On Friday 29 Feb 2008 10:53:05 pm Udhay Shankar N wrote: > I am not religious, and view ALL organised religion > with varying degrees of amusement. And occasionally contempt.
This is fact is powerful support for my comments, even if you thought my comments were trolling. Rewording my views as a person who thinks religion is ridiculous (a word that can equally well be replaced with unnecessary and/or pointless) Religion itself is ridiculous, and the act of a member of one religion trying to convert someone to his religion does not make it any less ridiculous. A negative or positive reaction to this act of conversion merely serves to maintain and perpetuate this ridiculous state of affairs. Under the circumstances: Religion exists and nobody seems to be able to get rid of it. Secondary to the existence of religion, conversion, a ridiculous offshoot of religion, exists too and nobody seems to be able to get rid of it A tertiary consequence of the existence of religion itself, and a secondary reaction to conversion are protests against conversion, ridiculous as they are in the overall scheme of things. Sentiment against conversion is a ridiculous and unnecessary tertiary consequence of the existence of religion and secondary to the ridiculous and unnecessary urge to convert from one religion to another. Questioning that tertiary consequence without questioning the secondary and primary causes higher up in the hierarchy is meaningless. The Indian constitution accepts religion, and accepts conversions (by implication) as part of religion. The constitution does not specifically prohibit protests for or against any cause, but protests against conversions are often sought to be portrayed as a form of intolerant extremism (I am not targeting any specific person here) Situations in which this discouraging of protests against conversion occurs occurs are obviously one sided and unfair when the whole concept of religion and conversions are accepted as normal and desirable. It would be fair only to accept them all as inevitable, or discard them all equally. If religion is the guilty party, members of any one religion cannot be held as guilty in isolation. All believers are equally guilty. shiv
