11. January 2010 by admin.

I am a non-theist and a skeptic. I don’t want to get branded as an atheist much like I don’t want to get mistaken for a religious person. Just like religion and faith it takes one to have a fundamentalist belief system to be an atheist. I feel more comfortable being a non-theist who is a skeptic on the God question and feel more kinship with the atheists.

But I also subscribe to the view point that Religion is a by product of our evolutionary need and was crucial in our group evolution. But like appendix it has now beconme redundant and will do more harm to the human socierty than good. Reliogion has out-lived its usefulness.

More on this later.

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13. February 2009 by admin.

First  of all I like to clarify that I am using the word Taliban more as a popular term for religious bigotry and NOT to identify with Islam where in Arabic or Persian, Taliban means students (so my friend Khalid says… 

A recent incident in India is deeply disturbing. Some Hindu fundamentalist group claiming to be a part of one of the main stream political party warned more than one billion Indians that if they celebrate Valentine’s day in India, the members of this group will literally beat them up.  According to them this is NOT the Hindu way of life.

So as usual like any fundamentalist organization, this group does not believe in Indian constitution which had declared the Republic of India as Secular (meaning every group, religious or otherwise, has same rights and the democratically elected government will treat every group equally).

They are trying to dictate to the citizens of India how to lead their daily lives. Soon probably they will ask to revert our constitution back to Manu Sanhita – the Brahminical text from sixth century (around that time – may be fifth – who cares?) which actually transformed Hinduism into more uptight and ritualistic religion and during Islamic invasion these beliefs gained ground to counter forceful conversion.

We all know during troubled times logic and reasoning goes out of the window – India is still under attack which started from Greek invasion to Islamic invaders to British (and other European) colonization and now from these Hindu Fundamentalists from within.. Of course we gained so much from knowledge and absorbed cultural traits from the Greek, Islamic and European civilizations.  But this time it’s just pure garbage.

Of course this Hindu fundamentalist group does not even understand the true meaning of being a Hindu – which not necessarily a religion but a belief system, a way of life which preaches malice towards none and love to all.

Typically Valentine day, to me, is more commercial.  But this is the day to show one’s love and appreciation for the loved ones…… so what is wrong with this…. When is expressing one’s love,  in whatever way Western or Eastern, become a crime? In which Hindu religious text is this banned.. Oh I forgot these people are probably illiterate and the guys behind the screen instigating are in for some political benefit.

If the group is so concerned with Hindu culture, go and address the evils of caste systems still lingering on… do something about discrimination against female children… address the issues of child labor… open all the Hindu temples to everybody.. and foremost stop killing and maiming people in the name of Hindu religion.

Fundamentalists are by definition narrow and cannot broaden their view. Their bodies are in twenty-first century but their heads and souls are in medieval ages. They cannot stand change but want to use all the benefits of that change.

It is very unfortunate, that we are seeing more and more fundamentalism these days – there are religious fundamentalist as well as other kinds ranging from socio-political group to scientific groups. 

Anyway I think I will change my web site’s name to SanjayRants.com

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