Case against monotheism – A fountainhead of multitudes of ills

The common understanding of monotheism is that it’s a system of belief in one god. Well, that’s only partially correct. It’s a belief in one TRUE god is the complete truth. The emphasis on all three words makes sense – ‘ONE’ ‘TRUE’ ‘GOD’. It’s important that the god to the one – as he brooks no partnership of any kind, also he has to be true because the creed fears impostors and also he is THE GOD. This is the image of god that most of the dominant monotheistic faiths viz Islam, Judaism, Christianity etc profess.

As I mentioned in the very beginning, monotheism doesn’t only mean belief in one god but it also means intense hatred to any other gods. So, hatred is something inherent to the creed of monotheism. The prevalence of the spooky, imaginary creature, the bogeyman called the ‘satan’ and his eternal conflict with the god speaks about the never ending need of the monotheistic creed to hate something to keep the things going.

Monotheism rests on a set of belief system where most of them happen to be out and out irrational. For example, Christianity rests on ‘sin’, virgin birth of Christ; Islam rests on the revelation of Allah to Muhammad, Muhammad travelling with Gabriel to heaven on a horse and receiving revelations from Allah over a period of time. Monotheistic creeds are usually revealed creed. So, the votaries of the creed have to believe in each and every word of their canonical texts. 

Since the focus of this post is on the ills of monotheism, I’ll only stick to it. To begin with, monotheism hacks at the very roots of the most fundamental of human aspirations – Knowing oneself. That thirst of knowing the source of existence is inherent in every human being. Religions (Sic.) with open architecture provide the necessary means for the followers to find the answer. But, with monotheistic creeds one has to quench their thirst for knowledge by the ‘holy’ texts. Anything else amounts to blasphemy. An example of one Mansur Al-Hallaj should explain this or for that matter the burning the ‘witches’ at stake in Europe during the medieval times is a direct influence of blasphemy which in turn influenced by the fundamental tenet of monotheism. We would have seen a great number of seers in Muslim and Christian world if not for ossified monotheism.

As mentioned earlier, the holy texts of monotheism like Quran, bible are canonical i.e. they can’t be edited, deleted or added with. The followers believe the texts are the very words of god and hence, infallible. This belief removes all the possible doubts any reasonable mind possess for good or for worse, usually the latter. This is the main reason that mass killing, arson, rape and other atrocities in the name of religion get passed off as if there are nothing because all of them have divine sanction. Ask any Mujahiddin of ISIS or Boko Haram why he is doing what he is doing. He’ll show you perfect ayat and surah of Quran which completely condones and mandates his action. The so-called terrorists are straightforward and honest. They don’t hide their motives and their inspirations for their actions. It’s only the liberal-intellectuals who provide the smokescreen for the action and motive of terrorists who are confused.  

There is no ideology which has brought the amount of human suffering as the monotheistic ideology has brought. The closest ideology that comes in inflicting the magnitude of human bloodshed to monotheistic ideology is the ideology of communism. While communism is just around two centuries in existence whereas, monotheism is over a millennium in existence and hence the wreckage is naturally more. 

Monotheism has shunted the human growth – both at personal level and societal level. It is incompatible with science. Europe started walking in the path of progress when it cut loose of the Church and fundamental Christianity. The day it was in the stranglehold of church is aptly referred to as ‘the dark ages’. The eastern religions (Sic.) like Buddhism and Hinduism on the other hand, never had such issues ever. They were perfectly compatible with science and there was little difference between scientists and what we traditionally referred to as rishis. Monotheistic creed has been evil and destructive since its inception, it continues to this day and it will continue till its last breath. If there is indeed a god and he is just, I don’t think he can be kind to the founders of any monotheistic creeds.

Book Review - The End of Faith

Introduction:

End of faith is a book by Sam Harris. Going by the title, I had assumed it to be a treatise on atheism like- say- The God Delusion of Richard Dawkins. But to my surprise it didn’t turn out to be one. But instead it was a work which diagnosed the phenomenon called faith (or belief) and its various manifestations from various dimensions and its impact on the world. Having proficiency in neurology and allied sciences, Sam Harris does a good job in it.

Synopsis:

First of all, the concept of belief is examined with all its psychological clutches that hold us.

“A BELIEF is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything else in a person's life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings.”

Then the focus shifts from belief to the next obvious territory: the territory of religion. Sam Harris warns about the religious bigotry and its effects.

“It seems that if our species ever eradicates itself through war, it will not be because it was written in the stars but because it was written in our books”

The primary focus is on the Abrahamic religions which have a common root: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three have many similarities and all have exclusive truth claims. Sam Harris goes to the roots of ‘holy’ scriptures of these religions and examines them. He rebukes the truth monopolies the religions claim to have.

“The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology, and art even to be entertained—as the beliefs, rituals, and iconography of each of our religions attests to centuries of cross- pollination among them.”

While examining these original texts (Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, Sunnah etc), he shows how they are inherently intolerant and inspires violence against the non-believers. The episodes of medieval Christianity: the never ending witch-hunts, inquisition, burning heretics at the stake make for a nauseating reading and makes one wonder how much blood have spilled for the sake of belief.

Then his gaze turns towards east. He observes, in the east, non-sectarian spiritual traditions have developed which never developed in the west in a full scale and ponders on the reason. In his own words: 

“If there is an equally arresting image that accounts for why nondualistic, empirical mysticism seems to have arisen only in Asia, I have yet to find it. But I suspect that the culprit has been the Christian, Jewish,and Muslim emphasis on faith itself. Faith is rather like a rhinoceros, in fact: it won't do much in the way of real work for you, and yet at close quarters it will make spectacular claims upon your attention.”

He then dwells on the issue of conscious mind, the functioning and the intricacies and all the exhortations of western philosophers like Descartes, Pascal, and Sartre et al. Then he makes an arresting conclusion:

“ Nevertheless, when the great philosopher mystics of the East are weighed against the patriarchs of the Western philosophical and theological traditions, the difference is unmistakable: Buddha, Shankara, Padmasambhava, Nagarjuna, Longchenpa, and countless others down to the present have no equivalents in the West. In spiritual terms, we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs.”

Then the focus is shifted to Buddhism and the long tradition of Buddhists to focus on the mind and its functioning. He posits Buddhism in the high pedestal among religions which is rational and most of the claims can be empirically verified. He mocks the difference in understanding of the universe and its functioning between Eastern and western tradition thus:

“It is no exaggeration to say that meetings between the Dalai Lama and Christian ecclesiastics to mutually honor their religious traditions are like meetings between physicists from Cambridge and the Bushmen of the Kalahari to mutually honor their respective understandings of the physical universe.”

He makes a very important distinction which most miss: The difference between mysticism and religious tradition. To paraphrase him –

“MYSTICISM is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion .The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial—at once full of hope and full of fear—of the vastitude of human ignorance.”  

He nails the coffin called faith thus :

“Faith is simply the license they give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail When rational inquiry supports the creed it is championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith that keeps the whole terrible edifice of religious certainty still looming dangerously over our world.”

Conclusion:

This is one of the few books written in the spirit of free enquiry. Usually the books which take critical position on religion take the side of atheism, and eventually end up advocating it. But this book is an exception. While looking the faith, religion and the dangers which loom from it, it also looks at the possibility of expansion of human consciousness through non-sectarian spiritual traditions and methods. It’s a strong, scholarly work rooted in reason, science and rationality.

The usurping of Islam over any nation or society should be feared because...

Islamophobia – a term coined by the apologists of Islam when the non-Muslims express their valid fears about the usurping nature of Islam. Islam has reverse Midas touch - whatever it touches, turns into desert. As Islam is one of the most important monotheistic religions, there is a need to understand the core belief of monotheistic religions to understand Islam. Monotheistic religion doesn’t just imply devotion and belief in one god; it also implies intense hatred for the other gods and beliefs. This was true for the other monotheistic religions like Judaism and Christianity. But over a period of time, they have changed & have become less-hostile to the non-believers. But Islam, to this day remains very loyal to its source and thus hostile to all those who do not share its set of beliefs i.e Non-Muslims.

If Islam was just another religion, then the mindset that fears the rise of Islam could be easily bracketed as a phobia but it’s not as easy as it seems. It is radically different from any other religion. So, when there is a rise of Islam in any corner of the globe, it is definitely a red flag for the non-Muslims. Because the rise would always, without exception end up in a demographic seize.

Many people across the globe are beginning to realize it lately. Some are afraid to spell it out fearing it might flout their ‘political correctness’. Europe, in its mad rush towards pursuing and establishing the idea of multiculturalism gave in a lot to Islam. Now, it has started to pay the price for the blunder. It's telling a tale when Europe is slowly being transformed into 'Eurabia'. 

The problem with India with regard Islam is much more complex. Much non-sense in India has happened in the name of secularism, composite culture and multiculturalism. In India, the political class, the media, the ‘intellectuals’ and many others are in accord in protecting the interests of Muslims, most of the times - at the cost of others. The clamor for secularism will exist only as long as the Hindus remain the majority. Once the baton passes to Islam then the ideals of democracy, secularism will be laid to rest. 

The first domino to fall for the assault of Islam would be freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Freedom of speech to Islam is as alien as flying saucers to Earth. Then diversity gets the second blow. There will be no diversity at all as all will be emulating Arabs and Arabian culture. Aesthetics, Music will go for a toss because they are officially banned in Islam (Mohammad, the founder of Islam intensely disliked music). What to say of yoga and the rest of spiritual process! They will be banned as well. So, India as we know it would vanish like dust in the wind.

The Muslim majority state, even if has embraced democracy, over a period of time will be pressurized to drop democracy and to adopt shariah laws. Even if the initial rulers are moderates, somewhere down the line, the extremists or radicals would seize the power. We had seen it happening all over the world. Our neighboring nation, Pakistan is a classic example for this.

In his controversial book "Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat" Peter Hammond has explained how Muslims behave according to their percentage strength of the total population of the country.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.

Here's how it works.

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:

United States -- Muslim 0.6%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1.8%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:

Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

With India, the problem is staring at face with many incidents reported from Kashmir, Assam, Mumbai. The case of Kashmir, Assam are solid examples of demographic seize. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the late 80s and now the constant violence unleashed from illegal Bangladeshi Muslims on the native Assamese can be case studies for the demographic seize and the usurping nature of Islam. Rather than turning blind-eye towards these issues, the issue needs to be addressed head on. Else, mark these words - there are many would-be Kashmirs waiting to erupt like Kerala, Assam, West Bengal where radical Islam is gaining a strong foothold. The time is to act now rather than regretting after reaching the point of no return!

My Books Review: June '12

1) Quantum Mystery- This book is written by Rajat Chandra, a physicist and is published by National book trust of India. It is a short book of just over 100 pages which outlines the circumstances that led to the discovery of quantum physics and all the people responsible for its evolution as a subject. A random  excerpt from the book which speaks about the enormous time that has elapsed in the past: “Suppose the whole history of the universe is shrunk to one year, from midnight January 1 to midnight December 31(present). Then the solar system is born around 1st of September. The dinosaurs die out around the noon of December 30. The first direct ancestors of mankind, the hominids, appear around 9 p.m of December 31 and the recorded history of mankind begins just 10 seconds ago. “ 

The book enumerates the success and failure of classical physics in the beginning. Classical physics that’s propounded by Newton, Einstein, and Maxwell is very successful in explaining all the phenomenon of macroscopic world. But the laws of classical physics fail miserably in the microscopic world comprising atoms, molecules, electrons, atomic nuclei and light.

Many important theories that fall under quantum mechanics are briefly discussed like: Uncertainty principle, Bose-Einstein condensation, Schrödinger’s cat paradox, Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paradox and Bell’s theorem.

Quantum mechanics sometimes defies common sense the way we understand the word common sense, it defies logic. The theory of quantum mechanics has many spiritual, philosophical implications than any other theories. The theory hasn’t got complete acceptance. But, it is very much successful in accounting for the phenomenon of microscopic world. The book successfully outlines the theory of quantum mechanics.

2) Understanding Islam Through Hadis- This book of Ram Swarup briefly introduces the main ahadis (“Sayings” or”Traditions”, Singular- Hadis) to the readers. The main sources of Islam are two: Quran and Hadis. The Muslims believe Quran to be revelation of god to Muhammad and Hadis, all that he did or said. Hadis is more important than Quran as it is the most important single source of Islamic laws & practices. 

The subject matters that are discussed in Hadis are diverse. Like Iman(Faith), Salat(Prayer), taharah(purification), Al-Nikah(marrriage), Al-Talaq (divorse),Zakat(poor tax), sawm(fast), and hajj (pilgrimage), Al-Imara(government), Tauba(repentance), Munafiqin(hypocrites); also on Jihad(holy war), al-anfal(war booty), and khums(the holy fifth),on punishment, food, drink, women, slaves, ablution, toilet and many more.

The main sources from which the contents of this book are taken: Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari, Sirat Rasul Allah, Tarikh Tabari ; all the sources are considered to be authentic in the Muslim world. So, there can be no question about the authenticity of the works. This book is useful for all who are interested in knowing the real concepts of Jihad, Talaq and many others. Since Islam stands on two pillars: Quran and Hadith (Sunnah also forms part of it), if you know both of them, you’ve almost known all of Islam.

3) Connect the Dots- Be it Prem Ganapathy of Dosa Plaza, or Ganesh Ram of Veta, all the entrepreneurs that are featured in this book have one factor in common: All these started their respective ventures right from the scratch and without having any professional business degrees like MBAs they made their ventures successful. This is Rashmi Bansal’s second book about successful entrepreneurs of India after ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’. While the first book is the success stories about those who had their MBAs from IIM-A, this one is about those who did not have any business degree. 

Most of the people who are featured in this book neither had any clear-cut plans for their future nor any burning desire to succeed. But still when time came, somehow they made it. They made opportunity meet the preparedness and thus got lucky. This can be an inspiring series of tales for all the would-be entrepreneurs giving them hope and delivering the message for them ‘it’s never too late’!

The three world conquerors, their doctrines

As Koenraad Elst & a few others clearly observed, there are three world conquerors that have ambitions which will be satisfied only when the world becomes theirs. The three world conquerors are Communism, Christianity and Islam. Though their ideologies and modus operandi may differ, they travel towards the same goal: total world conquest; and they will not rest until their stated goal is reached. Although one can discount the effect of communism over the world compared to the other two owing to the collapse of Soviet Union and failed states which had embraced communist ideology, it still has not died totally. Certain offshoots of communism still persist strongly especially in India. Their history and effects are too elaborate to be discussed in a book let alone a blogpost. I try to touch them at least superficially.

Communism

Though the idea of communism can’t be traced back to one particular era or one particular individual, communism found concrete shape from the theories of Marx and Engels. Though the words socialism and communism are used interchangeably, there is a difference between socialism and communism. Socialism is just a transitional phase on the road to communism. The aim of communism is to create a class-less society which is based on common ownership. Communism theory says every society has to pass through five stages of development: class-less primitive society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism.[1]

No nation, no master, no class: This is the stated goal of communists. There will be no classes at the culmination of communism. The power is equally distributed among the masses; so there is no master. The entire world would have embraced the idea. So, there are no divisions among the nations. Communists defined peace as the lack of opposition; thus peace could only be attained once everyone had surrendered and fallen under the control of the World-Wide Communist State. Everyone will consume according to their needs not for their greed. This is the ideal propounded by Marx.[2] Sounds pretty good! But, it’s utopian, and hence impractical.

The main aim of the communists is to seize power of the state. They never sway away from their stated goal. They plan meticulously and execute the plans with mathematical certainty. The utopian world that’s envisaged by communism has beckoned many intellectuals to embrace the ideology. So, even today most of the people who are branded as intellectuals have a tilt towards leftist ideology. Especially in India, most of the intellectual sphere is ruled by communists.

If people voluntarily take up the idea of communism, it may create a beautiful world. If it is enforced, it is nothing short of tyranny. So, naturally the states which are under the rule of communism are totalitarian. Even today, most of the human rights violations all over the world are reported from either communist countries or Islamic countries.

As far as India is concerned, communists have hijacked the intellectual, public discourse. They hold key positions so that they can twist and turn the institutions of national importance according to their whims and fancies. All the terrorist organizations like Maoists, Naxals or ULFA are all inspired from the grand idea of communism. With the fall of Soviet Union, communism has got a death blow. But still, it hasn’t perished.

Islam

The youngest of the Semitic religions, Islam was founded in 7th century in Arabia. Like Judaism and Christianity, it is also a revealed religion. In all the revealed religions, it is mandatory to believe in god as well as in his prophet to be able to get any rewards. Prophet Muhammad claimed that he was the prophet chosen by the god Allah for the benefit of the entire humanity and he received the messages of Allah through Angel Gabriel. He put himself in the line of Abraham, Jesus, Moses and the likes. But Muhammad abrogated all the previous prophets including Jesus and claimed he was the last prophet send by god for the benefit of humanity. A close study of life of Muhammad shows us how he intelligently maneuvered ignorant Arabs and built an empire of Islam.

Islam is more of a set of beliefs and political ideology masquerading as religion than a religion in the real sense. A close look at Quran and Hadith reveals the true nature of Islam. The intention is to conquer the whole world. It is similar to communism in its intention but it is with god-attached. For all the heinous acts that Muslims commit all over the world in the name of Islam there is sanction from the god. So, moral dilemmas seldom arise in them. Islam divides the whole world into Dar-al-harb(Land of war) and Dar-al-salaam (Land of peace).[3] Dar-al-harb is the place where Islam is not the official religion. So, war should never stop in those places until and unless it is completely converted to Islam. Then alone it becomes land of peace, Dar-al-salaam. And it is the duty of every Muslim to take part in this ‘holy’ mission in some way or the other. The concept of Jihad is central to the Islamic doctrine and is considered to be the most sacred.

Islam, the imperialism: The imperial nature of Islam is such that all the converts have to change their lives to fit into the Islamic mould. It places the idea of Arab, Arabic culture (Islamic culture) and Arabic language as superior to all the rest and expects all the followers to emulate.[3] It is so much of an exclusivist ideology that it intends to completely obliterate the rest. So, when the countries were conquered and converted by Islamists, their ancient culture and history are stamped out of their lives. So, they never merely conquered a country but destroyed its history and civilizations. For instance: Iran and Egypt had great civilizations going back thousands of years, but they have been totally wiped out. This is what’s happened to Afghanistan in recent times and also what the Jihadists are trying to do to Kashmir.[4]

Indian context: India being the biggest land of polytheists became their targets in as early as 10th century. It is sanctioned in Quran to destroy the places of worship of other religions and to build mosques in their places. It was faithfully implemented in India as well. Millions of people were killed, converted and temples were destroyed. Of course, our ‘eminent’ historians invent economic reasons for this plundering of temples. Although economic reasons were a part of it, the biggest reason was religious one. Nalanda, Vaishali, Sarnath, Vikramashila, Takshashila, and many more centers of learning which attracted students from all over the world were mercilessly destroyed by the Islamic bigots. But amidst all these we have to acknowledge among all the nations and civilizations that Islamists have attacked, India alone remains unconquered till date. So, they consider India as an unfinished chapter in their global Jihad expeditions.

A commentator writing by the pen name KaffirPagan wrote about the entire history of conquest of Islam in India so succinctly and beautifully in the website Jihadwatch.com of Robert Spenser.

"It has been coming at us for 1400 years in Islamic tides that have ebbed and flowed. And our boundaries are still receding.
Christian Byzantium- Syria, Jordan, Turkey have been lost to the enemy camp. Also, North Africa has been lost by Christendom.
Similarly Hindus have lost Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Buddhists lost all of Central Asia (The Central Asian republics- the Stans). Persian Zoroastrians lost their entire possession- Iran.
At least we still have India and Europe proper. But do we? The Muslims in both places continue to multiply disproportionately and encroach more ground.India had a beautiful civilization before the newly converted Turkish, Persian hoards goaded on by their Arab masters with promises of booty and women of Hindustan completely wrecked India. They raped India again, again and again for centuries.
According to the words of Islamic court chroniclers that often accompanied the Muslim warlords-- "Hindu civilization was wrecked, ground to dust, the inhabitants of Hindoostan became like atoms scattered..." This theme of wanton and cruel pillage reoccurs again and again and again from 800 AD till 1700 AD. It is a telling story of how civilization can be overwhelmed by barbarians hovering on its borders.
The Muslim barbarians appropriated not only India's riches, but also its accumulated knowledge for themselves.And no, the modern number system, the decimal, the concept of zero, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, geometry, chess, astronomy, medicine, speculative philosophy, metaphysics were not "invented" by Arabs. They were stolen from India and claimed for the Ummah. Ditto- Greek and Roman philosophies.
But at least the Europeans were aware of their own heritage and reclaimed it back. Why? Because Europe was not fully conquered, only partially ravaged till Anatolia, Iberia and the Balkans. The rest of Europe was relatively free from the scourge of Islam.But India? Not so fortunate. The entire land which was India (which consists of present day Pakistan, Afghanistan) was enslaved by the Mohammedans and that too for 800 years! The land that gave birth to the most "progressive, creative and imaginative civilization known to man," according to the words of a Western scholar, was not only physically, but also mentally yoked to Islamic slavery for 8 millenniums. No wonder that Indians are neither aware of the achievements of their ancestors, nor are proud of their heritage.
It is the same India that had the biggest universities of the world of its time like Nalanda (Bihar, India) and Taxila (present day Rawalpindi-Pakistan) where students from all over the world: China, Greece, Persia traveled to learn sciences, speculative metaphysics, philosophy, economics, mathematics. Some have said that noted Greeks like Archimedes himself came to India to study geometry. India was also been China's teacher for centuries, and in the words of a Chinese general-- "India has conquered China for a millennium without sending a single soldier over the Himalayas." This empire of ideas, of learning, of knowledge was reduced to the pitiful state of today because of a long and dark intervening period of Islamic plunder.
But the Hindus never gave in, nor gave up. They retreated into the forests and into the inaccessible Himalayan Mountains with whatever memories of their civilization they could salvage. The Hindu population in the middle ages decreased by 80 million! Many were slaughtered, many died of hunger and disease when transported over the Hindu Kush mountains (literally means "killer of Hindus") to be sold as slaves in the bazaars of Central Asia and Baghdad, many died of famine when the entire socio-economic structure of the land was shattered.
But I am mighty glad that despite all the unimaginable sufferings the collective will of our ancestors didn't sink and they did not join the enemy ranks. I am mighty glad the unassailable sword of Islam the overpowered the Persians, Byzantines, North Africans and Central Asia Turks was blunted in India.
Otherwise, today I too would be the nemesis of civilization, I too would be calling for the triumph of Islam, I too would be the enemy like the converted Albanians, Persians, Syrians and Turks."

If someone daydreams about the end of Islamic terrorism, they have to remember that Islam is fundamentally unchangeable. In the words of Geert Wilders, a controversial politician from Netherlands (controversial because of his open criticism of Islam) "There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter. First, there is the Quran, Allah's personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect. Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That's a given. It's a fact"!

Christianity

Compared to the previous two, Christians operate in a softer but a very organized manner. Christians have prophet in the form of Jesus and they believe him to be the chosen one of god among all men & was sent to earth to elevate humanity. The principal founders of Christianity include Peter, James, Matthew and John who were all the disciples of Jesus. As with any other Semitic religion, Christianity is an exclusive path.

Christians sincerely believe Jesus to be the son of god and salvation can be attained only by following him. The ones that don’t follow him are doomed. So, to ‘save’ the souls from the doom, they do religious conversions. They do it zealously and they think it as a pious work. Perhaps the proverbial ‘missionary zeal’ originated from the Christian missionaries.

Theologically, Christianity had a tendency towards intolerance, but had to adopt the policy of "live and let live" because in its formative period, it was but one of the numerous sects in the pluralist Roman Empire.[5] But much unlike Islam, it seldom directly plunders civilizations but attacks very core of civilizations and over a period of time it uproots them. Christianity has contribution in destroying Inca, Mayan civilizations. The unassailable Roman Empire could not stand the incoming wave of Christianity. Though there were many reasons for the downfall of Roman Empire, Christianity was a main factor.[6] Many indigenous African cultures were destroyed when a large part of Africa was converted to Christianity. There is an African proverb which captures the pulse of that point “"When the white man first came to this land, we had the land and they had the bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them again, we had the bible and the white man had the land."”

India, a natural target: when the European invaders like Portuguese, Dutch, and British came to India, they all came with missionaries to ‘save’ millions of souls. India was the largest pagan-land and naturally attracted all the missionaries who were interested in saving souls and planting crosses everywhere they could.

Even to this day, India remains the best destination, an attractive location for ‘soul-harvesting’. The reason being a large part of non-Christian population resides in the lands of India, China and all the Islamic republics. In all the Islamic countries and communist China, the missionary activities and hence the religious conversions are completely banned. So, thus India became a natural destination and target for the soul harvesters. And they have successfully harvested many souls in North-Eastern parts of India, tribal areas, Southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

They are doing a few things covertly, a few things unabashedly. The Joshua Project,a mega-plan they have made for soul-harvesting is really telling of their evangelical activities. They have made a detailed plan for soul-harvesting across the world. They have segregated people by their religion, language, ethnicity and various other parameters.They have separate plans for each segment of people. The whole exercise looks like a huge project of some multi-national company.The project is global, well-networked, well-funded. Needless to say, the main targets in India would be tribals and backward castes.This is just a tip of the iceberg.

In November 1999, the then Pope John Paul II visited India and he did not hide any intentions when he made the statement “Just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent” He was referring to Asia. With china out of equation, the only largest remaining country is India.

Conclusion: Even if the rest of the groups except these three get obliterated from the face of the earth, these three conquerors would still fight among themselves for supremacy. (For instance, Muslims are persecuted in communist china; communists were persecuted in Iran; historical crusades between Muslims and Christians.) As far as India is considered, all three are very much present in India. Though each one is the nemesis of the other, the common animosity towards Hinduism brings them all together. All are fervently pursuing their respective missions, and have damaged the civilization significantly but I still believe India’s soul is intact.

References

1) Marx and Engels, The German ideology

2) Karl Marx, The communist manifesto

3) Anwar Shaikh, Islam-The Arab imperialism

4) Navaratna Rajaram, An article by name Tortured souls create twisted history

5) Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India

6) Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire

Nazism, Communism and Islam – The ideological parallels

All political ideologies aim to create a perfect society. The claims of the people who propound those ideologies are very lofty and promising so that people are lured to embrace them. But after some time, they turn totalitarian and they exert control through iron hand. They then turn tyrannical and instead of being boon to the masses, they become worst nightmares. Millions of people are massacred around the world because of the ideologies. Some ideologies (like Nazism, fascism) have existed in limited geographical areas at limited time but a few ideologies (like communism, Islam) have spread across the globe. 

The commonality in all the political ideologies is that they are totalitarian. In a totalitarian system, democracy won’t have any voice. The basic thing that every human being yearns, freedom will be completely taken away from the people and they are subjugated for the ‘greater’ cause. Some may wonder how a religion like Islam could be classified alongside some totalitarian ideologies like Nazism or communism. But a close study of it reveals the political motivation, ambition the religion has got and also some startling similarities it has with Nazism and communism. 

Communism and Islam:

1) In communism, the state is superior. In case of Islam it replaces the state with its god Allah and the laws of the state with Quran, Sharia’h and hadith.

2) In communism one is expected to surrender to the dictates of the state. In Islam, one should unconditionally surrender to the will of Allah and defined laws that are attributed to Allah.

3) Communists are convinced that their doctrine is superior and would inevitably spread throughout the world. Muslims are convinced that their religion is the greatest and it is to be spread throughout the world until every person has surrendered to Allah. In fact, Islam divides the world into two parts: the World of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the World of War (Dar al-Harb). The parts of the world which is Dar al-Harb, wars should continue until it is converted into Dar al-Islam. Then alone peace prevails.

4) For both ideologies, ends justify the means. Communist countries misrepresent and break the treaties whenever it served their purposes especially with non-communist countries. In Islam, same is followed and called Taqiyya. Taqiyya closely translates into lying. It gives license to Muslims to break treaties (the peace treaty between non-Muslim nations is called hudna) with non-Muslim nations when it served their purpose.

5) In communist countries, the party leaders are considered unerring and their say is final. They have the power to change the rule and execute any person if they perceive him as a threat to the state. In Islam, the Imams are considered infallible and have the power to give judgments interpreting their holy books.

Nazism and Islam:

1) Severe hatred for Jews: Both ideologies abhorred Jews. Hitler said Jews are to be hated because they are Jews. Quran turns Jews into apes and swine.

2) Brainwashing at a very young age: Nazis had young scouts, trained them, brainwashed them. It happens in Islam especially in the Middle Eastern countries where small children are turned militants and they are fed and brainwashed to become suicide bombers. Though this doesn’t happen in all Muslim countries, it exists in a large scale. Any ideology requires constant indoctrination for its survival.

3) Hitler believed his party would win war and rule over the world for thousand years, Muslims believe to this day that world belongs to Allah and his apostles and they have to continue to fight the infidels until the promised land becomes theirs.

4) Nazis did hero worship (Hitler) and believed he was appointed by fate , Muslims do hero worship (Muhammad) and believe he was appointed by Allah

5) Islam or the invaders who followed Islam religiously classified the human into three categories
                I. The Muslims, for whom Allah has promised the whole world
               II. Christians and Jews who could live under Muslim rule but only as third-class citizens
              III. Thirdly, the real pagans who have to be eliminated completely from the world.
    Nazism classified people into
                   I. The Herrenvolk : The people whose race is superior to all
                  II. Slavic Untermenschen: These are inferior people in Hitler’s planned future world order.

6) Nazism divides the world solely on the basis of the race. Islam divides the world on the basis of religion.

Apart from all these striking similarities, there are many qualities that all these ideologies share, like: They are totalitarian, intolerant, xenophobic, aggressive, and self-righteous. There will be no scope for free thinking or freedom of speech. Totalitarian ideologies that are based on religion are more dangerous because they can sustain for a very long period and they achieve a very strong psychological grip over its followers. 

Followers of a totalitarian doctrine with no god attached to it may have some doubt at some point of time but the followers of totalitarian religious doctrines don't face that problem because that void of doubt is readily filled by the 'will of god' or rather the doubt never raises in them. That's why we can see almost all Islamic terrorists are supremely confident about their doctrine and they don't have a shred of remorse in their violence. Totalitarian ideology without religion or god attached to it will die once their leaders are defeated. But those which are based on religion will continue even after the death of the founders and continue to grip the followers through their holy books. 

All ideologies are equally dangerous. Anyone wishing to live in a free world where there is a democratic process and where freedom of speech is celebrated can never support any of the totalitarian doctrines to usurp their societies.

Sources:
"Islam: Arab Imperialism" by Anwar Sheik
"Negationism in India" by Koenraad Elst

My Books Review: October '11

Negationism in India – The book starts with the explanation of the term ‘negationism’ in general. Negationism is a denial of historical facts, not the reinterpretation of the known facts. The original usage of the term lies in the denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews and Gypsies in World War 2. Once the reader gets to know the meaning of negationism, the focus shifts to the Indian version of it which is more wide-spread than the former. 

Continued efforts are made to make the people of India to forget the persecution of Hindus by Muslims over six centuries. An excerpt from the book says “Since about 1920 an effort has been going on in India to rewrite history and to deny the millennium-long attack of Islam on Hinduism. Today, most politicians and English- writing intellectuals in India will go out of their way to condemn any public reference to this long and painful conflict in the strongest terms. They will go to any length to create the illusion of a history of communal amity between Hindus and Muslims.”

Then the author explains how negationism became official policy under congress rule. Great efforts happened to re-write Indian history in a large scale. Then explanation shifts to the distortion of history by Marxist historians and how the academia fell into the hands of Marxists and how they used it to rewrite history according to their ideologies. Many Marxist historians are analysed like: Romila Thapar, Bipin Chandra, Irfan Habib, Gyanendra Pandey etc. Negationism can’t happen without consistent support of the academia and the media. But now, negationists control most part of them. Therefore people seldom get to know the real facts.

In the later part of the book, the ideology of Islam & the character of Mohammed (the founder of Islam) are analyzed. It becomes clear from the argument that Mohammed had political ambitions than spiritual ones. The author demolishes the statement “Islam is good but some Muslims may be bad” but instead proves the opposite and shows how with following Quran and hadith strictly, no Muslim can be at peace with Non-Muslims ever.

This is a milestone book written by the Belgian author Koenraad Elst. Enormous amount of studies of various histories, religion, philosophies, politics, social structure have gone into the making of this book. The author has stayed steadfast to truth and not hesitated in touching a subject which is a ‘taboo’. I’d say this is a very essential book to understand how propaganda is created, how it is sustained for a long period of time by both outside forces and the inside ones and how it destabilizes the country. This is a scholarly work, a highly recommended read.

A small critique on religions !

Muni Tarun sagar once said that the house should be destroyed after a hundred years of its construction and then should be rebuilt. In the same way, religions should be destroyed after one thousand years. Because of a long duration of time, many junks might have made their way to the religion. So, it would be near impossibility to set all the things right. The actual meaning and intention of the religion would have lost long ago. So, the process of cleaning the unwanted aspects should always be on.



Any religion should be open to criticism. Because that’s the main thing which helps to look deep about certain aspects and clean them if needed and also helps in reaffirming the faith in the good aspects of the religion. But a few religions consider themselves to be perfect and beyond evaluation or criticism. Worse than that, they intimidate the people who criticize it and create a kind of phobia.

Hinduism which is perhaps the oldest religion of the world has faced the same. Owing to the long-presence of it, it picked up junk and some aspects of it became intolerable. Though it had some very beautiful things that no other religions had, the junk had piled up so much that it began to mask the great aspects of the religion. So, the reformers came for the rescue. They could see the problem. Many of them criticized and brought many reforms. But due to its enormity and vastness, still many junks has remained. But, one appreciable fact is that Hinduism is open to criticism. No acts were considered as blasphemous acts even though many acts were nothing less.

Christianity also gives a fair amount of freedom in criticizing the religion and for the reforms. But as Christianity is a highly organized religion, it is not as easy as Hinduism to criticize and evaluate. Organization of religion has its own weaknesses and strength. But, with its limitations, Christianity has come a long way and it has given scope for criticism and evaluation.

But the religion which hasn’t opened up at all is the religion of Islam. The very word Islam means ‘to surrender’. It’s a beautiful thing to surrender to something. Unless you are truly humble, it is impossible to surrender to something completely. But as mentioned before, no religion is perfect. Every religion has its own piece of scrap which has to be cleaned up from time to time. If the scraps are not cleaned, the scraps become more and cover the entire religion and the religion appears as a joke.

Islam has hardly gone through reforms over the years. It is as medieval as it was in the 7th century. There is not much difference between Aurangazeb and Osama Bin Laden. Both might belong to completely different eras but the point to be noted is that both were motivated by the same ideology. Obviously, there should be something wrong in some part of the religion. If someone questions that, instead of brooding over the reasons, the very act of questioning is considered blasphemous and the person who questions it is persecuted or worse, killed. So, none dares to question and all want to be politically correct.

Subramaniam Swamy (President of Janatha Party and former minister) had written an article about Islamic terror and the ways to wipe it. Though there were some extreme points in it, he had raised some valid issues. I had posted the article on my Facebook profile. Irfan, one of my college mates in my post graduation got offended by the article and he began to throw some personal slurs at me and also started his line of defense defending his religion and tried to portray his religion as the religion of peace(had he said piece, I would have readily agreed!). The person was so blind that he was not even ready to acknowledge the well-established fact of the Islamic terror. Then Naveen, one of my college mates in my graduation joined this guy and they continued to defend their argument.

Then the rhetoric began: ‘Terrorism has no religions’, ‘You can’t attribute terrorism to one single religion’, ‘Terrorism has a socio-economic-political cause than religious ones’. It was a typical Indian situation: One guy from the minority, to defend him a pseudo-secular intellectual and one hopeless moron against them. My hope to drive home some points to them remained hope till the end because one person had mortgaged his intelligence to his religion and the other one to some ideology and pseudo-secularism. So, the arguments yielded no results. But, the next morning I was surprised to see that my name was promptly removed from his friend’s list. I was bewildered at the level of narrow-mindedness!!

To do a cover-up job for a problem is not the way to encounter a problem at all. To solve any problem, one has to acknowledge the existence of the problem first. If someone is the denial mode and act as if the problem doesn’t exist, the existence of the problem is undeterred and it can only exacerbate over a period of time.

My Books Review: August '11

1) The Metamorphosis: This short story is written by the German author Frank Kafka. A person when wakes up in the morning is suddenly transformed into a bug. How the members of the family interact with him, his thought process forms the later part of the story. I did not find this book exciting at all though it is one of the famous books of Kafka and this work is a celebrated work of his. 

2) Aavarana: This is one of the famous and controversial novels by the celebrated Kannada novelist S.L. Bhairappa. This is the first ever Kannada novel that I ever finished. One of the main reasons that I am writing the review in English because of the significance of the matters those are discussed in the novel. It surpasses the boundaries of language and perhaps even nation. 

S.L. Bhyrappa

We have novels and many other works of art which have condemned the ill practices of Hinduism. The numbers are really huge. Some have gone to win prestigious awards. But do we see any single major work that criticizes the ill practices of Islam? The answer is an emphatic no. Definitely not in a country like ours which is filled with hypocrites who have mortgaged their lives to ideologies and fame at the cost of nation’s good. A part of this novel is a minor attempt in that direction (though the major part is about the history).

History as we know in India is a completely distorted one where the academia is in the stranglehold of the Marxists who warp history to fit it into their ideology. So an average person unless makes an effort to know the real facts, he/she never gets to know the real history at all in his/her life. This novel is a great attempt to present history as it is. It concentrates mainly on the Mogul rule. The novel is very aptly named as ‘Aavarana’ or ‘the veil’ that comes between the person who wants to know the history and the history. The real veil is historian himself/herself. So, it is a Herculean task to present history as it is without coloring. In that way, the novel is more like a historical book than a novel. 

Aavarana - 'The veil' (Cover Page)

A filmmaker (Lakshmi/Razia) who is a Hindu gets converted to Islam to marry her lover and also as a sign of rebellion against Hinduism much to the displeasure of her father. Prof. Shastri who gives pose as a secularist persuades her to change her religion to Islam. The character of Prof. Shastri is an apotheosis of modern day secularists and historians .The person whom she marries acts as a non-believer and sometime after the marriage uses the methods available in his religion to persecute her. Walls rise between the couples and they stay separately. Lakshmi’s father dies and Lakshmi goes to her native. There she sees a huge collection of historical books and notes made by her father. She decides to stay in the village and devote her time to the study of real history.

The story unfolds after she begins to read the books. Novel-within-novel technique is used in narrating the further story. She begins to write a story which happens in the mogul India. Her life progresses as we see the plight of today’s India. Two stories run in parallel. In the story she writes, through the character of a Rajput prince who then is forcibly converted to Islam (and assumes the name Khwaja Jahan) the history of mogul rule is shown. Their high intolerance towards other religions, seeing women as mere pleasurable objects, slavery, homosexuality, their fanatic behavior, destruction of hundreds of temples and further conversions into mosques, and many other things are shown in a vivid way. There should be something wrong in you if your blood doesn’t boil even once after reading the novel completely. Khwaja Jahan is castrated (made a eunuch called as ‘hijdas’) and used as a sex slave and traded in the market as any other commodity. The reader wonders whether the character symbolizes the modern day India which even though has a huge potential, it acts as if it is emasculated. The character knows what is right and what is wrong but it can’t act because of sheer helplessness. It reflects modern day India.

This book will be hated by intellectuals for sure who in the garb of promoting secularism are distorting the real facts and are doing a great disservice to the nation. They can’t digest this novel which is so raw. One of the main intentions of the novel is to face truth as it is. Truth doesn’t need any decoration. But do our people have the mettle to stomach it? I doubt it. Through this book, Bhairappa has stripped the false historians naked which in itself is a great thing in the present day India.

If someone is questioning the author’s credentials in talking about history, they should know that the author has not written any historical facts without being backed by research or necessary literary works. The huge list of bibliography at the end of the book is the testimony to the fact. The people who oppose this work should engage in a debate with the author regarding specific points which they disagree rather than resorting in character assassination of the author.

3) 7 habits of highly effective people: This is the most famous, celebrated work of leadership expert, an authority on principle-based leadership Stephen Covey. I read the book for the second time. Each time you read, you get a new perspective: that’s a classic. Having read many personality development books, I can say this is not just 'another' book. Among many personality development books around, this books goes deeper than them. As the author says in the beginning of the book “we can achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude & get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow”. The book attempts that very honestly. 

The author has presented the ideas of self improvements through 7 habits & has given many tools like the 4 quadrants of time management, functioning through principle centre, importance of personal mission statement, win/win attitude etc. The author has taken pain in the effort to explain all the concepts, tools that he has presented to the minutest details. This book deserves all the accolades that it has got.

4) Nano - The next revolution: This book is written by award winning scientific writer Mohan Sundara Rajan. This books talks about the progress of nano-technology over years and the potential it holds for the future. Though it claims it is for the lay-reader, I thought otherwise. Many concepts were bouncers. The nano-tachnology in the future envelops all our lives because all the major areas of science will be touvhed by it. If all goes well in the R & D in the field of Nano-technology, perhaps we can see the world as we see it in science fiction movies.