Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Religion and practice

Sir, — This has reference to the article `Living with difference' (Sept. 14). Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta explodes the myth asserted by the Supreme Court in the National Council for Education Research and Training curriculum case that all religions are fundamentally the same though their practices differ.

According to Swami Vivekananda, all religions have three basic elements — the philosophy setting forth the fundamental principles, the goal and the means of reaching it, then mythology and lastly the ritual. There is no similarity either in philosophy or mythology. Rituals are entirely different even among sects within a religion. We can hardly find any universal feature with regard to the religions. ``Nothing makes us so cruel as religion, and nothing makes us so tender as religion. That is the fundamental similarity". The assertion of the Supreme Court is indeed curious.

V.K. Sathyavan Nair,

Kottayam, Kerala

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