Why Hinduism Is Philosophically Superior To Christianity

[Disclaimer: I'm an atheist, not a believer in any religion. However, I'm an eager student of comparative religion, and I like to understand the philosophical standpoints of different religions, as well as the possible psychology of their thinkers and rule-makers. I also tend to play provocateur in religious debates. I have a number of uncomfortable questions to ask of believing Hindus. However, this particular post is aimed at evangelical Christians, to challenge their smug assumption that their faith is superior to the pagan/heathen beliefs of Hinduism.]

Let's examine some of the core beliefs of Hinduism and Christianity from a philosophical standpoint, and see which appeals to us as the superior approach.

1. The notion of Individual Accountability versus that of Collective Punishment

If I commit a crime, who should be punished for it? Me, or my family members? It's a no-brainer that I alone am accountable for my actions, not my family, and certainly not any descendents of mine who weren't even born at the time I committed the crime.

As a topical example, Israel's recent actions in Gaza violate the UN Charter of Human Rights, because it has chosen to punish the entire civilian population of Gaza (including innocent infants) in retaliation for the actions of Hamas. Collective Punishment is not justice. In fact, it is itself a crime.

The Hindu notion of Karma is all about individual accountability. According to this belief, the Cosmos rewards and punishes individuals for their actions. Karma is even believed to follow individuals across multiple lifetimes. Unexplained and undeserved strokes of good and bad fortune are explained as the possible results of actions in past lives. Regardless of the validity of this belief, the philosophical underpinning of this is the notion of individual accountability. One's actions do not result in reward or punishment to others, not even to members of one's immediate family. The fruits of action attach solely to the individual alone.

Any karma you earn through your actions sticks to you through death and rebirth

Contrast that with the fundamental Christian notion of Original Sin. The basic nature of man is believed to be that of a sinner. And what is that sin that attaches to every human being who is born? It's the "Original Sin" that was committed by Adam and Eve, from whom all humans are believed to be descended. All humans are therefore condemned to go to Hell for this sin committed by their distant ancestors. It is only thanks to the substitutional atonement of Jesus Christ that we have a way to escape this punishment. Christ died for our sins. If we accept Christ as our saviour, then we are spared the punishment of Hell, else we will be made to suffer for the sins committed by someone else.

Bad news. We're all born sinners - according to Christianity

The Hindu notion of Karma illustrates its underlying philosophy of Individual Accountability, where each person is rewarded or punished based on their actions alone. The Christian notion of Original Sin represents its philosophy of Collective Punishment, where all of us are to be punished for the actions of someone else. Which of these would you consider the superior concept?

2. "The punishment should fit the crime"

If I commit a murder, I could go to jail for 30 years (or be executed in countries that have not outlawed the death penalty). If I steal something, I may go to jail for a few months. If I steal a loaf of bread because my family is starving, I may be tasked with a few weeks of community service or even let off altogether with just a warning. Such a system of justice seems inherently fair. In Les Miserables, the protagonist steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family, and is sentenced to jail for an inordinately long period. Virtually everyone sees this as grossly unfair. We humans inherently accept the principle that a punishment should fit the crime.

The Hindu notion of Karma is proportional. If I do something good, the Cosmos rewards me in equal measure. Likewise if I do something bad. If I poke someone, I'm likely to get a similar poke in return. Karmic retribution for a poke is unlikely to be the massacre of my entire family. Karma is believed to be proportionate in its rewards and punishments.

Once again, there is no evidence at all that Karma is real or that it works in this manner. However, the common belief among Hindus is that this is how Karma works, and hence proportionality is one of the attributes of Karma from a philosophical standpoint.

The Cosmos does unto you what you do unto others, neither more nor less

What is the Christian reward for goodness or its punishment for evil? An Eternity in Heaven or Hell. An Eternity in Heaven isn't terribly controversial, but an Eternity in Hell could be. Consider how long "Eternity" is. An individual's lifetime, in comparison, is finite. Even if a person commits heinous crimes every waking moment of their lives from the time they're a toddler until they die, the crimes they can commit in their lifetime are necessarily finite in nature. Punishment of an infinite duration is way out of proportion to the crimes anyone could possibly manage to commit over their entire, finite lifetime. Add to this the "Original Sin" of Adam and Eve if you will. Was their act so evil that they deserved an Eternity in Hell? A loving parent, which is what God is supposed to be, would have let them off with a slap on the wrist.

The Fall Into Hell by Dieric Bouts

Viewed from the perspective of proportionality, the Hindu notion of Karmic retribution is fairer because it tends to fit the crime. The Christian notion of an Eternity in Hell is way, way out of proportion to any possible set of crimes an individual could commit, not to mention crimes that they did not themselves commit!

3. The attitude towards Knowledge

Unlike Christianity, Hinduism does not see the basic nature of a human being as that of a sinner. Rather, it sees a human being as one trapped in ignorance and delusion. The purpose of human existence is to seek liberation for the atma (soul). Liberation is attained through enlightenment, and such enlightenment may take many lifetimes (rebirths), since the soul "grows" with each experience. When a person (finally) attains enlightenment, they realise that their consciousness is not an individual one, but part of the Supreme Consciousness, and they then attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths by having their consciousness merge with the Supreme.

The Hindu concept of enlightenment, or the attainment of Oneness with the Supreme Consciousness

The Hindu attitude towards Knowledge is therefore positive. Humans are encouraged to seek knowledge and truth.

Furthermore, they are advised not to accept even the word of a guru as gospel truth, but to question, challenge and debate every claim until they are satisfied of its validity. The Hindu attitude towards knowledge is not just positive, but also scientific because of its encouragement of skepticism and debate. Indeed, open debates between religious denominations were common in ancient India.

The famous philosophical debate between Shankaracharya and Mandana Mishra that illustrated not just the prevalent non-dogmatic attitude to knowledge, but also the intellectual honesty of the judge, who was Mandana Mishra's wife, yet ruled that her husband had lost the debate

[Important note: The historicity of Shankaracharya is in doubt. Some accounts place him as early as the 5th century BCE, while others place him around the 8th century CE, which is quite a broad interval of time. Also, it's not clear whether the debate with Mandana Mishra ever took place. However, when discussing philosophical differences between religions, the factual accuracy of events is not as important as whether these are commonly accepted or not. The fact that the idea of debate is popularly accepted indicates that Hinduism as a philosophy is OK with heterodox views.]

Let's turn now to Christianity. What was the "Original Sin" of Adam and Eve? One could say it was disobedience towards God. But what was their specific act of disobedience? What Adam and Eve did was eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge! Mind you, it was not an apple, as some children's books portray it. Christian scripture is astonishingly candid in using the allegory of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. That's quite a startling admission of Christianity's negative attitude towards Knowledge - on two counts. One, that Adam and Eve were punished for seeking Knowledge by being expelled from Paradise, and further, all their descendents, even those then unborn, were cursed with an out-of-proportion Collective Punishment of an Eternity in Hell. Two, that they were expected to accept the word of God unquestioningly, and their curiosity or skepticism was not encouraged but punished.

"You want knowledge? Get out! This is a garden, not a library."

The concept of heterodoxy in Christianity has a bloody history. Catholics and Protestants in Europe slaughtered each other for centuries instead of engaging in debate. The Christian attitude towards knowledge was therefore not marked by enquiry and debate, but blind and dogmatic faith. The notorious reaction of the Church to Galileo and Darwin hardly needs mentioning.

St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, a painting by François Dubois on the French wars of religion

Yet again, the Hindu philosophy appears superior to the Christian one, this time through its attitude towards Knowledge in general, and specifically the encouragement to question received wisdom and to discover truth for oneself.

4. The attitude towards Diversity of Thought

Every modern corporation today has an "Inclusion and Diversity" initiative. Furthermore, the notion of diversity is claimed to be more than just the superficial diversity of gender, national origin, ethnicity or religion, but diversity of thought. (Whether diversity of thought is genuinely encouraged is doubtful, though. The Ukraine and Gaza crises have shown that people with views out of line with that of the Western establishment are summarily "cancelled", deplatformed and demonetised.)

Be that as it may, the more enlightened sections of modern society have begun to grudgingly accept that people around the world have diverse views, and that it is not desirable to impose a single viewpoint upon everyone. Diversity of thought is viewed as a strength, in that it helps to overcome "groupthink" and suboptimal decision-making. Mutual respect, as opposed to the condescending concept of "tolerance", is beginning to be appreciated as a healthier attitude in a diverse world.

One of Hinduism's fundamental beliefs is that "all paths lead to the truth", and this is borne out by the fact that Hindu evangelism and conversion to Hinduism are rarely observed in society. (Hindu evangelism is mainly seen in the Hare Krishna movement, which seems to be predominantly composed of Western people who were formerly Christian, and who perhaps therefore carry forward their old attitude of "my way is superior to yours" even after adopting a religion that explicitly rejects that notion! Rituals to convert non-Hindus to Hinduism are also a recent phenomenon. The 19th century Hindu monk, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founded the Arya Samaj and invented conversion rituals as a response to the Christian evangelism and conversion efforts that he witnessed.)

Hindu Philosophy as stated in the Rig Veda - "ekam sat vipraa bahudhaa vadanti - The truth is one but the wise speak of it in many ways", an expression of respect for other viewpoints

The Abrahamic religions (not just Christianity) are notorious for their attitude of supremacism. Christianity and Islam are proselytising religions that do not accept the equal validity of other religions, but look down on them as inferior beliefs. Judaism may not have a strong tradition of conversion, but this is not out of a sense of mutual respect for other religions, but rather from the notion of Jews being the "Chosen People". Judaism therefore lacks even the condescending desire to share one's spiritual superiority with others!

The difference in attitudes towards non-belief is also striking. Atheism is considered part of the accepted schools of thought within Hinduism, with the atheistic thinker Charvaka being one of Hinduism's respected saints. Non-belief in God is considered sinful in Christianity, and indeed in the entire Abrahamic tradition.

Once again, it is Hinduism that exhibits the more philosophically evolved attitude of respect for diversity of thought, compared to Christianity (or indeed, any religion in the Abrahamic family).

5. The notion of Cosmic Time

The Christian view of Time is linear. "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth." And we will all spend an Eternity either in Heaven or in Hell. That's it. A definite beginning, and no end.

The Christian theological concept of Cosmic Time, from the moment of Creation to an Eternity in Heaven or Hell

By contrast, the Hindu concept of Time is cyclical. The Universe, i.e., all of Creation, is created, lasts for a while, then undergoes dissolution. Rinse and repeat. There is no end to this cycle of creation and dissolution.

The Hindu Trinity of a Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Shiva) keeps the Universe going forever

Of course, there is no evidence for the validity of either hypothesis. However, from a purely philosophical standpoint, the Hindu concept of a continuously repeating lifecycle of Creation is more sophisticated than the simplistic, linear one in the Christian tradition.

6. Objective Truth and the entire edifice of Western civilisation

This point is not strictly about Christianity. It's about Western thinking in general, and I have written about it in detail earlier. The entire edifice of modern Western thought, i.e., what is referred to as "scientific", "rationalistic" or "evidence-based" knowledge, rests upon a fundamental premise, that there is something called Objective Truth.

But what if there is none? An early Indic philosophy (not necessarily Hindu in a religious sense) called Samkhya claims that there can be no Objective Truth because the Observer is an inextricable part of the Universe that they claim to be observing. This means that any observation is subjective.

Is this just an academic hypothesis? Well, the famous Observer Effect from the Double-Slit Experiment raises tantalising questions. If an Observer can change the nature of a phenomenon by the very fact of their presence, then this supports the hypothesis that there may be no Objective Reality.

Summary

It's clear from the above examples that Hinduism as a collection of philosophical thoughts is too sophisticated to be dismissed as a primitive or "heathen" belief system. Indeed, Christian theological concepts seem amateurish compared to their Hindu counterparts.

Let me emphasise once again that this is not a theological debate over which set of beliefs is superior. My personal position is that all religions are fairytales and that humans need to rise above blind belief in religious scripture, or indeed, even non-denominational "spirituality", which is also just "woo". However, when we dig a level deeper into the philosophical underpinnings of various religions, there is a difference in the sophistication of concepts that are found in each. This post is a collection of my impressions on whatever I have gathered about Hinduism and Christianity.

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Comments by my friend Seshadri Kumar, a fellow ex-Hindu atheist (with minor edits of typos, and my observations in italics):

1. Individual responsibility vs collective punishment. While I understand where you are going with this, the reality is that Hinduism also has collective punishment. That's why we do shraddha. You are supposed to do a ritual every amavasai (new moon day, pronounced "amaavaasai" in Tamil) for the welfare of the spirits of your ancestors. This, incidentally, was the reason the sage Agastya decided to marry. He was walking one day and saw several sages hanging upside down and crying in pain. He asked them why they were in this state. They told him they were his ancestors and [that they were] suffering because he had not married and produced a child. This is the reason I flatly refuse to do rituals for my parents. I did the bare minimum for my mother so her relatives would not be offended. When she was alive, I made a deal with her that the only religious ritual I would do was my dad's annual shraddha, and that too, a highly abbreviated, 15 minute version. (Fair point. However, there is a spectrum of belief among Hindus, and the less ritualistic do not worry too much about this.)

2. The punishment should fit the crime. Not really. You should read the Garuda Purana. The punishments described in it are horrific. Again, this is related to funeral ceremonies. Traditionally, priests read out the Garuda Purana to the relatives of the dead to scare them into paying huge sums of money so that appropriate rituals are done, including gifting of cows and gold to Brahmins, to prevent horrible tortures from being inflicted on their loved ones. (The Garuda Purana is a little-known text that is only cited at the time of funerals, for the reasons you describe. It's probably a self-serving invention of priests, as you say. However, this isn't an everyday text for Hindus, so I would argue that it isn't that relevant.)

3. The attitude towards knowledge. What you have described is all fine in theory, but the idea that it will take several lifetimes offers zero hope to those born in low castes. In fact, knowledge was explicitly denied to those born as Shudras and Dalits because they were supposed to have been born with dark, tamasic (pronounced "taamasik") souls, and so any knowledge given to them would only be misused for evil purposes. (True.) All the stuff you have described is only for privileged Brahmins. Also, you talk about how even the guru can be challenged by the disciple, but that's certainly not the case anywhere in India. Teachers do not like to be challenged, and that comes from Hindu culture. There was one chap who was working in Silicon Valley and decided to chuck it all to learn Hindustani music from a guru. The first thing his guru said was that you should never challenge the guru, accept everything he says, etc. (You're right in that in practice, gurus generally take offence at being challenged. The better ones take challenges in the right spirit. Vivekananda once followed Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at night to check if he was going to visit his wife, and the man just chuckled and said, "That's right, test your guru at every turn." That behaviour aligns with the philosophy. 99% of gurus probably wouldn't respond that positively.)

4. Hinduism's attitude towards conversion is largely because of the caste system. If you convert someone, which varNa (caste) are you going to put them in? And, historically, for more than 2000 years, Hinduism did not encounter foreign religions in any significant number, until the arrival of Christianity and Islam, and their initial response was like that of the Jews - we are the superior religion, you are "mlecchas" (outcastes, untouchables). Hinduism had so many adherents, they weren't interested in conversions. They took pains to kick people out when they didn't like them. (Yes, caste is a practical reason why conversion to Hinduism wouldn't work.)

5. Why is cyclic time any better than linear time? (Not "better", just more sophisticated. Linear time is like a story made up by a 6 year old, while cyclic time is like a story made up by a 12 year old. Both fairytales of course, but one is slightly more sophisticated than the other.)

6. Careful with your arguments about objective truth. A lot of [Hindu propagandists] use exactly this to justify anything under the sun. Especially the Advaita guys. All nonsense. (Any point made can be subverted and misused. I can't refrain from talking about this just because it could be used to justify random stuff.)

[If you liked this post, you may find these interesting too:
The Three Hinduisms
Fixing The Symbolism Of The Dashaavataar Mythology]

On Being A Bigot Myself

[Mahatma Gandhi wrote a book called 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth'. This is a tiny chapter that I could call 'The Story of My Experiments with Hatred and Bigotry'.]

I have always prided myself on my social liberalism. I believe myself to have no prejudices regarding race, nationality, gender, age, or sexual orientation. Even on the subject of religion, while I may look down disdainfully at religious people, considering them to be gullible believers in fairytales, I do not hate them. Contempt and disdain are much milder than hatred.

But something happened last week that shook me out of my smugness. I realised that I could feel hatred.

Mind you, I don't claim to be devoid of hatred. When I come across a jerk, I often do hate them for their behaviour. But that is purely at an individual level. I believe I am evolved enough in my thinking not to hate a group of people by association.

Until last week.

I was returning from a trip abroad, and was taking the airport shuttle home.

There were two other passengers in the shuttle with me. One of them was an Indian doctor who had been living in Australia for the last 30 years. The other was an American woman who was visiting her daughter in Sydney.

It was still very early in the morning, and I hadn't slept well on the flight, so I closed my eyes and tried to get some more sleep. But I couldn't sleep because my two co-passengers kept talking throughout the trip. I didn't really mind as long as I didn't have to participate. I listened idly to their conversation.

It turned out that the American woman's daughter was studying, not at a regular University, but at the Hillsong College. I smiled sardonically to myself. A churchie! And not just any random churchie, but a cult follower. The Hillsong Church is a notorious cult just a notch below the Church of Scientology on the charlatan scale.

Mind you, that factoid didn't make me hate her. It just triggered a slight sardonic curl of my lip.

She spoke about the time her daughter attended a camp organised by the Hillsong Church. The good doctor naively asked if the church had paid for the camp. I grinned to myself. The Hillsong Church never pays for anything. You pay the Hillsong Church. That's how the model works.

Then the topic turned to health, weight-watching and dieting. I refrained from pitching in about the 5:2 diet that I follow. I just listened with interest.

And that's when it happened.

"What's your weight?" asked the American woman.
"84 kilograms," replied the doctor.
"Kilograms? What's that? I only know pounds," she responded.

In that moment, I felt a surge of anger that snapped my eyes open. I didn't say a word out loud, but my mind was shrieking hysterically.

What the #@^%@&! is wrong with you Americans??

I was surprised at my own sudden, involuntary anger. In that moment, I hated Americans. Hated them for not following the metric system, and not even knowing what it was.

Kilograms? What's that? I only know pounds.

Ugh!

Meanwhile, back on the shuttle, the conversation was proceeding entirely calmly and normally.

"Oh, one kilogram is 2.2 pounds. So 84 kilograms is a little under 200 pounds," explained the doctor patiently, and the woman went, "Oh, all right."

It was no biggie, really. If you don't understand what a kilogram is, someone can readily convert the number into pounds for you, and then you understand. That's all there is to it.

But that, as Obama would have it, was a teachable moment for me.

The American woman was different from me in a number of ways, but none of those differences caused me to hate her. She belonged to a different race and gender, and followed a (different) religion. But the fact that she followed a different system of measurement was what caused me to blow my top. Worse, she displayed complete and unforgivable ignorance about the One True System of Measurement that all True Human Beings should unquestioningly follow. That was blasphemy.

So you see, we are all bigots under a very thin veneer of beatific tolerance. It's just that we have different buttons that have to be pushed for that bigotry to break through the surface.

Epilogue: After a few minutes, I recovered from my flush of anger. The driver turned around at one point to mention in an incredulous tone that the temperature in Sydney had touched 41 degrees the previous week.

"Fahrenheit?" asked the poor American woman, struggling to comprehend why that would be considered terrible.

"No, Celsius," said the doctor, without even a hint of a smile.

I chuckled to myself and was satisfied that my liberal and tolerant self had returned.

The Agnostic Argument - 10 (Is Faith "Religion" Or Just Superstition?)

I saw this witty riposte to an anti-atheist question, and posted it on Facebook:

In response, one of my friends wrote:

Disagree with the false equivalence.

Those who do believe in God do not deny science. In fact many scientists themselves were deeply religious. So there is no case for someone believing in God to deny themselves the benefit.

Quite different from the point being made that atheists should not avail religious holidays because it certainly is the case they do not believe in God.

Of course the reason I feel it is perfectly acceptable to enjoy the religious holidays is because they are an entitlement earned by working for x number of days for a company and not a reward for one's religiosity.

I shot off an immediate rejoinder quibbling that those who believed in a concept like "god" without proof could not really be said to be practising science, but my friend's comment did make me think a bit more about the relationship between scientists (i.e., those who could be thought of as practising science) and their faith, if such faith exists.

Specifically, the claim that "many scientists themselves were (are) deeply religious", made me think about ISRO's (the Indian Space Research Organisation's) former chairman K Radhakrishnan, and how he took a replica of the GSLV (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket and Mangalyaan (the Mars probe) to the Tirumala temple to be "blessed". As one who believes it was the meticulous research and calculations of the ISRO team that were responsible for the success of these projects, I was offended by the eminent scientist's genuflection towards religion.

ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan praying at Tirumala with a replica of the GSLV rocket and the Mangalyaan Mars probe

I could not visualise the head of NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA) taking a replica of one of their spacecraft to a church to be blessed, and I could not help wondering why an Indian (Hindu) scientist would think nothing of doing this sort of thing.

My conclusion is that people (even the educated ones) from less advanced countries have more recently been at the mercy of forces of nature than people from advanced countries. Death, disease, destitution and other major misfortune are part of virtually every family's not-too distant history. (My own extended family, over just the last three generations, has had many examples of needless tragedy caused by forces of nature.) This leads to higher levels of fatalism and superstitious belief. These attitudes of fatalism and superstition are wrongly and charitably labelled "religion".

To be sure, sudden catastrophes, both lethal and economically crippling, overtake people in advanced countries as well, but these can generally be traced quite readily to human agency. Traffic accidents, homicide and drug overdoses are the major causes of untimely death in advanced countries. Retrenchments/layoffs and marriage breakups are the major non-lethal yet potentially catastrophic events in the lives of people. Yet if we think about it, all of these events can be readily traced back to human agency.

In advanced countries, natural disasters do not claim as many lives. Deaths due to disease or animal attacks are similarly rare. Droughts or floods do not cause the same scale of economic havoc. In other words, people in advanced countries are less likely to be affected by "acts of God". The factors that impact on their lives tend to be obviously traceable to human activity and human will. No supernatural force need be invoked to explain any of them.

So I'm forced to the conclusion that the wider prevalence of what we think of as "religion" in less advanced countries is probably the result of a sense of helplessness in the face of an amorphous, abstract and malevolent Nature, which has to be propitiated and appeased if people have to be spared its wrath.

It's not surprising to me that 93% of the scientists who belong to the US National Academy of Sciences self-identify as atheists or agnostics. They are the elite even among scientists, and their families have probably been insulated for generations from forces of nature. It's small wonder that they are not tormented by the same background fear that haunts those much less fortunate.

In conclusion, I don't believe it's fair to defend religious faith by pointing to scientists who are believers. There is a larger sociological influence on such believers than their scientific training, and this is what accounts for their belief in spite of their training. In any case, such belief is not a positive, "spiritual" quality but a manifestation of collective subconscious fear. As the world develops and begins to insulate more of its people from the vagaries of nature ("acts of God"), I have no doubt that superstitious beliefs (wrongly called religion) will recede. Those trained in science will always remain in the vanguard of scientific thinking, and those from societies that are less threatened by the forces of nature will remain freer from superstitious fears. As both scientific thinking and social progress spread throughout the world, atheism will gradually replace religion.

India In Danger Of Repeating Sri Lanka's Deadly Error

Pluralistic societies must beware of elevating one group above all others. The day Sri Lanka made Sinhala its state language and Buddhism its state religion was the day it sowed the seeds of its longstanding ethnic strife. The revolt of the Tamil linguistic minority has been put down at great cost. But the Sri Lankan government does not seem at all serious about pursuing genuine rapprochement or providing autonomy to the Tamils within a looser federation. Far from learning a lesson from those lost decades, elements of the country's political class and clergy now seem to have turned towards baiting the Muslim religious minority, and another round of bloodletting appears to be on the cards. As one who has visited that beautiful country and interacted with many of its smart and gentle people, I can only shake my head in sorrow. Sri Lanka's problems are needless ones of its own creation, all because of a fundamental lack of governing wisdom.

India has long escaped such a fate, thanks to the abundance of wisdom on the part of its founding fathers. The early tussle with the Muslim League on the one hand and the Hindu Mahasabha on the other must have convinced the leaders of the Congress of the desirability of establishing a secular state that treated all its religions equally. And while Nehru came perilously close to imposing a single language (Hindi) on a country where over 60% spoke another language, he wisely stepped back from the brink in the face of protests. India has enjoyed rare harmony in its public life because religion has largely remained a private matter, and its unique "three language formula" has given individuals, governments and private organisations pragmatic ways to communicate.

Over time, a remarkable sense of Indian nationhood has begun to develop (even if it has frayed slightly around the edges thanks to vote-bank politics). Free of heavy-handed imposition, Hindi has spread even to traditionally non-Hindi regions, often thanks to the subtle charms of Bollywood. At the same time, English has spread among the relative elite, forming a link language for the educated class. All wholesome developments, one would think.

The party, however, seems to have come to a rude and abrupt end with the election of Narendra Modi's BJP in May 2014. At first, the focus of the government seemed to be on economic development, and in that endeavour, the prime minister won quick support, including from many erstwhile critics. A potential sour note was religion. The BJP has always been known as a Hindu party, and most public attention has been on the likely relationship between a BJP government and its non-Hindu citizens. While Modi has been careful to project an inclusive image, there have been some disturbing incidents of violence carried out by radical fringe groups with a more hard-line Hindu agenda. The old fault-line of religion has therefore come under renewed strain.

Disturbingly, another old fault-line has been needlessly opened up.  Initially, Modi's preference for Hindi over English in his official communications was ascribed to his relative lack of fluency in English and his understandable preference for a language in which he was more at home. But continuing reports of the government's edicts in favour of Hindi over English have begun to raise eyebrows. The home minister, Rajnath Singh, who was noted for his past statements that the English language has destroyed India's culture, has begun to crack the whip to ensure that the sole language in which his ministry does business is Hindi.

It's clear where the Hindu right is coming from. They are aware that opposition to their Hindutva ideology comes primarily from two broad groups of people - religious minorities and the English-speaking urban middle class. Nothing less than a culture war is now on to undercut the power of these groups. In terms of religion, language and class, the Hindu right wing has identified its foes and begun its offensive.

The world has its eyes on India's old religious schisms, so the government will probably tread carefully there. But the other war (the linguistic/class war) is equally dangerous, and here the government has fewer checks on its actions. 

There are at least four problems with the Modi government's lurch to a majoritarian agenda:

1. The mandate that the BJP received in the recent election was for its plank of economic development. Starting a culture war when there are pressing economic problems to be solved is not just a betrayal of that mandate but a luxury the country cannot afford.

2. The purpose of language is communication. The existing three language formula has served India well, allowing people and organisations to negotiate a suitable common language to communicate in without coercion. There is no reason to ram a language down people's throats unless the motive is to disenfranchise a group of cultural enemies. In addition, insistence on an "official" Hindi, quite different in flavour from the everyday Hindi favoured by most speakers, is counter-productive. Official Hindi is often unintelligible even to Hindi speakers, and is an impediment rather than an aid to communication.

3. Then there is the whole hypocrisy angle. Politicians who rail against the English language, such as Rajnath Singh and Mulayam Yadav, see no contradiction between their public stand and giving their own offspring an English language education and sending them abroad to study. They obviously know which side of their bread is buttered (or if they so prefer, which side of their roti is makkhandaar), but will not acknowledge that English is an aspirational language for millions of their countrymen and could help to improve the career prospects and living standards of the next generation. It's one rule for them and another rule for the masses.

4. Finally, although English is in many ways a "foreign" language to India, its very foreignness makes it neutral. It does not belong more naturally to one group of Indians than to another. If English is to be replaced by Hindi, all Indians who speak a different Indian language automatically become second class citizens, because their own languages are relegated to secondary status behind Hindi. When one Indian is forced to speak to another in a language that is not their own but is native to the other, it creates a power asymmetry that will be deeply resented. It is no way to build a nation.

Those who point to countries like Japan, Korea and Germany to argue that India should have its own national language are missing an important distinction. All of these countries have a single language of their own, so it is natural for that language to be the national language. India has 22 official languages, all of them equally Indian. How can any one of them be termed the "national" language without making the others seem less national? In the same vein, wouldn't anointing India a "Hindu" country alienate citizens of other religions who are every bit as patriotic? It is for this reason that majoritarian politics is dangerous in pluralistic societies, and it is highly inadvisable for a country to create second-class citizens out of its religious and linguistic minorities. Sri Lanka is a warning to the world, but it appears that India cannot see what is, in a geographically literal sense, right beneath its nose.

The Modi government and its ideological fountainhead (the RSS) appear to have overreached themselves. They have turned the country's colourful diversity into ugly difference. And with their roughshod tactics, they have brought their government's honeymoon to an abrupt end.

The Atheist Dogma On Abortion

While I am in the main opposed to organised religion, I don't believe that everything (say) the Catholic Church opposes must therefore be supported by rationalists and atheists. Yes, religious beliefs often distort concepts of morality in very ugly ways, but this is not an infallibly predictable rule.

There is a Facebook site I subscribe to called "Atheist Quotes of the Day" (AQOTD). Normally, the posts here are the warm and fuzzy attacks on religious dogma and superstition that I enjoy. Recently, however, there have appeared some posts in favour of abortion, and these have not been greeted with the same degree of agreement even by the ..er.. faithful.

I have always been highly uncomfortable with abortion. I believe it is not a subject that has clear demarcations between right and wrong, and one of the mistakes made by hard-liners on either side of the debate is in assuming that there is a clear line and the other side is just not seeing it.

My point is that the line, if there is one, is highly blurred. Making an unequivocal statement of right and wrong is naive at best and dangerously arrogant at worst. So I don't want to see legislation outlawing abortion, and at the same time, I wouldn't want to see people accepting an abortion as nothing more serious than the extraction of an inconvenient tooth. (See what I did there? "An inconvenient tooth", get it?). Obviously, I would support abortion in cases of rape and incest, and also when the life of the mother is threatened. These are absolutely non-controversial to me. What makes me say "Not so fast!" is the hard-line feminist argument that a woman's body is her own and therefore there can be no questioning of a woman's decision to abort the child she is carrying inside her body under any circumstances.

I think we need to look at abortion not as a crime but as an ethical issue. That should take some of the heat out of the debate while still keeping us from turning our backs on it. I also strongly believe we should take religion out of the debate and rely on reason and empathy alone. I think reason and empathy form the necessary and sufficient foundation for a moral worldview. Religion only muddies the waters. As Arthur C Clarke said,

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Abortion should be seen as a moral issue, not a religious one. And (surprise!) atheists can have morals too. The most recent post on AQOTD that spurred me to respond showed a petri dish containing human eggs (it wasn't clear whether they were fertilised or not). The site's owner had posted a rather arrogant (I thought) statement under it: "These are not human beings. Any questions?"

Edict from the High Church of Atheism: "These are not human beings. Any questions?"

This was the proverbial last straw. I can understand dogma from the religious, but dogma from atheists?

It's a little like the vegetarian debate, which again should be divorced from religion. There are people who are strict vegans and do not favour any kind of human imposition on the animal kingdom, the "ordinary" vegetarians (lacto-vegetarians), the ovo-lacto-vegetarians who will not eat fertilised eggs (and those who will), people who will eat fish and poultry but not red meat, people who will eat "regular" meat but not dogs, cats, horses and monkeys, those who will eat anything that moves except humans, and of course, cannibals. To each group of people, those further "ahead" of them seem weird and/or immoral, and those "behind" them are unnecessarily squeamish and should get with the program.

It's a bit like the saying about driving - anyone driving slower than you is an idiot; anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

The resolution to all of these issues is the recognition that there is no single line that divides the acceptable from the unacceptable. Real life is messy, and different people (however rational and intelligent) will fail to agree on where to draw the line. Each will draw it in a slightly different place, and we must learn to accept some degree of difference in our approaches to ethical issues without condemning people as either immoral or superstitious.

When thinking about how to respond to the AQOTD post, I weighed several response styles from humorous to sarcastic and finally settled on a tone of civilised reason:

"So, after the non-controversial arguments against believing in imaginary friends, we have now moved on to the more controversial topic of human morality. As rational people, how can we be expected to accept someone else's line on morality without thinking for ourselves?

Hear me out. 100% of rationalists would agree that the killing of unfertilised eggs or of sperms is not murder. Also, 100% of rationalists would agree that the killing of a new-born baby is murder. Clearly, all of us have crossed over from "not murder" to "murder" at some point along the development of the human foetus.

Is this point conception (the point before which development into a complete human was impossible)?

Is it the development of discernible organs (when we begin to feel empathy for something like ourselves)?

Is it the development of a heartbeat (when we begin to think of the foetus as a living being and therefore capable of being "killed")?

Is it the development of the nervous system to the point of being able to feel pain (which again appeals to our empathy)?

Is it the development of the foetus to a point where it can be kept alive artificially outside the body of the mother (which makes it a complete and viable human being)?

No matter how we look at it, the 100% of rationalists who cross over from "not murder" to "murder" do so at different points, depending on their personal philosophies, which have nothing to do with god or religion (so don't insult anyone's intelligence by accusing them of religious beliefs).

It is naive to believe that there is a single line in the sand here after which 100% of rationalists will immediately cross over from "not murder" to "murder". We are all intelligent beings who believe in reason, but we need not all agree on everything, certainly not on something as blurry as the development of a human being from individual cells.

What I am asking for is an end to dogma and more respect for the views of other rationalists. "These are not human beings. Any questions?" sounds like an arrogant religious diktat from the High Church of Atheism. It is not respectful of the considered opinions of other rationalists and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Let the atheist community not degenerate into another church with its own approved dogmas."

That should have kicked the hornet's nest good and proper :-). The angry buzzing must have started already. But I'm sure there will be plenty of people whose thoughts and sentiments I have expressed, so I'm not going to be alone.

Where Are You In The Moral Grid?

I have been thinking about this model of humanity for a while now. My attempts so far, to place adherents of organised religions, non-denominationally "spiritual" people and rationalists (agnostics and atheists) on some kind of spectrum or scale, have not been very satisfactory.

However, recent events have convinced me that the cornerstone of morality is empathy. It is precisely at points when people fail to show empathy that breaches of morality occur. No one who feels another's pain as their own would harm another in any way - whether through dishonesty, physical harm, cruel words or even a lack of positive action. This is "Do unto others..." in action. However, the principle does not owe its origin to the Bible or any religious text. Empathetic behaviour has been observed in primates and is most probably an evolutionarily favourable trait. Empathy, and therefore morality, pre-date any organised religion.

[It's important to emphasise that empathy does not imply abnegation, or the constant sacrificing of one's own interests for others. It merely means that one treats others as one treats oneself. In other words, we must be kind to ourselves as well as to other people. Overall, empathy is a fairer concept than either selfishness or martyrdom.]

Also, as I have commented before, I believe sexual behaviour by itself is morally neutral. It is only when one combines sexual desire with a callous disregard for the feelings of another person does one commit acts of sexual immorality. Infidelity, sexual harassment, molestation and rape fall into this category. However, homosexuality, non-marital sex between two consenting adults who have no prior commitments to third persons, masturbation and other sexual acts traditionally deemed by organised religions as "immoral" are not characterised by a lack of empathy (indeed, they may involve profoundly empathetic feelings), and hence they are not immoral. [While this is bound to be controversial, I don't believe that consensual polygamy is immoral either, for the same reason.]

I have also studied the phenomenon of psychopaths with some interest and alarm. Psychopaths are dangerous precisely because they have no delusions and lack the emotional weakness of attachment to other living beings. They are incapable of empathy, which is, I believe, the foundation of true morality. They are also supreme realists and therefore have no fear of God, hell, the afterlife or any other figment of religious imagination. Being cynical, they can fake emotion when appropriate and masterfully manipulate other people using a knowledge of their weaknesses. These traits are virtually super-powers in human society, and it is believed that a disproportionately large number of psychopaths are found at higher levels of organisations because they are the only ones cynical enough to lie, cheat, bully, manipulate and backstab their way there. A chilling thought.

When I added psychopaths to my previous line-up of people and viewed them through the two lenses of mystical beliefs and empathy, the picture became much clearer. This is how I think society should be classified in order to understand its relationship with morality. Click on the picture to enlarge.

This is the model that finally feels right to me. It makes concrete the reasons for my contempt of organised religions, i.e., because they are characterised by superstition and selfishness.

I place myself in the "Moral Atheist" cell. (I'm increasingly comfortable calling myself an Atheist and not just an Agnostic.)

I now also understand my strangely mixed feelings about "spiritual" people. I have no practical quarrel with them (indeed, they are the best of the other three kinds), and I have many friends in this category whom I like and respect very much.

However, I find the beliefs of "spiritual" people irrational because I cannot believe in mystical notions without proof. Fundamentally, I cannot believe in an immortal soul that outlives the physical body any more than a person can believe that Windows continues to run after they have shut down their computer. Functional MRI has demonstrated the specific areas of the brain that are responsible for various thoughts and feelings, and these aspects of consciousness consume measurable amounts of energy. Once brain cells die, it doesn't seem feasible to sustain the "consciousness" (i.e., thoughts and feelings) that a soul is supposed to be capable of. The hardware and the energy required for such computation are no longer in existence. Therefore, the notion of the immortal soul just doesn't make sense to me, and once this notion is demolished, the entire edifice of "spiritual" belief comes crashing down (although the empathy-based moral system should remain intact). That's why I use the word "spiritual" within quotes. There is probably no "spirit" to speak of.

But as I said, what I consider to be the delusions of "spiritual" people do not interfere in a practical way with our ability to coexist. If the world consisted of only "spiritual" people and moral atheists, there would be no need to look for a Heaven beyond this earth. Life would be extremely kind, gracious, loving and harmonious (with the occasional friendly philosophical debate about the existence of mystical things).

It's the presence of the two other groups that causes suffering and strife, and keeps earth from being heaven. We need different strategies to deal with Psychopaths and with Religious Adherents.

We cannot appeal to the empathy of psychopaths - they have none. We cannot scare or tempt them into pro-social behaviour through the sticks and carrots of a purported afterlife - they know it to be hogwash. In short, we cannot change them for the better. They are "perfectly evolved" predators in the manner of crocodiles or great white sharks.

We will need to protect ourselves against psychopaths by smoking them out and branding them. (I think it's fair to say, with just a touch of irony, that I have no empathy for psychopaths! What are known as "non-criminal psychopaths" are those, I believe, who haven't yet committed a crime or who haven't yet been caught for a crime that they have committed. Their congenitally conscienceless, selfish rationalism practically ensures immoral behaviour.) Although their prodigious manipulative skills help psychopaths elude detection through psychological testing, science seems nevertheless to have found a way to identify them - they lack a sense of smell. What a fortuitous coincidence! If there is a yellow sun that gives these villains their super-powers, there is also a green kyptonite to which they are vulnerable. The same mental impairment that prevents psychopaths from feeling empathy also prevents them from recognising smells, and that is how society must smoke them out, figuratively brand them on the forehead, and steer clear of them thereafter. If future neuroscientific advances can help psychopaths acquire the capacity for empathy afresh, then they could be re-admitted into society.

And that leaves the adherents of organised religions, collectively the most numerous group by far. Given their numerical dominance, the only thing that prevents the world from descending into utter anarchy is the fact that their behaviour largely mimics moral behaviour, thanks to the superstitions they believe in, which play on their greed and fear.

When these people do good, they generally do so in order to secure a better afterlife for themselves (whether the eternal heaven of the Abrahamic religions, or karmic credits for an inevitable rebirth as per the Dharmic religions). When they refrain from evil, they do so out of fear (of eternal hell or bad karma as the case may be). It is scary to think of how these people would behave if they should ever lose their faith in the mystical afterlife, since these imaginary carrots and sticks will then fail to ensure their good behaviour. The morality of religious people is a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and the harmony of a social system based on this foundation is a rather fragile one.

On the flip side, we have seen too many cases when religious dogma has caused people to commit immoral deeds, such as killing perceived blasphemers, or punishing those who violate religiously sanctioned codes around sexual behaviour (i.e., the harassment of homosexuals, stoning of "adulterers", etc.) These are cases where dogma trumps empathy, and many otherwise empathetic people go against their better natures because of their superstitious beliefs and peer pressure, and end up causing harm to other living beings.

I think there are three possible strategies to deal with Religious Adherents:

1. Contain - continue to use greed and fear to ensure good behaviour, i.e., exploit the notions of heaven and hell, or of karma, to make them behave in a fashion that roughly resembles true morality.
2. Sublimate - a better strategy would be to raise their thinking to a level beyond narrow dogma so that while they may retain their foundational superstitions (such as their belief in a soul, a God and a few others), they also begin to see the oneness of all humanity (indeed, all living creatures). In other words, turn them into "spiritual" people. Once empathy trumps dogma, they should begin to practise, rather than mimic, true morality.
3. Educate - best of all, make them realise the irrationality of their beliefs by convincing them that there is nothing beyond the physical world, and simultaneously, of the need for empathy. In other words, turn them into Moral Atheists. This is best done with children. Train schoolchildren relentlessly in the scientific method, emphasising the importance of evidence over blind belief. And since empathy is often a trained response, train them by example to be empathetic to others, not just towards their own kind but all living beings (except maybe the psychopaths who are by now locked safely away! - You can tell I don't like psychopaths :-).

If we can get the bulk of humanity into the top right-hand quadrant of the above diagram (traditionally the best place to be), we will have attained something close to what the spiritualists would call nirvana.

And that's my philosophical learning for the day.

Thank God Not Everyone Is Uptight About Religion

Enough already with the pictures of people protesting insults to their religion.

While I have been concerned for a few years now about the Hindu right wing that threatens to be India's saffron Taliban, it's good to see that mainstream Hindus can take their religion with a chuckle. For some strange reason, most of the humour is centred around Lord Ganesh. I'm sure Vishnu and Shiva can take a joke or two in their stride, although I'm not sure about the goddesses. You know what they say about women and a sense of humour... (ducks projectile)

Here are some popular images of Lord Ganesh in recent times:

Indian cricket is certainly in need of divine intervention...

All thanks for starting that IT revolution, my Lord.

And don't miss the intelligent mouse

This one might spark some protests ... by Marvel Comics

Oh, and don't forget the merchandising (elephants never do).

You can order these online. No, I don't get a cut :-(.

Have you heard the one about the practice of visarjan (immersion of the idol in a nearby body of water at the end of the annual Ganesh festival)?

A Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu are in a boat at sea when a violent storm breaks out and the boat is in danger of capsizing.
The Christian calls out, "O Lord Jesus, save me!"
Jesus promptly appears and rescues the Christian.
The Muslim then cries out, "O Prophet Mohammed, please save me!"
The Prophet Mohammed appears and saves the Muslim.
The Hindu is now the only one left on the boat. He too cries out in terror, "O Lord Ganesh, please save me!"
Lord Ganesh appears and tells the Hindu, "Every year, you drown me. Now you drown!"

Another one:

A Western expatriate teacher at an international school offers a cash reward to the child who can name the greatest man who ever lived.
'Buddha?' says a Buddhist.
'The prophet?' says a Muslim.
'Jesus?' says a Hindu.
The teacher hands the money to the Hindu, who says: 'Thanks, Miss. Actually, the right answer is Krishna, but business is business.'

Ah, what would religion be without the jokes? Everybody should watch the Seinfeld episode "The Yada Yada" about how dentist Tim Whatley converted to Judaism just so he could tell Jewish jokes without being accused of anti-Semitism.

Jerry: I have a suspicion that he [Dr. Whatley] has converted to Judaism purely for the jokes
Priest: And this offends you as a Jewish person?
Jerry: No, it offends me as a comedian!

Personally, although I would very much prefer to see a world without religion, I could settle for one where the religious were able to laugh at themselves instead of taking offence at the drop of a hat.

The Agnostic Argument - 7 (For Good People To Do Bad Things...)

Steven Weinberg's quote is well-known:

Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things.
But for good people to do bad things, you need religion.

Parenting fail! Abraham gets ready to sacrifice his son Isaac because "God told him to". Somebody call the cops and Community Services!

My last blog post led to a discussion on Facebook with an old friend about a person's "moral compass" and where it might originate.

My friend said he knew many people who lived exemplary lives of compassion and good deeds, thanks to the inspiration of their religion. I know such people myself, but I couldn't help wondering about the source of their goodness. Was it really their religion or something more innate that made them such good people?

I can visualise someone reading in their holy book that it is desirable to give money in charity, and so they go out and do it. But what if they read in the same book that they must "slay idolators", for instance? Would they as readily obey? I'm sure they wouldn't, because otherwise we wouldn't consider them good people or as our friends, and we'd probably be reading about them in the news, and not in a good way either.

So what's really happening here when these good people read two different things in the same holy book, and they follow one set of instructions but not the other? They're cherry-picking! And the way they do that is by applying a higher sense of right and wrong to what they read, which tells them what to follow, and what not to.

So it's really a chicken-and-egg question. Is religion bettering people, or are people bettering religion? I think I know the answer to that, and the corollary then is that we don't really need religion after all!

My friend pointed out that not everyone had the gift of discerning goodness, and many people therefore need  rules to guide them, and they need the example of other people who live good lives according to those rules.

I'll grant that, but in today's world, we already have a set of good rules to live by. Take the constitution of any modern democracy and read about the rights and duties of a citizen. These man-made laws are not perfect, but then, neither is any holy book! Holy books were written by human beings, and it shows. They're riddled with fallacies, contradictions and utterly outdated ideas. At least modern constitutions can be amended to stay in tune with the times. Sticking to an unchanging set of rules will only make us look stupid as the years go by. I'll take a modern democracy's constitution over a holy book any day.

"Race Mixing is Communism," said the banners 40 years ago. No wonder they call Obama a communist...

The picture above is a good segue into my next point. The best shibboleth of morality in modern times is a person's stand on homosexuality. All the major organised religions of the world are remarkably united in their stand, and they all spectacularly fail the humanity test. To a student of nature, homosexuality among humans is natural, because it exists in virtually every other species as well. It takes a degree of emotional maturity to set aside one's own preconceptions and prejudices and to accept a gay person as an equal human being. One could argue that this level of humanism is denied to the doctrinally religious. They are enjoined to condemn behaviour that is encountered in every natural species.

This is a demonstrable example of religion making good people do bad things.

"Love Thy Neighbour", a sermon now playing at the Westboro Baptist Church

"There are no gays in Iran," said President Ahmadinejad truthfully. (We hanged them all!)

Why Can't I Own a Canadian? is a humorous deflation of religious pomposity where homosexuality is concerned, but as the photos above demonstrate quite chillingly, this is no laughing matter. Religion is an enemy of morality.

I know I'm not going to convince my friend about the evils of organised religion. It's an irony that good people only see the good side of things, so the horror completely escapes them. Now this doesn't imply that I'm a bad person, just that I'm very cynical about the world ;-). As the years go by, my sense of justice and fairness only gets sharper, and I also move farther away from religion. I don't believe that's a coincidence.

I would like the next generation to grow up reading widely, thinking, debating, questioning, having doubts. Moral certainty is a source of terrible evil, and it is better for us to doubt and question ourselves than to be certain that what we're doing is morally right "because it says so in the book". It's only through reasoned argument that we can improve our world. I'll grant that blind faith is useful when you need to summon up the courage to overcome some personal obstacles, but using blind faith in a book or doctrine to inform the way we deal with other people can be quite dangerous.

Religions too know where the threat to their existence comes from. It comes from thinking people who ask questions. That's why there's so much emphasis on unquestioning faith.

This church sign betrays no sense of irony at all.

Amen, brother.

The Agnostic Argument - 6 (Society Defers Too Much To Religion)

The protests by Muslims across the world about a movie that they believed insulted their religion reached Sydney yesterday. The protests turned violent and the violence was promptly condemned by public figures, both politicians and journalists.

The standard argument from "reasonable society" goes, "You have a right to protest, but you may not resort to violence."

I have a rather more hard-line argument: "You have the right to believe in any religion, but not the right to be respected for it." If someone laughs at you or insults you for your faith, well, just develop a thick skin because you're going to need it.

Yes, I am what in the US would be called a First Amendment Absolutist, i.e., I don't believe in curbs of any kind on the freedom of speech. Hate speech should be countered not by censorship but by a barrage of criticism and show of opposition numbers, cyber-bullying of adults* must be countered by exposing the identity of the bullies (another form of free speech), misinformation should be countered by information, false accusations (slander and libel) should be countered by civil lawsuits, and a false cry of "fire" in a crowded theatre should be countered by prompt public announcements dousing it. But speech itself should be untrammelled.
[*Cyber-bullying of children by their peers requires a more interventionist approach.]

That's a lesson the religious need to be taught. You may absolutely hate what someone is saying, but you will just have to learn to accept it. And public officials in democracies whose salaries are paid for with taxpayers' money and who have pledged to uphold their respective constitutions will have to stand up for this principle much more strongly. It's not just violence that's reprehensible. It's the attempt to shut down free speech.

Be that as it may, free speech is for adults because adults are expected to be able to handle it. Children need extra protections, and not just in cases of bullying. This is something I find absolutely unacceptable:

While the sign itself is disturbing, adults can and must learn to handle it. But children must absolutely not be exposed to such nonsense. It is tantamount to child abuse.

It is pointless having movie classifications to protect children from images of violence if they are going to be exposed to it by their own parents.

This isn't just about Islam, although Muslims seem to be among the world's touchiest people. If you want me to prove my even-handedness, I have contempt for those whose sentiments were offended by swimwear bearing pictures of Hindu deities on them.

President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, Mr. Rajan Zed (who has earned a mention on this blog before) said

Lakshmi was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for pushing swimwear in fashion shows for mercantile greed of an apparel company

Let me get this straight. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, and it's perfectly acceptable for businessmen to pray to her for profits, but one shouldn't use her images to further "mercantile greed"? Did Rajan Zed say that with a straight face?

(At any rate, the swimwear company quickly capitulated and apologised, much to my disappointment and disgust.)

Thankfully, Christianity does not seem to wield the same kind of power in its homelands. The work titled "Piss Christ" (a work of "art" in such awful taste that I have to hold my nose as I defend its creator's freedom of expression) was destroyed in an act of vandalism in Australia, but did gather more than a modest number of defenders.

Offended sentiments are the luxury of the superstitious, because in a rational world, the truth or otherwise of an assertion can either be proven or deferred till future research settles the issue. What rankles deeply is that society (through its official figures) feels obliged to apologise for the offence taken by superstitious people when a contemptuous laugh would be more appropriate.

I belong to a burgeoning tribe of agnostics, atheists, rationalists and allied people who have contempt for organised religion and resent the way society bends over backwards to accommodate the sentiments of the superstitious.

Ours is a cold rage, but it cannot be ignored for long.