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Atheist Debunks "Weeping Jesus" & Faces Prison

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What to do about Sanal Edmaruku?
Stone him in accordance with Biblical law. 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Flog him with 39 lashes of the cat-o-nine. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Put him in prison until he recants and apologizes. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Leave him alone and forget about him 52%  52%  [ 16 ]
Give him a Nobel Prize for Courage. 32%  32%  [ 10 ]
On Planet X, all of our statues weep. 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
Other: ________________ (Please explain below). 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 31

Fnord
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07 Dec 2012, 1:04 pm

CNN (11:00 PM, Dec 6, 2012): Sanal Edmaruku charged after debunking crying Jesus statue

Ram Ramgopal wrote:
A man was charged with blasphemy after giving a rational explanation for a statue of Jesus that seemed to weep.

In March, water began dripping down a statue of Jesus on the cross at Our Lady of Velankanni in Mumbai. Parishioners collected the so-called Holy Water others drank it hoping it would cure ailments. But rationalist and atheist Sanal Edamaruku investigated, and said it was actually sewage water percolating through the statue, because of a leaky water pipe.

Now he's being charged with blasphemy under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which accuses him of "deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious sentiments." But the Catholic Christian Secular Forum, which filed the complaint to police, says the law is the law. After being denied anticipatory bail in June, Edamaruku flew to Finland, where he remains in exile.

The Catholic Christian Secular Forum says they're willing to withdraw the complaint against Edamaruku, if he apologizes. Edamaruku says he will not.

Words fail me ... :roll:


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Shatbat
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07 Dec 2012, 1:29 pm

At least Finland took him in.


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The_Walrus
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07 Dec 2012, 1:35 pm

I voted for "leave him alone", assuming that means the law should leave him alone.



Tequila
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07 Dec 2012, 1:38 pm

It looks like India is less protective of civil liberties, freedom of speech and civil rights than I thought. It certainly doesn't seem like a genuinely liberal democracy in any way.



naturalplastic
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07 Dec 2012, 2:29 pm

Puzzling news story.

India is not thought of as a christian country.

Though it has a minority christian population.

The law was probably designed, not by a Pope or an Ayatollah, to preserve a state religion but by secular authorities to keep the populace from going at each other's throats, and to keep civil order.

Parts of India have lots of tension between Hindus and Muslims and the law was probably set up to keep Hindus from serving pork to muslims, or muslims from selling beef burgers to Hindus and inciting riots. My guess is that protecting Christian sensabilities wasnt even on the lawmakers radar screen. But the word of the law protects the hypersensitivities of all religions. So the law is the law.

But still- folks should be warned not to drink sewer water coming out of statues! He ought to counter sue the state for depraved indifference or reckless endangerment of the population- or some such logical counter move I would think.



John_Browning
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07 Dec 2012, 4:11 pm

I've never believed in weeping statues, or Jesus Or Mary appearing in things like potato chips, grilled cheese sandwiches, or hard water leaking into drywall walls or leeching through concrete. Let the scientist seek asylum and let the peons drink from a sewer leak in hope of curing ailments. Everyone is happy that way! :lol:


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thewhitrbbit
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07 Dec 2012, 4:18 pm

He has a right to disbelieve as much as the person next to him has a right to believe.



Tequila
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07 Dec 2012, 4:18 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Puzzling news story.

India is not thought of as a christian country.

Though it has a minority christian population.

The law was probably designed, not by a Pope or an Ayatollah, to preserve a state religion but by secular authorities to keep the populace from going at each other's throats, and to keep civil order.

Parts of India have lots of tension between Hindus and Muslims and the law was probably set up to keep Hindus from serving pork to muslims, or muslims from selling beef burgers to Hindus and inciting riots. My guess is that protecting Christian sensabilities wasnt even on the lawmakers radar screen. But the word of the law protects the hypersensitivities of all religions. So the law is the law.

But still- folks should be warned not to drink sewer water coming out of statues! He ought to counter sue the state for depraved indifference or reckless endangerment of the population- or some such logical counter move I would think.


I think the main thing is that although it's probably very true in what you say about keeping volatile communal tensions in parts of India under control - Hindus (and Sikhs) really do not like Islam - this kind of nonsense stymies progress and preserves things in aspic, making things go backward and allowing dickheads to keep the pot boiling on an increasingly large number of 'triggers' that could set the violence coming. It's all very sad and, otherwise, I expected better of India.



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07 Dec 2012, 4:20 pm

John_Browning wrote:
I've never believed in weeping statues, or Jesus Or Mary appearing in things like potato chips, grilled cheese sandwiches, or hard water leaking into drywall walls or leeching through concrete. Let the scientist seek asylum and let the peons drink from a sewer leak in hope of curing ailments. Everyone is happy that way! :lol:


Even if the slightly less than wholly chaste Mary did appear in a cheeseburger or a cheese sandwich, I'm still going to eat the thing anyway. (If she's attractive, I'll love it all the more.)



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07 Dec 2012, 4:27 pm

It sounds very odd to me. I get the feeling this case has more to do with someone in a powerful position taking personal offence at the guy and considering India's rife corruption at all levels is on a personal mission to make his life a misery using archaic laws.


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Tequila
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07 Dec 2012, 4:30 pm

TallyMan wrote:
It sounds very odd to me. I get the feeling this case has more to do with someone in a powerful position taking personal offence at the guy and considering India's rife corruption at all levels is on a personal mission to make his life a misery using archaic laws.


Probably. This isn't unheard of in that part of the world. These are very corrupt societies - I mean, anyone who says that British or, indeed, that place where you live isn't corrupt is a moron - but they obviously have more of a problem with it than we do.

And, yes, laws like these (and others) can be used by the powerful to make the lives of the less-powerful absolute hell.



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07 Dec 2012, 4:35 pm

TallyMan wrote:
It sounds very odd to me. I get the feeling this case has more to do with someone in a powerful position taking personal offence at the guy and considering India's rife corruption at all levels is on a personal mission to make his life a misery using archaic laws.

AFAIK, similar 'miraculous' icons have been used by the pre-revolution Russian clergy to inspire believers into giving money to the church in an effort to stop the icon from crying. At one time, you could view examples of these icons in Soviet-era museums.

If this is the case in India, then perhaps some of the local clergy felt threatened that the truth might set their followers free and take away a lucrative source of untaxable income.

Crafty buggers, these Christians!

:lol:


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07 Dec 2012, 4:41 pm

Fnord wrote:
If this is the case in India, then perhaps some of the local clergy felt threatened that the truth might set their followers free and take away a lucrative source of untaxable income.


Parasites. Much like politicians then, but with a 'holy' veneer. Santa mi culo!



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07 Dec 2012, 5:33 pm

Hindu goddess statues have been alledged to produce milk from their teats, and crying statues were common in prechristian pagan Greco Roman times. In fact it was so common an occurence in that pagan time that one of the Greek philosophers (I believe it was Archemedies) was forced to comment that "I dont doubt reports of statues that moan, groan, and or weep. There are many possible explanations..." and he went on to talk about temperature change and moisture and to rattle off a list of naturalistic explanations worthy of a 21st century scientist. He did not get arrested for it as far as I know.



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07 Dec 2012, 6:35 pm

A while back, they made a white house . org petition asking Obama to at least say something about this.

The petition didn't get enough signatures. Well done, US citizens.


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07 Dec 2012, 6:49 pm

Truly, he simply said why he thought that the statue was weeping, I cannot see why they should think he meant to be hurtful. Truly, what they did was unfair I believe.