Believing in Beliefs? (Part 2)

It's alright to allow unproven concepts a recognition into your consciousness, unless you are feverishly defending them. I mean, why not? you are not hurting someone by believing in ghosts/spirits/past life/karma/destiny etc. When beliefs are held at an individual level, it's a perfectly harmless practice. But I am not concerned with that. I see what this kind of thinking gets projected into on a larger scale. When such fascinations, these 'beliefs' become so widespread that people who are not in the habit of thinking for themselves start believing in such concepts immutably. It's not the good part, the 'honey and roses' side of believing that concerns me. It's the bad part. The exploitation, the control over people, the money minting business and sometimes infliction of pain, injuries and even death that disturbs me.

E.g. Religion practiced in your homes is harmless, but when it spills on the streets, meddles with government procedures, that's when it becomes dangerous.

Past life is an interesting concept. It's the respite of a tired soul that has fought in-vain against the still unexplained areas of our existence. But look at the sway it holds on people! There's a whole industry that claims to introduce you to your past life to cure your present day problems.  There was a TV show on this aired a couple of years ago. Scamsters mint money feeding on people's insecurities. Someone claims to be the  reincarnation of some baba and fools take it seriously and queue up to get his blessings.

Is there any evidence to prove that such a thing exist? NO! Are these things causing a menace? YES! So, what to do about it? GET RID OF IT!!

Why is it that a skeptic like us is always so meek whereas a scmaster is always so firm on his/ her beliefs and so boastful of them? Is our duality of thought causing us to stay meek? Then I reject this duality. I speak of evidence. I firmly reject these beliefs until evidence props up. It would be nice if the proponents of such beliefs undertake serious research in these topics and I would be very happy to have been proven wrong, because it doesn't matter whether we are right or wrong, what matters is that truth gets uncovered. But till that happens, I will keep my personal crusade against this sham up and alive.

Science isn't boastful unlike beliefs. It does take into consideration a hypothesis, then works on it, tries to prove/disprove it, collects data that is statistically significant and only then accepts its own hypothesis.

Just because life seems unexplained now and we've our own ways of understanding it doesn't make us right. Our gaps in thinking make us prone to internal conflicts. What courage do we have then to stand up against a conman claiming to be the incarnation of some xyz god? We may think, "oh, it is possible. 0.0000000001% possible." (that means nothing, statistically).

Why does the need of thinking about past life and god and karma arise in the first place? Life may as well be meaningless, purposeless, we die and nobody in the universe gives a flying fish about it. No soul, no balance sheet of our good and bad deeds is kept. So why not hold onto what we know for sure till new evidences come up, no matter how bitter life appears in the process devoid of its embellishments.

By all means, do imagine, make hypotheses, try them, test them, but don't accept them unless proven. The loopholes in logic have time and again proven what a terrible harm they can bring. It's our duty to plug them, for ourselves and for the sake of this society.