Ethics and religion

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DIRECTOR of Technical Control for Electricity at the Ministry of Electricity and Water, Iqbal Al-Tayyar says the ministry has issued a number of citations against government institutions, including the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs for failure to rationalize power and water consumption.

This type of violation does not only indicate the breakdown of the relationship between religiosity, the environment and morality, but is also an evidence of the misery of educational curricula and the inability to determine what is important, what is most important, and whether our priorities lie in protecting the environment or our understanding of earning a heavenly reward, for example.

In another incident, the Ministry of Interior has issued the following statistics on the violations committed by the unruly mob during the celebration of the National and Liberation days (I mean for just two days).

The General Traffic Department of the ministry over the two days has issued 10,700 traffic citations, impounded 600 cars and 53 motorbikes and referred 70 juveniles to the prosecution. Hundreds of young men were injured during 80 assault and battery incidents as a result 25 young men were detained at police stations. The Operations Room of the Ministry of Interior also received during these two days 3,257 calls from citizens and expatriates most of whom are believed to be pious which means we come to the conclusion that education has nothing to do either with religion or ethics.

The Iraqi writer Yusuf Al-Saidi, in his dissection of the Iraqi society says hypocrisy is predominant. No one cares about political and administrative corruption, bribe, tax evasion, money laundering or the spread of fraud in goods, the spread of drugs, or arms smuggling but a majority sees corruption, all forms of corruption as normal, such as wearing short skirts, wearing shorts, kissing shown on billboards.

Al-Saidi goes on to say that hypocrisy is to know for certain and by figures that the most religious societies are the most corrupt in management, the most lying in politics, the most depriving the rights of others, the most harassing of women, the most abusive of children. However, the same people say that the cause of corruption in ethics is the lack of commitment, which shows how rude they are.

Hypocrisy ignites sectarian strife in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, awakens tribal wars in Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan, and then they say you are fighting for the unity of Muslims. What a disaster!

We see in a third aspect that the analysis of our societies shows us the fact that the most religious societies, or those that claim to be religious and declare they protect the religion, show the faces of many of their men and women bearing the mark on their foreheads when they bow down in prayer or their hands busy with their worry beads and carrying teeth cleaning twigs. These people are the most corrupt in administration, and the most harassing of women, involved in incest and child sex and the most arrogant.

They are not ashamed when investigating the real causes of tangible negative phenomena and behavioral irregularities of corruption and bribery and theft and harassment and family violence, individually or in community. They escape from their responsibilities, identify their weaknesses and attribute them to religious commitment.

There is a very nice saying: ‘You can lead a horse to the river bank but you can’t force it to drink water’. This applies to religious education in Kuwait, which over the past half century has opened dozens of schools and religious institutes.

This is in addition to the Quran centers and the organization of hundreds of Quran memorization competitions. This is millions of hours of teaching religious subjects in public schools and production of millions of religious textbooks.

After all this the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs complain about its inability to find enough imams and muezzin among the Kuwaitis! There are only 56 Kuwaiti preachers and muezzins when the country needs 2,000.

In another incident, the Brazilian authorities have recently arrested a bishop, who is considered to be a high church religious official in Christianity, on suspicion of embezzling $600,000 from the coffers of several churches.

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By Ahmed Al-Sarraf

This news has been read 16890 times!