Catatonic Catastrophe!

The Tsunami that flattened Japan, the torrential floods in Bangkok, hurricane Irene that missed New York only to be trapped by the worst snowstorm. Throughout history, earthquakes, floods and droughts have been associated with powerful religious and moral tales about human error and divine retribution. Indeed, since Biblical times, disasters have been experienced as key defining moments in human history. Events such as the fall of Adam or Noah’s Flood were interpreted in a similar fashion and Martin Luther represented the Biblical deluge as a catalyst for speeding up the world’s decay. Historically, communities have sought to resolve the crisis of meaning that confronts them through elaborating an ideology of evil. Such an ideology helps to give some meaning to a catastrophe, seeking to explain its causes and promoting the idea that someone or something is to blame.
This is where the gods are supposed to play games with the lives of men and women on a board which is a playing area encompassing the whole world and fate always wins. Most of the Gods throw dice, but fate plays chess, and you don’t find out until it’s too late that fate has been using two queens all along. We often notice the existence of more or less fixed ideologies in other people’s minds. These fixed ideas which they think are often planted without them being aware of doing so. We call them prejudices or blind beliefs, which are logically quite correct, because they have seeped into the mind; and are in no way the result of thought or judgment.
This dialogic prejudice traditionally handed over by the clergy and unthinking preachers is the bane of diversity and pluralism, whose proponents of freedom of thought and morality have always been blocked by the defenders of religion who rush to defend its tenets. The word belief or prejudice is applied to ideas that are patently erroneous and recognizable as such by anyone except the “prejudiced man”. As Wayne stated, trouble with beliefs is that only 33% believe that absolute moral truth exists. Theology, Spirituality or Philosophy cannot resolve problems and in ethics absolute moral truth is a nightmare!
The greatest irony is that any right thinking person can understand the abiding and strong pull of love for other humanity which can be wonderfully nuanced if one take a pluralistic approach. These tacit assumptions or pre-suppositions have been dulled into our mind by religion and has not been evaluated independently by us. As long as society remains hostage to religion these dilemmas will always be inherent. It is an uncomfortable feeling because the preachers never tire of telling us that their religion and scriptures are neutral; whether they enrich humanity or destroy it depends on how they are used. The dead man’s smile is the shadow that will eventually take over in death.