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In Bertrand Russell’s words: “Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives` mouths.”

Aristotle was a genius in almost every field of knowledge during his time. People around him took his words and teachings for granted and believed in him without much debates. The intellectual backwardness starts very simply just like that and the society remains backward if people follow blindly without questioning the realities around them.

There is no shortage of Aristotles in the world of today. Some ReligioPolitical leaders are backed by orthodox religious communities - claiming to know everything with certainty from science to history; a science without any proof and an invented history to prove their point of view the way they see the world. This is very true if you consider the psyche of some group of people who are addicted to their strong beliefs in their religious supremacy and that they would not come out from the past and continue to repeat the same statements of their ‘advanced’ nature of religion compared to others, without any hesitations. They only find their talents in their past, no display of achievements in the present and as for the future, it is also based on their ancestor’s prophecies.

It would be definitely a sacrilege to say against any religion or people who follow their faiths with deep sense of devotion where they find their individual peace and solace. This essay is definitely not against the religion itself but some of the ‘Groups & Intellectuals’ who take shelter of their religion to undermine the growth of humanity itself.

Over the past millennium, the Christian Nations of the West have faced a number of cultural and philosophical revolutions. These revolutions have led to societies that are more scientifically advanced as well as more understanding of the realities of our world compared to certain countries. To just count a few: The flat earth, the earth- centred universe, slavery, racism (evil stepsister of casteism), segregation and apartheid, patriarchy and the marginalization of women, creation of earth in seven days including Adam and Eve. In every example, the right winger defenders of the status quo have used the Bible extensively to mount a very vigorous defense of their position. No Christian today would defend the flat Earth or the Sun revolving around the Earth. Some of these issues are settled and the biblical arguments for them have been discredited and rejected! This process is well underway, considering that other issues are popping up and are still more orthodox/biblical (for example the Darwin’s evolution theory in some states of US where evangelist do not accept monkey as their ancestors). Nevertheless, there are many more issues like allowing new definition of marriage to allow Adam to marry Steve too not just Eve; facing the western society where they are bitterly divided and it is still evolving with time. It is also worth pointing out that for the most part, these changes were brought about by Christians who had to struggle sometimes heroically against their fellow Christians, to change their traditional way of thinking. For example, one of the Galileo’s contemporaries Giordano Bruno, who had earlier written that “…innumerable suns exist, innumerable earths revolve about these suns in a manner similar to the ways planets revolve around our sun...” had the misfortune of being burned to death by the Church in 1600 for his heretical view. Galileo did not suffer the same fate, instead he was placed under house arrest till his death and eventually pardoned by the current Pope in 1992, 350 years later! Well, thank you Pope! These days, the Christian conservatives work in a different ways: Help to elect or re-elect politicians and demand pay back in the form of biblical virtues to support their agenda.

Let us look at other major issues of the Muslim world where there is no place for optimism for a Liberal Islam as the same age old mistakes are repeated in their own societies around the world: Religious extremism, fundamentalism, suicide-bombing and Islamic terrorism continue to be the distinctive features of the majority of Muslim states and areas under the influence of the Islamic Spiritual Empire operating by different names supported by the oil-money and religious black mailing of poor Muslims. While fundamentalism, superstition, ignorance, lack of human rights, forced seclusion of women within their houses create a bad image of orthodox Muslim society; though this sign of backwardness could be also traced in other religions as well in past or present.

Time is up now for the civilized Muslim world to wake-up from the dazed condition and stop this blind tolerance of the organized intolerant organizations as their backwardness disease is already spreading and harming more of their own communities first and then others. Many of the acts of the Islamic states and societies, organizations and individuals always justify in the name of Allah or Quran, are barbaric and medieval- for example: The beheading of the innocent hostages, death penalties and murders for religious reasons, chopping of hands and feet, stoning to death of women, honor-killing on mere suspicion, suicide-bombings and acts of other types of terrorism, these characters are signs of rotting and deadly disease affecting the humanity. Extremist or terrorists’ shout of murder on the name of a merciful Allah and this is a mere hypocrisy and is a danger to civilization everywhere which knows no border. Nearly every Islamic state have failed to appreciate the basic human rights of their people, their women and their minorities which is dangerous not only for itself but for the world as a whole.

There is no shortage of Hindu Aristotles either who never get tired in explaining the greatness of Bharat Mata and Hinduism and blame all its fault and decline on progressive minded Hindu thinkers and, of course, bashing other religions for holding their growth in all aspects of life. Their hearts swell with pride in quoting a murderer like Nathuram Godse who has secured his name in the history books just like John W. Booth, Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan the killers of Lincoln and the Kennedy Brothers. If you follow their writings and philosophy, they always twist the facts by quoting the messages of the Great Saints which is suitable to their agenda of intolerance or inventing history to prove things to their liking. These new prophets of modern Hinduism, who never get tired in mentioning their pride in Hindu way of life as they only see in the mirror, like the Greek youth Narkissos (who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool ) in a gentle and tolerant face full of wisdom; failing to see the other face of the mirror, ugliness- representing the evil side and weaknesses of their orthodox views. They do not explain or even recognize the fall of Hinduism from its great Vedic ideology to a cult of violence; justifying in the name of religion the animal sacrifices to human sacrifice by creating Sati Pratha. Reformers like Buddha and Mahaveer were able to stop the animal sacrifice to a certain extent in the past but the barbaric Sati tradition, in the name of religion where not a single reference in Vedic literature indicating existence of this act of inhumane torture of women, continued for over two thousand years. God must have taken a human form as Raja Ram Mohun Roy to fight the orthodox Hindus to stop the emotional exploitation of helpless widowed women and throwing them alive on funeral pyres.
The defenders of Hindu faith cry and express anger noisily about the destruction of thousands of Temples and polluting their society by the Islamic invaders. But they fail to explain the reason behind their defeat by a small but tough minority, first Muslim and then the British, ruling over them for more than 800 years .What happened to the courage of the Hindu civilization? The attitude of Hindu Kings who depended so much on their court astrologers for their opinions on every move that led a defeat after defeat and a general fatalist character became the second name of Hinduism.

If you depend on the stars and the positions of the planets to make decisions, surely God does not come to your rescue, as probably He Himself is busy in maintaining celestial tranquility. To give an example, knowing that the Somnath Temple would be attacked by Ghazni, the local Hindu population, rather than preparing for the battle to defeat the invader spent many days and nights praying to God for rescue. It was no show by God as if to teach them a lesson: Do not believe in miracles and superstitions.

In ancient India, scientific achievement advanced only because orthodoxy was not allowed to prosper. However, prior to the tenth century decline in intellectual vigor was showing the signs of backwardness and with the numerous Islamic invasions India fell deeper in the dark age of ignorance. It is very truly said that the greatest enemy of Hindus are not non-Hindus but themselves. No doubt slavery of Hindu culture under Islamic invaders triggered the downfall of independent thinking; they failed to learn from other culture while Arabs learned mathematics, logic and in the field of astronomy and other Hindu wisdom.

Arabs also learned, studied and translated from other cultures like Greek, soaking with knowledge and also passed through the renaissance period. But Hindus turned blind eye to the changes around them preferring a life of full of superstitions, forbidding on crossing seas and meaningless caste politics, to a policy of ‘touch me not-I am holy’. The Hindu India got cut off from the rest of the world during critical stage of industrialization and the scientific development. And it is not that they were not warned repeatedly from time to time in our history by the great leaders and thinkers like Shankar, Nanak, Kabir, Vivekanand, Mahatma Gandhi, to name just a few and shown the path to follow for progress. In 850 AD Adiguru Shankaracharya almost single handedly put the Hinduism- which had fallen into oblivion, on the right track and revived the greatness of Hinduism. If Vedanta is the dominant philosophy to represent India or Hinduism, the entire credit goes to him for promoting the truth revealed in the Upanishads. Incidentally, first translation of fifty-two Upnishads from Sanskrit to Persian was completed by Shah Jahan’s son Dara Shikoh in 1657. It was from this translation that the Upnishads first became known in the west, when a French version was made of Dara Shikoh’s work in Persian.

Nanak and Kabir gave them the message of true meaning of divinity, to seek the knowledge through humanity, by discarding the robes of caste & creed and meaningless rituals. So did Swami Vivekananda who thundered from all four corners of India to America to Europe to uplift the true Hinduism, rejecting superstition, outmoded believes and falsehood. He wanted to combine western progress with Vedic spiritual background to take Hinduism out from the clutches of stagnant wrinkled minded orthodox people who continued to cling to traditional interpretations having no connection with the rest of the world. In his words: “Occultism and mysticism… these are creepy things; there may be great truths in them, but they have nearly destroyed us.”

There should be absolutely no tolerance for any religiously organized intolerance against liberalism, human rights and women`s equal status and other charter of rights of our human civilization. The educational backwardness reflects economic backwardness and economic backwardness perpetrates educational backwardness; it has become a vicious circle. No country can boast of development if its sizeable minority lags behind and if its large population remains illiterate and poor. Their economic and educational progress is, therefore, very crucial for the progress of the country.

One has to realize that these are the true faces of the mirror. Any doubt? Well, you are not alone, as Bertrand Russell also rightly said: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Raj Shekhar

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