Religious nuts are everywhere

No time for much blogging but quick pointer to a few good posts by Amit Varma at India Uncut.

First up....Hindutva defender BP Singhal, as interviewed by Shivam Vij.

Anybody who wants to denigrate another religion, I call him a Christian. You must find out Ambika Soni’s religion.

Read more at Amit's post on Singhal the Entertainer...

(who needs Cedric when you can have Singhal :))

If there are alternatives, why do they want to demolish the ‘bridge’?
Simply because America is out - have you not been watching the way places of Hindu faith and shraddha have been denigrated!

But what is the motive?
Americans! Americans! Americans and the Christians. I mean, Christians because of Americans and Americans because of Christians, and Christians themselves.

But why?
Do you know what their academy of religion in America gives out? That the trunk of ganesha is like a phallus. For them phallus is visible everywhere. In India it has been called shiv ling. Ling is phallus? What is ling? Ling is the operational part of the particular thing.

Crackpots, I tell you...crackpots. But like Amit Varma writes, sadly a large % of the population in India probably take his comments seriously and share his sentiments. Where have the religious leaders like Harry Fosdick or Vivekananda gone who preached love and equanimity of all people - not just people who thought and believed like they do?


Earlier this week, Amit blogged about another cartoon controversy that irked the religious crackpots in Bangladesh! Commenting about this episode, Blake Hounshell writes:

This story isn’t about hurt feelings; it’s about raw political power. [...] It’s a familiar pattern in Muslim countries ruled by authoritarian governments: Religious conservatives use religion cynically to embarrass the regime and whip up populist sentiment. Over time, they can force the government to make accommodating moves and concede elements of government to the clerics. And the state can’t exactly stand up for the principle of freedom of speech, because it’s usually no great shakes on that score, either.

Well said... though I wouldn't call it a pattern in Muslim countries only or even something that plagues the Indian subcontinent. The US has its own cast of wingnuts, who spew unbelievable religious dogma that seemingly has a lot of followers here too! And Europe has its own share of xenophobia and fascism, not to forget the Aryan supremacyand Ku Klux Klan mentality that was not merely a fringe cult phenomenaon in the not-so-distant past. And then there are the atheist Chinese, who are equally nutty (in different ways) without even believing in a God. Tell you...it is human nature to be such irrational kooks....God is not the problem and religion is only one of the manifestations of this kookiness :))

Related: If u have not read these before, do read Amit's pieces on intolerance in India, Don’t Insult Pasta and God resigns.