“People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.”
― Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery
” Humans are basically good. They’re bad when a fabricated god and a concocted faith eclipse their innate goodness.”
Albert Camus, Guilt and Innocence
These two famous quotes have assumed far greater significance in these times when inherently good humans have turned surprisingly evil, thanks to god, religion and ‘holy’ books. By the way, January 4 is the death anniversary of the French existentialist Albert Camus and January 5 is the birth anniversary of Italian philosopher and exponent of Semiotics, Umberto Eco.
Just ponder; those who crucified Mansur-al-Hallaj and Jesus were not evil. They had no personal enmity against Jesus, Mansur or Sarmad Kashani. Yet, those ‘good’ people tortured and killed innocent souls like these three and many more because people were convinced that their religious tenets were infallible.
All those Hindus, who demolished Babri Mosque, were not necessarily bad people. But they turned evil and vandalised an old and abandoned shrine as they believed that it was the place of their Ram. So, Muslims had no business in Hindus’ scheme of things.
All the perpetrators and participants in the Holocaust and the Partition were normal humans like you and I but they turned demons because of their religious convictions. The widespread belief that Muslims are bad people has stemmed from extremely turbid religious convictions of Hindus. Muslims also think in the same manner and intensity. Our perceptions of ‘other’ people are always coloured by our religious beliefs and convictions.
Galileo said, “Despite knowing and being fully convinced that I’m right and these Biblical fanatics are wrong, I’m having to say that I’m wrong because I’m aware of the evil influence of scriptures that can turn sane people into insane beasts.” So very true.
Religion, scripture and your fabricated god turn perfectly sane humans into insane zealots. The problem with humans is that most of us still erroneously believe that religion allows us to act in a rampaging and marauding manner and a god in the sky approves of this evil behaviour. In other words, like alcohol, religion is often an excuse for humans’ collective sins and savagery.
Here, my objective is not to spread atheism on this site which is principally an Islamic portal that encourages free and liberal thinking sans any partiality and prejudice.
My point is: Don’t let your religion, books and gods influence your basic goodness in such a drastic manner that you cease to remain humans and become embodiments of barbarism. Let our humaneness remain unalloyed by our religiosity.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world’s premier publications in several languages including Persian