Religion, Science & Women
Since the early dawn of mankind, religion has been an integral part of our life and so was Science. As mankind developed a better understanding of the nature, soon came in the concept of Religion and God.
Anything which we couldn’t explain or what we couldn’t understand was put under the heading “The Act of God”. Incomprehensible phenomenon and situations were assumed to be divine activities.
But today, as our level of understanding the Universe has expanded and we have extended our vision spectrum as to- Why are we here? What are we in true sense? We indeed, we have come a long way as compared to our ancestors. Those humans who once considered the Rain, the Sunlight and the Wind the “Gifts of the Lord” are now taming and using them as per their demands.
Those people (our ancestors) would have never, even in their wildest dreams would have imagined such level of development of their off springs but, here we are, sitting on this beautiful globe of ours and enjoying the beauty of science and technology.
As we know, Religion and Science have been rivals since the early ages. Well Religion finds its roots deep in our society. To be true, a society cannot exist without Religion and that is the truth. Every region on this Earth has a religion, whether it may be the widespread “Christianity” with 2.4 billion followers OR may it be “Rastafari” with mere 60,000 adherents. Every society has a religious stance.
But Science, on the other hand was limited to the chosen few, the ones who could break the boundaries of oppressions and lead a life less ordinary.
Religion, (as many people say) has made us who we are, Well I absolutely agree with this fact but doesn’t that make religion, the reason of our hatred for each other, our jealousy, our mass killings, our violence and uncountable other merciless acts. Doesn’t that question the very basis of religion? Doesn’t it question the concept of “Peace?”
I don’t say I don’t accept the authority of God or any other divine entity, I just refuse to accept the authority of “The Church, a Hindu Temple or a Mosque” over its followers and blind faith of the devotees. As Most of the pages of History are painted red with the blood that was flowed under the name of the Church, calling their enemy “Infidel or Unholy”. Not only this thousands of women and children were also decimated in the violent acts performed by these religious institutions with the “blood-lust” along with the ambition of achieving supremacy over maximum Land.
Apart from this, Religion, from the very beginning, has always acted as a shackle, an obstacle for scientific inquiry and development. Many free thinkers and ‘scientists’ were assassinated under the Holy Cross just because they refused to accept that God had created this world and everything in it. Their questions were considered as loss of faith and impious.
The Women of those times, especially the intellectually enlightened ones had to suffer major oppression and it gives me pain to state the fact that “Whenever a woman excelled in Science, the Church called her ‘ A Witch’ or ‘a Devil-pleaser’, their documents and works were burned along with them in so called ‘Public execution”.
The WORST incident of this sort that comes into mind is ‘The Salem Witch Trials’ — “The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts (British Occupied America) between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused. — Ref. WIKIPEDIA.
Things haven’t changed, readers. Women are still seen with disrespectful eyes. The achievements of women are claimed by their husbands & fathers and they are deprived of their basic right “Recognition”.
Although a brisk wind of change is setting its sails but are we going to ride on it and bring all the three extremes of the society “Religion, Science & Women” together as a unit.
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