Fundamentalists of Other Faiths

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Guest Contributor

Here’s a snippet from a recent article in the journal Science:

… Last fall, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was harshly criticized in Parliament for asserting in a report that the underwater ridge connecting India and Sri Lanka was natural rather than the remains of a bridge built by the traditional hero Rama. Under pressure, ASI suspended two senior employees involved in the report…

Oh my god, India has Creationists…

Science 6 June 2008: Vol. 320. no. 5881, pp. 1281 – 1283.

(Thanks to John for the link!)


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

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  • Richard Wade

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the two senior employees emigrate to the West. Backward, anti-scientific governments are good at getting rid of their country’s brain power.

  • EKM

    Richard Wade said,

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the two senior employees emigrate to the West. Backward, anti-scientific governments are good at getting rid of their country’s brain power.

    So which western country would they go to? The USA does not seem very friendly to science these days.

  • Liz

    the remains of a bridge built by the traditional hero Rama

    IIRC, Rama didn’t build the bridge by himself. He had help from his monkey army.

  • http://terahertz.wordpress.com Ian

    The universities are still safe in the US, as would be Canada, Europe, Australia, or New Zealand.

  • David Crespo

    “Still safe” has frightening implications for the future.

  • I like tea

    I’ve encountered fundamentalist Hindus before. They always strike me as bizarre, because at its core, Hinduism is supposed to be a “worship however the hell you want” religion, but of course like all religions it’s easier to corrupt that central tenet in favor of “our belief is the right belief” exclusivity.

    The encounter I had with them wasn’t a personal one, but rather I saw a certain group of Krishna-worshipers’ reaction to an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess which featured Krishna. It was a really terrible episode, but that wasn’t the point – these Krishna-worshipers objected to the portrayal of Krishna in a work of fiction, because it implied that Krishna is fictional. That’s a pretty ridiculous bit of reasoning in itself, akin to claiming that Socrates’ appearance in Bill and Ted implies that Socrates is fictional. They also objected to all sorts of minutiae that I won’t get into. It was a pretty stupid argument all around, not least of which because they expected a bunch of people in America (well, New Zealand for the most part) to censor themselves based on the demands of some obscure sect of Hinduism (while Krishna obviously isn’t obscure, I certainly wasn’t aware that anybody had made a monotheistic religion around him). That’s the kind of thing you expect to see from Christians and Muslims, so seeing it from Hindus was surprising, but nothing surprises anymore when it comes to religion.

  • http://mattstone.blogs.com Matt Stone

    Well, isn’t Aboriginal Land rights related to creationism in a way too?

  • cipher

    I’ve encountered fundamentalist Hindus before. They always strike me as bizarre, because at its core, Hinduism is supposed to be a “worship however the hell you want” religion

    I know; this always floors me. These are the people who essentially invented pluralism.