Pak Priest Sacrifices 3 Daughters

Pak Priest Sacrifices 3 Daughters Omer Farooq Khan Mar 24, 2010 ISLAMABAD: A Hindu priest committed suicide after killing his three minor daughters, all under 6-year-old, to please Hindu goddess Kali Mata in Bhemomal area of Sind province on Tuesday.

According to police and eyewitnesses, religious rituals were regularly performed at the Kali Mata Temple established on the first floor of a house owned by Tekam Das Meghwar in Bhemomal. Reports say that Tekam Das Meghwar first slaughtered his three daughters, Parwati, 6-year-old, Reena, 4, and Aarti, 1, with a sharp knife and then slit his own throat to make Kali Mata happy.

Moulchand, brother of deceased Tekam Das Meghwar said, “My deceased brother was Hindu priest of Kali Mata and he performed pooja the whole night but in the early morning when power supply failed he slaughtered his three daughters before committing suicide with a sharp weapon.”

SHO Taluka police Rasool Bux Thaheem told media that after post mortem the bodies of the three sisters and their father were handed over to their heirs.

Initial police investigation suggested that Tekam Das Meghwar, early on Tuesday morning, entered the residential portion of the house, asking his wife, Pavi, to bring milk from a nearby shop. Investigators believe that taking advantage of solitary Tekam Das slit throats of his three daughters.

The ill-fated mother told police that "when I returned home, I saw heads of three girls in a cradle placed in room. Body of Tekam Das also lay in a pool of blood with his throat slit." She started screaming on which neighbours rushed to the house.

Another Hindu priest Bhagat Ashok told media that act of Tekam Das was foolish and it was illegal to offer sacrifice of even animals in Hindu religion. The incident spread panic in the town of Mirwah Gorchani as hundreds of people gathered at the spot.

Who, except fundamentalists, interpret sciptural text literally? You naively inquire who gets to intepret? Isn’t this why we have scholarship, colleges and universities to provide us accurate translations based on historicity, the verbal and received traditions of that day, how language and terms were conveyed, understood, and received at the time? Isn’t this why Biblical scholarship is not for novices?

Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. PhDs and Nobel laureates, right?

Before navigating in deep intellectual and philosophical discussions about scriptural interpretations, it will really help if you get yourself a good (preferably ivy league) education lest you continue to make a fool of yourself with sophomoric comments of the type you just continue to make.

Just a document of 225 years ago is still being studied for its interpretation by the best legal minds for its intent even though the framers did not have Ph.D.’s. It is in the nature of serious scholarship that when ancient texts are gleaned for their interpretation especially when written in the original Greek and Aramaic and subject to oral traditions and cultures carried on by disciples and martyrs to the faith that nuances of text, subtext, and usage have profound consequences. Even a middle-school kid will understand this.

Again, it will be help if will you apply to a good college and be accepted where real and intelligent debate takes place. I suggest Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.

"Just a document of 225 years ago is still being studied for its interpretation by the best legal minds for its intent even though the framers did not have Ph.D.’s. It is in the nature of serious scholarship that when ancient texts are gleaned for their interpretation especially when written in the original Greek and Aramaic and subject to oral traditions and cultures carried on by disciples and martyrs to the faith that nuances of text, subtext, and usage have profound consequences. Even a middle-school kid will understand this.

Again, it will be help if will you apply to a good college and be accepted where real and intelligent debate takes place. I suggest Harvard, Yale, or Princeton."

It's funny how an almighty god's supposed commandments to all humanity, is bottle-necked by the need for interpretation and re-interpretation by college-trained academics, for them to be effective at all.

Does your 'intelligence' permit you to see the supreme philosophical irony and the phenomenal implied impotence of such a design?

If mere humans were just as brilliant, we'd all be designing owner manuals in tongues that would require a special degree for interpretation, so that we may ultimately be able to operate, say, our answering machines, as intended.

As for degrees, the one I possess currently has served me well, thank you very much.

If ever I find the need to indulge in intellectual sorcery disguised as academics, I will consult your college list, pronto.

“It’s funny how an almighty god’s supposed commandments to all humanity, is bottle-necked by the need for interpretation and re-interpretation by college-trained academics, for them to be effective at all.”

Maybe on second thoughts you need a course in the English language as well with mixed metaphors as is the staple of many with links to sub-continental training. The sheer absurdity of your quote is evident in its intent that no interpretation should really be necessary. Everything should be plain and simple notwithstanding references in the original text that even the disciples of the Christ Himself did not at times understand Him.

You need to stay away from attempting to swim in deep intellectual waters. This is not an area for you as is becoming increasingly evident with each post you make. Certain passages from the New Testament alone occupy an entire semester’s discussion at the Harvard Divinity School.

We just saw how idiotic your quote from Samuel was. I guess this quote needed no context or interpretation!

Try enrolling in a course from this scholar and perhaps you may learn something.

http://www.luc.edu/theology/facultystaff/cv/cv_tobin.pdf

The only thing funny here is the pains you take to distract from the point made, preferring to attach motives to the one making the point, in a vain attempt at hoping to evade discussion. It is a predictable pattern with you, most likely to buy time, or avoid the debate altogether, by supplying sub-standard or irrelevant literature from the likes of, say, Kancha Ilaiah, or the author of that other “brilliant” piece you posted on this very thread, whom you found it fit to refer as an “eminent” writer. The intent is plainly evident, and yet you persist. Repeatedly. I am not the only one calling you out on this. A quick perusal of your posting history and replies to you from others, on other threads, reveals the same, as well.

One simple sentence can be interpreted in many ways, and the likes of Harvard can discuss it not just for a semester, but for aeons. Semitic languages are notorious for suffering from this inadequacy, and as expected, much exploited by theological charlatans from all religions relying on tracts recorded in this family of languages - Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, what have you.

Now, back to the original point. A claimed god-entity relying on obfuscation and multiply-interpretable sentences, while making commandments meant to be followed, not just by the handfuls of non-existent PhDs (or “T”hDs with degrees in largely useless areas, best described as hobby-pursuits), but by the common man (or the common slave, at the time of Moses), mostly illiterate and uneducated, beggars common sense.

As for the 1 Samuel 15: 2-3 reference, your implication that a plain commandment that ordered men to kill the infants, can be interpreted as an act of benevolence, is what is idiotic. Going by your own faulty “logic”, one could as well conclude that the day is brightest at night. Time is immaterial here. Your claim that a verse concocted 400 years after the act, could not accurately depict what actually happened at the time, only supports the argument attacking the shaky and flawed construct of this entire man-made enterprise.

Oh for heaven’s sake. This is no different than Andrea Yates killing her kids because the devil told her to do it. Or the young man I read about in the news who killed his mother with an axe because “the pope to me to do it. “

The guy in the article was mentally disturbed and like it or not alot of serious mental disorders have an element of religious ideation in them. For example lots of crazy people think they are Jesus or some exhaulted person.

The guy was just crazy. Sad.

You have just provided an Exhibit I of verbal diarrhea and why you lack a serious education: Words, phrases, metaphors all flying around in a random incoherent thought. Think about it.

The gist of your post is that there is should be no need for teachers or interpreters of the Word of God since most people at the time were “mostly illiterate and uneducated.” Mind-boggling!

So we must abide by the literal text of Samuel even if it was meant by the author to conjure an idea of God to justify aggression over an event that took place four centuries before the utterance- context, history, sub-text, authenticity, all be damned.

I mean this well. Either stay away from serious intellectual discourse or first equip yourself with critical learning in a university context before venturing to
post your opinions on subjects that are far more complex than astronomy.

"The gist of your post is that there is should be no need for teachers or interpreters of the Word of God since most people at the time were “mostly illiterate and uneducated.”"

Indeed.

The 12 Apostles, were not Ivy-league educated.

"Mind-boggling!"

Only to those who have substituted reason and common sense for pedantic ramblings.

“It is a weak, and rather pathetic non-explanation to wish away mandated religious child-slaughter and child-sacrifice, as per the Old Testament.”

I agree. If God said to you go and kill your son (Jacob) and then burn his body as an offering to me...would you actually proceed to do it? God told Abraham to murder his own child! What kind of God is that anyway? Oh but then it turns out God was just bluffing to see if Abraham would obey him, even murder for him. The God of the Old Testament is way too human.

I don’t think God told the Israelites to do anything. I think they did stuff and looked back on what they did and then explained it to themselves as being “God’s will.” Just like we look back on say for example our victory over Hitler as “God’s will” or as God being on our side.

It’s similar to the way that people thank God for a medical cure and forget to thank the doctors who cured him. Who cured you? God or the doctors? I say it was the doctors. If they had not done their work do you really think God would have stepped in? I never heard of a single case where God even cured tooth decay. God is not telling anyone to kill anyone or to cure anyone. It all comes from the human mind.

OMG!

So when the Framers of our Constitution ordered in plain text that Congress shall make NO law abridging the freedom of speech, this means it was an absolute NO! No laws against obscenity, child pornography, libel, incitement to violence etc can be made.

So we need not inquire into the real interpretation of Samuel, by your lights, we simply go by the text because people who are “illiterate and uneducated” can only see it this way. Aren’t you selling yourself short here?

"So we need not inquire into the real interpretation of Samuel..."

"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

- 1 Samuel 15: 3

Do you see any room for reinterpretation, here? Does anyone else?

So the Word of God over 2000 years ago as manifested by prophets, the evangelical authors, the oral traditions of the day, the language, translations, research, authenticity, tradition, cultural contexts etc must be be plain and clear because so many people at the time were “illiterate and uneducated” and hence the need for any interpretation in seeking what is accurate and true is unnecessary.

“The Founders, were not gods.” Really pro-found.

"So the Word of God over 2000 years ago as manifested by prophets, the evangelical authors, the oral traditions of the day, the language, translations, research, authenticity, tradition, cultural contexts etc must be be plain and clear because so many people at the time were “illiterate and uneducated” and hence the need for any interpretation in seeking what is accurate and true is unnecessary."

The Catholic Church thrives on this inadequacy, and was sustained by it throughout its existence, including during the time it ventured into the sale of prostitution "indulgences" and empire-building.

The printing press hastened the Reformation, and was the death-knell for Catholicism in much of North-Western Europe.

God now needs middlemen and charlatans. Who would have thought?

Oh yes, the “illiterate and uneducated” (are you speaking of the masses in the Indian subcontinent?) won’t be satisfied until the Son of God appears on “60 Minutes” and makes His Word clear to the likes of you. But wait a minute! Even this won’t do, would it? Since in the inevitable discussions that would follow, from one of your earlier posts, you’d still be asking: “Who’s To Interpret”? Such is the proof of an education lacking in serious and scholarly discussion.

Before we speak about the Catholic Church and some of it’s errant teachers almost from the beginning of the early Church, at least we don’t have the annual phenomenon of millions wading into the toxic and feces-ridden waters of the Ganges surrounded by thousands of semi-naked Hindu swamis seeking purification from the pantheon of Hindu gods.

Yada-yada.

You're back with your old habit of indulging in wild, irrelevant tangents.

"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

- 1 Samuel 15: 3

-----------------------------------------------

Bhagavad-Gita, Ch XI, Lines 335-344.

"Yet not by Vedas, nor from sacrifice,

Nor penance, nor gift-giving, nor with prayer

Shall any so behold, as thou hast seen!

Only by fullest service, perfect faith,

And uttermost surrender am I known

And seen, and entered into, Indian Prince!

Who doeth all for Me; who findeth Me

In all; adoreth always; loveth all

Which I have made, and Me, for Love’s sole end,

That man, Arjuna! unto Me doth wend."

Bhagavad-Gita, Ch XI, Lines 335-344

We don’t need these these vacuous and utterly irrelevant exhortations from the Gita. Classical western literature from time immemorial is replete with exhortations of this kind that are far more profound. Check out for example: Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Faith and rationality as part of the waves of The Enlightenment Age never reached the shores of India. No wonder we have idiots still quoting scriptural passages with a stubborn unwillingness to entertain inquiry into a true and authentic understanding of text.

Oh, I forgot your earlier posts reminding us that we cannot have teachers or scholars shedding light on text by reference to context and history especially if it rebuts the literal translation that a limited mind is willing to absorb. Besides, any scholarly discourse about the Word of God argues against your thesis that such is necessary since it must be crystal clear to the “illiterate and uneducated” and even a “60 Minutes” appearance by the Son of God won’t seem to satisfy this objective!!!!.

Please stay away from deep intellectual waters- you keep drowning yourself each time you venture beyond the shallow end of the pool.

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