The Tyranny of Christi-insanity

Swami Laxmananand Saraswati, an 80-year old Hindu priest, and five others were murdered by what is suspected a Christian mob recently in Orrisa. The news is that “police have arrested Pradesh Kumar Das, an employee of the World Vision, a Christian Charity, from Khadagpur while escaping from the district at Buguda. In another drive, two other persons Vikram Digal and William Digal have been arrested from the house of Lal Digal, a local militant Christian, from Nuasahi at Gunjibadi, Nuagaan. They have admitted to having joined a group of 28 other assailants.”

What else would one expect from the followers of Christi-insanity? Their scriptures teach them hatred and intolerance of all non-monotheists. Let me just cue up Pat Condell (who perhaps coined the term “christi-insanity”) and let him rant on my behalf on the insanity of the monotheists and their murderous ways. Here’s “The Tyranny of Scriptures.”

I wonder when humanity will become free of the curse of murderous madness of monotheism.

August 27, 2008 - Posted by Atanu | Monotheism

8 Comments

This is pretty biased reporting of this tradegy and surely you have not forgotten about the Staines murder (http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1619/16191100.htm) which was perpetrated by Hindus and in which a Christian priest and his two children were burnt alive. Singling out a case where a Christian mob killed Hindu priests and then claiming that monotheism is the most evil thing on earth is, in my opinion, dropping to the same levels of the very people you accuse.

I condemn the killing of Hindus just as I condemn the killing of Christians or Muslims or anyone else in the name of Religion. Religion probably started out as a code of good practice to lead ones life and a body of knowledge trying to explain the world around us, but in every case (including the polytheistic religions) it has simply degraded into a means for one segment of the population trying to exercise power and control over the rest. In short, I think the whole religious hierarchy of temples/churches/mosques with their pujaris/priests/imams is something that should not be given as much importance as it unfortunately is today.

What is most important at the moment is that people look beyond and the religions and start thinking for themselves to avoid being manipulated by someone in a any form of religious garb or by a “general feeling” of antipathy among the population. Unfortunately this post does not set the tone for such thought.

Comment by clueso | August 27, 2008
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!!!

We have a winner! It is “clueso” and the prize is a . . . hang on I have the envelop here . . . a clue!

Here’s the clue. This is a blog, a place where I state my opinion. This is not the AFP, Reuters, or any of the purportedly unbiased media.

Next, I am not claiming that the killing of a harmless old man merely because he was a Hindu by an armed mob of Christians is sufficient proof that monotheism is evil. If you need evidence, look at the 2000 year old history of christi-insanity. Sorry I cannot help you here if you are ignorant of history.

Of course, at the drop of a hat — or the killing of any number of Hindus estimated at several tens of millions — the first response is that “Remember that Staines was murdered by Hindus.”

Yes, he was. And he was asking for it by provoking people to piss on other people’s religion. Go read the story why he was killed. He was playing with fire.

But if that is all you have to bring a moral equivalence between the killing of millions over 2000 years and the killing of a missionary who was actively promoting hatred of Indians and their faith, you need to try harder.

Try reading some history. Try reading the whole bunch of books that have come out lately by people such as Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, Dennett. They have argued at length and convincingly that monotheism is an unmitigated evil.

Let’s talk after a bit of reading, shall we?

Comment by Atanu Dey | August 27, 2008
As far as I am concerned all these religious nuts can burn each other up. Bothers me none.

Comment by Sid | August 28, 2008
Atanu says that “He (staines) was asking for it (murder) by provoking people to piss on other people’s religion”.

I disagree completely. By behaving obnoxiously, staines was asking for getting obnoxious behaviour in return. NOT MURDER!!

Comment by baransam | August 28, 2008
First of all, I have read Dawkin’s “God Delusion” and need no further convincing that the God in the monotheistic religions is rather too self obsessed and that violence is rather inherent in the respective holy books. My objection to your post was that you had completely ignored a treatment of the polytheistic religions in this same light.

Not being too keen on just posting back “you are wrong and I am right”, I spent some time trawling the net looking for instances of in polytheistic religions. Unfortunately(for me) I did not come across anything that I can use as concrete arguments. I thought of the caste system, but it turns out that the Gita (or at least the translation, of which I read up a part) says that the caste system is based on educational qualifications, not birth. The caste system did ultimately become a birth based system, but I cannot find fault with the scriptures in this case. I thought I will cite the example of the exploitative system of Devadasis, but then I read that in it’s initial form, Devadasis were highly regarded as artisans and it is later that the system got corrupted into the sexual exploitation that it is currently accused of being. I
thought the decidedly cruel practice of Sati would definitely be a saviour, but I it has been described as voluntary and I cannot prove that it was not the zealots who took it too far. I am yet to find a description of Polytheism forcing itself on others and I read a passage in the Gita which said that “people who choose not to believe in the person of Krishna and choose to focus on the impersonal nature of the absolute truth, ultimately achieve the same goal as the followers, albeit in a longer time”. That flexibility has me mighty impressed.

All in all, I have to concede, that after my limited reading on polytheism, that from the point of view of the scriptures and the method of spreading the religion, the monotheistic religions do have a more cruel streak in their teaching and history. I can therefore, also understand that any place where these scriptures are taught and strict adherence is insisted upon, is likely to produce the violent ambassadors of the religion that are currently the one of the largest security threats to the world. Finally, I also have to mention that your post and the reply to my comment was what caused me to read this topic up and develop the current interest I have in it, so for that I say thank you.

However, I am extremely disgusted with parties like as the Shiv Sena, people like Dara Singh who claim to follow Hinduism but hold violent and intolerant views of other faiths. To me, they are no better than Al Qaeda or Staines. It is just a case of a few corrupt people manipulating a larger group into doing their bidding and in the process tarnishing their religion and all those who otherwise follow the religion like civilised people. I can’t say that is a question of faith, they are probably simply brutish/idiotic and would behave the same irrespective of which faith they choose. Monotheism may have a huge lead in terms of violence, but if these Hindu fanatics have their way, I wont be surprised if Hinduism is spoken of in the same tones as the monotheistic religions currently are.

I have loads of Christian and Muslim friends show no interest in my religion(or lack of it) as long as I return the favour. They accept science, are objective in evaluating evidence and overall demonstrate great ability. Any day of the week(and twice on the weekends) I would prefer their company to that of someone who holds fundamentalist views on Hinduism. What makes them different from the suicide bombers is their ability to think for themselves and ask questions instead of being blind followers. That is what I would like to see in people, rationality preceding what is written in a book.

Thanks for the discussion anyway!

Comment by clueso | August 29, 2008
Clueso who sounded rather Clueless is gradually becomming Cluesome and hopefully will transition to Cluemore..;-)

Comment by Jayant | August 30, 2008
Baransam,

I note your objection and agree that however obnoxious Staines was, it was wrong to kill him and his children. Murder is always wrong. I think that only in self-defense is killing as a last resort.

So I stand corrected in saying that he was asking for it.

Comment by Atanu Dey | August 30, 2008
Clueso,

Thanks for the comment above (#5).

My objection to your post was that you had completely ignored a treatment of the polytheistic religions in this same light.

Religions are ideologies. Ideologies don’t act. People act, often motivated by ideologies. I have most consistently spoken out against ideologies when said ideologies motivate people to do evil acts. I think the distinction between people and ideologies have to be kept in mind.

Let me give an analogy. If a neo-classical economist were to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, you cannot say that neo-classical economics is to blame. On the other hand people doing the same thing but motivated by Islam’s hatred of all things non-Islamic can justify the claim that Islamic ideology is at the root of that behavior.

Establishing a link between the act and the ideology is important.

Japanese killed a lot of people during the 2nd world war. Most of them were Buddhists but Buddhism does not ask its followers to go out and seek world domination through violence.

I think monotheism is evil because at the root that ideology says that their god is the only god and anyone not following that one god has to be either converted or killed (Islam does that, Christianity have mostly stopped, Judaism never did) or at best hated but tolerated to allow to live.

Non-monotheistic religions don’t make any claims like that. Jainism and Buddhism (atheistic) and Hinduism (polytheistic and deistic) are ideologies that have tolerance of other viewpoints built into it.

People who are non-monotheistic are not saints and do have the same human failings as others. If they kill, it is not ideologically motivated by their religion.

All the above are broad generalizations and specific exceptions don’t materially affect the argument.

Comment by Atanu Dey | August 30, 2008