another example of irrational belief working really well.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353348,00.html

Girl Burned in Northern India in Possible Inter-Caste Violence

LUCKNOW, India — Police in northern India arrested a man who allegedly threw a girl into a pile of glowing embers after he caught her trespassing, an attack authorities said Wednesday may have been motivated by caste.

The 6-year-old girl is recuperating at a state-run hospital in Mathura, the north Indian city where the alleged attack occurred, said Dr. Ramesh Kumar.

She is considered a dalit -- a member of the lowest caste in India, where a system of rigid social hierarchy still lingers. The alleged attacker, Madan Singh, 22, comes from a higher caste.

Singh discovered the girl relieving herself Tuesday in a field he owned and demanded she immediately stop what she was doing and leave his property.

"When she did not respond, he simply lifted her and threw her in a heap of embers," local police official Govind Agarwal told The Associated Press. "The cry of the girl drew the attention of the villagers. They came rushing and pulled the girl out of fire."

Singh was arrested Wednesday and charged with attempted murder, said police official R.K. Chaturvedi. Police are investigating whether Singh attacked her because of her caste, he said.

A complex hereditary system divides Hindus into castes, and those on the lower rungs of the social ladder still face intense discrimination -- even though the system was made illegal nearly six decades ago.

In much of rural India, people of lower castes are kept from upper-caste drinking wells, barred from temples and kept out of village schools. Violations are often met with violence.

The attack took place in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which is governed by India's most powerful low-caste politician, Mayawati, a dalit woman who uses only one name.

Mayawati is the leader of a movement to empower dalits — the lowest class in India who were once known as "untouchables" — but crimes against them remain common across her state.

Hindus make up about 84 percent of India's 1.1 billion people. There are also caste-like divisions among Muslims, who account for 13 percent of India's people, and Christians, who make up 2.4 percent.

--

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23 ... 01,00.html

Untouchable' dies after medics refuse care

An "untouchable" woman who gave birth outside an Indian hospital because doctors would not treat her has died, a day after her baby, officials say.

The newborn boy of Maya Devi, 28, died yesterday due to lack of medical help minutes after being born outside the maternity wing of Kanpur Medical College in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Devi was only put in intensive care after giving birth but she died of a heart attack early this morning.

Several doctors, including the hospital's chief medical superintendent, had refused to touch her or provide medical care as she delivered her baby, the Press Trust of India reported.

Devi was a Dalit, or "untouchable", a group at the bottom of the caste social ladder who have long been ostracised and forced into menial professions despite laws banning discrimination.

Many high-class Hindus fear coming into contact with them.

Dr Kiran Pandey, head of gynaecology at the hospital, said she was an hour's drive away in the state capital Lucknow at the time and rushed back.

"We provided her the best medicines and treatment but she succumbed to two cardiac arrests," Dr Pandey said.

College principal Anand Swaroop has ordered an inquiry, as has a district magistrate.

The state's chief minister, Mayawati, who won elections last year, has ordered the doctors to be suspended and demanded an investigation.

Is LW from India?

no, why?

Because he seems to buy into the whole caste system idea.

littlewing hates our freedom.

*fixed

("we" wasn't all-inclusive enough for me)

Are you blaming this on the Hindu faith, the caste system, or the man who threw the girl into the fire and doctors who refused to treat the woman and her newborn?

This is a case of discrimination. That whole system is discriminatory and the country has enacted laws against it. In a nation that populated, there's bound to be a lot of crime.

I don't think simply posting an article is blaming anyone.

However, I blame it on belief in general.

One of the interesting aspects of these stories is that they both occured in Uttar Pradesh. The Chief Minister is one of the most powerful politicians in India, Mayawati, who is, herself, a Dalit. Perhaps that is why the stories have come to light. The fact that Mayawati has achieved the position that she has indicates that some things are changing.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/st ... 0070011753

He sort of implied (and maybe I'm wrong) that "irrational belief" is to blame, at least partly.

You're blaming it on belief in general.

How much fault lies with the people involved? The guy who threw the girl into a fire is fully responsible. I don't care what religion he's a part of or that past cultural tradition has given him "a higher standing". No reasonable person is going to throw a little girl into a fire to burn to death.

As for the doctors who refused treatment, well that's just unethical. If the law says you cannot discriminate based on this caste system any longer, then they broke the law. They are responsible for those two deaths.

No, he explicitly stated that "irrational belief" is to blame.



Nice observation. You got that one correct.


Do you think this individual would have acted in the same manner if his life was wanting of belief? You're correct, the fault lies entirely with the people involved. They have allowed themselves to become so consumed with their beliefs that they have abandoned nearly all rational thought.



Assuming that people who subscribe to irrational belief are also capable of being reasonable is quite problematic. It doesn't work.



Perfect example of why religion is so dangerous. This clearly demonstrates that even highly educated people, such as doctors, are capable of allowing religious law to overpower their adherence to societal law

A belief in anything is irrational? What about a belief in the rationality of the scientific method? Or a belief that your mother loves you?



It's not entirely religious law. The religious reasoning grew out of the cultural tradition. It's several thousand years of tradition that, at one time, served a purpose, and actually continues to serve a purpose for some fortunate few people. People are multifaceted. This fellow may be a sadist, but he's not alone in the types of things that have been done, just as the lynching of black men here in the US was done by men who seemed entirely reasonable in other contexts. There are no simple answers to the development and perpetuation of the Hindu Caste system. The problem supersedes religion and is rooted in other, more complex, cultural issues.

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/h_caste.asp

And this is because the religion has been so heavily adopted into their cultural beliefs...so you point is?

Where do you think that the dictates of religion originate? Why do you think that these ideas become codified into religious doctrine?

The answer that all belief is wrong ignores the reasons that these beliefs exist. And the historical context under which they arose.

You make no sense. You first suggest that religous belief is the result of cultural ideals. This pretty much destroys the mysticism of God amirite?

Your next comment is circular and is pretty much a non-statement. "The reason that all belief is wrong ignores the reasons that these beliefs exist"...okay....I never said belief was wrong...I said it was dangerous. So again, I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting.

OK, I just didn't want to put words in his mouth without knowing for sure.



Thanks, I try.



We can go over the whole belief argument again if you'd like, but really, there's already a long thread on this page about it. People commits crimes against eachother every single day for many, many different reasons.

Tell me, What irrational belief caused the Austrian man to lock his daughter up for 30+ years and rape her repeatedly while also imprisoning 3 children? Maybe he had no faith and just said "Fuck it.." Seems he was a pretty successful guy, probably well educated too. What irrational belief do most serial killers use to kill tons of people? What irrational beliefs are used by communist countries when they commit mass murder on their people, or countries they occupy? What irrational belief led the US to invade both Vietnam and Iraq, killing so many people?

Or better yet, so I don't sit here typing all afternoon, what has motivated the majority of awful crimes against humanity for thousands of years? Do you really believe it's religion? Faith of any kind? Irrational thought? If that's how you feel, fine. We all, I'm sure, know plenty of people who are religious or at least claim to be a part of some type of faith. I'd bet the majority of them, even if their thoughts seem irrational to you, are decent people. You obviously have no problem offending the majority of the people on Earth. Maybe you're smarter than all of us, or maybe you're just as intolerant as the fanatical religious folk who give religion a bad reputation.

Power, and the need for it are what motivates violent crime, assuming the person is not mentally disturbed (and no, belief in religion does not make someone mentally disturbed or inferior). Religion is often used for justification, and wrongly so. We've been killing eachother since the very beginning, before there was religion. It won't ever stop, even if religion does cease to exist.



Nobody in the religion thread wanted to answer this, maybe you're brave enough.

Give me one, just one, rational explanation for our existence. I'm not talking about the big bang, or evolution. I'm talking about the existence of everything in the universe. Where did it come from? If you don't know, then whatever belief you have is just as irrational. All this matter did not just appear one day. That is very irrational, as far as our knowledge is concerned. You don't know anymore than religious people, and you are no better than they are. Religious belief is not an instinct, but either a choice made individually or handed down from a previous generation. The tendency towards violence and the hunger for power are instinctive.

I am not "suggesting" anything. I have stated quite plainly what I believe if you would care to read over what I've written. You are purposefully misunderstanding me and the course of the discussion in order to restate your own personal beliefs.

here we go again.

Nope.

if you americanize this situation, the civil rights movement really got going in the 60s in this country. and you still see a great divide between blacks and whites. The Indian movement to stop the caste system from being such an influential belief system started during Gandhi's time. but remember they were also fighting for their freedom at that time.

i understand most people won't think like this, but to be proactive, for people to look at this story and say, "these indians and their beliefs are backwards." That misses the point. This is their own race-like issue.

And for full disclosure, I'm an American born Indian.