New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what’s right and true — to… Read More PHIL TORRES: How the New Atheists merged with the far right
US conservative groups behind a Supreme Court legal battle that could shape the future of American abortion rights have spent at least $28m around the world between 2016 and 2019 on campaigns against women’s and LGBT rights, openDemocracy reveals today. They have also received almost $100m from 2016 to 2020 from anonymous donors, funnelled through two leading US charities… Read More US ‘dark money’ groups spend millions overseas in support of campaigns to limit or ban rights for women and LGBTQ people
In The Brothers Karamazov one of the monks tells Alyosha that “the science of this world has … analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old.” The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoyevsky’s answer to… Read More Professor Hubert Dreyfus: Dostoyevsky on how to Save the Sacred from Science / Leszek Kolakowski: The Revenge of the Sacred in secular culture
At a gathering a couple of years ago in the Maharashtra hill station of Panchgani organised by Professor Rajmohan Gandhi, I was challenged by an angry young man: “Keep your Hinduism in your house. Why do you need to bring it into the streets?” The young man could have been a conservative Hindu offended by… Read More Sunita Viswanath: Why I feel the need to bring my Hinduism to the streets
As the old saying goes, two Jews, three opinions. Add one headache for the Taliban. Meet Zabulon Simentov, 66, who is believed to be the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan. Emran Feroz recently profiled Simentov for Foreign Policy and uncovered some incredible stories about the feisty Afghan — including that the Taliban once imprisoned him… Read More LAURA ADKINS: The last Jews in Afghanistan argued so much the Taliban kicked them out of prison and stole their Torah
Judaism, as it developed in antiquity and the middle ages, is a religion shaped by the absence of the Temple – destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. And while Jewish prayers speak about yearning for its reestablishment, the biblical practices associated with the Temple (such as animal sacrifice) are antithetical to the praxis and spirit… Read More Yair Wallach: The violence that began at Jerusalem’s ancient holy sites is driven by a distinctly modern zeal
यदचेतनोऽपि पादै: स्पृष्ट: प्रज्वलति सवितुरिनकान्त: तत्तेजस्वी पुरुष: परकृतनिकृतिं कथं सहते yad acetano ‘pi pādaiḥ spṛṣṭaḥ prajvalati savitur inakāntaḥ tat tejasvī puruṣaḥ parakṛtanikṛtiṃ kathaṃ sahate Even an inert crystal blazes with heat when touched by the sun’s rays. So how can brilliant people stand idly by when others commit atrocities? – Bhartrihari (5th century CE, translated… Read More Public Appeal by Hindus for Human Rights, USA
The government’s willingness to hold the Kumbh Mela in the middle of the worst health emergency in a hundred years and its unwillingness to curtail it despite a tsunami of second wave Covid infections raise an interesting question. Is Narendra Modi a rational actor on his own terms? Rational, here, doesn’t mean ‘secular’ or ‘progressive’.… Read More Mukul Kesavan – Kumbh vs Corona The logic of Hindu nationalism / Milind Murugkar: The political project of Hindutva is up against many contradictions
The woman took Johari and lifted her frock while her mother held her down on a mattress on the floor; minutes later her clitoral hood had been cut, in accordance with the ancient tradition of khafz, or female genital cutting (FGC). “I was in a lot of pain and I remember crying inconsolably,” says Johari,… Read More RUCHI KUMAR: In India’s Bohra community, a battle over genital mutilation
There was something incongruous about the moment when I read the news on April 8 that the district court in Varanasi had directed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a study of the Gyanvapi Mosque. This day also happened to be Kumar Gandharva’s birth anniversary. It was hard to resist playing his composition in… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta – Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute
After the truth-shower 