A group of 20 All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) workers, led by MLAs Afsar Khan, Ahmed Pasha and Mozum Khan, stormed the Press Club premises and raised slogans against the author.

They attacked her with bouquets, flower pots and virtually anything they could lay their hands on at the concluding session of the book release.

[Source]

Damn! Could you believe this?! MLAs (members of legislative assembly) acting as though they are some street thugs.

Karwan MLA Afsar Khan (right) hits out at the director of Centre for Enquiry Narisetty Innaiah who tried to shield controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen (left) at the Press Club of Hyderabad on Thursday. Ms Nasreen was attacked by MIM legislators and 30 activists at a function organised by the Centre For Enquiry to release Chellu Ku Chellu, a Telugu translation of her Bengali book Shod, which deals with oppression of women in Islam. Police escorted Taslima to the airport from where she flew to Kolkata.

[picture source: Deccan chronicle]

You can watch the video of her attack here.

Taslima is a controversial figure in the world of Literature. Her books Lajja and Dwikhondito are banned in Bangladesh.

Taslima talks about the torture of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. She has been living in exile for more than 10 years now.

The attackers showed no resentment for their obnoxious act, forgetting that they are bound by the constitution which grants the freedom of expression.

Their party MIM [Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen] went a step ahead claiming they would kill her if she ever visits the city again.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen has warned that it will not allow Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen to go back alive if she dared to come back to the city while the Majlis Bachao Tehreek claimed that their plan to kill her was foiled by the MIM attack.

[Source]

A party leader and MLA, Akbaruddin Owaisi, went on to justify and take pride in the act.

“We are very proud of our MLAs and activists who assaulted her,” said MIM leader and MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi. “We will implement the fatwa issued against Taslima if she comes to the city again.” The MIM leader felt it was not wrong to make such a threat though he was an MLA who took oath on the Constitution. “First of all I am a Muslim,” he said. “So I have to vent my anger against a person who insults Islam. Then only I can think of my responsibility as an MLA. As we are protecting the sanctity of Islam, we are not at fault.”

[Source]

And these are the guys who want to claim Islam is a religion of peace and has been hijacked by few people like Osama, honestly, I find no differences.

If his religion is more important to Akbaruddin rather than the constitution, he should better abdicate his position as MLA or even better, he shouldn’t have contested the elections since, the constitution asks for secular mindset rather than a religious one. A bit of retrospection would do his religious mind a world of good.

It is a shame that we have representatives who lie in the name of oath and then go on to justify the same.

Those who talk about protecting the sanctity of their religion and show zero intolerance against insults hurled at their religion should also read what their holy book says regarding unbelievers:

O you who believe! obey Allah and His Messenger and do not turn back from Him while you hear. Nor be like those who say, “We hear,” but listen not: For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are the deaf and the dumb,- those who understand not. [S. 008.020 - 008.022, YUSUF ALI's translation]

O you who believe! the idolaters are nothing but unclean, so they shall not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year; and if you fear poverty then Allah will enrich you out of His grace if He please; surely Allah is Knowing Wise. [S. 009.028, SHAKIR's translation]

Doesn’t calling the unbelievers as animals, fools, and unclean amount to insulting them? Are the unbelievers free to have their way with Muslims and Quran for this? Or is this just free speech [Of course, hypocritically]?!

And not surprisingly the Chief Minister has been mum on this issue, with nothing more than a cursory condemnation. The victim wasn’t a religious leader or an influential person anyway, so why bother? – Votes are more important!

Shockingly, the assailants have been booked for rioting and not for attempt to murder. Let us hope that law takes its own course & this doesn’t turn out to be another case of religious nut heads having their way!

Islamic Phrase Removed from Capcom’s Zack & Wiki

Why it was in there in the first place, no one knows

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that the phrase “Allahu akbar” will be removed from the upcoming Capcom game, Zack & Wiki. Meaning “God is most Great” it is a common prayer in Islam. Capcom had apparently received complaints over the inclusion of the phrase from other parties as well.

“We have already contacted the team working on the game, and the phrase has been removed from the game and will not be heard in future videos released to the public,” said a Capcom spokesperson to CAIR.

“We appreciated Capcom’s willingness to address Muslim concerns and applaud the company’s swift and appropriate actions,” said CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin.

Zack & Wiki is a cartoon-ish adventure title focusing on finding pirate treasure using the Wii Remote. It is expected to release on October 16, 2007.

[Source]

The phrase “Allahu Akbar” means “God is most Great“, what is wrong with the term being present in a Game?

Any Arabic speaking person who wants to say “God is most Great“, irrespective of his religion will obviously use this term. How exactly does using the phrase “God is most Great” in a game, is really any sort problem to Muslims?

To put it mildly, it is sad is that the Capcom had cave in to such religious nonsense.

Richard Dawkins enthralls us with science, and logic presented in an elegant manner which keeps you turning from one page to another.

He correctly points out that God doesn’t in fact explain our existence. On the contrary God who is brought on to explain our existence would in turn need an explanation:

“Creationist ‘logic’ is always the same. Some natural phenomenon is too statistically improbable, too complex, too beautiful, too aweinspiring to have come into existence by chance. Design is the only alternative to chance that the authors can imagine. Therefore a designer must have done it. …..Indeed, design is not a real alternative at all because it raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer? Chance and design both fail as solutions to the problem of statistical improbability, because one of them is the problem, and the other one regresses to it.”

God, in fact creates a problem of infinite regress, of which God can’t be given a unique exception. Even if such a luxury is given, it doesn’t quite seem to solve the problem as to why such a cause which is uncaused really needs to be God with the attributes of “omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts”?

In fact the attributes themselves seem to be self-contradicting, If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent!

Though Dawkins agrees that God can’t be disproved [but can reduce his likelihood to a near statistical zero], finds the exercise as mere shifting of burden of proof on the part of a theist. To ask a disproof of an illusion or delusion or whatever, and ones failure to do so doesn’t innately prove the same. Bertrand Russell’s parable of the celestial teapot is an apt analogue which serves to get the point across to theists.

Dawkins also takes a swipe at NOMA and in fact does it very well. The existence of God should be a testable statement which either results in a true or false answer.

His theory of how religion which is supposedly trash could have survived the process of natural selection whose job is to throw out waste! & the “meme” theory of ferociously replicating “selfish-genes” in the social pool is really interesting.

His critique of the proof for God is sufficient and this leads us to the common theistic argument that without God there would be no morality, this too is also well handled.

He successfully shows that we don’t derive our morality from religious books and our source of morality is something else. Now what is this something else? Unfortunately we hear very little about this from Dawkins. He suggests that it is not his job to find out and it is enough for him to show that our morality doesn’t hinge on the existence of God, job done!

Dawkins is at his elegant best when he talks of science, his examples of the “moth in the candle flame”, and the subsection titled “The mother of all burkas” are riveting stuff. I still want more…

In “The mother of all burkas”, Dawkins explicates to us as how small our world view is and we need to uncover such a lot of knowledge hidden from obviousness. I felt a veiled plea as to not quench the quest for this knowledge and not to fill gaps with God.

Penn & Teller had this to say on the book “The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true … If this book doesn’t change the world, we’re all screwed.” But I don’t think even for a moment the book will change the world for a simple fact, the message of “The God Delusion” isn’t forced on people as rule or even for the purpose of testing its validity, as religion is. May be we are all screwed for the moment. But “The God delusion” is one of the important milestones en route to make us free of this delusion.

Verdict: A must read!

Table of Contents:

Preface 1

1 A DEEPLY RELIGIOUS NON-BELIEVER 9
Deserved respect 11
Undeserved respect 20

2 THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 29
Polytheism 32
Monotheism 37
Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America 38
The poverty of agnosticism 46
NOMA 54
The Great Prayer Experiment 61
The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists 66
Little green men 69

3 ARGUMENTS FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE 75
Thomas Aquinas’ ‘proofs’ 77
The ontological argument and other a priori arguments 80
The argument from beauty 86
The argument from personal ‘experience’ 87
The argument from scripture 92
The argument from admired religious scientists 97
Pascal’s Wager 103
Bayesian arguments 105

4 WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD 111
The Ultimate Boeing 747 113
Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser 114
Irreducible complexity 119
The worship of gaps 125
The anthropic principle: planetary version 134
The anthropic principle: cosmological version 141
An interlude at Cambridge 151

5 THE ROOTS OF RELIGION 161
The Darwinian imperative 163
Direct advantages of religion 166
Group selection 169
Religion as a by-product of something else 172
Psychologically primed for religion 179
Tread softly, because you tread on my memes 191
Cargo cults 202

6 THE ROOTS OF MORALITY: WHY ARE WE GOOD? 209
Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? 214
A case study in the roots of morality 222
If there is no God, why be good? 226

7 THE ‘GOOD’ BOOK AND THE CHANGING MORAL ZEITGEIST 235
The Old Testament 237
Is the New Testament any better? 250
Love thy neighbour 254
The moral Zeitgeist 262
What about Hitler and Stalin? Weren’t they atheists? 272

8 WHAT’S WRONG WITH RELIGION? WHY BE SO HOSTILE? 279
Fundamentalism and the subversion of science 282
The dark side of absolutism 286
Faith and homosexuality 289
Faith and the sanctity of human life 291
The Great Beethoven Fallacy 298
How ‘moderation’ in faith fosters fanaticism 301

9 CHILDHOOD, ABUSE AND THE ESCAPE FROM RELIGION 309
Physical and mental abuse 315
In defence of children 325
An educational scandal 331
Consciousness-raising again 337
Religious education as a part of literary culture 340

10 A MUCH NEEDED GAP? 345
Binker 347
Consolation 352
Inspiration 360
The mother of all burkas 362

Appendix
A partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping
from religion 375
Books cited or recommended 380
Notes 388
Index 400

An really interesting BBC documentary on the subject of String Theory, Parallel universes, the origins of universe and what not? In short, this documentary is about many quest to find the so called “Theory of everything“.

The documentary features leading theoretical physicists like Dr. Michio Kaku, and many more….

It was a great enlightening experience to watch the video, it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say “Science, at times is more unbelievable than fiction“, you will know what I mean once you watch this documentary.

He has been charged under Section 153 of the IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence language etc.) and Section 114 (abettor present when offence is committed).

This incident took place as result of a complaint that the General Secretary of the city unit of BJP, Niraj Jain, had registered against Mohan with Sayajiganj police. Latter the Dean of the college who had expressed support for Chandra Mohan was suspended by the university authorities.

Now what is alarming is this, whether Chandra Mohan’s work of art is acceptable or not is another question. His art’s theme may have been wrong, at least that is what the BJP, VHP and some Christian organizations felt. But what right do they have to break into the college premises and damage the paintings and beat him up? Who gave them the right to indulge in such moral policing? What action have the police taken on those BJP and VHP activists who were involved in this carnage in the University premises?

Of course, it has been denied that Chandra Mohan had been manhandled. Rediff quotes PC Thakur, Commissioner of Police of Baroda as saying:

“They have not pressed for any charges against Niraj Jain. Nobody was manhandled. Mohan’s works were extremely graphic and vulgar. In fact the Dean and other authorities were present when we did the panchnama,“

He also added, “police have been very cordial with Mohan and he has not been manhandled or badly treated in any manner.”

But he contradicts himself, when asked about why the police entered the campus without the permission of the authorities. This is what he has to say:

“In certain special situations we need not wait for the college authorities’ permission. We had received information that the situation could spiral out of control and turn violent on campus.”

But didn’t he say that the college authorities where present during the panchnama [A first listing of the evidence and findings that a police officer makes at the scene of a crime]?

He says Chandra Mohan wasn’t treated badly, yet the situation was so tense that it could have spiraled out of control and turned violent, and needed immediate attention without even having the permission of authorities to enter the campus?

So why was the situation so bad without anyone creating a problem? If some one did create a problem? who are they? Why hasn’t anything being done about it? This certainly needs some explaining.

In fact, rediff.com states that “However some eyewitnesses disagreed and informed rediff.com that Mohan was visibly shaken up and seemed to have been manhandled when they saw him at Sayajigunj police station.”

Apparently, M S university students have sent a petition to the commissioner of police, asking him to lodge a counter FIR against Niraj Jain for disrupting university examination procedure, trespassing MSU premises, public nuisance, physically manhandling Chandra Mohan, provoking the mob and attempting to destroy university property. So much for the claim made by COP that the students have not pressed for any charges against Niraj Jain.

The police have registered a case against Chandra Mohan under the Section 153 (A) of IPC for promoting religious enmity and hurting religious sentiments with nefarious intentions like creating riots. But how could that be when what was happening was supposedly an internal examination? He didn’t present his work for all to see or evaluate, it was matter within his examiner and himself. None of them seems to have had a problem.

Again, Niraj Jain, has stated that this was not an internal examination but a exhibition. This has been denied by the college authorities, certainly this needs some clarifications. Either way it doesn’t give the BJP and VJP activists any right to perform acts of moral policing.

A Hindu website, www.hindujagruti.org, has its editor commenting on the news of Chandra Mohan’s arrest:

Congratulations to Niraj Jain, who registered a complaint against Chandra mohan. If every Hindu shows such alertness towards Dharma, it will not take long to revive Hindu Dharma! – Editor [source]

Some people are so enraged about what seems to be an artist’s freedom of expression, that they think that he must be punished. But can we apply the same principles on these Hindu Fundamentalists?

Erotic art has been a part of Indian art for centuries, let me show some samples. The following is an image of Coitus with a pig, sculpture from the village of Ballegavi.

[Coitus with a pig, sculpture from the village of Ballegavi, Kamat's Potpourri]

Again this is an image from a temple panel, Village of Ballegavi, should I explain about what it is?

[Detail from a temple panel, Village of Ballegavi, Kamat's Potpourri]

Here are erotic Sculpures on the Chandela Temples:

[Erotic Sculpures on the Chandela Temples, Kamat's Potpourri]

[Sculpted Chandela Temples depicting Erotica, Kamat's Potpourri]

Here is a image of “Lajja-gowri” (The Shy Goddess)

[Sculpture of Lajja Gowri, Kamat's Potpourri]

The site has this to say on the image:

The stone or mud icon of nude female has its feet held back so as the genitalia is prominently exhibited. She also features full grown breasts. The hands are raised and clenched in fists, or holding lotus flowers. The head is represented by large lotus. The body is very richly ornamented. The women having problems with their puberty, menses, conceiving and child-birth take vow to worship Lajja-gowri with all dedication they can command. as part of this ritual they apply butter and kumkum and sometimes lick the yoni of the idol. Another similar type of practice was prevalent at Chandragutti in Karnataka state. Women favored by the Goddess Renuka (see: Given to Goddess) being worshipped in nude (Battale-Seva). Such customs and rituals connected with eroticism are prevalent throughout India in one form or the other. [Female Genitalia Worship, Kamat's Potpourri]

And here is erect Linga date back to 2000 B.C. and still is worshipped by the devotees.

Phallus as a Symbol of Lord Shiva:

[In the Shiva temple in Kurudumalai (Karnataka) a great variety of "Lingas" could be observed, Kamat's Potpourri]

These and many more can be seen here.

Now, will the VHP and BJP apply the same principles and demand the destruction of these arts? Doesn’t this hurt their religious feelings? Having such erotic art in their own temples doesn’t seem to hurt these people but someone drawing erotic art in an University in Baroda is something that these people can’t digest! Is this Hindu Dharma or Religious fanaticism?

Further Reading:

• Moral Policing in India reaches new depth

This means Non-Muslims can’t practice their religion in public; they can’t have their own places of worship let alone propagate their religion. Though in policy practice of religion in private is permitted it is often times not respected. For instance, on April 5th 2006, A Catholic Indian priest had just celebrated mass in a private house, when seven religious policemen (muttawa) broke into the house together with two ordinary policemen. The police arrested the priest and another person. He remained in police custody for four days and on Saturday 8th April he left for India.[2]

Recently I stumbled across a video of the genius Dr. Zakir Naik, in the video he has tried explained the logic behind such a law. One can watch the video here. For those who can’t watch the video here is what it is all about. It seems to be a Q & A program in Q tv, a questioner (Non Muslim) from India asks him the following question:

Are Non-Muslims allowed to preach their religion and build places of worship in an Islamic state? If yes, then why building churches are not allowed in Saudi Arabia whereas Muslims are building Mosques in London and Paris?

At first, I thought the doctor genius Zakir would use the famous Islamic taqqiya and say yes it is allowed and countries like Saudi Arabia aren’t implementing true Islamic law as many Muslims with whom I had interacted want me to believe. But for once the doctor genius spoke some truth; He agreed that in Islamic nations building of churches, temples…etc are not allowed. Then how come Muslims are allowed to build their places of worship in Non Muslim nations? It seems he has a simple question to Non Muslims who ask such questions, so what’s that? He asks : (not in exact wordings of Dr. Zakir)

If Non Muslim is principals of a school and if he wants to select a math teacher will he select a teacher who says 2 + 2 = 3 or the one who says 2 + 2 = 4 or the one who says 2 + 2 = 6? He would select the candidate who said 2 + 2 = 4, because the others don’t have a correct knowledge of Mathematics similarly the other religions are wrong, and only Muslims have a right knowledge regarding religion. And when their religion and worship is wrong how can Islamic nations allow them to preach their (wrong) religion & build their places of worship?

And he substantiated this reasoning by quoting Q 3:85 When I heard this, I was saying to myself “Wow, what a reasoning?!”, if one has to learn how to make inane reasoning the ultimate candidate is the doctor genius! Irrespective of the religion you follow Mathematics is common, laws like “2 + 2 = 4″, are universally accepted laws and any one who wants to deny this has some problem in his mind. The comparison of a universal law with a mere baseless faith which is accepted only by 21% of the world population[3] is the most puerile of arguments that can be put forward. What’s his point any how? Just because “2 plus 2 is equal to 4” Islam is true? Every person knows that man believes the religion he follows is true. So what is Zakir trying to say? The program host was at least more sensible than the doctor genius, on hearing this great logic he asked back

But is it not so that the Non Muslims think their religion is true and Muslims think our religion is true?

To this the doctor genius retorts

one thing must be understood that Non Muslims will never let their children learn 2 + 2 = 3, because they are sure its wrong similarly we are only sure Islam is true and they not sure about their religion if they were sure they would they allow wrong things to be preached?

I must say he really had me laughing at this point, he again brings up mathematics as if it somehow proves Islam is true, “2 + 2 = 4 so Islam is true”, what can one say about such logic? Here again adds this with a rhetoric that only Muslims sure about their religion while Non Muslims are not, it goes without saying this is wishful thinking. And what makes this even more interesting is his comment “if they were sure they would they allow wrong things to be preached?” here he means that Non Muslims would not allow other religions (including Islam) except their religion to be preached if they thought their religion to be true. So going by his logic this would allow Non Muslims who think their religion is true prohibit preaching of Islam and justify the demolition Islamic places of worship, I think Zakir shouldn’t have any problems with this after all it is own logic. But we know if any of this happens in a Non Muslim nation then Muslims will be up in arms, rioting in the streets after all they belong to the religion of peace. What makes it more pathetic is the host asked whether it is not against human rights? Zakir said “no it will not all”. Has the doctor genius glossed over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the 58 Member States of the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948? Article 2 of which permits fundamental freedom of religion, and it is again mentioned in Article 3, and Article 18 stands for protection of such rights.[4] Of course it all depends on what is the the Islamic definition of “freedom of religion” and “Human rights” is? One has to say it is completely different to what we know, so is Islamic logic.

[1] International Religious Freedom Report 2005, Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

[2] Catholic priest arrested and expelled from Riyadh, AsiaNews.

[3] Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents.

[4] Fact Sheet No.2 (Rev.1), The International Bill of Human Rights.