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Indian Man Charged With Blasphemy For Exposing "Miracle"
bhagwad writes "When a statue in Mumbai began to miraculously drip tears, huge crowds began to gather, pray, and collect the water in vials. Sanal Edamaruku has exposed such bogus miracles before, and when he was called in, his investigations showed that it was nothing more than a nearby drainage. The entire investigation was caught on tape. The priests were outraged and demanded an apology. When he refused, a case of 'blasphemy' was registered at the police station and they now want to have him arrested." In related news, today Kuwait's parliament "passed amendments to the Gulf state's penal code stipulating the death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives." However, they made no change to the penalty for playing a joke national anthem at a sporting event.
Why are there so many dumb peopel?
Especially if they got elected in Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Arizona.
I say Mitt Romney picks that statue for a running mate to solve his Mormon problem. The only trick will be telling the two apart.
Hopefully the world will start to grow more accepting toward skeptical beliefs(such as atheism, Agnosticism, etc). It makes me sad how often these beliefs are persecuted :(
In more related news, Tennessee just attacked science to make it harder to teach evolution and climatology because theocrats can't handle the truth.
--
make install -not war
Anyone can register a case for pretty much anything in India. If the police actually arrested the guy, or if he was convicted of blasphemy, it would be worth talking about. Right now, it's just a bunch of nutcases filing a case, not the government. Let's not fall for hyperbole.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
I don't believe any kind of blasphemy laws belong in the 21st century, but seriously...
seriously...
These people worship cows and statues with elephant heads and statues of effeminate guys with six arms
It's not a serious religion
If you are forced to take something like this seriously, and treat it like a cultural element for grown ups. No wonder people in that part of the world are so angry and uptight all of the time. Jeez.
Some "miracles" also happened a few hundreds years ago... But unfortunately nobody could catch anything on tape at the time. And now some schools teach creationism...
Too bad the only true and fortunate miracle that should have but didn't happen at the time was the invention of the video camera.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
but it is not less deserving of ridicule.
NO chance anyone would actually get tried for blasphemy against the Catholic Church in Mumbai.
Not only does 98% of the local population not give a shit, but the church leaders in the Vatican will be smacking their foreheads when they see this. They have been trying for the last couple hundred years to undo the massive ill-will they have caused persecuting/prosecuting "heretics" throughout the ages...
Exposing people's mass religious delusion with proof and making them feel like moronic fools. Jailing him is of course the logical solution. They can't accept and concede they are just stupid and gulible.
"Some religious nutjob wants him arrested" is a far fucking cry from "He's been charged." I want the author of the article headline to be charged with a crime too, doesn't mean it'll happen.
for every kind of crazy you can imagine. And no logic allowed...
"HOWEVER, they made no change to the penalty for playing a joke national anthem at a sporting event."
So, in other words, death penalty for "unpatriotic" act is OK? WOW! just WOW! The world would be much better place without zealots of any kind.
The priests were outraged and demanded an apology. When he refused, a case of 'blasphemy' was registered at the police station and they now want to have him arrested.
That's an odd thing to do, considering the Holy See generally investigates so-called miracles for some veracity first. (For the record, the highest ecclesiastic endorsement for any of the latter-day miracles is essentially, "we can't figure out what happened either, but we're pretty confident that if you believe whatever happened was a miracle, you won't be heading inadvertently down the path of heresy.") And crying statues are some of the oldest known "funny coincidence but definitely not a miracle" phenomena around. Local priests and crazy Indian laws: what can you do? Well, other than bribe someone, that is....
Now we're outsourcing our stupid, too.
In the middle-east (mostly feudal governments) and Asia, life is worth very little.
Their philosophy is slightly totalitarian, in that, the state has more rights than the individual.
Although, they don't seem to have their version of the FBI spying incessantly on the population.
labeling someone a hater or fearer because he doesn't like or has a rational reason to not agree with something is not a counter argument, no matter what the political correctness thinktanks say.
What I want to know is: were Mohammed's wives hot...?
"I long for a time before religion infected the mind of man"
I'm not clear on how instructions from the police to come in and be arrested are "nothing to see here"? Perhaps you could explain?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I think we should take anyone who constantly complains about America's politicians and laws and send them over to Mumbai.
The charge is entirely unconstitutional.
It's written in the Indian Constitution that people not only have the right to pursue the sciences, but have a duty to do so for the whole of society, under Article 51 A.
To wit: Article 51A(h) To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;
He's charged, but the charge won't stick even with a drunken lawyer.
He is roaming around free, because the police and the judge know the charge is bogus and a waste of everyone's time, but to do nothing would cause riots among the derp-infested.
--
BMO
Showy "miracles" that don't do anything are terrible, and they're not restricted to rural India either. Plenty of Christian holy places have some sort of useless crying statue or grilled cheesus. When a true miracle happens, it will be for a reason: healing someone or leading an enslaved people through the desert. God doesn't put on the Ritz for kicks.
It's not blasphemy if a guy goes and proves that there's a leaky pipe, what if a plumber had come onsite to fix it?
If he rocked up and said "Nah he's just a cunt" that'd probably be closer to the "hate speech" India's blasphemy laws refer to.
How can you expect your society to move forward if you allow people to be persecuted for not believing in God.
Plan: Register Atheism as a religious organisation, sue everyone who says God exists because we see it as "hate speech insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings."
My internetting is no good.
There is no crime of 'blasphemy' under Indian law, so I fail to see how this man could be charged with that. I couldn't find any mention of his arrest in the India media, although it might be that the blog referred to in TFA might have caught on to the news early. On the other hand it could be a matter of a group of 'rationalists' getting carried away after being threatened with arrest by some religious freaks.
"death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives."
Laws like this are not helpful to any God. How arrogant to think they need to defend God.
It only makes sense if there is no God.
The people responsible for this law should be brought up on charges of blasphemy.
Anyone can sue anybody in a democracy and that is a good thing.
Drops of water on a holy statue? Sounds just like the Miracle of Peckham.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Here's the Holy Fire being exposed on Greek TV...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejnzXOxGX_M
Ignorance is bliss...
If I remember correctly, someone once said that religion is the opiate of the masses
I must clarify that I am not an atheist - I do believe that there is a ***Creator*** - I see the religions that are being practiced by the billions on this earth contribute nothing to human civilization
Of course, those who believe will tell you that their religion is the "true one", that their version of "true religion" is "peaceful"
Ultimately, religion is a sales / marketing campaign, on a global scale, and many millions depend on "GOD" for the bread that they bring home to feed their kids - that the better they sell "GOD" the more income they gonna get
That is why I am not surprised at all at the anger of those Hindu priests --- Their anger is not towards that guy who expose the "miracle", but rather, they know full well that their income gonna drastically drop after the expose
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
May Allah/God/Buddha bless you son.
It is a very old tactic by the religious establishment, don't question us and we won't question you. Basically, you are free from religious control, unless you question the religious control. You are a free person, unless you try to exercise your freedom.
It has been the way to keep groups down for millenia, Jews are a famous example. Countries that claim to have been tolerant really just operated with "Don't be noticeable and we won't notice you to much".
The Catholic church was fine with evolution, they didn't push for creationism UNTIL Catholics who had accepted evolution made more sense then genesis started to think "wait a minute, if genesis is a fairy tale, then why is any of the rest true and why then is it required for me to remain silent about this priest in my ass?". Creationism and the attack on science didn't start until the church started to loose power because of it. In the 70's, people were still balancing the two. Proof? Their were plenty of scandals back then but people kept quiet because while they accepted evolution, they still believed as well. Enough to not risk upsetting the church. That has changed and the church NEEDS power. Without control, they are nothing. After all, you can talk to god anywhere, why pay for churches and priests when god is everywhere or nowhere?
The church isn't anti-evolution. It is anti-critical thinking. Critical thinkers wonder why the pope has a super luxerous seat on an airplane that could be carrying medicine. Just why gold is needed on a cross for a carpenter. And why people to poor to feed their kids should pay for it all. Can't have that.
The renaissance was another age the church lost a lot of power in because people started thinking. The post-war new age thinking (In Holland, ont-zuiling, the end of the columns of power, where your faith defined who you where and you trusted your boss, doctor and politicians without question) cripped the church even more, now they are determined not to become totally irrelevant. Because the most dangerous idea a church faces is a religious person who realizes that Jezus never founded a church. You can believe without ever going into a church or being buggered by a priest. That is scary as hell to the establishment, those kind of people might even believe you can love your country and STILL question it! It is no accident the religious zealots and the right wingers go hand in hand. Romney and co want you to believe, so you won't think and question. Not just god and the church but the free market, the wars, wallstreet bailouts. Breed, have lots of kids who can't afford to be picky about jobs so Ann Romney can afford a domestic while she bitches about her struggle as a super rich stay at home mom.
Or do you think the right like people having less children who can afford higher education and grow up to be thinking, questioning citizens? Things were so much better when people had a dozen kids who could be send of into domestic service for whatever usage the rich saw fit. And if a girl then inevitably got pregnant by a rich landlord after rape, well, that just ensured the supply of cheap labor would continue.
A fool thinks that those who desire power desire slaves. Far better is a serve, a man who thinks he is free but forges his own chains. Religion and the American dream forges the best chains.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
to the rescue!!
It sure gets harder and harder not to laugh in the faces of religious people..... And then stab them in the brain to stop the stupid from spreading.
Tell you what. If your 'god' needs YOUR help to defend himself from anything... He's a pretty crappy god and you should go find something else to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_and_discoveries#Medicine
But luckily, not for very long.
Oxygen by Antoine Lavoisier in 1778.
How can you denounce something when you can't breathe?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If any of that mumbo jumbo was real, they wouldn't need human laws to defend it. Insult a living god? Get fsked up. No divine wrath? Obviously either there are no gods, (duh,) or the gods don't care. If they don't care, why should you? However, gods, (including Alaha or whatever, Jaway, or whatever, and "God" the no-name Christian BS deity), faeries, demons, genie's, ghosts, spirits, leper-cons, quexelcotals, (or whatever,) unicorns, basilisks, manticores, ogres, trolls, etc., ad nauseum, DO NOT EXIST!!! Use your brains, people!
End rant.
PS: don't bother correcting my spelling. I know some of these words are misspelled. Fact is, it's not worth my time to look up the names of these made-up bullspit characters from archaic, crappy fiction.
How is it that as a rule religions seem to think that their creator is so narcissistic that he/she/it would want/need/demand that people worship he/she/it?
how are the two articles related? because they happened on the same planet? or because religion was involved? (two different religions)
There was an unknown error in the submission.
and pass the ammo...
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. -- Willam Blake
Burn him!!! How dare he go sticking his nose in other peoples business lol.
May Allah/God/Buddha bless you son.
And likewise, may Eagle's mighty wings carry you on your journey to new heights of peace and wisdom (or something like that). :)
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I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?
Probably the same reason He created fossils for dinosaurs that never actually existed.
Can't tell if you're joking or not, so I'll assume you're not and ask the question your remark brings to mind:
What is, all other arguments aside, more likely?
1. Ethereal, magical faerie being dreams the universe into reality by pure force of will. Creates untold billions of stars and almost certainly as many individual planets in a "day" or whatever, then spends about five more working on JUST ONE. Then, buries bones of fake creatures he/she/it made up that never really lived to fool people thousands of years later... all to make it so people would believe in him/her/it by faith alone, because apparently that's important, even though in the books that are (in the case of two or three major sets of superstitious beliefs,) he/she/it did things deliberately, RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE TO MAKE SURE THEY BELIEVED... because he/she/it can't mess with "free will" for some reason, because I guess that just wouldn't be fair, or something, even though it's documented in that very book that he/she/it HAS IN FACT INTERFERED WITH FREE WILL BEFORE!
(Oh, a big BTW on dinosaurs: how come nowhere in "the bible" does it mention dinosaurs? How come Eshmuckial 44:5353 does it not state: and God told me he created many extremely large, fake creatures' bones for archeologists to find three thousand years from now, just to mess with them!"? How come "god" doesn't ever seem to know anything the authors of his "book" didn't know at the time it was written? The mathematical constant "pi" is fairly important. How come "god" never mentions it? Hmm? Oh, right... he wanted us to 'figure it out' ourselves. So things people didn't know at the time, 'god' wants us to figure out. Can you not hear yourselves, apologists for Judeo/Muslo/Christian-o mythology? It sounds like you're talking about Harry Potter!)
2. Giant reptiles stalked the Earth once, died, were buried, and became partially fossilized through processes that are easily demonstrable as not only possible, but in the right situations INEVITABLE. Then later, a bunch of really advanced primates, while not yet technologically advanced enough to have mastered those tools needed to figure out what happened in the past without being told, follow some line of BS someone told them because, hang it all, they couldn't come up with a better line of pure dreck to explain why things were as they were, and given sufficient passion, the ravings of lunatics CAN seem persuasive, even if they were lying (likely) or stoned on some post-neolithic mind altering drug (like 'shrooms, for instance, or opium, or BOOZE) which, when you add the notion of an evil thing (responsible for all bad things that happen, making the character in the story almost universally hated) will try to convince everyone that the BS story they've been handed is false, and that they're to kill anyone who says such a thing...
ONE of these explanations requires magic, and other things not provable. The other is based on stuff we have ACTUALLY DUG UP OUT OF THE GROUND! One is obviously fake, being less substantial than the mist, and one is real enough to clobber some moron over the head with. Take your pick.
I have NEVER heard a Christian claim that dinos never existed. Nice straw man.
You must not have talked to very many Christians... or they weren't educated fully in the dogmatic bullshit that forms the dubious backbone of their idiotic belief system. Perhaps they themselves are not aware that the people who teach this bullshit story for a living believe dinosaurs are fake, the "devil" is real, etc., and if they were, maybe they'd be less inclined to believe the bullshit their religion teachers (or whatev's) are spouting.
I've talked to many Christians about their moronic beliefs, and it is COMMON that they don't believe in dinosaurs, but they do believe in fucking angels. It's really pretty funny when you think about it. It depends on how well miseducated they are, and how seriously they take their religion, I guess.
So to recap, it's not a straw-man. Many Christians (of various stripes) are really that stupid and blind. I think they must put crushed up stupid-pills or something in the "holy" water, or holy fake blood, or holy fake cannibalism crackers.
I'm sure their "miracle" is extremely profitable. They can't make money when someone is saying it's just water seepage. Obviously the person who investigated and solved this pathetic miracle is a blasphemer and must be denounced.
You're confusing your Christians. The young-earth Creationists are fundamentalists, not Catholic. The Catholics may be many things (cough*child molesters*cough), but they're not fundamentalists like that. Catholicism takes the Bible, and adds a bunch of extra stuff they call "revealed knowledge" and a lot of other odd practices and ideas, like transubstantiation (the idea that the crackers are the real body of Christ), confession, the idea that people can't talk directly to God but must instead use a Priest as an intermediary (this I think was dropped in more recent history), praying to Saints to ask them to talk to God on your behalf, etc.; the Protestants, when they broke off, largely rejected all this extra stuff; they have varied beliefs, but I don't believe any of them believe in transubstantiation. The fundamentalists take it even further and proclaim the Bible as the complete, inerrant word of God and that it must be read literally. Then of course there's the Mormons, who believe in the Bible the way the regular Protestants do for the most part, but then they add a whole new book about Jesus coming to visit a bunch of fictional civilizations in the Americas before Europeans got there, and then they added another book (Abraham) about how God lives on the planet Kolob, and how good Mormons will become gods when they die and get their own planets to rule over.
Anyway, as far as I know, the only Christians that believe the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs either never existed, or co-existed with humans and were wiped out in Noah's flood, are all of the extreme fundamentalist variety. While these sects are rare in the rest of the Christian world, here in the USA they're a large and fast-growing number.
I was being sarcastic. Since many ( but not all ) religious people would have told him instead to go burn in hell.
and then forget about the chap's fate when the next Rihanna/Bieber/Privacy online is threatened-story rolls around.
There must be some misreporting since India doesn't have blasphemy laws. As a speculation they may be trying to use the "hate speech" laws.
Sanal Edamaruku, the man mentioned in the article is already a bit of a celebrity in sceptics circles. Read the Wikipedia page on him and check Youtube for the "Tantra Challenge".
I grew up in the 60's and 70's, my mum was a sunday school teacher up until I was about 6-7, I still remeber overhearing her saying to dad something like "I'm brainwashing my own kids", after that she quit and started encouraging me to read aboriginal dreamtime stories ( not as fact but to demonstrate there were lots of different 'stories' ). It probably helped that my dad was an engineer.
Anyway, my anectdotal experience over the last 50 odd years, plus a bunch of census stats from the US and around the world, tells me that people have turned their back on religion in droves during my lifetime. I agree it started with the sexual revolution in the 60's, but it has been accelerating ever since. More recently it has been put somewhat unkindly as "the internet, where religions come to die', and I think there is a great deal of truth to that because kids will find a plethora of dreamtime stories all by themselves. From a very young age they no longer have to rely on their parents digging out obscure books from the adult library, which is something even my own 80's era kids could not do until their late teens.
Religion is loud and angry in the US right now but it's losing its power and income base (which is why they still disaprove contraception). After millenia of being at the top of the food chain in all previous civilizations they suddenly find they have to start justifying their previously unquestioned claims of 'moral authority' in society with something more substansive than 'might is right'. They find themselves in a world where more and more of their 'sheep' are no longer affraid to laugh in their face and are willing to hold them to account for their hypocricy and crimes.
I don't think I will live long enough to see it but when governments start taxing what are essentially some of the richest organisations on the planet, then you will know reason has won the day. But reason can only take us so far, at some point you just have to accept an assumption, science has boiled it all down to a handful of very basic assumptions (ie: the fundemantal forces and dimentions exist). It may boil it down further but it will always require the assumption that the real world exists and is not some sort of matrix senario where it's all in our heads.
Of course the alternative to all this social upheaval is for everyone to simply tell the truth and just admit that nethier they nor I know the answer to the existential question (Why am I here?), none of us even know if the question makes any sense in the first place. The closest thing to a rational answer that I've ever found is more a statement of fact than an answer, it's a Sagan sounbite;"We are a way for the universe to know itself".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The scriptures speak of the 10 Avatars of Vishnu – different incarnations that take the form of divine intervention provided by Vishnu during the various stages of human evolution. The “dasavatara” (ten avatars) is meant to re-establish dharma or righteousness and destroy tyranny and injustice on earth.
The ten Avatars are:
1. Matsya (the fish)
2. Koorma (the tortoise)
3. Varaha (the boar)
4. Narasimha (the human-lion)
5. Vamana (the dwarf)
6. Parasurama (the angry man, Rama with an axe)
7. Lord Rama (the perfect man, king of Ayodha)
8. Lord Krishna (the divine statesman)
9. Balarama (elder brother of Krishna)
10. Kalki (the mighty worrior)
The last Avatar is yet to appear, and in many versions of the mythology, the ninth incarnation is mentioned as Lord Buddha.
Dear Kuwait: I have respect for the deity which the 85% of your population who are Muslim worship, as well as all the deities worshipped by the other 15%, as well as other non-represented deities, though if you really ask for my position I spit on your child molesting, murdering, hate filled Prophet Mohammed. Nothing personal to any living persons, nor do I have an animus toward your nation per se. Guess you still want me dead.
Father Georges-Henri Lemaître, SJ. Something that rationalists don't know or like to forget.
Catholicism takes the Bible, and adds a bunch of extra stuff they call "revealed knowledge" and a lot of other odd practices and ideas
No.
"The Bible" is a sub-set of Catholic and Hebrew literature, not the other way around.
Religion not only acts like a police in the brain, but more like a tumor in the brain as well.
New Economic Perspectives
What possible angle is there? It isn't news for nerds. It isn't stuff that matters. It's a also-in-the-news story from halfway around the world.
I DO NOT CARE ABOUT RELIGION IN INDIA. I CARE ABOUT LINUX AND SUCHWHAT.
"Of all the strange crimes that humanity has legislated out of nothing, blasphemy is the most amazing - with obscenity and indecent exposure fighting it out for second and third place."
- Robert Heinlein, sci-fi author, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"
"will become gods"
You should check your "facts"
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101#C13
"and how good Mormons will become gods when they die and get their own planets to rule over."
Again, you should check your "facts"
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101#C14
This is why as a Jew, I will never travel to any nation that identifies as "Arab Republic" or "Islamic Republic"
the Christian Church in the US. The anti-science stance is only held by a few
like Southern Baptists. Groups like the Episcopalians don't spout that
kind of foolishness.
"In related news, today Kuwait's parliament "passed amendments to the Gulf state's penal code stipulating the death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives.""
Well that's a relief. I was only going to curse his great-great-great-great-great grandchildren for being such a bunch of intolerant idiots.
Muslims are not a race. Religion is not race.
All religion is superstition therefore worthy of utter contempt. Religions are LIES. Fight back. Lies are not worthy of respect or defense, nor are liars!
Again, RELIGION is NOT RACE. If it were, you couldn't "convert" without a DNA change.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes, and what fetches me is the stance of the type of atheist whom don't just dismiss religion and spirituality but belittle those who follow or practice as such.
Religion is the epicentre of civilisation and cultural backbone to everything we have, all the way back to cavemen worshiping the sun. Though much of dogma has been surpassed by science we must not ridicule our intellectual roots for without the capacity to create religion is to be without the capacity to understand anything more than our animal counterparts.
Religion and it's evolution was our science without science, categorize the unknown. And why do we do that? to shed our fears of what cannot be comprehended but present rational. Science answers what religion didn't let's say demonic possession as an example, excorisim as ridged as it is was created to manage it. Now we have a science that manages and classifies it as mental illness but to claim excorism was completely ineffective is idiotic and unscientific.
"Catholics may be many things (cough*child molesters*cough)", I see. So a bunch of never married priests have bad sexual predilections makes Catholics pedophiles? That's some reasoning you have there. Maybe you could have it checked at your neighborhood logic clinic.
For all people who reject the existence of Jesus Christ, I pray to the Lord
For all people who believe in false gods, as we all know there can only be ONE God, I pray to the Lord
Lord, hear our prayer;
Deus exaudinos;
Señor, escúchanos!
I read about the Indian Rationalist Association - precursor to the Rationalist International organization - recently in the Greg Egan sci-fi novel Teranesia - not a great sci-fi novel, but it had an interesting take on this group. These guys are aggressively atheist, on a kind of mission to combat the sometimes-harmful superstitious beliefs and "miracles" that are very common in India religious culture. Fascinating group - Edamaruku is their current president. The RI includes among its members Dr. Leakey and Dr. Dawkins.
My favorite is their nickname - "Guru Busters"
Wiki on the IRA
Rationalist International Webpage
I think it is often not error per se that is destructive, it is the quixotic impulse to *correct error in others*. That impulse to try can turn any belief, even *justifiable*. belief, into something harmful.
The problem with self-righteousness is that it leads to faulty, emotion-driven reasoning. As the emotional temperature of a disagreement increases, confirmation bias kicks in, along with straw man arguments and cherry picking of evidence on both sides. The disagreement is no longer confined to its rational scope because we're no longer looking for truth, we're looking for ammunition.
The plain fact is that appointing yourself the corrector of other people's erroneous belief is stupid. It's madness to think you can confront other people that way and expect them to react with open-mindedness. What you will do is provoke a defensive response, and then a counter-examination of your *own* belief and behavior. Since none of us really deduces everything we believe, or fully considers the morality of every one of our actions, the people we are presuming to correct will have plenty of ammunition.
And when our beliefs and behavior are attacked, will *we* react rationally? How often have you seen somebody react to a counter-charge of hypocrisy by saying, "you know, you've got a point there, I should do better," ? Of *course* we react irrationally to other people's defensive counter-attacks on us.
Some people seem to think "tolerance" means saying every belief is equally true, or every act equally justifiable. No. What tolerance means is putting a lid on our emotional, knee-jerk reactions to what other people think. Doing that enables us to restrict the scope of the disagreement to the issue at hand. Giving our self-righteous impulses reign escalates a disagreement into a pissing match in which each side strives to demonize the other while painting itself as victim.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
atheism is a lot louder about it's beliefs
What the fsck are you talking about? It's not like atheists have powerful and persistent lobby groups trying to re-write the bible as it is taught in sunday school. It's not like atheists have a whole media empire constantly making bullsh8t up about the evil christians. It's not like there are millions of atheists who think that they are in a culture war.
As jesus would have said: "why can't we just get the fsck along?" For a christian fundamentalists, not getting their way is them being oppressed.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Most people won't understand how water can travel uphill. Besides, as long as the "believers" aren't hurting anyone, why fck with them? Leave 'em alone to believe whatever they want. You're just going to come across looking like you're calling them stupid, simple, ignorant or wrong and that never goes over well with anyone. Agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
For the christian fundamentalists, everyone else is at fault, and they know everything, and if they don't get the final say, then they are being oppressed. The "oppressed" bully is always blaming the victim. Sometimes sarcasm and contempt are the perfect responses.
Of course, we could start a plan to change the way the bible is taught in Sunday school, in order to present all perspectives on the issue. But that would be sheer madness -- right? right?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I was aware of you being sarcastic. I may or may not have been myself. Only Lynx knows for sure, and that is a secret she may or may not reveal. ;)
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In fundamentalism.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Couple of months ago, Indian govt. took Facebook, Google, etc. to court for not deleting posts causing communal riots, and the Slashdot make it a big news, comparing India with the great wall of china. Its good spicy news, to generate more controversy, but unfortunately people from other countries don't know much about India. Indian govt. lost the case in court in just few days, and no one at Slashdot(Media company) thinks that is a big news. :P. Also no one was arrested, and I believe the charges will not stand in court. Also in India by the way, the guy can counter sue the priests for fraud. :)
About the current incident, already much have written in the other comments, no one cares for such a case in India, not even a single newspaper article I have seen in Bangalore. Don't know why Americans are so much interested in that
May the FSM send much Pesto upon you with his holy and delicious noodley appendages.
The individual you replied to never once claimed to be referring to Catholics. Why do you think the poster is confused?
Was NOT actually a slam on religion in specific. It's a quote from Marx, and if you dial in your handy dandy time machine you will notice that when he wrote that the ONLY massive pain killer (that really really worked) was opium. What he meant was that religion gives people a way to get through the misery of their existence. That it is a bunch of made up fairy tales is a big problem, but that's not the point - it IS the opiate of the masses. In today's terms you might think of it as the Demerol of the masses, or the Oxycontin of the masses. It is addictive and it does remove pain, in this case, existential grief and misery. So, is religion to be dispensed with? Yes, but only if the proletariat are possessed of their knowledge of class consciousness and are actively engaged with appropriating the means of production and are collectively determining the fruits of their surplus labour, i.e., they have substituted their belief in an imaginary friend with that of a belief in the the eschatology of class struggle.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
At least in the Indian government. Unfortunately, they too must pander to morons to get re-elected. Sadly, some things are universal.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
"all the way back to cavemen worshiping the sun"
Argument from antiquity.
Anyways, Religion isn't needed any more.
Religion for a while, was good at consolidating smart people and money.
Of course it did that through fear and death. No, its no longer needed, hasn't been needed for over 100 years.
"...excorism was completely ineffective is idiotic and unscientific."
That is there stupidest thing I have read. You now nothing of exorcism*. It did nothing to help anyone except the power of the church. It didn't manage anything. Yes, some mental illness made them think of demonic possession(even though that idea was also fabricated by the church)
Let me be very clear:
Exorcism was completely ineffective. Unless you consider killing people an effective treatment.
* Basically torturing people who are anywhere from epileptic, to just different. One step away from burning witches.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Religious folks think all religions EXCEPT ONE are nonsense/not true.
Atheists just take it one religion further.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
There's actually a catchy little song about that.
Lots of cheerful foul language, but with a surprisingly deep point.
If you find the cursing to be worse than the idea that the man who helped child abusers and child rapists (PLURAL! *Think* about that.) could become a pope, and the idea that someone is ridiculing the pope is more offensive to you than the fact that he feels the protection of members of the church is more important than seeing Justice done, then you've got serious, *SERIOUS* problems with your priorities.
"Ha Ha, we got you! April Fools! Seriously we don't care about his wives... The rest of it we kill you though, for real dawg."
Between the Middle East and Washington DC.. Too many places we need to make a glass parking lot out of.. the human world as it has always been still requires a really big kick in the nutsack.
The original poster mixed up two things. In case of Indian Mushrks, he discovered a fraud, in case of Kuweit, it's about a law.
Muslims do not have a history of arranged miracles, except may be very deviant sects, in the first place, because one of fundamental principles is belief in UNSEEN.
I find the original juxtaposition of those two events : law in Kuweit and fraud in India, aribrrary, absurd and ignorant.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Muhammad's sexual antics are an embarrassment to those Muslims who are aware of them. This is particularly so for their prophet's consummation of his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine years of age. The thought of a 52-year-old man sleeping and bathing with a young girl is intensely unpleasant and it reflects the disgusting character of a sexual glutton rather than a holy man. Critics even allege that Muhammad was a pedophile. Exerpted from http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/025-Muhammads-sex-life.htm
Actually, he did: " "holy" water, or holy fake blood, or holy fake cannibalism crackers"
Those things are unique to Catholicism.
Who else here wishes the whole world was ruled by the Vatican ?? :)
The Catholic church doesn't execute people anymore like in the old days. We would have world peace!! awwww
Under Vatican rule, if anyone rejected that Jesus *is* God and that He was born in our image, suffered and died so that sin may be forgiven, that person would only be educated and prayed for. He would not be killed.
The Indian Christian Church (at least some of them) have a history of doing stuff like this; the aggressive conversion tactics they have adopted will put most US fundamentalist churches to shame. During a trip out there a few years ago, I witnessed a priest perform a "your Hindu god is false" demonstration in public field, accompanied by (I kid you not) an orchestra, with the entire performance amplified by huge speakers placed all around. The priest was dressed in robes reminiscent of a medieval Pope, and threw a Hindu Idol and a Cross into a big glass tank of water. The Hindu Idol sank, and the cross floated, and the guy exclaimed that this showed that the Hindu god was a false god. It was obvious that the idol was made of stone and the cross of wood. There was a huge crowd standing by, many of them ooh'd and aah'd. It looked like at least some of the ooh'ers were part of the performance. I went up to the priest and challenged him, and he started yelling at me. Some of his acolytes grabbed me and basically pushed me away from the place. I think I would surely have been beaten up if I had not been a foreigner.
I learned later that this sort of stuff is quite common in India. The church has started Christian ceremonies during mainstream Indian festivals like Diwali etc, during which time theys hold huge, extravagant masses to celebrate supposedly Christian events. If you are a student of history and want to know how "Christmas" ultimately ended up in December, this would be an object lesson.
The thing that amazed me was how tolerant the crowds were. Here was a guy who was yelling insults about the mainstream religion in a public place, and a vast crown just watched and let him have his say in peace. I doubt if this would happen in the US, let alone in any predominantly Islamic place.
Hahahahahah .... And I present you with my example ...
Exorcism did work, placebo effect still means it worked for some even if the success rate was low. Burning witches and the control issue whatever this attitude comes from too many idiots watching the Da Vinci code and passing it off as law and is based on opinion and hearsay.
"Some" religions were "perhaps" created to control the masses, there are plenty that were not but this argument i see as mute since we are so awakened now as a people that control of the masses has been transmuted from biblical passages into database variables stored in banks.
Religion does have its place, it has historical value and its base moral values hold much importance to the world. Blaming it for the worlds ills is poor judgement.
Raping kids, killing infidels, torturing, etc. These were done by bad people not by religion, bringing religion into it is fucking tragic - rule #1 do unto others. Anything else is the work of ones own wickedness nothing more.
Science is reactionary. If we discovered gods or miracles, science would adjust itself to incorperate them. This has been happening for ages. "Science vs Religion" is a stupid argument for blowhards, no matter which side they stand on.
this is NOT news for nerds. What is this place coming to?
I was being sarcastic. Since many ( but not all ) religious people would have told him instead to go burn in hell.
I'm glad you said "but not all". You'll find two kinds of people in a Christian church: those who want good for everyone, and hypocrites who don't read the bibles they thump. There are also churches with preachers who are the wolves in sheep's clothing, like a cartain chucrh in Florida demonstrating at soldiers' funerals with "God hates fags" plackards. God loves everyone, and we are supposed to, too.
God even loves atheists. He even loves terrorists. Believe it or not, he even loves Newt Gingrich. Man, that's a hard thing to do.
I spent a year in Thailand, and can say that I never met a single person in that Bhuddist country who would want anyone burning in hell. Those were some of the nicest, friendliest people I ever met.
Free Martian Whores!
Thus is so utterely stupid and ill-informed it's no even funny. I'll leave it to others to debunk these points, but please mode, do your job. The only thing informative about this post is what it tells us about the submitter.
Think about only this: without the excuse of God, how many politicians would have to find another way to persuade us to follow them in their quest to serve their buddies' interests.
Without God, people would just use ideologies and do the same things they were doing before. Without ideologies, people would be motivated by nationalities and other political formations. Without nationalities, people would just group up with their local tribes or ethnic cultures to promote them. Without tribes, people would just do the same things to promote their families and clans. Without families or clans, people would still persuade people for financial gain, which has been argued is the actual motivation behind all the previous methods described including religion and the excuse of God.
Then of course there's the Mormons, who believe in the Bible the way the regular Protestants do for the most part, but then they add a whole new book about Jesus coming to visit a bunch of fictional civilizations in the Americas before Europeans got there
There is plenty of archeological evidence pointing to advanced civilizations in what is now the Eastern United States. The Hopewell Culture for example flourished around the same time as one of the groups described in the Book of Mormon. There is also evidence that native americans had the ten commandments and that there were precolumbian horses.
If Christ had followers in America, why woudn't he visit them, he even spoke of doing so in John 10:16.
Exorcism did work, placebo effect still means it worked for some even if the success rate was low.
I'm sure all the dead epileptics are so happy for the few mild schizophrenics who managed to get talked out of their mental difficulties.
Burning witches and the control issue whatever this attitude comes from too many idiots watching the Da Vinci code [...]
No, it comes from Leviticus where Yahweh's mouthpiece says 'suffer not a witch to live'. It was incorporated from these Judaic roots into Christianity's modus operandi with such early events as the brutal murder of Hypatia by an angry mob. The tradition extended all the way through to the Salem witch trials in the West, and continues to this day in parts of Africa where vigilantes still murder 'witches' in the names of their supposedly benevolent and merciful deities in the ludicrous triune monotheism. Not to pick solely on Christianity, the Islamic courts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia use the full force and authority of the state to behead 'witches' whenever they are exposed and arrested.
[...] there are plenty that were not [...]
Name some. Religion is an extension of hierarchical power structures that use a fictional separation from mortality as a substitute for moral authority. The argument essentially proceeds from 'gods are more powerful than men therefore they are right' which made sense when it was formulated in the paleolithic.
Raping kids, killing infidels, torturing, etc. These were done by bad people not by religion, bringing religion into it is fucking tragic - rule #1 do unto others. Anything else is the work of ones own wickedness nothing more.
How convenient that when bad things are done in the name of religion that it is just the work of bad people, but when good things are done with the same religious authority, then that demonstrates not that it is people who are good regardless of religion, but rather that religion has some sort of inherent value. Nope. That is ridiculous. People do bad things and good things irrespective of religion, so religions can and should be judged on their intrinsic qualities, which is usually to say their 'sacred texts'. These texts are invariably contradictory, saying 'love thy neighbor' one minute and that gays and disobedient kids are 'worthy of death' the next minute (Romans 1). The Quran has the same schizophrenia, alternately preaching tolerance and hate, uncoincidentally contextualized by Islam's own expansion and relative security.
These are very convenient devices, because it means that religion can display a nice face to the world and then preach murder and hate behind closed doors, fostering jihadists and abortion clinic bombers. Both are sourced in the same place, the fundamental supposedly divine authority of their so-called illuminated texts. Only people do good and evil things, and because religion itself is a construct of people, it too is layered with the good and bad ideas and actions of the people who created it.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Your wikipedia article even states that real archaeologists believe the Los Lunas stone to be a fraud. And any link to byu.edu is not a valid reference; that's like linking to scientology.org as a reference to back up their wacky claims about Xenu and the Galactic Confederation. Yes, there certainly were cultures that existed before Europeans arrived: the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas are the most prominent. But archaeological evidence bears no resemblance to what's stated in the Book of Mormon.
I'm not so sure of that. If we assume that religions were invented by people, it follows that people have some inborn instincts towards making and believing in them - a tendency towards faith. It would probably be far better to have the people with such instincts direct them towards established religions that have had centuries or millenias to become civilized and shed most of their nasty parts, than leave them easy prey to whatever charismatic cult leaders pop up every now and then. And it certainly is much better for them to direct any need for worship towards God or gods than Kim il Whatever.
Religion might be opium for the masses, but trying to make them quit will only result in them switching to crack cocaine.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
There were many ancient american civilizations and it's possible that some of them may have been the ones described in the Book of Mormon.
I linked to the BYU article because it's a scholarly article explaining the evidence for precolumbian horses in America. Critics often say that because the natives weren't riding horses when Columbus arrived there weren't any which is false. Centuries-old bones of horses unearthed in Carlsbad Remains Show Ancient Horses Were Hunted for Their Meat.
There's not enough archaelogical evidence left behind to definitively rule either way. However, the Hopewell Culture did have an advanced writing system, clothing, agriculture, trade, fortifications and earth mounds; all of which are described in the Book of Mormon. They also disappeared at the same time as recorded. I see the evidence of a great civilization that lived here before us and we are very fortunate to have their record.
How convenient that when bad things are done in the name of government that it is just the work of bad people, but when good things are done with the same government authority, then that demonstrates not that it is people who are good regardless of government, but rather that government has some sort of inherent value. Nope. That is ridiculous. People do bad things and good things irrespective of government, so governments can and should be judged on their intrinsic qualities, which is usually to say their 'laws'. These laws are invariably contradictory, saying 'love thy neighbor' one minute and that gays and disobedient kids are 'worthy of death' the next minute (Romans 1). The Quran has the same schizophrenia, alternately preaching tolerance and hate, uncoincidentally contextualized by Islam's own expansion and relative security.
These are very convenient devices, because it means that government can display a nice face to the world and then preach murder and hate behind closed doors, fostering jihadists and abortion clinic bombers. Both are sourced in the same place, the fundamental supposedly divine authority of their so-called illuminated texts. Only people do good and evil things, and because government itself is a construct of people, it too is layered with the good and bad ideas and actions of the people who created it.
FTFY
Interesting, I see it used against homophobic people all the time...
Oh, I get it. It only doesn't work when you also dislike it.
Between these stories on the other side of the world and the fundamentalist nutjobs over here, I think the religulous are getting it sewn up.
Grar II
Well God damnit. Does it upset that shithead Mohammed? Oh wait. He's dead. What the f*^+ does his ass care?
More seriously, and less profane, what did the guy in India do his proof of fakery for? Was he trying to be boastful, or was he trying to extort money from the priests? Why didn't he leave the believers alone and let them believe? Was it causing him some problem, other than his own arrogance?
If you have faith leave those alone that don't. If you don't leave those alone that do. Look at Malaysia. An Islamic country where you can buy a drink if your faith permits and can't if it doesn't. What could be more obvious?
Yes, as an atheist, I do believe in an objective reality that is available for discovery and understanding. This is the fundamental belief of the scientific method - that you can postulate something, test it, and declare it a law or theory and someone else can confirm or deny your results through their own methods. At this time, God is dead in the objective sense. But no one can provide that God does not exists in the subjective sense (in the minds of people because of genetic or environmental or emotional reasons).
A rebuttal to (your rebuttal of a weak argument) is Anselm's Ontological Argument:
God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.
Can God conceive of a being greater than himself?
Yes? Then by the Ontological Argument, this other being, not God, is God. God is not God.
No? Then God is limited in his powers of cognition and hence is not omnipotent and hence is not God. God is not God.
Since God is not God, he violates the reflexive law of logic and therefore cannot exist.
Get the cops on your side. The local beat cop who is probably a semi-literate "p-w-cracker" like person and benefits from the take and bribe of regulating the crowds at the "miracle" site and his station house officer (precinct head) are told to arrest the so called perpetrator for blasphemy. When that fails, some lawyer will file a complaint against the "so called perpetrator" for hurting religious sentiments. Note that it has to be a lawyer since cops wont arrest him easily and it gives a veneer of legality. Sounds familiar? The idea is to harass and cow down the more determined citizens. OK
Here is an extract from the "Times of India" article. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/FIR-against-rationalist-cops-call-him-for-questioning/articleshow/12681927.cms Note the excuse made by those who complained. MUMBAI: The Juhu police have registered an FIR against president of the Indian Rationalist Association (IRA) Sanal Edamaruku under Section 295 (defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code. The police have called him for questioning. The Organisation of Concerned Catholics (OCC) and the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) had lodged complaints against Sanal at the Juhu and Andheri police stations. Sanal had come to the city recently to investigate the issue of water dripping from a cross at Irla. Sanal, whose trip was sponsored by a TV channel, had said that the phenomenon was not a miracle and caused by capillary action. OCC members said they were not upset with Sanal for saying the phenomenon was not a miracle. They were hurt by statements he allegedly made against the Pope and Catholic clergy.
Or we could assume people have an instinct toward believing things their parents/elders teach them. And those elders were once the same. If you go back far enough you usually find a guy who decided that it would be nice if young people gave him 1/3 of their food so he could sit around eating mushrooms.