William T Goodall wrote: > >> In rural India little girls are still sold to temples as sex slaves > > > > In rural India little girls are sold as maids/bonded slaves, > > Devadasis are well documented. See here for example > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/ > 2071612.stm
Oh, I wasn't denying their existence. One of my favourite movies deal with the issue, and I am avidly waiting for the English translation of a Tamil Devdasi's autobiography. > > sex slaves > > to European paedophiles [a British guy was the latest one to be > > convicted]. Obviously, all Europeans are evil and must be > eradicated. > > There's lots of evil in the world. I'm talking about the part that's > caused by religion. And I was merely pointing out that the same evil exists even without the trappings of religion. :) > > > >> and women still throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyres. > > > > Throw *themselves*? For shame! In the three documented cases in the > > last > > couple of decades, the Indian authorities have assumed that the fact > > that these women struggled and were forced back on the > pyres actually > > meant that their in-laws compelled them to commit Sati. That is what > > these families were prosecuted for. > > Jumped or thrown makes no difference to my argument. It's still > religion that killed them. Jumped or thrown makes all the difference to my argument. Jumped would have supported your thesis and a disturbed mind, thrown means cold-blooded murder. And the murder wasn't committed by religion but by their in-laws. > >> That's religion despite the British Empire's attempts to > suppress it. > > > > British Empire *never* tried to suppress religion. It was > very much an > > evangelical Empire, and the incessant attempts to get the > heathens to > > convert into Christianity were part of what sparked the Mutiny. I > > guess > > you are not terribly interested in India History, but you can try > > reading Flashman. Fraser's research is excellent, and after > reading > > his > > books you'd never again make claims like 'British Empire tried to > > suppress religion'. > > I was referring to the Empire's actions to suppress things like > Thuggee, Sati and child prostitution that are the symptoms of the > pernicious obnoxious evil of religion. Only a few aspects of one religion, and that too only after a lot of people of that religion petitioned the Governor-General to pass a law to that effect. Incidentally, Akbar was the one who started the attempts to outlaw child prostitution, child marriage, sati, and he was the founder of a religion. Apparently one doesn't have to be an atheist to recognise and try to stop perversions of the same. So if religion is evil because some can and do pervert it, surely it must also be good when some move to address these perversions? > As for Indian history - I have read _Midnight's Children_ :-> *g* And I have never been able to finish that book. I find Rushdie quite a pretentious bore. But I really can't recommend the Flashman series highly enough. They are laugh-out-loud funny, and Flashy certainly isn't a pretentious bore. :) And he mocks religion often enough to keep you happy... Ritu _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
