STATING THE OBVIOUS WITH CONVICTION

17/3/2010
Mahatma Gandhi said "you should not lie", Jesus said "love your neighbour", Buddha said "you should not kill". So and so said "we should always strive for peace" or "you should not steal"

 These are obvious moral codes and you will not find any sane human being who will not agree with these. It irritates me when people qualify these statements with the name of an important person or religion. No religion says "do not help poor" "do not speak the truth" "make war not peace" but I so often hear people saying "my religion says "help the poor" "or my religion is peaceful". You will not start lying or stealing or killing someone whether Mahatma Gandhi or the Great Buddha said to the contrary or not.

 A fellow traveller said to me that his religion promoted well being of every human being. I said "can you tell me which religion does not claim to do that?" he got angry and further conversation stopped because we both wanted to reach our destination safely.

 Why does one feel the need to qualify an obvious statement?

 

I think people do this mostly to disown the exact opposite deeds in which they or members of their own creed are involved. The CEO of a big arms manufacturing company said that he was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi who believed in non violence.

A child was caught stealing in the school. The headmaster phoned the mother to discus this. When he explained to her what happened, the mother haughtily said that it could not be true. The headmaster was taken a back and asked why the mother was so convinced. The mother said because her great-great grand father (who happened to be a well known leader in the last century) had said that stealing was a sin.

 It may also be that people do this to convince themselves that their religion, or their role model or their religious leader is some how better than others or simply to empower themselves with some false superiority which really does not exist.
Let me know what you think.