About friends and religion

18th August 2014:
Today morning my phone's calender app reminded me that it happens to be Parsi New Year or Navroz. 

  (Har rooz-etaan Noroz, for what its worth!)

So I logged on to Facebook (a morning ritual) and decided to wish a happy new year to my Parsi friends.

It was then that I realized that I can't recall a single Parsi friend over the top of my head.
Sure, a customized search revealed a couple of them but to my utter surprise, I never thought of them as Parsi; which led to the realization that friends are friends and their religion is one aspect that I did not consider until just then.

So I decided to play a mind game.

Take one factor at random, like religion, caste, eye color etc. Something that the society tends to segregate people on and think of how many friends or acquaintances you can name based on that fact. The trick is not to think too much, just try to say the thing out loud, (like Brahmin Caste) and see how many of your friends' names pop into your head at once.
If you think a bit, you will start forming a list.

For example, consider the Muslim religion. Just like that I can name maybe two people but if I start thinking, I will consider the names of my friends and start categorizing them into Muslims and non-Muslims.

Once you have done this, take up another factor which is characteristic of a person, like cheerful. Immediately, I could think of about 7 people in my friend lists who are cheerful (out of about 500). 

So a sample of my friend list looks like this:

Now all this led me to think upon the importance we place on certain factors while making friends.

We would definitely like to befriend people who are

1. Cheerful

2. Caring

3. Pleasant looking
(yeah! that's me.)

4. With similar thought process

5. With benefits 

These factors are universally true.
However, we as a society tend to shun and classify/ profile people based on entirely different factors.

We tell our kids not to mix with them.

We try not to marry into their community.

We think they are a bad influence.

We feel they don't belong.

And so many other stupid reasons to segregate ourselves from those around us.

Now I am not denying that some of these are based on racial memory/ experience but for the most part these do not have a basis in reason.

I have family members who would go ballistic if I married outside my religion however, we are Hindu and our best family friends are Christians. I have studied in a convent school and have partaken meals with a variety of castes, religions and other social (and a few anti-social) children. 

Every morning for about 14 years of schooling, I prayed to Jesus, our savior and once a week I was dragged to pray to Shiva, the destroyer.
Now, I detest both equally and therein happens the brain-wave.

Instead of preaching religion, we should be teaching kids to hate religion.

Now I can feel many asses getting tightened here but hear me out.

We teach our kids the following and judge for yourself how well that turns out :

1. Do not steal

2. Do not lie

3. Obey the law

4. Be humane

5. Respect other people

6. Do not smoke

7. Drink (only if its a cultural thing) in moderation

8. Drive safely

9. Study well

10. Don't be promiscuous

Now as our kids grow up, they know that these teachings are good and should be followed but then puberty strikes and their rebellious streak inspires them to do the exact opposite, starting with no. 10.

So why not teach them something opposite, then they would do the opposite and end up doing the right thing.

Teach your kids that God is a figment of man's imagination, conjured to explain the inexplicable.

Tell them that they can get married to whoever they want.(because they are going to do it any way)

So basically, teach your kids to be religious zealots, bigots and ass-holes.

And when they grow up, and are being brainwashed by the actual ass-holes, they will run in the opposite direction because the ass-holes will remind them of you!

Cheers!