I have to begin this post clarifying that I am not questioning religions. I am questioning your idea or understanding of your religion and even though I mention only a few scenarios, the question is for each of us who believe in our own version of our religions.
Is Your Idea of Religion Right, if it puts Life in Jeopardy? Say you are following your scriptures verbatim. But that causes a certain inconvenience to another. Does that please your God? Simply put, you went to your temple of worship because of your idea of your Religion, but you ended up spreading Coronavirus to all the worshipers there. You didn’t know that you were sick, but you knew that the virus was doing its rounds and the people were being advised to stay at home. How would you justify that?
Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat conducted an Event in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area in March. People from different countries attended this event and once it ended, many of those who attended it, decided to stay on, including some foreigners. We need to remember that by March, the situation all over the world had worsened. And so conducting an event that involved the participation of people from foreign countries was a grossly negligent move specially when Indians themselves who came from abroad were being quarantined!
I do not see the point in fighting amidst each other, or blaming a particular religion for this mishap. Clearly the head of the sect Tablighi Jamaat is the first one to be answerable, followed by every person who attended it. They as individuals made a conscious choice to get together amidst the chaos when it was not advisable. No excuses that is being circulated on the internet could justify the event.
Initially Maharashtra and Kerala reported the highest number of cases mostly because of Indians who came from abroad. But over the last few days Delhi, Telangana and Tamil Nadu showed spikes in their Coronavirus cases along-with the former 2 states because of the Tablighi Jamat event. With the help of data released by various States and UTs, it is believed that around 8000 people have been to the group’s headquarters in Nizamuddin area. The participants are being identified and the contact tracing has been in progress. The event and the resulting chaos have infuriated the people and the authorities equally. While the Central Government and the respective State Governments have been trying to find methods to control the situation, the people as usual have sought to ‘resolve’ the matter by fighting, name calling and turning this into a religious agenda.
Because of the event, the positive cases in India doubled in just 4 days. As per the Health Ministry, if not for the event, the number would have doubled only in 7.4 days. The Markaz Chief Maulana Saad is under self quarantine and once the time frame ends, he will be questioned by the Delhi Police.
Meanwhile, I came across a video released by CNN wherein people who have been to Church are being asked why they aren’t staying at home. Here are some alarming answers:
“I’m covered in Jesus’s blood. All these people go to this church. I go to the grocery store every day, all those people, they could get me sick, but I am not. Because I am covered in Jesus’s blood”
“The blood of Jesus cures every disease : Psalms 91. Read it!”
Here’s the video:
These are a bunch of people who have made up their minds that nothing will happen to them, that they are miraculously covered in Jesus’s blood and we do have a Pastor who ‘would know’ if somebody is sick while even the medics are in a helpless state. It is funny how beliefs could make people insensitive to suffering. They don’t understand that their liberty could kill people or worse, make them suffer. Please remember that these videos are from the worst hit place as of now (11th Apr 2020); USA with over 5 lakhs positive cases.
I believe Religion, among other things, make life meaningful for humans. When you are going through the toughest times, you turn to your faith and search for answers. No Religion ever asks you to cause harm. But the irony is that in the above cases, people have used their Religion to cause harm and they aren’t even aware of it! We are creatures with such good powers of discrimination and yet we are easily fooled.
Every time I think of how easily our world could crumble, I freak out! The odds are scary. There are a million ways the disease could spread but only one way to stop it.
Featured Photo by Ian Espinosa on Unsplash
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