Jagat

I was thinking this morning in meditation about Marx's famous statement, "Religion is the opium of the people." His meaning was that religion is one of the tools elites use to distract the powerless from revolution. Promises of heaven and threats of hell are part of the system to preserve the status quo in the world. Making tolerance and other passive virtues into cultural values -- for the ruled, not the rulers -- is another element of that exercise in social control. Like Napoleon Bonaparte observed, "Religion [alone] is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." In so many ways, religion is just a kind of entertainment, an element in the "circuses" part of "bread and circuses." Interestingly, Bharata Muni in the first chapter of  Nāṭya-śāstra makes it clear that entertainment was originally conceived of as religious propaganda. The dramatic arts, which in Bharata include poetics as well as music and dance, are meant to communicate ...

I recently came across the following headline on Alternet, Don't Look on the Bright Side: Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us . My immediate reaction was, “Optimism is NOT magical thinking.” I have written about this before, that religion, reduced to its essence, is simply an optimistic world view . Religion means optimism. Faith means accepting that Something is behind everything after all, that there is a meaning to existence, a purpose that has more depth than mere survival and the trivial enjoyments and pursuits that preoccupy the majority of people. Even an atheist has to find, accept or devise -- if for nothing more than practical reasons -- that there is some structure, some purpose to his own presence in the world. Science, for instance, cannot stand without a faith in the existence of structures and laws that are fathomable. In a world where suffering is omnipresent, on//e needs a reason for living. Otherwise, the only logical option, in the face o...