This post is a sort-of addition to the post labeled ‘terror’.
I wish to stress upon what we consider as facts, and how anger and hatred (or simply bias) might influence our interpretation of these facts.
A simple fact. ‘Jihad’ supports attacking people. Try to dig deeper and you find it initially had 2 meanings… one more radical, one less so. One, that jihad should target even muslims who interpret their faith differently, attack and get rid of them… and two, the one that rejects the ‘legal’ definition (as armed conflict) and insists on withdrawing from worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth. Islamist scholars are still deciphering the true meanings (in an uncanny resemblance to hindu literature) as meant by the Quran. (also read comments on the earlier post)
Of course, there have been people who have interpreted it wrongly and unethically, and used that interpretation for their own interests, whatever they may be… but if you realize, this is true for almost every religion I know of. Nag Panchami wasn’t made to stitch snakes’ mouths and make them drink milk (which they can’t digest), but to respect the spirit of the snake who ate the farmers’ enemy (rodents, if you didn’t get that)…
We base our conclusions upon whatever information (correct or incorrect) we know. We try to figure out whether the (super-ancient) people who ‘made’ religion meant this or that, and which exactly should we follow. But what we don’t realize, is that in the end, we only act upon “our own” interpretations.
My purpose for bringing hate and anger into the picture was simply this. Anger does not allow us to interpret a piece of information in a stable, logical way. We see only what we want to see, we infer only what we want to infer, and we believe only what our “aroused” emotions allow us to believe.
I understand the situation isn’t so innocent and naïve… all I’m saying is that feeling anger limits our capacities of solving it, and unknowingly, we do more harm than good.
I quote a common sentiment I’ve heard,
“terrorists feel what they feel because of religion and we feel what we feel because they killed our loved ones/mumbaikars/indians.”
(If I’m a fanatic) I feel hatred because of my religion… what does this mean?
Because I feel my religion is under threat… I feel as if someone will “harm” what I do or what I believe… simply, I feel threatened. All over the world, for ages, people have done enough to fuel this feeling. Even now, there are people around me who are, knowingly and unknowingly, fuelling it.
And to be really honest, we feel anger because they killed some of us… which might mean we feel ‘we’ have lost someone and ‘we’ (or people close to us) might be next. Isn’t this also simply a feeling of being threatened? And ‘they’ are fuelling it.
What’s sad is that we are allowing our anger to be fuelled by them.
When you go deep and think of the cores that both arguments have, you will realize that they are shockingly similar. What I’m proposing, is a total shift into a stable and ethical zone, which is difficult, but not impossible.
I wish to stress upon what we consider as facts, and how anger and hatred (or simply bias) might influence our interpretation of these facts.
A simple fact. ‘Jihad’ supports attacking people. Try to dig deeper and you find it initially had 2 meanings… one more radical, one less so. One, that jihad should target even muslims who interpret their faith differently, attack and get rid of them… and two, the one that rejects the ‘legal’ definition (as armed conflict) and insists on withdrawing from worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth. Islamist scholars are still deciphering the true meanings (in an uncanny resemblance to hindu literature) as meant by the Quran. (also read comments on the earlier post)
Of course, there have been people who have interpreted it wrongly and unethically, and used that interpretation for their own interests, whatever they may be… but if you realize, this is true for almost every religion I know of. Nag Panchami wasn’t made to stitch snakes’ mouths and make them drink milk (which they can’t digest), but to respect the spirit of the snake who ate the farmers’ enemy (rodents, if you didn’t get that)…
We base our conclusions upon whatever information (correct or incorrect) we know. We try to figure out whether the (super-ancient) people who ‘made’ religion meant this or that, and which exactly should we follow. But what we don’t realize, is that in the end, we only act upon “our own” interpretations.
My purpose for bringing hate and anger into the picture was simply this. Anger does not allow us to interpret a piece of information in a stable, logical way. We see only what we want to see, we infer only what we want to infer, and we believe only what our “aroused” emotions allow us to believe.
I understand the situation isn’t so innocent and naïve… all I’m saying is that feeling anger limits our capacities of solving it, and unknowingly, we do more harm than good.
I quote a common sentiment I’ve heard,
“terrorists feel what they feel because of religion and we feel what we feel because they killed our loved ones/mumbaikars/indians.”
(If I’m a fanatic) I feel hatred because of my religion… what does this mean?
Because I feel my religion is under threat… I feel as if someone will “harm” what I do or what I believe… simply, I feel threatened. All over the world, for ages, people have done enough to fuel this feeling. Even now, there are people around me who are, knowingly and unknowingly, fuelling it.
And to be really honest, we feel anger because they killed some of us… which might mean we feel ‘we’ have lost someone and ‘we’ (or people close to us) might be next. Isn’t this also simply a feeling of being threatened? And ‘they’ are fuelling it.
What’s sad is that we are allowing our anger to be fuelled by them.
When you go deep and think of the cores that both arguments have, you will realize that they are shockingly similar. What I’m proposing, is a total shift into a stable and ethical zone, which is difficult, but not impossible.
