Taking a Step Back

A friend told me, that I jumped to conclusions much too soon with the Bible. She said that perhaps. I should have sat through the entire thing, and then gone on to form a proper opinion. As much as all of us dread criticism, I could see her point. We make a lot of errors just by jumping to conclusions. We lose out on opportunities, we lose potentially great friends; basically, we make mistakes-some gigantic, some not so major.What I did, was that I ignored the good, and saw only the negative.

My mom told me, that if the world considers something great, you have to give it a fair shot. You may not like it, you don't have to; but you have to see it for yourself. And then if you don't like it, it's okay. You have justification. You don't prejudge someone on the basis of what someone else says. You can't say that you hate the works of Picasso, without actually visiting one of his museums. The same way, you simply can't say you won't read 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Harry Potter' just because you don't want to. or you don't like books. These are books that have shaped generations. These are books that have fostered dreams in budding writers. I think everyone can be a book lover. They just have to find the right book. According to me, 'Harry Potter' would be a good start.

Coming back to my point, I do have a tendency to jump to way more than just one conclusion. And once that happens, well, there's no stopping me. Today was a bit of an eye-opener actually. Sometimes, taking a step back is all that is required. Because, taking a step back gives you a new perspective. It makes you think from someone else's point of view. How much ever we would like to think that we are the center of the universe, we really aren't. What IS at the center of the universe, we may never know. For the time being, I'm just going retract my opinion and once I'm completely done with the Bible, I'll officially have my opinion. Till then, I'll find something else to write about

Religion is a Misogynist

As I've been doing Milton in Literature, I decided to read the Bible as that would give me a better perspective on Paradise Lost. I haven't read beyond Genesis yet, but I have come to one conclusion-if religion were to be personified, it would be a misogynist. No, really.
Women are portrayed as impure, as temptresses, the weaker, the lesser beings. How is that fair? Women who were good with healing and midwifery were accused of witchcraft. Men felt threatened by a woman in a position of power.
 India's most famous early legal code, The Laws of Manu (Manusmriti), says that a woman is a liar and a sinner. That it is in their nature to seduce men and that a husband can leave his wife if she has only given him daughters; and and and! She should never be allowed to assert herself independently. She always has to be in the custody of a man-be it her father, brother or husband. How evil can you be to compose something like that? That, if a woman overhears Vedic chants by accident, hot molten glass has to be poured in her ears? How can one be capable of such cruelty against your own race?
I haven't read the Quran, but after doing some research, I found that it does say that husbands have a right to hit their wives, if the men fear highhandedness; man is superior to woman-he has to manage her affairs. A direct quote from the Quran is-The Prophet said, "I looked at Paradise and found poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants; and I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants were women.". The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind." . Women apparently, deserved only half of what the man deserved. 
Now, coming to Christianity, which was actually what prompted me to write this post. In Genesis, right at the beginning- God created Eve because he wanted a helper for Adam. He creates her from Adam's rib. Eve is the one who tempts Adam into eating the forbidden fruit and is cursed with painful childbirth and the domination of her husband. Lot tells the villagers to rape his daughters instead of the angels of God; his wife is turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God and he sleeps with his daughters when drunk and impregnates them. And this is just the top of the dungheap. 
One thing that all religions have in common is that, polygamy is perfectly okay if you're a man. The woman was created for only one purpose. To serve. The man could do anything, ANYTHING; and he would still be considered superior and it would probably be blamed on the poor woman. How can books that supposedly preach the word of God say all this? my blood boils even thinking of it. I'm not saying that the people who follow these religions are misogynistic pigs. The ones who actually wrote it... Well that's a whole other story. What if women hadn't finally gotten up and said,"Enough"? Would we still be subservient and willing to endure abuse at the hands of our families? The saddest thing is, that some people still believe in all this. They think that as it is the word of God, it must be true. What a world we live in, don't we?