Faith and Religion

Satyamvada, Matloob,

If you were carrying a muslim name, you'll also be wondering whether you should take the risk of having fatwas against you. Murad is taking more risk by stating clearly his buddhist penchant. By generalising to all religions, he is simply taking an elementry precaution. It is silly to go after him for that, specially when his whereabouts are not hidden.

Now for the labels and affiliations. A free thinker is naturally not affiliated. Basic values are not worn on the sleeves and can also be reviewed at any time. You may also so that basic also changes with time. 'Commies' have at least basic values much more advanced that our reverred Ambanis and Mittals. I do not agree with several propositions of Murad but it does not mean that I'm not prepared to look in them. Being open to change is cultivated and necessary for evolution. Bertrand Russel and Jean Paul Sartre disowned later in the life most of what they had defended earlier. Only sacred motto is that everything can be questioned, there is NOTHING SACRED

Matloob bhai, the only option for both Hindus and Muslims is to refute this kind of trash factually.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of market among Hindus for "All-religions-are-the-same" argument so this cancer will be around us for a while, until Muslims are strong enough to put an end to it in India too.

Re: # 26 by
satyamvada
Very well said in a comprehensive and eloquent yet brief statement. Appreciate your brilliant comments.

The author of the article is from the type of people who have no class and yet attempt to adjust in every.

What would astray people of this mindset know about themselves because based on their very own statement they are "nothing", yes "nothing" zilch, zero so they pick up a placard and join the chorus that is in progress any chorus for that matter, and, yet they hide themselves behind their so-called wisdom by stating that they chose not to be a part of any, on one hand they claim to appreciate the core values of all yet they don't have any for themselves; another face of starvation of spirituality.

Someone who knows him/herself, would never place themselves as low as this author describes himself i.e. he belongs no where, yet feels that he knows too much to be a part of anything---huh.

What a waste.

Murad,

You are nothing but a closet-jihadi.
You want to create this equal-equal nonsense just like
your paki counterparts like tahmed, ylh etc.
You claim that everyone destroyed religious buildings
etc - which is completely false. In your previous writings
you tried to regurgitate all that commie-nonsense and
falsities.

Now you try to portray yourself as a humanist ?
Shame on you. You are a hypocrite. You dont have basic
values or standards on which to compare people and
their actions. You try to cover up bigotry and
enable bigots by creating false equivalencies and
everyone is the same nonsense.
Go do some introspection. Maybe someday you will turn
out to be more honest.

Murad:

Thanks for a simple and sincere statement of what is truly sacred. I hope there are more people like yourself out there. The truth shall set you free.

Baig bhai, the ONLY thing that matters is whether you call yourself a Muslim. It's the identity that determines the politics. The rest is irrelevant.

In fact, if you have the identity, then denying the rest is simply politics.

#9 great exchanges, lol, its the best entertainment show I've seen in days, no months..hahaha LOL
In the nearest language, it always works.

#21 Pinku, I've no problem with your statement per se. Pls reread what I've written: "Hindus have STARTED...". It is an alarming beginning as in Orissa and not an established practice among Hindus. Strength of Hinduism lies in its liberal coexistent thinking. Let us not lose that for such a petty reason as " to counter Islam". Christianity and Islam always had the ultimate goal of proselitism only and that is why the society around mediterranean lived through the dark period of middle ages. When greco-romaine thousands of Gods were discovered during renaissance, dichotomy, embedded in secularity of the separation of politics and religion had to be invented.

Indian philosophies were never restrictive in thought. This is why science, maths, astronomy developped till 5th century AD until Islam arrived in India. As we're trying today, Advait of Shankara or Bhakti movement tried to "counter islam" by copying similar stratagem of single Godhead and total devotion. But did it succeed in bringing back social progress and free wheeling thought? No it killed our own capacity to interrogate established and invent new until western trick of separating politics and religion was reused. India was producing almost half of world's GDP in 5th century under atheistic regimes like buddhism. It slipped to about a quarter under islam and then now to 5% with the onslought of Christianity and Islamic sectarisaiton of bonded thought. Let us not allow Hinduism also to hold us up.

If islam's inherent coercion of thought has to be countered, it can be done by destroying the 'sacred' in it as it happened in christianity and in Hinduism.and retaining the profane history. Islam of today should be freely analysed in history PhD's without any mullah threatening retribution. We should not convert all things Hindu also in 'sacred' where there is none.

Re #19 Posted by Regards

[[I agree with most of what you're writing. 'Hindus' have started also raising agressive exclusivity of 'Greatest religion' etc.. and proselization. ]]

which non-hindu have they converted and started calling hindu???

How many people world-wide can claim that a hindu came to them and gave them a lecture to show how good is hinduism and then asked to get converted to "real" religion, peaceful religion, "true" religion, "latest" religion, "fastes: religion or other adjectives that Islam uses??

Westerners in USA have joined Ravi Shankar or many such Gurus but they are never told that you are hindu or you should be hindu. That is the strength of Hinduism, they don't need number, they have quite a few great ideas.


'Greatest religion' part is needed to counter Islam, which despite being not so good, claimed greatness fo so long and scavenges for people almost everywhere. Islam and Christianity have divided Africa among themselves. THe same people who made them slaves have converted them to their faith?? People should be made to understand the difference. Most Hindus won't mind getting rid of Hinduism if Islam can be converted to some other good enough religion. Hindus despite saying good things about hinduism are not attached to hindusim the way muslims are, mainly because Hinduism has more or less conveyed it properly that God is not property of any religion.

Islam and Christianity on the other hand consider God to be thier property.



And don't try to filter this comment out till you can reason against what is said above??

dost_mittar:

Very pertinent points in your comment #14. Good Job!

Murad,

I agree with most of what you're writing. 'Hindus' have started also raising agressive exclusivity of 'Greatest religion' etc.. and proselization. Probably one way to stop the snowball of rot in Indian society is to do what christians have been doing since renaissance and Hindus have been doing since Kalidas at least. Put Quran in perspective as a reorded history of histimes by Mohammad.

You write well. You're a historian. Can you dare making a drama, a story, a novel based on Quran as it has been already done of Bible, Mahabharat. I know you'll be threatened yourself too by the same Mullahs. But somewhere we have to start.

Baig Saheb:

"The accounts of the horrible atrocities attributed to Mahmud Ghazni or Aurangzeb came from no contemporary Jain, Buddhist or Hindu source"

Which Hindu, Jain, Buddhist source are you referring to?

I notice that you omitted Sikh sources; they do describe these atrocities, starting with Guru Nanak's description of Babar's time.

As for Mahmood Gazani, there was a PBS documentary in 1999 about the ten richest men at the time of the dawn of the second millennium; one of these men was Mehmood Ghazanavi, and he was rich not because of the gold he had plundered from India but by the number of Hindu slaves he had brought - the number of even those who survived the Hindukush (hindu-killer) mountains was so large that it dramatically depressed the slave market of that time.

I think that you will be on safer, not necessarily correct, grounds by saying that these atrocities were committed by people who happened to be Muslims but had nothing to do with Islam

Re #14 Posted by dost_mittar

dost-mittar,

your comment is excellent. Let Murad Baig imbibe it.

All these gurus are capable of creating religion in much more speedy ways than Prophet did. Further they say less un-intelligent things than Kuran says. Whether it is Rajneesh or Sai Baba.
It is Hinduism the umberrala religion that protects people from becoming totally mad, because it has given all those ideas that Gurus recycle. The product differentiation is what these Gurus can not achieve so easily against that ultra old Hinduism, further most of them don't intend to make any religion and most of them are not bad for society.

#14 Posted by dost_mittar


[[
"but I hate the way the thoughts of the founders have been universally twisted by the Mullahs, Pandits, Padres, Rabbis and other professional priests who claim to be the `sole selling agents’ of their brands of GOD"

The above sentence makes no sense in the context of Hindus, since they do not have any founder or founders. As for as hindus are concerned, there are thousands of "dhai eent ki 'masjids'" and all of them are equally valid.
]]


right, but it shows how liberal Murad Baig is and how "loose" he is hanging when he has to make biased statements to paint all of them alike.

Re #14 Posted by dost_mittar on

Murad Baig doesn't understand that hindus or jains were getting killed and they were neither in position to write against invaders or to protect anything.

I doubt anybody with average intelligence will call those things as alleged when those who committed it have already written them in their effort to acclaim priase in this world and prize in the other.

Baig Saheb:

You have described yourself well, and from this description, you come across as a man of liberal views with a Muslim identity. One needs not have a faith to have a faith identity; Jinnah was an Islamist without being a practising Muslim; Savarkar was a Hindu nationalist without being a practising Hindu; such is the nature of identity. For example, you say: "The accounts of the horrible atrocities attributed to Mahmud Ghazni or Aurangzeb came from no contemporary Jain, Buddhist or Hindu source but from the flowery pens of Persian flatterers to praise their piety and their alleged violent destruction of Hindu temple", but no Indian with a non-muslim identity would use the qualifier "attributed" and "alleged" in referring to those atrocities. These were not necessarily flowery pens, Baig saheb, but the chroniclers of a time when morals were different and they did not know that their subjects would one day be answerable to a different set of moral code.

"but I hate the way the thoughts of the founders have been universally twisted by the Mullahs, Pandits, Padres, Rabbis and other professional priests who claim to be the `sole selling agents’ of their brands of GOD"

The above sentence makes no sense in the context of Hindus, since they do not have any founder or founders. As for as hindus are concerned, there are thousands of "dhai eent ki 'masjids'" and all of them are equally valid.

"I am also very suspicious of most of the `gurus’ and `babas’ because many, despite their huge followings, are often surprisingly narrow minded in their views and ignorant about history and culture."

Some of us may say the same things about other prophets and founders who also started out as a cult and grew large enough to be called a religion. I firmly believe that a religion is a large cult and a cult is a small religion. Let us compare one of these better known babas, Satya Sai Baba with the Prophet most of us, including you would never criticise. Satya Sai Baba has persuaded a lot more people - among them the most highly educated, rational thinkers and scientists about his being a God - than did the Prophet of his prophethood in his lifetime, and has done so without lifting a single sword or killing a single person; instead, he is known for sponsoring humanitarian causes, such as opening schools and medical facilities for the poor. Now, I happen to believe that he is a charlatan but that is neither here or there. The point is should we disrespect these babas while respecting dead prophets and founders simply because they are dead and were able to convince a far more gullible and less skeptical audience than is the case today?