Often you see debates between non-believers and believers centred around superstition and believing in magical super human entities who dish out favours or threats and essentially how daft that sounds. Atheists are often criticized for tarring all religions with that same brush. It's usually at that point some bright spark makes the claim that Eastern cultures have religions that are more about "spiritual" ways of life than (angry) deities, fluffy all accommodating types of beliefs that are supposedly inward looking rather than trying to scare the bejesus out of you so that you pay up. I don't buy it for a second, some may look good on paper but I bet if you look hard enough it always turns into an episode of scooby-doo, there is never anything mystical or "spiritual", when you drill in it's always just "old man Obadiah" again trying to get rich at the expense of others...
Take this story for example, it comes from the Uttar Pradesh region of India where a "tantrik" (aka a local woo-woo merchant) convinced a couple to sacrifice their own 4 year old child (by burning alive) in order to become rich. Now I'm not saying that this incident is in anyway a reflection of majority Indian customs or practices, something like this always requires large doses of fear, poverty, greed combined with stunning ignorance. It happens the world over and can be linked to many different religions and cults; my point is a more general one, without "magic" it couldn't happen.
4 comments:
you know, I just used that pic of Ganesha in a blog post that's going up in a week or so. so don't think I stole it from you! I put it on my post before I read this one.
E, great minds etc.. :)
But does it work with 12 year olds? I need to know urgently!
Only if it's Disney (all rights reserved)
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