KAMAL HASSAN: INDIA'S SECULARISM LEFTS NON BELIEVERS OUT (PART 2)

Deeply religious people cannot be secular simply because all the religions contain mutually contradictory postulates. 

(If you haven't read Part 1, read it here: 
Kamal Hassan: India's secularism snubs non believers Part 1 )

An animal holy for one religion is a meat patty burger for another.

An animal so sacred that they had to pass a legislation to ban it’s slaughter.

Do you expect people who would like to see people jailed for killing a cow being friendly to another person who eats it, just because he happens to be of different religion?

Pork is haram in Islam but delicacy for other religions so people from different religions eat what Islam forbids.

Muslims generally loathe dogs (Read: Man's best friend & Islam ) but their Christian neighbors have dogs as pets and the list of such contradiction goes on and on.

One man’s delight is another man’s sin.

Last year, when a man in Mumbai promulgated that the Virgin Mary anthropomorphic idol drinking milk is not a miracle and is something can be explained by scientific capillary action, a case of blasphemy was filed against him and he had to leave the country.

These religious people can’t tolerate cartoons and rational arguments and scientific proof and causal factors put forth in public and open forums by non believers, so how can they tolerate practices by their counterparts in other religions that are considered as sins in their own religion?

The only way that makes this tolerance possible is not questioning and challenging and rubbishing the religious pillars of varying brethren under the Indian roof.

Expecting deeply religious people to be secular is the biggest delusion because religion is about beliefs, and beliefs don’t give you any room for reason while tolerance requires giving space to reason.

When an act of reason is applied to religion, it becomes an act of treason and due to that, religious ideas never had to compete to prove their worth, unlike scientific ideas which correct themselves when proven wrong. Science evolves; religion is stationary. 

That’s why any rational scrutiny, any attempt at a reasonable debate would be deemed offensive and irreverent.

The whole essence of these religious sentimentalists and fundamentalists seems to be:

“We are offended by what you said, and we are offended because we don’t know how to logically defend what we believe in. So we would kill you, to make peace with our beliefs!”

It is always easy to silence a person than debating with him and this especially true when theists defend their beliefs.

Movies and cartoons don't lead to communal tensions in India, religions do.

Due to this tyranny of religion, discussing religion is considered a crime.

And, that’s why India's secularism is based on fear.

Indians espousing different religions silently hate each other, living in a constant state of fear that prevents any honest debate and that’s why it’s impossible in India to have a rational discussion about religious censorship without taking a very very liberal stand.

It is so liberal that often the debate becomes pointless.

If one expresses honest opinions about any religion it is tantamount to creating communal tensions here.

States should not take religions so seriously if one wants to rid this world of communal tensions and violence.

Instead of banning films and cartoons, the Indian Judiciary should tell the fringe groups the below: 

“If you have to defend an idea by resorting to violence, may be the problem lies in the idea and not the argument/depiction.”

If those FRINGE groups threaten violence, they should be welcomed and the Indian army should be assigned to take care of their sentiments.

Just because you are offended, it does not make you right!

Read part 3 here: 
INDIA'S SECULARISM LEFTS NON BELIEVERS OUT (PART 3)

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