OK, I admit I was wrong when I said (a while ago on my social media) that it is rather ironic to condemn a murder by quoting from the very book whose supposed insult led to the ghastly, inhuman crime.
I now realise that while there are some who are condemning the murder by quoting the book, I have more friends here who are JUSTIFYING it, some openly, and some using some convoluted jiggery-pokery word magic. This is, to say the least, surprising. Just. Wow. And these are my friends. People in my echo chamber. People who are normally kind, empathetic, gentle, polite, articulate, and have a raised consciousness about society, their privilege, history, and generally woke to issues of humanness. People I’d wager on to stand by me, and my ideals, in a fight. People I have dined with and embraced. In real life.
I am reeling.
In my earlier social media posts, I was only alluding to the latest incident in passing because I wanted to talk about ALL religion-inspired ‘lynchings’ (this isn’t an exact word, because its origins lie in white-on-black violence and involve hanging, but let us use it since it is now in common use for such crimes) and bring to notice that one cannot use the very same religions and quotes from the holy books of that religion that was clearly the cause of the said murder, to condemn it. But now, I wish to speak not of all such religious-mob-violence-driven-murders, but specifically of the two I know that took place by the Sikhs recently: one in Singhu, and one at the Harmandir Sahib.
I condemn it with zero conditions attached. There are no ‘buts’ and ‘notwithstandings’. No whataboutery and no ‘except fors’. No strings. A man was murdered by a mob at a house of worship because the mob was conditioned from childhood by society to believe that a symbol of their collective delusion is more important than a human life.
For all those who talk of the good work Sikhs have been doing, here’s an interesting possibility that we atheists have been trying to get everyone to entertain in their minds for the longest time: Would it be possible that all the charity, the self-sacrifice, the camaraderie, the tolerance, the self-sufficiency, the strength, and the dedication to service of humanity in a group of people is only because some humans are just good humans, despite their religion, and not because of it?
Can we at least try and hypothesise that religion is simply a now-obsolete politico-military-socio-economic ideology of the past, a way to organise the hunter-gatherer society at its naissance, just like nationalism is today and communism tried its damnest best to be not long ago, and that it is well past its sell-by date?
Can we maybe consider the possibility that blind faith in anything can (and many-a-times, does) lead us to become worse humans, even if some parts of it strive to make us better, and that in the end, we have to use our own moral compass to pick and choose which parts of the holy canon to believe and which to discard based on modern thought, and it might be better, and actually more energy- and time-saving, to completely eradicate this middleman and appeal directly to our morality?
Can we just be good humans, not because some book or prophet or superstition tells us to be good (for if it can instil goodness into us without reason, it can also equally instil evil), but because we have used our intellect and our millennia-long collective history to decide what is indeed good without having it associated with reward or punishment in the hereafter?
Can we be truly evolved?
Or is that expecting too much from humans?
Is there hope?
P.S: In my early days on social media, I’d say in anger, ‘those that believe that the killing of the human being was justified, or not unconditionally condemnable may please unfriend me. I do not need your friendship.’ But, the older (and consequently, as per social norms, wiser) me thinks differently. These people are not inherently bad people. They are not evil. They are not ‘as much murderers as the murderers themselves.’ They are just harbouring under the collective delusion religion is. They cannot be condemned for not being able to break through their social and childhood conditioning. By closing myself off to their friendship, I am doing both, them and myself, a great disservice. We need to talk about this. And unilateral declarations of ‘my morality or bust’ do not make for conversations or conversions. Do engage, friends. I am willing to listen. But, as the post shows, I am appalled. I hope you understand that it is only right for me, if you know me at all, to be so horrified at not just the goings-on, but also the completely shocking reaction to them, especially of those I considered my ideological comrades. So, forgive me for the harsh words. I speak from my heart.
