Fanatical Hindu groups on a force conversion mission

I’m reading this news from India

Indian opposition MPs have protested in parliament against Hindu nationalist groups for converting religious minorities to Hinduism. In recent weeks, a number of religious ceremonies have been organised in different parts of India by Hindu hardline groups, close to Mr Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and there have been allegations that they involved force, fraud or inducement

Generally it’s very rare to have the whole family converting to a new faith. One or two person from a family I can understand but not when this sort of large-scale family conversion…

Earlier this month, more than 50 Muslim families were reportedly converted to Hinduism against their will in the town of Agra. At the weekend, it was reported that about 100 Christians had converted to Hinduism in the western state of Gujarat while 30 Christians were converted in the southern state of Kerala.

So, who’s behind this?

Hardline Hindu groups like the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), Bajrang Dal, VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and others say that Indian Muslims and Christians were all Hindus who have converted to other faiths over the last few centuries. These groups regularly hold ceremonies which they call "ghar vapasi" - or returning home - to allow Christians and Muslims to return to their "original religion". At the weekend, the head of India's most powerful Hindu group, the RSS, vowed to continue with the conversions.

"We will bring back those who have lost their way. They did not go on their own... They were lured into leaving," he said.
Recently, a row broke out after government minister Niranjan Jyoti used an abusive term to refer to non-Hindus, by asking people at a public rally to choose between Ramzada (children of the Hindu God Ram) and Haramzada (bastards). Mr Modi said he disapproved of her language but refused to sack her.

India is turning into a scary place for religious minorities. And here we all thought only Islam has fanatical followers…..

Reference
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30573796

Is mental disorder one of the leading causes of Islamic based terrorism?

Most of us have met folks who seemed somewhat strange and we think they are suffering from a psychological problem. But because we are not trained professionally in mental health science, we can at best guess or state inclusively when something isn’t right without the ability to go into specifics.

Yesterday, the Muslim man who attacked the civilians in France is believed to have a long history of mental illness.

On Sunday a driver screaming "God is great" in Arabic ran down pedestrians in Dijon, injuring 11, two seriously. The man who carried out Sunday's attack was arrested after targeting pedestrians in five different parts of the city in the space of half an hour. He is said to be "apparently imbalanced" and to have spent time in a psychiatric hospital. The driver has been known to police for minor incidents dating back 20 years, he added. The prosecutor in Dijon said the attacker had a long history of mental illness and the incident was not linked to terrorism.

The perpetrator of the Sydney attack last week was also someone who was certifiably insane according to the news sources: Australia cafe attacker: Terrorist or just a lunatic?

In the days since the deadly attack, debate has swirled across Australia about whether to term it an act of religious-inspired political terrorism or an aberrant action by a lunatic with a giant thirst for attention.

The other interesting point-of-view presented in the article is on how do you classify this sort of attacks against random civilians; A lone-wolf type of attack or part of a larger coordinated attack that falls under Islamic terrorism?

Security analyst Neil Fergus said in the Sydney Morning Herald that classifying the attack as terrorism "would only be feeding the propaganda machine" of Islamic State and other terrorist groups. Fairfax Media's Clementine Ford wrote that linking the attack to terrorism was racist.

But others call such attitudes "denialism" in an age when Islamist extremist groups are calling for lone-wolf attacks against "infidels" from Australia to America. "Terrorism is violence perpetrated for political purposes, and despite any personal, legal or mental problems Monis might have faced, he clearly intended this incident to be an act of terrorist theater," said security analyst Scott Stewart of Stratfor, a Texas-based security analysis group. "Just because Monis was more of a bumbling Kramer than a deadly Carlos the Jackal does not mean he was not a grass-roots terrorist operative. Indeed … most grass-roots operatives tend to be more like stray mutts than lone wolves."

In the future, I think it would also be interesting to look deeply into the life of the leaders of terror groups who could as well be as crazy as some of their followers.

References
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30580082
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-australia-terrorism-20141222-story.html

Major causes of death in 20th century

I’m very fascinated with this image representation of the major causes of death in 20th century

Did you know that more people had die because of diseases than anything else in the last century?

Here’s a brief overview of the death

1.97 billion due to Non-communicable diseases (the biggest cause of death here are all the cardiovascular diseases about 1.25 billion)

1.68 billion due to Infectious diseases (diarrhea: 226 million, smallpox: 400 million, respiratory: 485 million, malaria: 194 million)

530 million due to Cancer (Lung: 93 million, Stomach: 64 million, Liver: 46 million)

278 million due to Health complications (Perinatal conditions: 155 million, Maternal Conditions: 64 million, Nutritional Deficiencies: 59 million)

980 million due to humanity (Murder: 177 million, ideology: 142 million, Air pollution: 116 million, Drugs: 115 million)

Reference
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

Pakistan’s support for terrorism proven to be unwise

A few days ago, over a hundred school kids were massacre by gunmen from Taliban, the terror organization. Taliban claimed responsibility for the school attack as a revenge for the various deadly operations carried out against them by the Pakistan authority. Yesterday, Pakistani military carried out another ‘revenge’ attack against the Taliban.

Pakistani warplanes and ground forces killed at least 77 militants in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said Friday, days after Taliban fighters killed 148 people - most of them children - in a school massacre.

Pakistan has a long history of supporting domestic terrorists and terror organization working across its borders. When the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan to form an Islamic state between 1996-2001 and carried out ethnic-cleansing of its minority (the Hazara and others), Pakistan was among the three countries that choose to recognize them despite strong worldwide condemnation

Pakistan’s addiction to jihad eventually destroyed its own security. The policy was first used in the 1980s, when Pakistan, then with full U.S. backing, supported Islamist warriors against the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. After the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan turned the jihadists on long-term enemy India in the 1990s, especially in the disputed region of Kashmir. By the mid-1990s, Pakistan promoted the emergence of a new Islamist movement in Afghanistan, the Taliban.

When everyone in the world was searching for bin Laden, the leader of a terrorist organization, guess where he found a safe haven? Pakistan.

Pakistan has also conveniently ignored act of terrors that are committed across the Indian borders

Lakhvi’s release on $5,000 bail triggered swift condemnations from India and raised questions about Pakistan’s pledges to crack down on militants following the siege of an army-run school earlier this week that killed 132 children and 16 staff members.
Lakhvi, the operations commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, is one of seven Pakistani nationals facing trial for the attacks in India’s commercial capital that killed 166 people in November 2008.

Since the Pakistani authority could act fast when they choose to (like today), I sometimes wonder why they never act against domestic terrorism (violent acts) carried out within the country by shadowy groups such as the various attacks against the Shias, Christians and also the Sunnis and political assassinations.

According to this news report Pakistan seems to be moving away from supporting the Jihadist groups.

In the wake of the Peshawar school massacre, some U.S. and Afghan officials are beginning to express optimism that Pakistan may finally be changing its decadeslong policy of supporting jihadist groups. Pakistan’s military for several months has been moving away from the policy, under which these militant groups have long been used by the country’s spy agencies and security establishment against India and Afghanistan.

It isn’t clear, however, to what extent the military, which runs security policy independent of the civilian government, will adhere to the new zero-tolerance approach to jihadists.

In recent months, it seemed to apply only to many of the groups based on the western border with Afghanistan, including the Pakistani Taliban. The country hasn’t seen a move against militant outfits focused on India to the east, or some of the groups that target Pakistan’s own Shiite minority.

But many doubt that Pakistan would end its support for terrorism as long as they are not targeted

“There is no change,” said Christine Fair, an assistant professor at Georgetown University. “Pakistan defines its threat as coming from those militants who cannot be persuaded to kill in Afghanistan or India.”

References
http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-accused-plotter-of-mumbai-attacks-ordered-back-to-jail-20141219-story.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pakistan-kills-dozens-of-militants-after-school-massacre/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pakistan-moves-to-end-policy-on-good-taliban-1419013453

Would religion exist if God didn’t?

We believe that God exist, hence there is at least one religion.

We also know that if God didn’t exist, then we could have easily invented HIM/HER…because that’s what we are good at..creating gods/goddess and other supernatural beings and magical stories about them.

I know at least one philosopher who theorized that in the beginning of time, mankind started (began) without any religion whatsoever (the state of being in a complete disbelief).

Others strongly believe that the whole concept of religion was created because of the necessity to preserve the structure in the community and also for the convenience of the society.

Yet, many more believe that religions were created to not only explain the world around us but also the one beyond us (outer space, after death etc).

Realistically, no one can stop/could have stopped anyone from inventing their own religion/faith (this was far more easier in the olden days when we had no Internet …no one possess that many books, had libraries or could go on Internet forums to discuss or cross-check facts or share images/pictures!).

In one of my other posts here, I already stated that I no longer subscribe to this idea that there’s one true religion and that the rest of religions originated from that one true faith but that the message of that true religion could have somehow got lost/perverted by the followers of that religion.


We say God created the religion and hence religion is a validation of God’s existence.

This is not a well thought out argument because everything is very abstract and unverifiable. We already assumed that God exist because of the necessity to create a religion and we also assume that this God is interested in guiding us when we can find plenty of evidence around us to show that God doesn’t actually guide people that much. In fact, more people are misguided than guided.

Age of conversion/changing your religion should be raised to 21

Undoubtedly, Islamic teaching has proven to be very attractive for the uninitiated (newbies/recent converts to Islam/born again Muslim). On the surface level, Islam is very appealing on history, rationality, practicality/implementation, universal value systems and the metaphysics is also not too crazy.

But that’s just the surface. Going into a deeper analysis of the faith, you’ll find many instances where Islam can also be proven to be theologically flawed just like any other religion. But no one (not many) goes deeper into that level where you start to critically examine the dogma. And perhaps that’s a major contributing factor of why you see so much of chaos, cruelty, corruption, low standard of living and ignorance among the Muslims.

I’m reading this heartbreaking story about a 17-year old German boy who converted to Islam without the knowledge of his family. He participates in the worthless war in Syria.

He’s dead now at the age of 19.

Karg says two young men with an "immigrant background" knocked on Alfons' mother's door to tell her of his death in Syria last summer. "When she opened up, they said: 'Congratulations, your son is now in paradise,' " he says. Karg adds they showed her a photograph of his bullet-ridden body and his goodbye letter, neither of which they let her keep for fear the police would use the items to track the young men down.

Most of these stories start with a secret conversion of a very young teen. He/she has to hide his religion because of the family dynamics that doesn’t allow the convert to be very open/frank with the parents.

He says Alfons grew more withdrawn after he secretly converted to Islam at age 17. The father says the lanky, insecure teen didn't grow a beard but cropped his blond hair short, stopped shaking hands with girls and women, and abandoned his apprenticeship. Karg says he found out about the conversion from his younger son, Leonard, who has a different mother. The boy caught his half-brother praying during a weekend visit. Leonard told Karg that Alfons' reaction was: "Don't tell Papa," just as he always hid things from his father.

The young convert who’s very idealistic and high for his new religion secretly visited places where he could be heavily indoctrinated (brainwashed). At this point, there’s no longer moderation or voice of reason or even adult supervision.

After that, when Alfons turned 18, he emptied his savings account and took a trip with two Turkish friends to Turkey. But before last Christmas, unbeknownst to his father, Alfon left for Turkey again. Karg says he heard through acquaintances that his eldest had called his mother and told her to give away his belongings."That was for me a crucial alarm bell," Karg says. "A young person, 18 years of age, buys himself a flat-screen TV and then we are suddenly allowed to throw away everything he has?"

In the past, I’ve been posting many blog posts questioning the wisdom of western countries that were conveniently turning blind eyes when their citizens travelled to fight in the Syrian war because of their mutual hatred of Assad regime. I’m seeing that both sides in this war as equally evil and no one should support one or the other.

These sorts of ‘incidents’ are happening rampantly in western countries. Even though it’s too late to do anything for Alfons, perhaps there’s still a chance to save many other youths just like him whose attraction to Islam are making them so vulnerable that at the end they become prey to those who wished to exploit them.

Preventing young Germans from heading to Syria or Iraq — whether they are the fewer than 10 percent who are converts like Alfons, or the rest who come from an immigrant background — is something German authorities say is a top priority. In nearby North Rhine Westphalia, the head of the state's domestic intelligence, Burkhard Freier, says his government has launched three pilot programs called "Signpost" to reach out to at-risk youth.

Sadly, the more I read testimonials of young recent converts to Islam who are dragged into this unnecessary war, the more I asked myself of why there’s no age for religious conversion/changing your religion? We set age limit for when someone can get a driver’s license, vote in election, legal age of drinking, join the military, get married or be held responsible for criminal acts.

Reference

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/12/03/368049116/from-german-teen-to-isis-jihadist-a-fathers-struggle-to-understand

Everyone is fighting for ideologies

Some of the wealthy Sunni Muslim countries in the Middle East are very much focused on waging an ideological warfare against the Syrian government by supporting various rebel factions/groups that are actively trying to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. Their belief is that Assad is a dictator and that the Sunni population of Syria is being oppressed. I’m not sure why Assad is being single out for being a bad leader/dictator while most, if not all, of the Middle East countries are ‘governed’ by self-proclaim kings and highly corrupt governments that are actively suppressing their Sunni population (e.g Egypt).

Many youths especially in western countries are deluded or dumb enough to join this war by believing that they are serving a higher cause.

Iran, Russia, Syria currently under Assad, and probably half of Lebanon are on the other side, preferring a safe bet like Assad than a regime change. Has revolution or regime change ever worked in the Middle East or Muslim countries?

The Syrian war seems to have a very sectarian nature (Shia-vs-Sunni). I sense that many have incorrectly assumed that Assad, who happens to be an Allawite via his family connection, is a Shia (or more specifically a follower of the Iranian Shia faith). In recent time, the Allawis of Syria has been trying to portray a more Islamic outlook; by becoming more mainstream, adopting many practices of Sunnism and slowly pushing away most of the secretive stuff that exist in their creed but is virtually unknown in the Muslim world.

Iran, who has a close working relationship with Assad, has been working hard to sell the Allawite of Syria as a ‘mini Shia sect’ or follower of an Islamic sect that may closely resemble Shiasm. I think this stance taken by Iran regarding the Allawite sect is slightly misleading and also hypocritical when you consider that Iran is the biggest prosecutor of Bahai sect. Iran considers anyone following the Bahai religion/sect as an apostate (state of being taken out of the Islamic faith). Here’s the irony. Both Bahai and Allawi are holding beliefs that would be considered ‘apostate-worthy’ (in fact I would even go further by saying that this belief that most find offensive is of the exact same nature/same spectrum), but only Bahais are single out for impropriety but not the Allawis. So why is there a double standard?

Perhaps we need to be fighting less for ideology (political, religion or on social issues). More time and efforts should be spent to alleviate the real suffering of the people.

Syrians are going to suffer more this winter and the next year is also not looking very good.

More than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt are facing a disastrous and hungry winter after a funding crisis forced the UN’s World Food Programme to suspend food vouchers to hundreds of thousands forced into exile by the conflict. Syria’s three-and-a-half year civil war has killed more than 200,000 people, displaced 6.5 million within the country and forced more than 3 million to seek refuge beyond its borders.

Here's the list of countries that are funding the World Food Program. The United States of America is the largest donor contributing half of the program budget to feed the hungry around the world.

References
http://www.wfp.org/about/funding/year/2014

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syrias-second-front/1-7-million-syrian-refugees-to-lose-their-main-source-of-food-aid/

http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/hMl1etAck9hlzfgVdkGGajK5NkygaES4/war-and-hunger-swiping-your-card-lion-whisperer/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/01/syrian-refugees-food-crisis-un-world-programme

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/18/world-food-programme-cut-aid-syria