In her recent article in The Guardian titled The Myth of Religious Violence , Karen Armstrong uses a ‘careful’
selection from mostly European/Western history to prove her thesis that religious
violence is a result of secular pushback. She begins with references to ISIS
and its recent atrocities but then quickly moves on to crusades and the Christian Europe.
She speaks for the 4.3 billion people of this world who are actively
engaged in practicing one religion or the other. I speak for the rest of the 2.7
billion who, for various reasons, choose to remain ‘irreligious’.
Yes ‘Irreligious’ is a real term. A very broad very secular term fit to define anyone and
everyone who has an issue with ‘fundamentals’ of any and every religion.
Whether you are an explicit atheist
or an implicit atheist; anticlerical, anti-religion or antitheist; agnostic or ignostic; non-theist, religious skeptic or of free thought, ‘Irreligious’ encompasses
you. In short it is a continuously evolving term capable of incorporating the rapidly growing thought of ‘Irreligion’.
The Narrow Perspective
It is a fact that world’s ‘Irreligious’ population is on
the rise.
A 2012 Pew Research demographic study on Religion & Public Life terms 16% (1.1 billion) of the world’s population
as ‘religiously unaffiliated’. Add to it the 23% who call themselves ‘not religious’ and the tally comes to 39% of the 7 billion
occupants of this planet. That, to me, is a number worth respecting when one
decides to comment upon the relationship between religion and society.
In Ms. Armstrong’s case, one also needs to carefully
investigate history before determining parameters of discussion. Her references
to ‘religion’ include only the most modern, popular, organized religions which suggests
a failure to understand the difference between the need of religious thought for
a human mind and the creation of organized religion to exploit that need.
Simple or Irresponsible?
To assume that the progression and evolution of human
civilization can be summed up by analyzing pro-religious and anti-religious thought
without investigating the purpose behind their origin is rather
simplistic, to say the least. Even more simplistic is the effort to draw parallels
between the modern state (intrinsically subject to change and adjustment with
time) and organized religion (innately resistant to modification and revision).
However, what bothers me the most is Ms. Armstrong’s missionary
quest to defend organized religion through ‘reasonable interpretation’ thus
sending a ‘feel good’ message to those who are religious but religiously ignorant.
For example when she writes:
“…the bedrock message
of the Quran is that it is wrong to build a private fortune but good to share
your wealth in order to create a just, egalitarian and decent society…” she
fails to mention that all ‘messages’ in Quran are specific to the
creation and strengthening of an ‘Islamic Society’ and within that society Quran
dictates gender discrimination in matters of wealth & property and human rights. I am not
sure if Ms. Armstrong comprehends the acutely disturbing fact that in today’s
world an overwhelming majority of religious individuals is absolutely unaware
of the content and message of the faith they follow. It is therefore extremely
erroneous and irresponsible to select and present things out of context.
Violence within Religion
Barring Buddhism (religious status controversial) there is
none among the popular religions of the world without a sizeable history of
propagation through violence. Islam stays ahead by allowing use of both passive
and aggressive violence to ensure implementation and practice. From wife and
child beating to chopping of limbs to confinement and starvation till death, Quran’s
instructions are clear and simple when permitting violence. In addition Islam’s
stance on gender discrimination is one of the major reasons for
aggressive confrontation.
Ms. Armstrong’s intentions are not clear to me, but I do
want to bring to her attention the brutal power of religion by reminding her
that though 4th December 2013 marked 184th anniversary of
Bengal Sati Regulation (banning the ritual
of burning the surviving Hindu brides with their dead husbands) the last
reported case of Sati in India was as recent as October 2008. I also wonder how
Ms. Armstrong feels about the ‘pedophilia’ law passed by the Iranian parliament
in 2013.
I am not a religious scholar so I cannot tell how a religious scholar and author of two dozen books manages
to ignore the obvious to the extent of calling it a myth.
The Delicate Matter
of Interpretation
Interpreting religion is not a liberal art though often treated as such which results
into misinformation and self-contradiction. The desire to find universal
messages in scripture or to justify it through desired interpretation is not unique
to Karen Armstrong. The greater majority of urban Pakistani Muslims have taken to
creating their own definition of Islam, bending it every which way in order to
justify their religious adherence while keeping pace with the changing times. One can choose to ignore such examples but one cannot ignore the ever
growing number of Christian denominations, Islamic sects and Jewish movements.
The fact is that:
- Interpretation has repeatedly been used as the tool to steer religion in the preferred direction of a given society.
- Religious dogma has always prevented consensus thus
causing splits and rifts in thought and community.
Unless one is prepared to offer a viable method of endorsing
a fragmented global structure where each thread that frays away from its religious
fabric can efficiently exist as an independent concept, I’m afraid secularism
remains a necessity.
Status-quo in Religion
Growth of a religion does not mean growth of the
religious thought. It is only a reference to the growing number of its
followers. From the very onset conversion and adherence to organized religion was
made possible through preaching and not teaching. Since submission to one blind
faith or the other is essential to all such doctrines, an absolute abandoning
of inquiry, research, debate and experiment was crucial to produce compliant following.
Inquisitive learning was therefore most unsuited
for the survival of the religious ideals which offered predetermined goals and little
or no room for change. Once out of their initial stages various religious orders
settled for using procreation as a more convenient method of perpetuation making
religion a part of the inherited goods.
Today people belong to a faith not
because they understand and accept it but because they are born in it. Predictably,
where this method added numbers to the ranks of each religion it diminished the
need to know the content.
Need for Secularism
Studies show that over 82% of the 2 billion Christians in
the world will not read the bible in their lifetime. This, considering the fact
that 50% of them live in highly developed countries with next to perfect
literacy rates and easy access to scripture. As for Islam, the fastest growing religion in
the world, more than 90% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims live in extremely
poor third world countries with weak economics, nonexistent civil liberties and
literacy rate in single digits; for them reading the Quran will not be an
option. In both the cases though, paternity
will determine the religion of the newborn. Secularism is the need of that newborn.
‘Religion by birth’ has
created a breed which wears its religious affiliation as a name tag only. This
is a generation more in tune with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
finds it difficult to identify with Islamic polygamy, Hindu cast system and Christian
condemnation of homosexuality. Secularism is the need of this generation.
Each passing day adds 172,800 lives to this planet, each
passing day brings forth new intricate, diverse and complex societies and each
passing day further accelerates the pace of sociocultural evolution. Secularism
is the need of this evolution.
Religions have grown; and so has the world population,
poverty and global warming and none sadly, is the result of intelligent, informed
and educated decisions. In fact studies project that Intelligence and religious
belief have a negative relationship. Secularism, therefore, is the need of intelligence.
