Religion and Morals Aren't Tied Together

On various occasions I have spoken out against the various evils that plague our society. Be it the prejudices against various ethnic groups inhabiting our country, or the unnecessary and pointless segregation of humans on the basis of caste. I wrote against the actions of a certain hard-core Hindu organisation that beat up women in the name of ‘Bharatiya Sanskriti’. I wrote about the monstrosities that women face every day in our country and around the world.

This time, I dared to question the actions of an evil, vile organisation spouted from the very depths of hell. This said organisation recently threatened to carry out a most Ungodly act in the name of God.

276. That is the number of girls that was abducted from a school in Nigeria on 14^th April, 2014. The terrorist organisation called Boko Haram invaded the school premises, overpowered the security forces, and forcefully took the girls before disappearing into the nearby forested areas bordering Cameroon.

‘Boko Haram’ literally translates to “Western education is sin”. The organisation is of the belief that women ought to restrict themselves to being cooped up in the kitchen, doing household chores, rather than doing meaningless stuff like getting an education, reading and writing, having a life, or daring to even think of being considered as humans. Women are commodities like household items or at best livestock. Having such ideas is totally ‘haraam’!!

Even recently, the group has carried out several attacks and killed thousands of innocent people at schools, churches, government buildings and police stations.

The fate of 223 girls still hang in the balance. The leader of the Islamist militant group, Abubakar Shekau, dared to release a video on 5^th May, 2014. In the video, he proudly announces that he plans to sell the girls in the flesh market.

Would you want to know what he says in the name of the Almighty?

“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah… There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women.”

This is what he does in the name of Allah. He is a pimp and a terrorist, nothing more than that.

Here ends my account of the situation that has engulfed the country in the past few weeks.

Now I turn to another aspect that I wish to address.

I had posted about this on my Facebook page. Sadly, that backfired. The reason for that was that the incident happened to coincide with another, much more important tragedy. Yes, you read that right. There’s a classification of tragedies as well, based on where they occur. If you remember, around that time, a Korean ferry had capsized in the sea, killing several people. Many went missing. But since South Korea is a very important strategic ally, given the problem child North Korea, and Nigeria is… well… not that important, naturally more coverage was given by the media to the former.

I was told to shut up and not speak ill of the religion. I clarified my stand, stating that I am not against any religion, only against those who claim to be the flag bearers and ‘thekedaars’ of their respective religions. I even posted a link of the news article. I was promptly told to not believe everything I read. It can be misleading. Why then, I wonder, should people believe everything they read in the religious texts? Can’t that be misleading?

This is the state of affairs. We don’t know what is happening in the world. We don’t know what a few individuals are doing in the name of religion. We are either unaware, or choose to be silent on the atrocities people commit in the name of religion, yet lose not a minute in silencing those who dare to question these wrongs.

Even though I do believe in a higher power, it does not cloud my judgement of right and wrong. I believe that God, whether you call him Krishna, Christ, Allah, Yahweh or Ahura Mazda, is a benevolent God, who, as far as I believe, certainly doesn’t sanction selling women as commodities. This is my parting thought to those who were so irked by my statement.

“You do not need religion to have morals. If you can’t determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion.”