atheism

Former screen idol turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot was fined 20,000 euros by a court on France’s Indian Ocean island of La Reunion over a 2019 diatribe where she described its inhabitants as “savages”. “The natives have kept their savage genes,” the animal rights campaigner wrote in an open letter attacking the islanders for [...]

The construction of Ram Janmabhoomi temple at Shri Ram’s birthplace of Ayodhya has led to universal condemnation from press within India and abroad. Normally media outlets which are right-wing and left-wing, conservative and liberal, secular and religious, white supremacists and anti-racist, Christian and Islamic, free market and socialist, would be polar opposites and antagonistic. But [...]

Based on a number of requests to explain the basics of Eastern philosophies in English for those daunted by the sheer volume of foreign terms, I have attempted to present a simplified summary of basic concepts in one document. I’m only a student myself, so I assume all responsibility for any inaccuracies in the following [...]

The Hindu tradition emphasises Dharma and Rta; to live in harmony with cosmic order by being aware of one’s karma. It is ideas like this which the western mind cannot grasp, denouncing it as nebulous and illusory. One of the common criticisms is that Indian spiritual traditions denounce this world as Maya or illusion. But [...]

This will no doubt come as a shock to the advocates of secularism in India . Dawkins’ statement is a frank confession of how far from being devoid of ‘religion’, secularism has always been an intimate twin of Christianity. The term "secularism" was first used by the agnostic (not ‘atheist’) British writer George Jacob Holyoake [...]

“On Hinduism is a treat. For those who already know and admire Wendy Doniger’s work, this is a handy (if hefty) compendium of many of her essays…. For those who are reading her for the first time, the book is a marvellous introduction to the multiple ways that Hinduism can be approached and understood through [...]

The outburst by India’s leading rationalists back in 2013 over K Radhakrishnan’s visit to the famous Lord Venkateswara temple in southern India needs to be examined. Radhakrishnan is chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisationand the head of India’s space agency, in fact the man responsible for launching that nation’s mission to the planet Mars. [...]

“Can you imagine – in Europe there are people who believe there is no Bhagawan (God)!” Baba Ramdev, a highly popular yogi, said this to a sea of thousands of Indian schoolchildren with an expression of genuine wonderment on his face. I saw it on TV and it made me smile. He is right. In [...]