I get into a healthy number of fights over this stuff. But having gone through a similar ordeal not so long ago, I am going to say it:
Most of our rituals are outdated, pointless and absolutely dumb.
I am sure some antediluvian a**hat will throw some esoteric number arguing that Indians calculated the distance to the sun before Christ was born, so we were advanced and these rituals are the product of an erstwhile advanced civilisation.
If we were so advanced, why did we not spark the Industrial Revolution. Why did we not come up with the periodic table? Why did we not discover fertilizers? Why did we not figure out modern medical science? Sure we contributed in ways with contributions to math, trade etc. But the key drivers did not come from us. It’s that simple.
Every single person who defends rituals and our outdated practices does so living in a civilisation that looks absolutely nothing like it did a couple of hundred years ago. The clothes they wear. The food we eat. The houses we live in. How we make a living. How we pay for things. How we transact. How we make things we eat or use. How we make it to the ripe old age of 69. Nothing resembles anything our ancestors did. Most of our traditions are better off dead. And how we grieve is the first thing that needs reexamination and be given the boot.
PS: Mourn anyway you want to. But don’t try and rationalise it. And most definitely don’t sit on some moral or cultural high horse like you are doing right by the dead.
Most of our rituals are outdated, pointless and absolutely dumb.
I am sure some antediluvian a**hat will throw some esoteric number arguing that Indians calculated the distance to the sun before Christ was born, so we were advanced and these rituals are the product of an erstwhile advanced civilisation.
If we were so advanced, why did we not spark the Industrial Revolution. Why did we not come up with the periodic table? Why did we not discover fertilizers? Why did we not figure out modern medical science? Sure we contributed in ways with contributions to math, trade etc. But the key drivers did not come from us. It’s that simple.
Every single person who defends rituals and our outdated practices does so living in a civilisation that looks absolutely nothing like it did a couple of hundred years ago. The clothes they wear. The food we eat. The houses we live in. How we make a living. How we pay for things. How we transact. How we make things we eat or use. How we make it to the ripe old age of 69. Nothing resembles anything our ancestors did. Most of our traditions are better off dead. And how we grieve is the first thing that needs reexamination and be given the boot.
PS: Mourn anyway you want to. But don’t try and rationalise it. And most definitely don’t sit on some moral or cultural high horse like you are doing right by the dead.