The subject is thought provoking. It couples two concepts that are not complementary, but yet related. Not ‘complementary’ because morality is not synonymous with religion; ‘related’ because religion at its best always bred a high moral sense.
Religion is faith in a Superpower, whereas morality is born and nurtured within a community or an individual by close reasoning of what is good and healthy for it and what is not.
A keen moral sense is the fundamental asset of institutions and individuals. It, however, changes with time as our social norms, life-style and expectations alter. It is not the same everywhere. In a pre-industrial culture the norms are different from those in a post- industrial one.
These are studies that concern sociology and human behaviours. Expectations of moral attitudes today cannot be the same as earlier. Yet moral values do not change abruptly. But today the shift seems, indeed, a bit rapid and unwarranted. It will be convenient to trace the changes from the family units to their larger varieties.
The joint family is, today, obsolete (= of no use). Even parental family units are disintegrating. Naturally, feelings of loyalty and allegiance are fast vanishing. There is little feeling of togetherness of the former days that accounted for amity, cooperation, duty and other kinds of attachment. Today children feel free after settling their old in parents cosy apartments with a handsome allowance for subsistence. Next, the earlier concept of society that it comprises a community of persons bound by a contract and a common interest has become defunct.
The above concepts were an outcome of agrarian economy. Land was the chief resource to fall back upon, and it was everyone’s interest to husband (= protect) the landed estate. It engendered (=produced) a community interest, mutual help and sacrifice, feelings of respect and an awareness of dependence on others. History is a proof to the fact that even those who remained abroad maintained link with their parental units, their families.
But today there is a fast erosion of these moral values. The god of Mammon (= of Money) is sucking our life dry of all spiritual essence. Marital relationships are the worst hit; living together, fraudulence, living separate and many such things are spawning up.
As a result of this ‘gold-rush’ our social and cultural roots are slackening. Formerly foreign cultural inputs took time to be absorbed in our native culture. But today, thanks to our craze for change and impatience of tradition in toto, our younger sections are apt to switch over. In consequence, free sex, HIV positive tests, rapid and untrammeled (= unchecked) growth of schools, and many such vagaries of a decadent culture are fast cropping up.
We are in a transitional phase. Such periods of flux in history are always marked by such crises of moral and cultural values. No wonder, with time these values, that appears today perverted or misfit, would seep into our life’s texture and establish themselves.
Religion and a devoted pursuit of religious values are nearly dead today. Our younger generation holds that an excess of faith on the supernatural and the unseen or unseeable cripples a man. Adventure, individual prowess, the passion to explore and dare the unknown coupled with an explosion (= sudden burst) of opportunities have called in a new age. Naturally religion in the old dispensation (= system) is obsolete today. Men have, in general, no religion. Religious doctrines mostly fall on deaf ears, and the little of it that survives in women and older people is their personal possession. Moreover our politics has made religion her handmaid. Life has become too materialistic for spiritual faith. There are international religious meets; efforts at a union of religious differences; rejuvenation of creeds and a more enlightened interpretation of the religious texts in the modern context. But one wonders, how far they have been able to influence or affect the thinking of men in general. In fact, life today rides so fast on the crest of the scientific wave that such talks look ridiculous to the present generation.
Apart from being a dead force in human life, today, religion has lost its glamour, being vindictive (= vengeful). Intolerance, burning of preachers of other religions are frequent and remind one of the witch huntings in the past. The p pages of our newspapers team with instances when wild religious animosity (= contempt) lead to the worst humiliation of great persons. Religion as a work- force is unable to hold its in the present set-up.
