It is interesting to see how the attitudes of humanity are shaped by religions and parental attitudes. All religions tell you how to live. "Love thy neighbor" is certainly a positive message given by most religions. It gets converted to "don't ever get pally with non-neighbors, who incidentally are defined as people of different religion". Message for trust and friendship gets converted into fear and distrust. This probably comes from a general low self esteem, and fear of failure.
The question is what is the alternative? The biggest "do" for life in my opinion is "Love thyself". This is somehow missing from most of the religions. Religions regulate public life, interaction with others from the society. As far the interaction with self is concerned, it is very negative. In fact messages like "you are born a sinner" "your fate is determined by what (bad things) you did in the last life" are pretty common. The low self esteem helps the religion to make everyone fall in line, submit to the higher authority, walk the straight and narrow.
But everyone really liking themself is the key to developing any healthy society. It is the next step to the freedom of mind, once the body is freed from the strife of ill health, and drudgery of work.
This process has started, though it's still in its infancy. Just like thousand years ago only a handful percentage of people enjoyed long life and less than 50 hours a week of work, today only a few percentage of people enjoy the excellent mental health. There is some weak correlation between the financial strength and mental well being. (need data here).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment