fish is a wholesome living creature, then how can it not be counted in Non-Veg??? I remained puzzled. I asked my grandma and got an answer, "it is vegetable". No offence meant for the bygone soul but even at an age of 13 I figured out she doesn't know the reason.

In fact no one could ever tell me the reason before I myself got hold of it. It is more of a socio-economic compulsion to include fish in vegetables than anything else.

Consider this, bengal is a coastal state with huge amount of water bodies in and around it. It is a rice bowl too. Now that makes rice and fish its staple diet. Even the poorest can afford to eat fish by catching one in the ponds. So it must have occurred to the Bengali Brahmins of bygone era that including an AMMENDMENT IN THE RELIGIOUS BOOK OF DOGMAS on fish being a vegetable will allow pepole to eat it on all days and ceremonies. Citing various atrocious examples and reasons they must have taught the people about fish being very pure and pious and a vegetable. So here we are DOGMAS win over LOGIC. Egg is non-veg but not fish.

The guardians of religions have done more harm to religions and people following it than any good. And the problem is that people still tend to follow those things blindly.

Same goes with various fasts such as navratra.

We all know that fasting is good for our body. Our digestive system gets a break from its routine and heals itself. But that happens in FASTING. Now that means serious fasting. Unfortunately you must visit the shops during these times. VRAT KE NAMAK, VRAT KE CHIPS, VRAT KE AALOO PAKODEY, VRAT KA THIS- AND VRAT KA THAT..... God in the name of fasting people eat like anything ..... they eat more than normal and then they say they are fasting .... now how scientific is that !!!!!

Think for yourself.