There’s a men’s clothing store in Ahmedabad, India called Hitler. The owner might be trolling or just might be incredibly stupid – as often is the case, it’s difficult to tell the difference – said his business partner’s grandfather’s nickname was Hitler, but that he didn’t know anything about the actual Hitler other than that he was a “strict man.”
So I’m back to doing a series of short news stories in this space. You should all just get used to there being no real consistent structure here. The best you can hope for is a focus on people doing and saying crazy things. So let’s get to it.
Sanal Edamaruku is the founder-president of Rationalist International and our first repeat guest. We talk about how he recently debunked a Catholic miracle claim in Mumbai and the blasphemy charges against him that ensued. You can donate to the Sanal Edamaruku Defence Fund and support free expression in India here.
Jesus is the Most Dangerous Game
OK, here’s the deal. I’m off celebrating Easter by hunting down the returned Jesus. Beyonce’ and Jay-Z’s demon baby is paying me to kill him so that Christianity will die and our Illuminati Secret Religion can once again rule the world. Since Jesus supposedly spent a lot of time hanging out with prostitutes back in the day, hunting him now involves spending a lot of time in adult entertainment stores. Especially the kind that have private booths you pay for in quarters every 15 minutes.
So long story short, there’s no real column this week. Instead, you get a short list of updates of stories I’ve covered in this space over the past few months.
So I had originally thought of calling this regular column This Week In Fucked Up Religious Shit, but a few problems came to mind. For one thing, there are lots of non-religious infuriating, hilarious, or otherwise crazy shit I would have to ignore: psychics, alternative medicine, fringe politics, conspiracy theories, North Korea, and a lot more. Also, I’d eventually collide with the problem of trying to delineate between what does and does not qualify as a religion, which can be tricky at times. I’d rather leave that problem to the IRS.
Anyway, I’m going to try to regularly write about some of the craziest shit that happens throughout the week. When I’m feeling more patient, I’ll try to actually explain how people’s thinking has gone wrong and how we can actually know that, but there will be plenty of mockery too. Sometimes that’s the most appropriate response.
So let’s get to it:
We’re getting to that time of year again when the snow starts falling and we all come together in the spirit of harmony and goodwill to wage War On Christmas. But as we get into the serious anti-Christmas fighting over the next few week, we might take a moment or two to consider the less fortunate among us who might not have a Christmas to wage war against. And by that, I mean Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalists.
Not many of us here in the West get too worked up about these two religions. Liberals want to be ecumenical, inclusive, and multicultural, so they tend to withhold harsh criticism of minority (in America, at least) religious views. Conservatives believe Hinduism and Buddhism are just different forms of Islam, so they figure they’ve already got it covered. But what both groups miss is that these religions make claims which are just plain wrong. And those wrong beliefs can lead to some terrible actions.
Sanal Edamaruku is the founder and president of Rationalists International and the president to the Indian Rationalist Association and has dedicated much of his life to exposing gurus, godmen, medical quacks, and others making supernatural claims for the frauds they are. In 2008, he challenged a tantrik to kill him live on television before an audience of several hundred million people. Most recently, he’s drawn attention for his public criticism of Sathya Sai Baba, a very famous and influential “godman” who died recently.
A common response to criticisms of religion is that its adherents can sometimes do good things, even if it’s for irrational reasons. That’s fair enough, but at the same time it’s useful to remember that while some good can be mixed in with the bad, sometimes religions create institutions of pure evil. Here are a few of them:
From the Washington Post:
NEW DELHI – A bomb blast in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, during the height of the daily sunset prayer ceremony Tuesday, injured at least 32 people and killed a 2-year-old child, officials said. Authorities said the blast was a terrorist attack.
One of the survivors later took to the Twitter in order to blast the Supreme God in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism Vishnu for its negligence:
Atheist Hobos 