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Expose fake miracle, get arrested

Catholic Church leaders vow to harass Sanal Edamaruku with an array of blasphemy cases.
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On the plus side, if/when this is laughed out of court it will highlight what a joke "blasphemy" laws are. If easily demonstrable facts can be considered blasphemy, we have a lot more to worry about than a broken water drain.
 
Who wrote the first "blasphemy" laws , during which century ? , I'm not familiar with these "laws" . Could someone help out a bit please ?....My guess would be around 2000 years ago [ after watching "The Life of Brian "]...!
 
MrBooglemaumau said:
Who wrote the first "blasphemy" laws , during which century ? , I'm not familiar with these "laws" . Could someone help out a bit please ?....My guess would be around 2000 years ago [ after watching "The Life of Brian "]...!
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There are laws against blasphemy in the Old Testament, and this dates back a lot more than 2000 years.

For India, I'd guess they inherited the blasphemy laws from the British (back when India was under British rule for close to a century). It shouldn't be a surprise they're still on the books in India. Blasphemy was still illegal in Britain until 2008.
 
Sanal Edamaruku is a great person. I've enjoyed several of his debunkings over the years (on Sai Baba, Prahlad Jani, Mother Theresa).
 
arthwollipot said:
Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku is being harrassed by the Catholic Church after he exposed a fake "miracle".

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/
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Really? :rolleyes:

It doesn't even make sense. The style of that piece of writing is more the woo woo kind. The story doesn't stand as it is told.

Searching in news.google about Sanal Edamaruku ---> 3 entries, blog like

There's an entry in en.wikipedia.org about Sanal Edamaruku plenty of details, which means nothing. I deleted a longer entry about a fake "Pedro Fiorito", the supposed creator of pastrami who, according to that entry, travelled in the 1500s to South America as a conquistador, but he was from Jewish ancestors and son of a contemporary solicitor and notary from Buenos Aires. This time traveller had also died from high blood cholesterol, according to serious wiki. So Wikipedia articles about Joe Schmoe don't impress me at all.

The new Carlos?
 
aleCcowaN said:
Really? :rolleyes:

It doesn't even make sense. The style of that piece of writing is more the woo woo kind.
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I know what you mean about the style - I wonder if the church people really were "foaming with rage"? Might be a cultural thing.

Yuri
 
Randi got in trouble for pointing out similar flummery when he was a teenager.
 
aleCcowaN said:
Really? :rolleyes:

It doesn't even make sense. The style of that piece of writing is more the woo woo kind. The story doesn't stand as it is told.
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Ah, now you've got me curious enough to actually look at the link.

I was expecting some kind of news article, but it appears to be little more than a promotional piece by Rationalist International to solicit donations.
 
Brian, perhaps if they received more donations, they could afford a better website. :p

Opinion: Rationalist International and Sanal Edamaruku do good work for skepticism.
 
Well, I'm not worried about some demonization of Christianity, which is dealt as an alien mysterious element -fair enough within an Indian context, I suppose-, but about the edition of the story to sketch "the enemy". That, including 'our' arthwollipot doubling the bet ("Expose fake miracle, get arrested"). "Expose and get arrested", really, arthwollipot? That's what you conclude from "As he exposed the “miracle” of the drippling Jesus in Mumbai, revengeful Catholic Church leaders vow to harass Sanal Edamaruku with an array of blasphemy cases. The harassment has started. Sanal can be arrested any moment."? (add some music we call "cha-chán", like Mission Impossible's -composed by Argentine Lalo Schifrin-)

In my country, if you shout "dirty n*****" to a black person or you call "f****** moron Jehova's testicle" (the Spanish word for witness is close to the word for testicle) to a Jehova's Witness, you might be arrested (probably fined and forced to apologize publicly) as we consider unacceptable any behaviour that diminishes and scorns people for what they are or believe (practical enforcement or it is a horse of a different colour). Is not that "blasphemy" something along the same lines?

Besides, I suppose some native forum member can read the "headlines" in the video and tell us what is said in Hindi. By the way, why does Rationalist International have an address in New Delhi, is "owned" by some Sanal Sharma or Gupta or Singh, but has no Internet site in Hindi as it does have in Polish or Finnish? Something fishy there.

I'm still bemused about the amount of woo woo and uncritical approach within forums.randi.org
 
aleCcowaN said:
Well, I'm not worried about some demonization of Christianity, which is dealt as an alien mysterious element -fair enough within an Indian context, I suppose-, but about the edition of the story to sketch "the enemy". That, including 'our' arthwollipot doubling the bet ("Expose fake miracle, get arrested"). "Expose and get arrested", really, arthwollipot? That's what you conclude from "As he exposed the “miracle” of the drippling Jesus in Mumbai, revengeful Catholic Church leaders vow to harass Sanal Edamaruku with an array of blasphemy cases. The harassment has started. Sanal can be arrested any moment."? (add some music we call "cha-chán", like Mission Impossible's -composed by Argentine Lalo Schifrin-)

In my country, if you shout "dirty n*****" to a black person or you call "f****** moron Jehova's testicle" (the Spanish word for witness is close to the word for testicle) to a Jehova's Witness, you might be arrested (probably fined and forced to apologize publicly) as we consider unacceptable any behaviour that diminishes and scorns people for what they are or believe (practical enforcement or it is a horse of a different colour). Is not that "blasphemy" something along the same lines?

Besides, I suppose some native forum member can read the "headlines" in the video and tell us what is said in Hindi. By the way, why does Rationalist International have an address in New Delhi, is "owned" by some Sanal Sharma or Gupta or Singh, but has no Internet site in Hindi as it does have in Polish or Finnish? Something fishy there.

I'm still bemused about the amount of woo woo and uncritical approach within forums.randi.org
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A simple turn of the cards say consider the source.

Have a great day!:)
 
bozothedeathmachine said:
On the plus side, if/when this is laughed out of court it will highlight what a joke "blasphemy" laws are. If easily demonstrable facts can be considered blasphemy, we have a lot more to worry about than a broken water drain.
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wouldnt faking a miracle be considered more blasphemous than exposing the fake?
 
aleCcowaN said:
That, including 'our' arthwollipot doubling the bet ("Expose fake miracle, get arrested"). "Expose and get arrested", really, arthwollipot? That's what you conclude from "As he exposed the “miracle” of the drippling Jesus in Mumbai, revengeful Catholic Church leaders vow to harass Sanal Edamaruku with an array of blasphemy cases. The harassment has started. Sanal can be arrested any moment."? (add some music we call "cha-chán", like Mission Impossible's -composed by Argentine Lalo Schifrin-)
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Actually as it turns out, it seems that the church has filed a blasphemy case against him, and the police have told him to come down to the station so they can arrest him (what, no free ride with the sirens blaring?).

So it looks like exposing miracles as fake very well might get you arrested.
 
Paul2 said:
Actually as it turns out, it seems that the church has filed a blasphemy case against him, and the police have told him to come down to the station so they can arrest him (what, no free ride with the sirens blaring?).

So it looks like exposing miracles as fake very well might get you arrested.
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Where did you got those 100%_accurate_in-context_facts? If you have time, please identify too who tagged it as a miracle and when.

I'm used to hear here mothers saying "it's a miracle" in the news and thanking "god" because their children got a heart-lung transplant, or had a severed arm reattached, all of it free of charge. They seldom thank the surgeons, the institution where the surgery was made, and the institution's contributors -mainly Juan Pueblo (John Q. Public) via taxation-. Donor's relatives are thanked when the reporter asks "What would you say to the donor's relatives?".

So, a transplant is not a miracle and a dripping statue is not a miracle, but stupid people is claiming miracle. How would react my surgeon neighbour if some Sanal Pérez accuses him of deceiving people by telling he performs miracles and his hand is guided by god itself, all of it said in the most insulting and calumniatory way, just in order to attract attention by a publicity stunt? How do you know that is not the case with this silly story in the OP?

And about the "press (repercussions|echoes|whichever word is used)" like boingboing's, it all looks pretty similar to a denialist site claiming that a famous climate scientist plotted with some windmill tycoon to deceive the authorities, and a few denialist site (in fact, hundreds of them) copying it.

The more I give the story a thought, the more lame and BS it seems to be. And all the pretended skepticism in these fora, it boils to a naïvité worse than a five years old about Santa when it comes to attack the chosen enemy. What a sham!
 
aleCcowaN said:
How do you know that is not the case with this silly story in the OP?
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Well, there is a link to a YouTube video of a priest arguing that it is a miracle and not capillary action in the article cited in the OP. That certainly substantiates that priests have claimed that it's a miracle. I've not watched all of the video and, as it's all a bit of a free-for-all I'm not sure I'm going to, but the article in the OP also claims that this is where the threats of harassment were made. Of course I'd want to watch it for myself before making a definite declarative statement about it, but I think it's reasonable to have as a working hypothesis that this sceptic site wouldn't make a claim and then link to a video which completely refutes that claim.

You seem to be complaining that things might not be what the article in the OP claims they are without first having looked at the evidence provided in the article in the OP. I'm not sure that lecturing people about their failures of scepticism is entirely appropriate under those circumstances.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Well, there is a link to a YouTube video of a priest arguing that it is a miracle and not capillary action in the article cited in the OP
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If you heard the bold part, can you tell us the exact time in the video? Your texts implies you did. I promise to look for the "harassment part". I have half a dozen contacts in language forums that are Hindi native speakers and that I helped much learning Spanish. I could ask some of them to hear short parts of the video and tell me what they're saying.

You have to have hints of some elements of the story being real before speaking of "working hypothesis". It's clear that there's a dripping statue in some place and this Sanal was around there. All the rest, is unclear. I'm surprised how many people in the world don't know that telling lies is most of the time legal everywhere, specially in TV.

By the way. Here's Article 295 of Indian Penal Law

CHAPTER XV

OF OFFENCES RELATING TO RELIGION


295.


Injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the
religion of any class.


295. Injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to
insult the religion of any class.--Whoever destroys, damages or
defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class
of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any
class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is
likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult
to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either
description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or
with both.


295A.


Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings
of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.


5*[295A. Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage
religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious
beliefs.--Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of
outraging the religious feelings of any class of 6*[citizens of
India], 7*[by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by
visible representations or otherwise] insults or attempts to insult
the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished
with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to
8*[three years], or with fine, or with both.]
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I have a hard time believing that Indian Code of Criminal Procedure provides arrest on a supposed crime that may cause a fine to be imposed once the accused is found guilty. That the chap can be brought to some precinct in order to be asked about the charges, are you surprised? is that to be detained in legal custody?

I'm not diminishing Hypatia or Miguel Servet, dead by instigation of Christian priests (John Calvin in the last case) by not buying the story of this Sanal, nor making miracles less BS than they are (but I don't go to the altar of the nearest church to shout that).
 
Sheesh, I'm happy to admit that what has been reported may not be 100% accurate, or have a misleading context, etc. That's very easy to imagine.
 
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