Hindu and Muslim Taliban are first cousins

In numerous earlier posts, I have been scathing in my attack against Islamic extremism. Piqued by the unabashed critique, some have counseled a gentler tone so as to not alienate “moderates”.  I have previously debunked the validity of that proposition and hence I will not being doing that here. Still others have urged me to consider that Islam is not the ONLY violent game in town and that there are others who deserve similar condemnation.

Religion is fundamentally divisive because it promotes an Us vs. Them mentality.

Although I fully agree that Islamic militancy is not the only plague of our times, the subject of those posts were specifically Islamic terrorism / militancy and hence I did not feel the need to dilute the subject matter of my post by including references to its virulent brethren. However, this time I would like to show that fascism is NOT the sole preserve of any one religion or any one community. Religious chauvinism has a common formula that is adopted and exercised by different practitioners. In doing so, they tweak the superficial elements (color: Green v/s Saffron or name: Lashkar v/s Sena) – but the basic constructs are *exactly* the same.

Toward that end I have assembled a set of pictures and I invite you to join me in exploring the similarities.

The Thackereys: Sewer Rats of Mumbai.

When Osama Bin Laden spouts his venom, he insinuates to speak for all Muslims. We (rightly) get frustrated by the fact that mainstream muslims do not do enough to repudiate him and yet claim that he is not representative of them. Well… it seems that Osama Bin Laden is not the only vicious dog in the pen. There are others like the Thackerey-trio who have made a career of operating in the sewers and expounding their gutter minds in public.

Supreme Dick with his 2 Testicles

Most of the time I have been content with treating them with a quiet disdain because I knew that the primary purpose of their fulminations is cheap publicity and I did not want to contribute to their goal of being the subject of conversation.  However, it seems that they are no longer satisfied with being in the gutters and are discovering new depths in the nether-reaches of public discourse. What makes this intolerable is their penchant for indiscriminate violence and bloodshed. Of late, they seem to be showing self-righteous outrage at Indians immigrants being harassed in Australia while conveniently overlooking the fact that they are practicing the same xenophobia themselves.

This is THE time to rise and denounce these vermin. Every thinking person – and more to the point – every thinking ‘Marathi Manoos’ needs to criticize and marginalize this filth of the sewers that claims to speak in their name. So here I am – a Mumbaikar and a Maharashtrian – unequivocally rejecting and repudiating the venom spouted by Bal Thackerey, Raj Thackerey and Uddhav Thackerey!

Almost nobody truly believes in God!

When I started writing this article, I did not realize how loooong it would turn out. I toyed with the idea of splitting it into multiple posts but I’m unable to do it without fracturing the line of thought itself.  Consequently, I have put all of it in one post and I request your indulgence.

God - an all-knowing all-powerful Sky-Dude that almost no one truly believes in

I’m given to understand (from all the polls) that America is full of religious folks (around 90%) and that atheists are a small minority. Even atheist books and blogs seem to carry the mentality of an outnumbered (though valiant) minority.

But I wonder if this is indeed true or are our cultural parameters for ascertaining “belief” misleading?  I would like to posit that most people DO NOT actually believe in God although they sincerely profess to.  And that’s what I’d like to explore in this post.

So – let’s start! I doubt any sane person actually believes in God. Not you, not your spouse, not your parents, not your devout cousin who is also a priest. Not even the Pope believes in God!