Secular thinkers under attack in India as religious fundamentalism grows

[rug]

By Parth M.N. and Shashank Bengali
September 27, 2015, 3:00 AM | Reporting from Mumbai, India

At age 78, writer M.M. Kalburgi remained hard at work at his home in southern India. He was putting the final touches on a lengthy introduction to a volume of ancient Kannada-language verse, which was due to be translated into Mandarin, Japanese, French and Spanish..

But one morning late last month, two young men knocked at his door and introduced themselves to his wife as his students. Without warning, they shot Kalburgi twice in the forehead and fled on a motorbike.

Kalburgi, who vocally opposed the Hindu practice of idol worship, is the latest secular thinker to be assassinated in South Asia. His slaying late last month raises questions about freedom of expression and highlights the growing might of religious fundamentalists across the region

Besides India, where several prominent secular figures have been killed in the last three years, Muslim-majority Bangladesh has seen a string of deadly attacks on atheist writers, including a U.S.-based blogger, Avijit Roy, who was hacked to death outside a book festival in the capital in February. Christians and members of other religious minorities have long been under threat from Islamist militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-asia-writers-killings-20150927-story.html

[Dawson Leery]

1. The Christians are not pure either.

They have laws that restrict criticism of their church.

I will say too all religions, you are the inferior to logic and reason.

[Cartoonist]

2. More good than bad

That's what some theists right here on DU will claim for religion.

[rug]

3. The converse is also true for some antitheists rght here on DU.

[Promethean]

4. Yep

and we have evidence to back it up. So lets examine the bad things Atheists do that can be attributed to their atheism:

Atheists say impolite or impolitic things to people sometimes.

And...yah thats about it. You can perhaps quote some singular deranged individuals but there would be no dogma or commandments or holy book for you to attribute their actions to.

Now lets see the bad religious people do that can be attributed to their religion.

Pressures African nations to change policy to match their dogma with threats of withdrawing aid the nations have come to rely on. Said dogmatic policies proceed to dramatically increase the spread of AIDS and further increase suffering in the region.

Sends famous figurehead that poses as compassionate to get large amounts of donations to places with large amounts of poverty. Said figurehead, quoting dogma that suffering is a good thing, refuses to actually provide aid to people beyond giving them a clean bed to die in while being preached to.

Covers up atrocities by authority figures within its organization performed against children because they believe the authority and message of the organization to be more important than justice for the children harmed. After this last one you should have no doubt that I am actually focusing on one specific sect of one religion and they aren't even the worst case scenario.

Now just imagine if we removed religion from say the 2nd example. The famous figurehead, Mother Theresa for those who don't know, instead of leaving people to suffer and die actually builds a functioning hospital that offers free care with her donations. Many lives are saved and overall suffering in the world reduced. Religion: More harm than good.

[rug]

5. Why do you feel compellled to defend atheism while attacking theism?

It's unnecessary and does not logicaly follow from atheism, which is no more than the absence of belief.

I daresay I could compile a far more scathing indictment of religions than the cobbled talking points you've just assembled. And I am not an atheist.

The critiques is about the admixture of religion and politics and it is not a hard case to make at all. And it should be made.

But, for whatever reason, antitheists must go from attacking religious history and its political influence, to attacking the notion of belief itself. That is a case that has not been made, including by the late Hitchens and the still extant Dawkins.

So tell me, promethean, do you also hold the simple-minded notion that it is the beliefs themselves that drive the catalog of horrors for the last three thousand years?

[Promethean]

6. The answer is easy.

I am a human being with empathy. I see religion doing the things it does and I see that even the cases where religion isn't doing harm the good it does is lessened by being held down by religious baggage. I see religious people actively trying to destroy the country I was born in and am actively working to improve. I see religious people advocating people abandon the things that makes humanity great, like education. It isn't hard to find a dogmatic basis for all bad religion does. More often than not a plain spoken reading of their holy text explains it fully. No holy text, no dogma, no blind adherence: lots of problems solved.

[rug]

7. If you don't look, life is very easy.

But the fact is religious people all over the world are also doing the exact opposite of what you describe. I suppose it's easier to blame it on a "holy text", add a dash of "blind adherence", and then go home, intellectually comforted and satisfied. Sifting through the interplay of religion, nationalism, capitalism, imperialism, and, coming soon, the water wars, is much harder. But it's much more accurate.

[Promethean]

8. I thought we were talking about religion.

That is why my only reference to non-religious subjects was to state that where religion is involved the problem is worsened. This is the case with everything you mention. Point to me where mixing nationalism, imperialism or capitalism with religion has made the situation better? I can clearly see religion making every single one of those situations worse on the news daily.