This is Part - II of Dr. Kamath’s series on Heretics, Rebels and Revolutionaries. Read Part - I here.

Around 600 B. C., when numerous heretical philosophies were budding in the turbulent post-Vedic period of India, someone by the name of Brihaspati wrote a classic atheistic philosophical treatise known as Barhaspatya Sutras. Later on his philosophy came to be labeled as Lokayata (”pertaining to the world”) or Charvaka (”Sweet-tongued”) philosophy. Westerners labeled this philosophy as “Materialism.” Because vested interests of theistic philosophies perceived this atheistic philosophy as too dangerous, they mercilessly ridiculed it, deliberately misinterpreted it, and freely caricatured it. In his classic treatise on ancient philosophies of India titled Sarva-Darshana-Samgraha, Madhavacharya (1268 -?) sarcastically referred to this philosophy as, “Crest-gem of Nastik schools.” Read the full story

Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the most populous state in India and is known to be one of the most backward too. In National politics it is always said that the party that comes to power in UP will eventually rule the center (a bellwether state, as they say in the Uniter States). It is hence necessary that a strong rationalism movement is built up in UP if a national level impact is to be effected. Read the full story

In this series of articles, we will study the stories of heretics, rebels, reformers and revolutionaries who attempted to overthrow organized priestly religions all over the world. In the first article of this series we will study how the first great revolution against ‘Brahmanic’ religion was launched in Egypt in 14^th century B. C.

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1. Preamble

As somebody said, science is what scientists do. And scientists are human too. Some of these humans have great difficulty in reconciling what science tells them with what they learnt from various sources when they were young and impressionable. So they may unconsciously look for ‘loopholes’ in the scientific premises and reasoning, particularly when it comes to fundamental questions about life, mind, and the universe.

In science there is always a cutting edge, or the frontier line where things are hazy. There is debate among experts as various alternative models are compared and contrasted. The beauty of the scientific method is that it is ruthless and without regard for authority (but see below!). Truth prevails ultimately, sometimes after a prolonged debate about what is the best way of interpreting the available data. When more data come in, science has no difficulty in dumping even its most cherished theories if necessary. Read the full story

A series of high-profile incidents over the past few months have stirred up conversation among Indians online on the subject of freedom of speech. Not surprisingly, parallels between the cases have been drawn at will to make ever possible argument for and against every side of the debate. This article is an attempt to look at the subject of free speech from a democratic and humanistic point of view.

I begin by outlining the essentials of four cases from the recent past. This will be followed by a short discussion on the notion of freedom of speech. Finally the implications of this discussion will be applied to each case. Read the full story

Nirmukta has recently crossed the 1000 member mark on facebook, and our team has decided that its time to celebrate by hosting an online event! This event will be held on Saturday, the third of July, at 7:00 PM, IST. All you will need to participate in the event is to go to http://tinychat.com/nirmukta at the scheduled time and sign in using twitter or facebook connect.

Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, will speak to us live on the influence of worldview naturalism. He is the the author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and its Uses, and has written various papers and articles on the influence of the naturalistic worldview on our lives. You can read more about Tom’s work at http://naturalism.org and on his blog at http://centerfornaturalism.blogspot.com/.

Go here for a Naturalism FAQ. Here is an excerpt:

Q. What is naturalism, anyway? And keep it straightforward!

A. Ok, naturalism is simply the understanding that there exists a single, natural, physical world or universe in which we are completely included. There are not two different worlds, the supernatural and natural. Since we are completely included in the natural world, there’s nothing supernatural about us. For instance, we don’t have immaterial souls that survive after death. We are fully physical, material creatures, and everything we are and do can be understood without supposing that we have souls, spirits, or any other sort of immaterial supernatural stuff inside us. Your thoughts, experiences, feelings, decisions, and behavior are all things your brain and body does. How they do all this is of course a very complicated story that’s still being discovered by science, but naturalism says there’s nothing non-physical involved. That the material world has produced creatures that are conscious, can reason, feel emotions, and ask questions is a pretty amazing fact. The “merely” physical isn’t so mere after all. Naturalism re-enchants the physical world.

During our conversation with Tom Clark we will explore some of the major implications of worldview naturalism on concepts such as god, religion, morality, justice, free-will, retribution, consciousness, etc. Since this will be a live streaming event, questions can be sent to us in real time through twitter and chat. Relevant questions from listeners will be selected and posed to Tom Clark throughout the entire duration of the event.

Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2010, 7:00 PM, IST.

Venue: http://tinychat.com/nirmukta

Our twitter account: (for sending us your questions) http://twiter.com/nirmukta

RSVP on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120028841375938&index=1

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Yeah we realize the title is not very imaginative coming on the heels of Everybody Draw Muhammad Day, but wait till you hear all our reasons for why we think you should participate in this particular celebration of free speech and expression.

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1. The Original Intent Of Religion And God

The original intent of Hinduism (Brahmanism) was to bring Law and Order into the lawless and chaotic society. That is why religion was known as Dharma -that which holds. The original purpose of creating various gods was to fulfill one’s desires and protect one from evils, both tangible (wicked people) and intangible (vagaries of nature). Gradually vested interests took over the religion, and it became a big business. This is consistent with Law of Solutions: All noble solutions for societal problems sooner or later become problems themselves. Read the full story

NOTE: The comic strip below scrolls from right to left when you click on the right end of the strip. If you cannot see it, please try refreshing your browser.

This is the second in a series of introductory level essays on Philosophy for Freethinkers. The first one can be found here.

The question caught Sandanam by surprise. Without giving it much thought, she pointed at the trees through the window of the living room they were sitting in and said “It’s how the universe talks to us. We have to listen hard to make sense of it”.

The house was situated on the grounds of a small park. Sandanam has just finished her evening ritual of watching the sun set over the trees, before settling down in front of the television.

Now she was looking at her daughter who was standing in front of her. Selvi had questions for her mother- questions that were not very clear to her, and yet seemed somehow profound and central to her purpose. These questions came to her at every turn. This time she was struck when she was doing her math homework. Her little head was filled with a deep desire to understand how the rules of mathematics related to reality. After talking about it to her dog, Puli, for an hour, she had worked her way down to some really fundamental questions. She tried to give form to her ideas, but the words fell short. Now, standing in front of her mother, she cleared her throat and began again. Read the full story

In countries like India where goddess worship is prevalent, the argument is often made that such superstition actually helps the cause of women’s rights. To feed the flames, more than a few Western feminists (such as Kathleen Erndl, Sarah Caldwell) have suggested that women in India should embrace these superstitious notions and derive strength from the myths, in order to the counter real prejudice that they face everyday. I disagree with this notion on two levels. Firstly, I don’t think that it is, in practice, possible to separate ‘good’ superstitious beliefs from the ones that are responsible for increasing suffering in society, since these are inter-dependent irrational sets of beliefs that defy logic. Secondly, these superstitious beliefs about goddesses and fairies prevent us from gaining a better understanding of the problem and finding stable long-term solutions based on reason. Furthermore, other feminists like Cynthia Humes have shown that there is a difference between the view of women as goddesses and the experiences of the majority of ordinary women in these cultures. Studying the reasons for this difference is, in my opinion, key to understanding gender inequality in such cultures.

I submit that the goals of the Freethought movement are aligned with those of the women’s rights movements in these countries, and that therefore there is a practical reason for Freethought groups to actively promote the feminist cause. Read the full story