http://www.dhushara.com/book/sakina/fatwah/purdah.htm

“The German journalist Udo Ulfkotte told in a recent interview that in Holland, you can now see examples of young, unveiled Moroccan women with a so-called “smiley”. It means that the girl gets one side of her face cut up from mouth to ear, serving as a warning to other Muslim girls who should refuse to wear the veil. In the Muslim suburb of Courneuve, France, 77 per cent of the veiled women carry veils reportedly because of fear of being harassed or molested by Islamic moral patrols.”



“A friend of mine is a retired chief of police, who used to be in charge of the security of a major city in the south of France. He reported to me that his men had to face an average of 10 rapes a week, 80% made by Muslim young men. 30% being what we call, in French, a “ tournante “, meaning that the victim is being raped by an entire gang, one after the other, often during an entire night. My friend reports that, in many cases, he was able to locate and arrest the rapists, often very young ones, and, as part of the investigation, call the families. He was astonished that, in most cases, the parents not only would back up their rapist children, but also would not even understand why they would be arrested. There is an instant shift in the notion of good and evil as a major component of culture. The only evil those parents would see, genuinely, is the temptation that the male children had to face. Since in most cases the victims were not Muslims, the parents’ answer and rejection was even more genuine: how could their boys be guilty of anything, when normally answering to a provocation by occidental women, known for their unacceptable behavior?”

There is a lot wrong with the Islam and not much good, but the smiley story is, as far as I know, a new urban myth.

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2006/12/...ban-legend.html

I remember when the practice of genital mutilation was denied too.

The assertion that the females are causing men 'agitation' by being alluring just for being a woman is common among many faiths, if not all.

Eve is blamed in the bible for our sin, the women in ISKCON are blamed for agitating the men by not being 'chaste' if they are not covered, etc...

The idea is the same - it is a matter of degrees.

I am totally at a loss how any woman can voluntarily become a part of such repressive religions. I have heard it many times that it is not repression, it is liberation.

I am equally at a loss how any man can be so vile in the name of love of god.

War is Peace.

Easy answer = consign religion to the dustbin.

Edit: This example, Homer, is a particularly good (callous though that sounds) example of how corrupted religious ideals can be and also misused in a way to justify human (or animal, humanimal) impulses.

It's the first time I've heard of 'tournante' and I'm disgusted. But then again I suppose it's not much different to when a family of four brothers or so screw their sister all night in Saudi Arabia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o&feature=related

George Carlin - Funny and sharp.

You insinuate that I am "in denial" but that blogspot and its reference to Peter Burger's research (in "Appearance in Leiden") only confirm what I just said; the smiley story is an urban legend. Many of the other atrocities I did not deny.

Not at all. It is not your claim I question.

I do know that these things can be kept secret by ethnic groups, especially when victims, presumably, would have begun to wear the veil after being attacked. Speaking out can be very dangerous.

These things are discussed here very vigorously in Parliament (and elsewhere) and several members of Parliament always have to have bodyguards. We are very much aware of what is happening. Moroccan youths give loads of problems here: the so-called "lover-boys" who force girls into prostitution, mugging and intimidations on the streets, assaults on paramedics of ambulances, gay-bashing, etc, etc.

Sounds very similar to our situation in Australia.

I always have a bit of a laugh when I hear the word ecumenical , as if vastly different religious denominations will understand one another if they would just hold hands and light candles together.

Ecumenical is known as "Interfaith" here, and is about as funny as it sounds. I get invited to attend these "interfaith" meetings all the time, some of which take place in the British Houses of Parliament, and which I always refuse.

One of my friends, who is incidentally an initiated Harry working in Parliament and other NGOs, is instrumental in organising the ridiculous observance of Diwali at the HoP and making sure PM Gordon Brown comes along. Everyone knows it's a con and nobody really gives a crap about Diwali or anything else. The working principle is that if everyone else (Jews, Muslims etc) get a Parliamentary observance of their certain festivals then why can't they have it too? So much for "interfaith". It's a clear case of "I want mine too".

And what, pray tell, does the observance of religious festivals have to do with government?

Thank you for posting this, Homer. I have spent two hours plowing through the text. It's sickening and very revealing. I cannot find words.

Indeed. Is it true that the Prime Minister appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Posting such as this is a sort of sad duty. Religion apologists are keen to point out that these violent occurrences are perpetrated by the fringe militant fanatics, however a dispassionate glance at world history confirms the extreme depravity of religions.

Naturally, MY religion is one of peace, killing for god is giving mercy.

Slavery is Freedom...

I have wondered why this has not been mentioned on this forum considering it is news from the holy land of love:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...0,2301134.story

MANGALORE, India — On their fifth day of silent prayer, the nuns of the Adoration Monastery heard the pounding in the public chapel next door, the sounds of glass shattering and the statue of Jesus being broken. After the sacrament crashed to the floor, the nuns found their voices. They screamed and called for Jesus.


http://www.panthic.org/news/129/ARTICLE/4445/2008-10-17.html

"An interesting article by a writer, one Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, published in the Kolkatta-based Telegraph newspaper a week ago, headlined, “Are Indians rethinking the equality of minorities?” has raised some fundamental questions about the direction the Indian state is taking. He writes that, “Though it’s a cliché that bombs have no names and terrorists no religion, the muffled drumbeat of religious wars can be heard beyond the clash of Durga Puja cymbals. Not only of Muslims pitted against a secular State but, more ominously, of Hindus whose wrath is as much against Muslims and Christians as against a State that allows minorities to practice, preach and propagate their faiths. This latest development presents India with a stark challenge. The desecration of St James Church in Bangalore, the rape and murder of a nun and priest in Uttarakhand, rape, lynchings, vandalism, and the bomb blasts only three days before Id-ul-Fitr in Muslim-dominated towns suggest one of two explanations. Either they reflect a spreading popular mood or they are the handiwork of criminals. The state must decide and respond accordingly.”"

More love:

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.com/autho...nelly-Hate.html

"In a recent editorial on this site, The Sandra Bernhard Monstrosity, the editors addressed the vicious attack on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, a practicing Christian mother of five. In essence, Ms. Bernhard, who is Jewish, called Palin a goy whore — certainly not an affectionate label."

"Quoting evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald, the editorial zeroed in on the font of such hostility: “Indeed, hatred toward the peoples and cultures of non-Jews ... has been the Jewish norm throughout history . . . this sort of hostility to whites and to Christianity is a mainstream Jewish phenomenon.” "


"A Jewish man murdered his two children because they were being reared as Catholics by his ex-wife. He claimed that he would rather see them dead than Catholic. As incredible as it may sound, the court room was filled with his supporters from the Jewish community. Yes, that’s right, supporters. The judge, who was Jewish, allowed him to get away with outbursts insulting his grieving ex-wife and her family, to the applause of the spectators. It was an absolutely appalling scene."

I will not assert that religion improves people - as people have to do that themselves - but wouldn't a dispassionate look at history more likely reveal the depravity of human beings? The atrocities perpetrated by non-religious peoples in for instance Russia, China or Cambodia are well documented.

Yes, religion give excuses.

Although political agendas are a sort of religion, especially ones such as the Pol Pot Cambodian year Zero type.

Religion does indeed provide excuses.

However, Softbrain's point is unfortunately a typical one provided by religious apologists. He also mixes the two issues of human depravity and military-type dictatorships.

I do not wish to sound callous about the matter of human tragedy which is dear to my heart and which touches me on a deep level, but invoking 'humanimal' nature as some sort of deeper reason for atrocities that may have been guised in religious terms is unfortunately a philosophical and logical faux pas.

The fact is there is little to no evidence to suggest that atrocities are committed due to atheism or non-religion. But when you consider how many acts of depravity have been committed through the ages in the name of religion and experience the excruciating agony of understanding how that multitude of sins had no substantial basis at all, it being based almost entirely on devotion to a non-existent God or in the name of some ridiculously insignificant "heresy", I'd be greatly surprised at the man who fails to shed contrite tears of blood.

there are millions and millions of quietly 'religious' people out there, all around the world, who are not inhumane sociopaths. One problem with modern media is the most grotesque forms of human behaviour are publicized and generalized into the 'other', very quickly without much discussion. Is the same game the politicos, scientists and everyone else plays when trying to propound their respective worldviews. People are people and do the same good and horrible things no matter what ideology they claim. Religious people are easy targets I admit, but we don't (as a culture) say athiests in general are bad because some of them may happen to be serial killers and peadophiles. which is why I don't agree with:

because there is similarly no evidence that they are not either. Do you not think, for example, communists killing Buddhists in Asia, in various locales, is not motivated at least in part, by Athiesm or more fittingly, antagonism toward religion? This is a questionable, and subjective point brainiac and doesn't help your argument. It seems your version of 'athiesm' is as fervently anti-religious, as religion is anti-athiest. Two sides of the same coin. Rush Limbaugh athiesm: pull out some sensational examples, generalize, then criticize. I just get suspicious when people try to point out to everyone else how things really are...when there is so much unknown about human and Earthly phenomenon, from both the scientific as well as psychological perspectives.

Dont get me wrong, I think Christianity (and resultant unbridled capitalism), indirectly, has done more to destroy the Earth and human dignity than anything, until (athiestic, materialistic) Communism came along, which has likely killed more innocent people than all religions put together.

In general, the atrocities tend to be fired up by some one "ism" or another.

exactly, I think it is an 'ism' problem. and replacing one with another has been tried again and again

Well said, Angrezi. It's so vital that we learn to cut through simplistic thinking.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a (perhaps) lighter note - this morning my daughter sent me a link to a political webpage which contained the following observations (which are at turns insightful and inaccurate):

Politics Explained

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

Reading that text made me reflect on how easy its seems to be to induce human beings to commit atrocities against each other without the slightest remorse, without even asking themselves whether what they are doing can be right.

You speak of "depravity," Softbrain. That implies an original state of being righteous, moral.

One would (wish to) think we are endowed with natural empathy, a rudimentary form of conscience, that would revolt against objectification of other human beings, against torturing them to death as one does in the Muslim culture. (While reading one hears echoes from the Hindu culture as well.)

Reading the text made me think that there is perhaps no such thing as natural empathy. Or if it exists, it's extremely easy to suppress with a set of assumptions and convictions that come with a culture. I do not necessarily say, "with a religion," but religions do appear malignant forms of culture, through their claim to unassailable authority and entrenchment against examination and change.

Religion. What is it? Why is it? I believe these questions are actually a question of; why is there anything? Making sense of our beingness in a confusing world is...well confusing. I don't mock anyone for seeking the comfort of having everything explained by stories and analogy, as long as the stories are understood as being just that – stories. My exasperation with religion and it's adherents begins when religion is taken to be some sort of absolute truth, a operation manual for life, an excuse for disregarding the reality of our existence here and now for the promise of a better then and there. Talk about a post dated check!

My personal quest is to be grateful for the reality I experience NOW. Not some promise of a utopian and blissful life if I would only believe in a book or a guru or a story or a super-person. Why would a god or THE God be willing to grant us a better existence in the there and then when we dishonor the reality that god has granted in the here and now, like some spoiled child?

Atheism is simply another religion, as I see it. Like the UFO deniers deny life capable of space travel beyond our abilities, atheists claim that there is no god because they have not seen her. But to insist that any book or guru or minister has the answer to finding a doorway to a blissful existence is being simplistic. The hard reality is that religion, of whatever ilk, has brought no more than misery when it is imposed on those who do not share those beliefs, or do not, according to those who see themselves as being anointed by the lord, understand deeply enough. These types are always going on about having a personal relationship with their version of god or anti-god.

The truth is that nobody knows what happens after death.

When I see the strange ritual called political elections being decided by fanatical adherents of a mythical belief system, I despair.

http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid/hindu...indu_women.html

Women in Hinduism.

With 'depravitiy' I did not want to imply an original state of morality and a subsequent 'fall' therefrom, I used it in its simple meaning from Latin 'pravus', crooked, with the prefix de- for emphasis to mean 'fully crooked', just 'bad'. (I hope this doesn't start to sound like one of those word-for-word translations.)
I don't know whether humans thousands of years ago were more moral than people now, but a natural sense of empathy must be there, I believe, even the Neanderthal took care of the sick.

But that aside, I think you are right that, unfortunately, it doesn't take much to set off a human being in doing the most awful things to his neighbour. Stupidity or greed can do that, it is always the human being who decides what to do, not some -ism, that is an abstract concept, abstract concepts don't exist in the real world, they don't kill, machetes and stinger rockets do in the hands of people who choose to do so.
But as I said above, I don't think religion improves people, in general, (you always have to watch out with these broad generalizations), but some individuals have some benefit from it.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-New...State_Of_Orissa


More than 300 villages have been destroyed and more than 4,000 homes burnt in violent attacks which have been going on since August and show no sign of stopping.
The Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has now sent hundreds of paramilitary troops to the area to try to stop the persecution which he's called the nation's shame....

They came in their hundreds and just ransacked our homes, setting them on fire. If you didn't run away, you were beaten. They told us we could only stay if we converted to Hinduism. Otherwise, they said they would kill us.

Why do people become antagonostic towards religion? Ask the people of Orissa who are tired of missionaries trying to give them a better god.

Ask any indigenous people who have had their culture destroyed by those who would save their souls while they steal their country and dignity.

They come with penicillin and then they reveal why they have really come - to free you from false gods.

My god is better than your god.

Of course, the simple people of Orissa do not understand their own gods. It takes white sophisticated people to interpret their own traditions for them, like the white elephants of ISKCON.

It is easy to say this, until you see vast hordes of 'genteel' people blow up all over the world when a Danish newspaper publishes 'offensive' cartoons, to cite just one example. Or, if Muslims are something of an easy target, try Jews. Question the basis for the State of Israel and see what happens. I suppose these are mostly friendly and likeable people in their normal lives.


But isn't it the job of the media to report all angles of stories, or even all stories? I would personally object as much to a court ruling allowing the wearing of hijab in school or a Hindu girl who wins the right to wear a nose-stud in school as I might object to the beheading of an 'infidel' by a fanatical guy who used to be your friendly postman. I also object to faith schools, which are becoming somewhat popular in the UK. The former two examples are not grotesque and the last one is, and all of them have their basis in ideas that have absolutely no meaning at all. Perhaps to the religionists they do, and I agree that they're much better placed to explain to the courts and the public why it is so important to maintain their religious beliefs by wearing a nose-stud and how shattered and abused they would feel if their human rights were 'violated'. There is much more to religious idiocy than the blame-game of massacres. The most disturbing, to me, are those that take place in the medical arena.


I agree that there many shades of grey to problems like this, and I don't suggest that religion (or anti-religion) is the sole cause of them. Of course there could be things like tribal rivalries and the like that are likelier causes behind the conflicts. I think it is unfortunate that such complex matters are labelled as being due to religion. But what I'm talking about here is when massacres are touted as being somehow "equal" to those pursued through religious reason. They aren't. I think there is much more historical meaning and lessons to be learned from the Nazi Holocaust, for example, than there is in any story about the Crusades for the sole reason that religion is supposed to be a force for good in this world. One might then argue that while religion is "good" and that it's followers pervert the true and beautiful meanings, well that just underlines my point about how hordes of genteel people can become maniacs when you push the right (or wrong) buttons. I don't think very much in religion is beautiful anyway. The few beautiful passages seem to be drowned out by the horrors that lie hidden in plain sight. The Hindu (or GV) scriptures may be something of an exception, but not much.


Well this is another oft-used philosophical faux pas. "Your antireligion is about as fundamentalist as you claim religion to be". It is false because it is mainly untrue, and because it is easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion.

Let's have a look some less sensational and much more 'normal' examples as one's eyes must be opened to what is going on around you: Female Muslim students at Harvard are demanding female-only hours at the campus gym to segregate from any male students who may look at them lustfully; a Hindu schoolgirl fights for the right to wear her nose-stud in school as part of her religious beliefs; ISKCON opens a faith school and demands that the entire families of pupils must attend the temple and be vegetarians; Muslim doctors are happy to be fired after objecting to wearing short-sleeved Operating Room uniforms as it's against their beliefs to show 'excessive' flesh; Creationism/Intelligent Design is taught in schools alongside evolution as an 'alternative' scientific theory; Muslim doctors (and visitors to hospitals) refuse to help stop the spread of vicious superbugs like MRSA because washing their hands with the easily available alcohol-based gel contradicts their 'beliefs'; dozens of Indians go blind after hoping to see a vision of Mary in the sun; pilgrimages are made to houses where some old woman burns her toast and the burn resembles Jesus or Mary, or when some Muslim housewife cuts an aubergine and the seeds form an 'Allah'; £100,000 ($200,000) of taxpayer's money is wasted in the search for a police helmet that can accomodate a Sikh officer's turban; the Anglican Church is on the brink of a schism in protest at homosexual clergy... Need I go on? And I wouldn't want to get started on honour killings.

I haven't yet decided if I have a problem with religion as yet, but I certainly have a problem with religious idiocy. If I am passionate about it, it is because religious people and their beliefs affect the lives of the rest of us. Would you want to argue evolution with someone who looks for evidence of a worldwide geological flood? Would you want a criminal caught by a Sikh officer who has trouble donning their helmeturban? Would you like to go into hospital and be at risk of catching MRSA because some people think washing your hands with alcohol-based gel is as bad as drinking it? These are small things, agreed. At the international level, how does one expect to solve long-running political problems like the Middle-East Crisis when the Jews are waiting for the Messiah and the Muslims are eagerly awaiting the Mahdi so that both these Deliverers can clash in some wacked-out Battle of the Dumbasses?

I am not an atheist, by the way, and don't have a 'version' of atheism to abide by. But I have discovered in my readings that there are as many shades of grey to atheism as there are to anything else. It isn't the one-size-fits-all it is popularly thought to be. It might be helpful if one takes the time to research on this matter.


And that is precisely what I was just thinking today while travelling to work. There is so much in this world that remains unknown but which is tantalisingly within reach, and the discovery of new 'knowns' very often leads to ever-expanding vistas of unknowns just waiting to be discovered, and with science (not just psychology but all areas of science) growing at an exponential rate with new findings being published on practically a minute-by-minute basis, that theoretical physicists like Dr. Michio Kaku (co-founder of String Theory) are confident enough to state that the human race is in a transition from the 'age of discovery' to the 'age of mastery'. Didn't anyone notice the launch of the Large Hadron Collider? This is the single most important development in recent years.

Yet some people insist on having 'faith' and 'beliefs' about some airy-fairy figure along with the associated fluff about 'higher dimensions' and 'states of being' that, funnily enough, there is not even a micron of proof for. Micron? Surely I mean nano. You are astoundingly right that the sheer depth and breadth of the 'material plane' hasn't been fully understood or even cognised yet and the sheer wonder of it lies in when we ask: can we ever know it completely? But some people are already ready to talk of 'higher' dimensions and 'higher' planes? Wow. Such arrogance, is all I can say.

(I'm sure you're fully aware of how 'transcendent' religions regularly and notoriously denigrate the material plane and all it stands for in favour of 'higher' things.)

But people are content to pray for things like the very big ('Oh God, please let the right person be the next President of America') to the very small ('Oh God, please make sure there is enough bread left over at the store'). Who cares about this, though? This is benign religion. Let them have their heads in the clouds kissing the feet of some sky-god, I will only object when they get together and form organisations that protest against stem-cell research and other vanguards of scientific development that represent more of a progression for the human race than religion has ever been. They become a menace to society when they do that, in my opinion.

Take this as an example: There are very serious discussions going on about when exactly foetuses are capable of feeling pain while growing in the womb. This is important because anti-abortionists protest about, well, abortion, and scientists are also interested in harvesting stem cells from foetuses so that they can do really important things like growing new organs from scratch for people who need transplants and stuff. The current consensus about when the beginnings of a nervous system is formed (that allows the feeling of pain) is that it remains unknown, while research is of course always going on. Can you trust religionists with this information? Of course not, which is why you now hear the ridiculously untrue 'Life Begins At Conception' slogan bandied about and made a prominent feature of almost every political campaign there is and used as an emotional device to guilt-trip people into oblivion.

And while we're talking of psychology, Angrezi, do you recall when I started a topic about the neuropsychology of spiritual experience on GD? Gosh that was fun wasn't it?


I doubt that there are any form of statistics to support this, especially since religion has been a dominant force throughout much of human history, but it would be interesting to see if this was true. But this is where we must repectfully disagree because the fact still remains that atrocities perpetrated by the non-religious can be much more easily attributed to the megalomania of military dictators and their whims. You also seem to be equating atheism/materialism with the propensity to commit acts of evil which could be offensive to millions of people. There are plenty of friendly neighbourhood atheists you know. Indeed, why should religion even be a factor? Because as a supposed force for good in the world it has done plenty of bad. And the few sophisticated theologians who recognise things going awry are rendered almost irrelevant when they are outnumbered by the vast hordes of religious idiots. (OK, that last line was a paraphrase of Richard Dawkins, hehe.)

It's all very well blaming it on "isms". These lofty philosophical observations and similar platitudes haven't helped one bit, though.

Sorry to make this such a long post Angrezi. You and everyone else must be snoring by now. I originally had a few lines to reply with and then just padded it all out I guess, sorry...

I am not yawning.

Cheers! And I agree completely with everything you said by the way, especially this:


This is the same conclusion that I have reached. At every moment I am filled with the wonder of this life. Things that I ignored before I value and cherish now. A sweet birdsong, a lovely and fragrant flower, the spider building a web outside my bedroom window, beautiful sunshine warming my face, loving relationships with friends and family, being grateful for the comfortable existence that I have, and food! Endless food! I am almost delirious with joy and happiness sometimes.

On another note, I would like to recommend an article for everyone to read: When Denial Can Kill. I think most people around here know me from GD days and how much of a 'faithhead' I used to be. Although this article deals with Islamic issues, the principle and the conclusion is universal. As a faithhead I knew all this stuff. I guess I was just in denial about it. I read this article when it was first published, and I would say that it was the beginning of my journey into critical thinking. Maybe it will be the start of something for you too.

OK, I'm trying to stay out of this as much as possible. Chiefly because I don't think this type of discussion - a few words here, a few words there, scrolled on an internet forum, ever offer any real solutions, what to speak of prove or disprove the 'value' of Religion (a tall order).

However, and at the risk of sounding even more snobbish than usual :



This is true, Softbrain, but I would also like to add that to merely engage with the external commands of a given religion is to become, oneself, abstracted, this, I believe, may be cited as an example of adhering to the dehumanising influence of an 'ism', which allows for, and often encourages, an abdication of conscience.

Furthermore (and often directly related to the above problem), where there is no Participation Mystique with the central epiphany, which is the true initiating principle (in distinction from the fixed context of dogma) - all other aspects of 'faith' and doctrine being but a record of the dialogue(s) of those who (possessing varying degrees of understanding) have gone before us - then the whole affair is just a lifeless drudgery. An extra existential burden which proves (barren as it is) in the long run to be more than the heart can bear.

i think a better question is why do people become antagonistic toward each other?

Forgive me for not quoting yor entire post Brainiac, but the examples you cite (such as Muslim women at Harvard) can just as easily be explained not only as the foibles of religion but the foilbles of our hyper-humanistic society, in that everyone has to be accomidated in exactly the same way. This is why secular humanism is the ideal for many, but in pluralistic 'liberal' societies there is always a push for individuality and equal rights no matter how silly or dangerous to others (e.g. the Peadophile party, in Holland I think). While religion may be the source for so much insanity -which I am not arguing against, it is the lack of state-religious seperation (that the US was supposedly founded upon) that perpetuates the crazyness. In pluralistic societies religion cannot really have any place on the state level.

So what are you saying exactly? There are plenty of moderate Mulslims and moderate Jews etc. I do not argue that much in religion is insane and irrational, but I would (still) bet that statistically the religionists that accept the most fanatical practices in any religion are the minority of weirdos (that make the news). You and Homer can post extreme examples with which I agree (and I wasn't saying these stories should not be reported by the media, btw) but we should understand that the majority of Hindus would not kill or agree with killing Christians or Muslims, and the majority of Muslims in the world would not approve honor killings. If you can prove this wrong I would be willing to change my outlook. Thats all I was saying.

You keep hitting the same point -religion is mostly nutty fluff. Yes, I agree, but I also don't think itis a force capeable of more damage than any other human idea, as we are all responsible for what we believe and what actions we perform, and there will always be people ready to do bad stuff to other people.

Perhaps its just personal, but I find it very strange in a world that has come to accept constant secular war as a part of normal modern life to rail against the evil of religion. Why isn't Dawkins and clones speaking out against Iraq and Darfur??? Is the problem with religion really about individuals harmed, or about intellectual superiority and pride? Because more people have certainly been more f*cked up by other things.

Yes. Humans easily become enemies. Therefore we need fewer reasons to become estranged from our brothers and sisters.

Religion inherently divides.

How does the song go? "How can you be right when everyone else is wrong?"

So, are you are saying that despite the dogma there is an internal connection with god that religion somehow facilitates?

That if one enters into the deep place of understanding of our connection with god then the essence of religion is fathomed?

At least this is better than pointing to cathedrals, paintings and religious music as being the transcendental in religion that justifies the horror which religious zealots perpetrate.

I would purport that religion can be bypassed and that one can understand the deeper meaning of existence despite the confusion and pain of life and living.

To be honest, I don't know. I can only say that I am continually travelling on my individual journey. I can only speak in terms that are relevant to myself and my field(s). I haven't thought about the rejection of religion deeply enough in terms of a philosophy to live by and how such principles should be implemented in daily life, and would prefer to leave that to social constructionists and other intellectuals. I can only say from the viewpoint of psychology (and neuropsychology) that I think belief in beliefs is a tragedy and a betrayal of man's potential. That it influences man in ways that can be overt or benign when it is based on nothing is something I cannot understand. Though having been religious for the last 30 years or so, I am not unsympathetic. I understand what it feels like, I felt the same until recently. Intensely so. It is difficult to imagine life without it. It feels like an empty barren existence, and that there is no point to life except to eat, drink, sleep and survive. I now see that this is an extremely unfortunate way of thinking.

Education is the key. I think people need to be properly educated. This is the big realisation I had when I saw religion for what it was. People need to be properly educated about everything that we have discussed: about religion and it's 'foibles' and inconsistencies, about science and it's capacity to transform lives and life itself, about humanistic atheism (aargh!) and it's ability to cut through the jungle and think rationally and logically. And this is just the start. I think that once people are properly educated about all these things, then they will see for themselves the true value of their old and horribly outdated belief systems and their complete inability to support and sustain. I realise that this may sound very embarrassing as if people are to be treated as naughty schoolkids, but this isn't the way and there is no shame in it. I wasn't educated about all this, but now I can see things a bit better than before. Ultimately everyone is on their individual journey but when we come to a crossroads, I would place my faith (how ironic!) in the man who has a map and compass than I would in the man who has a dowsing rod. Or a pendulum. Or... I dunno, a japamala.


I happen to be more interested in the daily grind, which is why I quoted plenty of 'normal' examples previously and for which many more exist. Look at poor Advaitadas for another example. Despite suffering a mass of health problems on his recent trip to India, including colds, sprains, general nausea and a collapse of the liver and spleen, he tortures himself with the thought of perfoming Ekadasi. When he is told (in the comments section) that ill people are not required to fast as per HBV, he is more interested in finding scriptural quotes to support this than concentrating on regaining his health. He isn't satisfied with that though, he goes to Satyanarayan das and asks him the same question, and even he says that a simple "apology" is needed and that it is impossible to follow the thousands of rules in HBV. Sensible advice I'd say. Still Advaita isn't satisfied and his liver problems are continuing, and instead of seeking proper medical care instead of scooting around to ayurvedic doctors or seeking better living conditions (he doesn't have running water available) he blames it on all the karma he has to suffer. He also says it is Radharanir iccha, the will of Radharani. But of course it is. Radha really likes to see her devotees suffer? Or is some kind of "test" of devotion? I don't know where to begin with this, the poor guy has tied himself up in knots with all his shastras and guru.

I also happen to be very familiar with other people with situations where they're going through a living hell in their lives, socially speaking, and without exception they accept being oppressed and treated like a doormat and resignedly throw up their hands by blaming their "karma", and that perhaps they may have a better "next life" if they suffer now when they are fully capable of resolving their situations if they just had a little backbone. Their problems aren't due to religious reasons but they allow their sufferings to continue by invoking religious notions that offer nothing helpful in the here and now. It infuriates me how people I care about betray themselves and their intelligence by subscribing to all these useless notions of "how things should be done" instead of taking a little responsibility and realising that they and only they are in the driving seats of their lives. You see, Angrezi, it is difficult to talk about the causes of genocidal massacres and the like because they take place at macro levels. They could just as easily be motivated through religious rivalries as they are by tribal rivalries and historians will argue about it through the ages. But I have seen that at the micro level, religion is directly responsible for filling up people's lives with completely unnecessary anxieties, sufferings and discriminations that any reasonable person would think twice about. All the stories and confessions here on Gaudiya Repercussions are direct testament to this. Just look at the Hijab article that was posted at the beginning of this thread. Psychologically speaking, it's a painful understatement to say that these anxieties are not good for the psyche. These sufferings are very easily avoidable especially if religious notions were not subscribed to, so why do people deliberately torture themselves and others?

In my own career I intend to receive training to work with the mentally ill. I have a general interest in mental disorders, and I am particularly interested in the phenomenon of auditory hallucinations ("hearing voices"). Do you know how many murders are committed by schizophrenic patients who did so because they heard the voice of Jesus telling them to? OK fair enough, they are unfortunately mentally ill and could have easily heard the voice of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, but why do so many case reports of hallucinatory experiences consist almost entirely of religious content? And what happens when so-called 'normal' people believe in these same delusions of heaven and hell, gods and demons, fairies and pixies, ghosts and goblins, dungeons and dragons? The 9/11 hijackers and the terrorists behind the London 7/7 bombings all came from reasonable well-to-do families, yet they blew themselves up gladly with the promise of coming face to face with Allah. Who cares about sex with 72 virgins when you can see Allah? All of this is a needless multiplication of misery where the micro has potentialities that can evolve into the macro.


I agree with this, and with your earlier point about it being a better question to analyse why people are antagonistic to each other. Homer took the words right out of my mouth on this. I am not silly or naive enough to say that the eradication of religion would automatically make everything hunky-dory in the world, but I would say that religion contributes a complex and messy layer to a number of problems and we would be better off without those unnecessary layers so we come a few steps closer to dealing with the actual problem.


I completely agree with you on this. I can't speak for anybody else but I can say that my motivations are mainly humanistic. You are a great thinker Angrezi, and you have brought up some excellent points that will make a great contribution to a piece I'm writing.

Something like that.




You might like THIS.

I admire that you actually completed it. I read a little bit before but I have just now read it all. Even then I couldn't handle it and had to skip over some parts. It's incredibly sickening. I can't stop my stomach turning.

people become angry angry and aggressive because of desire. don't listen to this album by dylan.

Beautiful.


Oh Beautiful Killer - beloved of Visnu - who, roaring with mad laughter, swiftly kicks to death all assumed eternities born of human conceit, and joyfully bleeds dry - unto dust, all fitfull animation.

Oh Black~One - dispeller of evil - sitting atop the World; cherished protector of those - blessed in fortune - who acknowledge the cognitive violation at the core of existence as the pounding of Your Wild and Holy Heart -

be merciful upon us - now and at the time of our dissolution.

Thank you.

I watched the documentary on Dylan the other night, Don't Look Back, and I was amazed how argumentative he is.

Intelligent argument, I liked it.

Then I watched The Cup, a beautiful Tibetan movie about soccer and monastic life; highly recommended.

I did not look for this, I found it by providence. I had to share it.

I am heartened to read through this thread and learn more about my friends and our community.

Where mildly irrational ideas and mildly harmful moral codes become mainstream, it creates a legitimacy for extreme interpretations and extreme applications of those.


A cynical but relevant "golden thought" I once saw: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.


Yeah, the hackers. A hacker team managed to hack themselves in and was just one last step away from gaining control over an important switch controlling some parameter of the experiment.

Ahh, some group also expressed concern that the experiment might produce a black hole and this will be the end of the world. Stephen Hawking explained that such black hole would be microscopic and would "evaporate" in no time, and anyway the probability of this happening was "only" 1%... (Reading his statement gave me a strong feeling that he regretted the odds weren't higher...


Touché!


Oh yes, that was delightful. I remember thinking, wow, now that he is getting fascinated by neuropsychology, let's watch this guy, he and his creeper are in for some radical paradigm shifts in not too distant future!

One of B.R. Sridhar Maharaj's most devoted disciples - an American, and a (then) friend of mine - holds a PhD in neurophysiology, and had a history in psychology. It did not appear to have had any adverse effects on his 'creeper' whatsoever.

He is now a sanyassi serving with Narayana Maharaj.

seems like it depends who you ask

Thanks for your nice replyto my post Brainiac, I wont qoute it all, but I agree with alot of it, but this is interesting:I think this is an important point that we understand differently. In the case of children this is certainly true, but when we enter the morbid realm of adulthood we miraculously become responsible for ourselves -whether we want to or not. Many people do not want to be responsible for their own existence and turn to religion. Unreasonable? yes perhaps, but not entirely without its own function. Part of human life is the freedom to be unreasonable (ideally without hurting anyone in the process). To try to prevent people from being how they want doesn't work in the long term; no one can prevent someone else being 'unreasonable' lest they begin , at some point, to become unreasonable themselves. This is indirectly reflected in Dhyana's comment: to which I would add, this principle works both ways. Human beings are not entirely rational creatures (as far as I have seen [the whole left/right brain thing?]) which is why I was pointing out some of the inconsistencies with the analysis of certain popular 'athiestic' thinkers. On our own site we have Homer who has seen through the fallacy of religion but is into UFOs instead. (no offence intended Homer, I like UFOs too)

I , personally, do not want to be subject to either form of biased influence. It seems at some point to become an ego obsessed fight for some imaginary highground rather than offering substantial answers for a perplexing world. (btw, I see no chance of religious extremeism becoming mainstream in the western world again. we are perhaps more in danger from hyper-materialistic mentalities in which everything, including humans, are objectified and treated as life-less commodities to exploit)

By this I mean that when one becomes a member of whatever religion one has by default separated oneself from all other religious groups and non-religious groups or individuals. When I was a card carrying devotee I was certainly not in brotherhood with the Catholics or the Moonies or the dreaded impersonalists.

Even within a particular tradition there is so much division.

I fail to understand how it depends on who you ask when it is a simple matter of fact.

Of course, unless you are referring to the idea that when one becomes 'friends' with god then because of that connection with the Cause of All Causes one is connected to everything?

We are already connected to everything.

I am not atheistic, but rather I am skeptical of religion and it's motives.

As far as being into UFO's, this is a matter of direct experience. This term, direct experience, I often hear from devotees and Jesus worshipers who describe their relationship with god. And yet, with the exception of wooden, metal or painted images they cannot truthfully say they have witnessed their god directly.