Now, the Great Lent season is there, and sometimes I meet people who are dogmatic and overly scrupulous regarding only one matter: food. At any moment they ask themselves and others, whether this or that is allowed or not, whether it is fine that the potato was placed next to the fish, etc. I think generally these trifles do not worth spending time and mental energy on. Especially observing each other: you do this, but you do not do that, then you are… That is a bit much for us to become investigators and judges for each other in these matters. During the Lent and beyond it the important thing is that a person is able to control himself, and it is done not by eating or not eating this or that, but by restraining own thoughts, creating barriers for thoughts not appropriate for a human being. One can eat cabbage for months and be evil, jealous, intolerant. Dogmatism of performing rituals is one of the manifestations of the same intolerance.
Recently, I often encounter such a “wisdom” on the Internet: as if no atheist has exploded himself and has not organized a campaign against another religion. To put it mildly, it does not totally correspond to reality. There were atheists who exploded churches and mosques, persecuted believers and clergymen. The Russian Bolsheviks, for example, called themselves “militant atheists”. There are, of course, atheists who have no faith but do not attack believers. As they say, God bless them.
Therefore, the problem is not to be an atheist or a believer, but not to be dogmatic and militant. Militant Christians, Muslims or atheists are equally dangerous for the society. But that does not mean that these religions, or atheism are evil themselves. If you can imagine someone who does not want to listen to any other music other than Mozart, then this person, I believe, is distracted too. But such distracted people (if any) can not diminish Mozart’s genius. The strongest ground for dogmatism, of course, are politics and partisanship. I have not met a party member in Armenia who will admit that his party has committed a mistake within the last 10 or 20 years. Any tone of assessment that will allow to think that the speaker has some doubts about the “leader’s” infallibility and wisdom, is taken as a terrible insult. Partisanship implies “squaredness”.
By the way, why are not there militant Buddhists?
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
