Kedarnath Tragedy

The Hindu god Shiva was washed away by heavy flood. Thousands of pilgrims, priests, people were washed away too. Kedarnath temple is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to the god Shiva. The temple is located on the Garhwal Himalayan range near the Mandakini river in Kedarnath, Uttarakhand. It is now standing alone surrounded by death and destruction. The loss of human lives in the flash floods, cloudbursts, and landslide after heavy rainfall for 3 days since June 16 is amidst the worst in its history.

Instead of mourning the countless deaths, many god-believers are now getting deep into the euphoria because they’ve heard that a rock on the mountain prevented the Kedarnath temple from getting washed away during the horrifying flood..

Early Sunday, the tragedy began when a cloudburst happened upstream in the valley. What followed was incessant rains leading to huge floods that took everything along with them . A cloud burst happens when clouds come under huge pressure due to getting stuck in a valley. The result is them’ bursting’ thereby causing the entire water in them to drain down in an instant!
Due to this burst , huge rocks also broke away from the Kedar dome and started rolling in the valley. One of them apparently stopped just before the stone temple, thereby breaking the flow of the muddy water into two. This lead to shops, houses basically everything around the temple to be washed away in natures’ fury, but the temple survived!

Believers are busy thinking about the temple. How the almighty god apparently saved his temple and thus re-established the faith of his followers through this act! They thank god for saving the temple but they are not angry with god for destroying everything else and killing thousands of believers. They are not doubting about the existence of god, if there were a god, he would not have been so terribly monstrous.
Religion business will not be stopped at Kedarnath. The rock that fell from the mountain and saved the temple from being washed away is strongly believed by millions of people as an act of god. Now people will most likely start worshiping the rock. Blind beliefs are more crazy than flash floods, cloudbursts and landslides together. I thought Kedarnath tragedy would make people give up their faith in god, but in reality their faith became stronger than before. They’ve now got an extra idol to worship. The rock.

Europe should give asylum to Edward Snowden.

Why India, Europe should give asylum to Snowden.

Edward Snowden asked 21 nations for political asylum. He got nothing but rejection, proving once again that free speech is just a decorative item for most governments. India’s embassy in Moscow received Snowden’s request for asylum. His request was rejected within hours. Since then, there has been much discussion about India’s generosity over giving shelter to persecuted people—and so then, why not Snowden? India has in the past granted political asylum to Dalai Lama and many other rebels. Some even mention my name in the list.

I am not sure whether I should be considered a political refugee in India. I was thrown out of my country, Bangladesh, in 1994 and found myself landing in Europe. It was difficult for me to live in a place which has a totally different climate, culture and language from where I grew up. Since I knew I couldn’t return to my country, I wanted to come to India. But India kept her doors firmly shut. Towards the end of 1999, I was given permission to visit as a tourist.

I came to India not as a persecuted writer or as an asylum seeker, but as a European citizen. I eagerly chose India’s state of West Bengal as my new home. But when I was physically attacked by Muslim fundamentalists, instead of taking act­ion against them, the government kept me under house arrest. Not only that, I was repeatedly asked to leave the state and, preferably, the country. When a group of Muslim fundamentalists orga­nised a protest against my stay in India, I was thrown out of Bengal, the state that had been my home for years. Finally, the central government took charge and put me in a safehouse. But there was pressure from the Centre too for me to leave the country. I had to leave, but I did not give up. I am now given permission to live in India again. My enemies are just a handful of anti-democracy, anti-equality, anti-women, ignorant fanatics but yet India often hesitates to challenge them.

I’m not surprised India refused Snowden asylum. How can a country give asylum to a person chased by the almighty US when it panics over giving a residence permit to a secular writer? But with India, one underst­ands; it can’t afford to take risks or make any big political mistake now. Indeed, a Eur­opean country should have given Snowden asylum. They have a long tradition of defending writers and journalists. Compared to India, they have a much older, truer democracies, and violation of rights and free speech is a rarity there. It’s time for Europe to show they are not mere colonies of the US. However glorious a past India may have had, it can not afford to face possible US sanctions. If democracy were practised everywhere, and if it were not reduced to mere elections, independent voices from independent countries would have been respected. As it stands, the human species is yet to make the world an evenly civilised place. Until it happens, we ordinary people have to pay the brunt, and have to sacrifice our dignity, honor, rights and freedom.

I really feel sorry for Snowden. If I were a country, I’d have given him asylum.

We meet for a good cause

I attended two atheist-humanist conferences in last two months. One was in Kamloops, Canada and another was in Dublin, Ireland.
Canada conference’s topic was Imagine no religion.

You can listen to almost everyone here.

Ireland conference’s topic was Empowering women through secularism. Here you will get to listen to all great speakers.
It was a privilege to meet great scientists, humanists, and great thinkers of our time in both conferences. We do not waste our time by repeating there-is-no-god, because we all are pretty sure that there is no god. Rather we talk about science, evolution, education, secularism, women’s rights, rights of LGBTQ and many other important issues. Our aim is to make people better people and to make the world a better place. Atheism alone can not do everything.

When we are not on the stage, we do not forget to have some good time for ourselves.
Here we are:

dan denette

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Daniel Dennette, PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, Sean Faircloth, Michael Nugent, Ann Brusseel, Jane Donnelly, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Nina Sankari, Maryam Namazie, me and others.

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Next time you should try not to miss great conferences on atheism, secularism, feminism, and humanism.