At 2010-04-19 08:18:59 +0530, [email protected] wrote: > > What religions dictate and what followers of religions do are two > different things.
Right. One is smoke, the other is mirrors. > The act of attributing a religious motivation to a societal event or > societal situation is a political act. The act of interpreting *any* event or situation is a political act. Or were you using "political" as a dirty word, as in "only bad people do that sort of thing"? > How often do you read the assertion that Muslims do not kill Muslims? Sorry, I've never read it. The claim I *do* read—frequently on silk—is that Hinduism is a very tolerant, permissive religion that (to over-simplify) wouldn't hurt a fly and couldn't care less what you do or believe or not. To support that position, it seems one has to think of Hinduism as a religion that doesn't really exist… or if it does, it has no scriptures and doesn't prescribe anything… but even if it does, it doesn't have any followers… or at least, they can't be identified… or if they can, it's a politically-motivated act to do so, and anyway, what they do has nothing to do with the religion itself, no matter how the people in question identify themselves or what they claim their own motivations are. And Muslims kill each other anyway, so what's the big deal? Using that framework, it's possible to handwave away a wide range of activities by people who claim they're Hindu (but any disinterested observer will tell you they're obviously just followers of Hinduism): from historical oppression of other sects/religions, to Khap panchayats in Haryana ordering people to be killed for getting married too close to home, to missionaries being burned by mobs, to systematically planning and executing the butchering of many hundreds of people. All just the misguided actions of individuals. Or groups of individuals. Or groups of individuals who think they're Hindus, but don't know what their *real* motivations are. Nothing to do with religion… and besides, Muslims have honour killings too, and look, your fly is open! -- ams
