New entry rules for the Gangotri temple in Uttarakhand make it compulsory for every visitor to consume panchgavya, a ritual concoction made from five cow-derived products – milk, curd, ghee, honey and cow urine. The idea, according to the committee overseeing the shrine, is to keep out non-believers.

The new rules were announced as a major annual pilgrimage for Hindus called Char Dham Yatra began on Sunday. The pilgrimage draws millions of devotees to four temples, including the Gangotri shrine, high in the Himalayas.

BJP workers often perform purification rituals using cow urine. And during the Covid pandemic the former head of the party’s West Bengal unit called on people to use cow urine to boost their immunity against the virus – prompting warnings from medical experts that there was no scientific basis for doing so.

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Before writing, religious teachings were passed down orally. Human memory isn't perfect, so remembering long texts word for word was very difficult. Instead, teachers focused on conveying the meaning, sharing core ideas and moral lessons. They could not hide behind technical wording or quote tiny language differences to defend contradictions. They had to make the teachings clear and consistent.

Listeners also had to stay alert. Since a teacher might misremember or mix up details, understanding the message deeply was essential to spot mistakes. Religion was alive, shaped by interpretation, discussion and shared understanding.

But with the invention of writing, everything changed. Sacred texts could now be recorded exactly and preserved without change. Over time, religion shifted from following living teachings to following the text. People did not just follow a faith, they began to follow the book.

Today, you often hear believers say things like "The Bible is the truth" or "It's right there in scripture," as if the written word itself is more important than what it means. Many Christians for example treat the text of the whole Bible as the ultimate authority, not necessarily the spirit of Jesus' teachings but the literal words on the page, even when it leads to rigid or harmful interpretations.

Writing gave us precision but it also made religion more permanent and more dangerous. Ideas that were once open to debate or adaptation became locked in place, making it harder to question, update or correct them. A teaching that might have been contextual or symbolic centuries ago now carries the weight of being unchanging truth, not because it is wise but because it is written down.

I am not trying to romanticize oral traditions. They had their flaws too. Plenty of harmful, superstitious or backward beliefs were spread and reinforced that way. Mistakes could grow over time, myths could distort and power could still be abused by storytellers.

The point is not that one system is perfect. It is that writing changed the game. It turned fluid traditions into fixed dogmas. And once something is written as holy and unchangeable, it becomes much harder to fix, even when it should be.

Title. Is it the organized religion part that you don't like or is it the whole "believing in extraordinary claims" part that you don't like?

What do you think about those who identify as "spiritual, but not religious"?

Let's assume, hypothetically and for argument's sake, that a religious text contained morally harmful passages. No, it isn't down to "misinterpretation," it isn't down to mistranslation, it isn't down to us "just not understanding." The passage really is morally harmful.

What should be done? Spoiler: the answer is obvious. The morally harmful passage should be condemned. What would a lot of religious folks do? Everything but condemn it.

It might be an unpopular opinion here, but I tend to agree with theists on one thing: God isn't morally responsible for human actions. Saying "God made me do it" isn't a valid defense when someone does something morally reprehensible. Full stop.

And if that's true, if we're truly accountable for our own choices, then the same logic must apply to the texts people claim to live by. One can't outsource morality to an ancient scripture and then claim innocence when its commands lead to harm. If a passage endorses slavery, prescribes offensive and unjustified violence, or dehumanizes entire groups, and someone follows it because it's sacred, then they've made a moral choice that reflects on them, not on some divine mandate.
To act on such a text without critical conscience is to abdicate responsibility, not fulfill it. And in doing so, one doesn't defend God; one uses God as a shield for human failure. That's not "faith." That's evasion.

Hey folks,

As with every kind of belief system, it doesn't come as a surprise that there are bad and potentially fallacious reasons to believe in the supernatural. But here's a question: is believing in the supernatural always irrational?

I'm not asking whether ghosts or miracles are real. I don't want to debate the truth of those claims here. Instead, I'm wondering: can someone arrive at a supernatural belief through a rational process, even if that belief turns out to be false?

It might sound weird, but in philosophy, how you arrive at a belief (called epistemology) is separate from whether the belief is actually true. For example, imagine someone observes a strange anomaly in a physics experiment, say particles appearing to interact faster than light. They've ruled out equipment errors and known variables based on their understanding, and they tentatively conclude there might be an unknown force at play, something beyond current physics. Their belief isn't proven, and it might even be wrong, but the way they got there, by testing, eliminating alternatives, and following the evidence, is still rational.

On the flip side, someone could believe in that same unseen force just because they had a dream about it, with no supporting reasoning or evidence. In this case, the belief might coincidentally align with some future discovery, who knows, but the way they arrived at it isn't epistemically justified.

So, can belief in the supernatural ever be rational, even if it's ultimately incorrect? Or does any such belief automatically count as irrational, no matter the thought process?

Meanwhile, the share of adults who are religiously unaffiliated has roughly doubled in Argentina (to 24% in 2024), Brazil (15%) and Chile (33%); tripled in Mexico (20%) and Peru (12%); and nearly quadrupled in Colombia (23%).

State of led India.

yea yea, obviously the god(s) your parents taught you about as a child are the ones that actually exist, their interpretation is correct, everything. Everyone else just rolled unlucky and were raised to believe the wrong ones exist. Poor saps got led astray from the real god, the one that you so fortunately you were raised to believe. mhmm.

India is 1930s Germany rn. People only blame Muslims for every minor inconvenience and will never question the government.

has been blackmailing a bunch of celebrities recently into supporting a Hindu Theocracy and Modi.

Public opinion of the BJP has soured over the past few years. From what I'm guessing, they're going to launch a coup if they don't win the next elections and establish a theocracy.

The most prominent Hindu God rn (Ram) canonically ate meat btw.

The vegetarian purism bullshit in India traces it's roots back to Brahminist supremacy where Brahmins in the Northern belts copied the vegetarian diet thing from Buddhists are repurposed it to larp as pure divine beings.

Other parts of India, like coastal provinces continued their natural diets and rituals involving meat but with the rapid rise of population in North India and the rise of Hindu Fascism centered in apartheid states like Gujarat, this view has become mainstream in most states.

Indian Universities used to be very leftist before the indoctrinated the youth with religious dogma.

Now the RSS has slowly infiltrated all these institutions and switched the direction from constructive political thought to religious dogma.

tried to get West Bengal to ban sale of meat on a religious festival.

This is something that happens commonly in other run states especially shitholes like Gujarat.

West Bengal specifically has a lot of meat consumption compared to BIMARU states which form the BJP's core voter base. Meat consumption especially on festivals has been part of Bengali culture for thousands of years and it's downright insulting to suggest something like this in the state.

As I said in a previous post, Vegetarian Supremacist shit in India is not like Veganism in the west. This ideology exists entirely so people can feel "purer" than other people who consume meat. This often results in violence against meat eaters in BIMARU states including Mob lynchings backed by the state.

"Religion is our enemy and we must treat it accordingly (except Christianity, wink wink)."

"Aww, you're sweet."

"Religion is our enemy and we must treat it accordingly (including Christianity)."

"Hello, human resources?"

The Vegetarian Supremacist ideology in India originates from Brahminism and caste superiority of Brahmins. Nowadays, it's used as a justification by Hindutva to lynch Muslims or lower castes to death on the suspicion of eating meat.

So if any low life goon dreams about a random dude eating meat, they can just gather a squad and kill them and it'll be supported in all BJP run states. Mob violence has become increasingly normalized under the BJP especially in states like UP, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

This is her Twitter : https://xcancel.com/swapniljourno where she boasted about this a bit.

I sense that this guy can be a bit libby, but as a Black atheist raised in a devout Catholic household, I found this a really fascinating watch.

Link

Cow Urine and Dung are seen as divine substances by weird fetishists but led Hindutva has been taking this belief mainstream.

Consumption of both substances(i.e. eating/drinking) has increased substantially over the past 10ish years in India.

This practice can be traced back to Casteism since it follows the total dehumanization of undesirables, treating them as untouchables. Brahmins specifically labeled Lower Caste people as "worse" than excreta, often "purifying" temples with the same substances if they were ever visited by Lower Castes. Muslims are also treated in the same way by religious folks nowadays.

Originally posted by u/thelastaxolotl to c/history.

the catholic church is a blight on the world and was directly responsible for reinstating capitalism into Poland, it must be destroyed mercilessly

I think we're all familiar with the "New Atheist" to GamerGate to neo-reaction pipeline, at least anecdotally. Hit me with your best material analysis of what explains this trend. Intuitively, there's nothing that would seem to connect an even rather aggressive anti-theism and the kind of virulent misogyny and fascist politics that eventually developed out of that movement. So what gives, do you think?

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