If you are familiar at all with the usual arguments of the faithful for their religion, you would be well versed with the way they whine about how religion brings families together, helps people be moral, yada yada yada.
This article shows another side of religion that the theists don’t like to mention.
To make a long story short: A Hindu priest rapes a woman, is arrested, and confessed to the crime. The woman’s son refuses to believe that the priest did it (because men of god don’t do bad things ever, right?), and now refuses to visit his mother in hospital.
This is utterly despicable, not only on the part of the so-called holy man who used his position to commit monstrous crimes; but also on the part of people who are so deluded religious leaders that they would rather be split from their families than believe that a man of god could have done something wrong.
When religion is concerned, it seems that everything suddenly becomes AWWRIGHT. Children dying because their parents refuse medical care – it’s AWWRIGHT! Families split because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT! Science education messed up because of religion – it’s AWWRIGHT!
[appeaser-speak]What makes it AWWRIGHT, you ask? Why, because it is religion, of course! Religion should not be criticized because it is RELIGION, and we need to show some respect here. Respect religion because it is religion! Don’t you see the logic here? You might offend someone, and that is bad![/appeaser speak]
See the problem with that approach? When situations such as the above happen, most appeasers are quick to denounce the practice as ‘extremism’ and the like, without realizing that their actions then make them exactly like the so-called ‘militant atheists’ they abhor…because, we all know that speaking out against religion makes us militants.
Militants. Serious business.
Comments
RSS
Digg!
Stumble
Tweet
More by Shalini Sehkar
Author Tweets
tweets loading 
Via teapotatheism?
In any relationship of trust there is the very real chance that people, even faced with massive evidence will go into a state of denial, or even blame the victim. There are some very real psychological mechanisms in play here.
We see this sort of things in mothers, who despite being shown evidence that their children are rapists, murders, or even serial killers, refuse to believe the evidence based on their emotional connection to the perpetrator. This is compounded by a sense that the person who reports the incident is seen as the source problem. Our brains are wired for quick instinctive responses based on immediate threats, which means that indirect causal relations can be more difficult to process, especially when they involve strong emotional reactions….
From the article “The son replied: “Because I don’t believe he is capable of it.” ”
He did not say, because I don’t believe Priests are capable of it.
While the situation is certainly tragic, ranting against this on the basis of religion, is at best on the level of anecdotal evidence, and certainly ignores the difference between correlation and causation. One doesn’t need religion for this to happen, so blaming religion for human weakness, is the pot calling the kettle black.
Bad reasoning, with a double shot of inflammatory rhetoric. Drink up.
Shalini desperately needs a course in basic logic.
Religious people do bad things just like ALL people do bad things.