Well, color me furious after perusing ye olde News tab. Well, the new News tab, but still. Via the Beeb (Thanks, chicagodesidiva):
A 14-year-old girl has been excluded from a school in south Wales for wearing a Sikh bangle, or Kara.
Sarika Singh refused to take off the religious symbol because it is “a constant reminder to do good”.
As you can see from the photograph, Sarika’s kara is hardly ostentatious or luxe– I mention that because that was the rational which my private school had for outlawing jewelry…so girls couldn’t flaunt wealth by dripping in gold, diamonds, filthy lucre.
Aberdare Girls School said it has a clear code of conduct and it had temporarily excluded a pupil for refusing to accept a governors’ ruling.
The school also stated that a “code of conduct” had been distributed to every student before they commenced attending Aberdare AND that it was reissued before every semester. Said code only allows a watch and “plain metal stud earrings”. I guess that means crosses, pentagrams, and super-cute star-of-David pendants aren’t permitted. Then again, none of those necklaces are part of anything like the 5 Ks:
The Sikh Federation UK said that the bangle was an “article of faith” and Sikhs had no choice but to wear it.
Sarika’s parent, Sinita Singh, is not being unreasonable:
She said the teenager would remove the bangle for gym classes, or wood and metalwork, for safety reasons.
Mrs Singh said: “It’s not jewellery, it’s part of our faith and symbol of our belief.”
She said they had a meeting with the school and argued the case with the board of governors, but they refused to allow her to wear it.
“We feel very strongly that Sarika has a right to manifest her religion – she’s not asking for anything big and flashy, she’s not making a big fuss, she just wants a reminder of her religion.”
Apparently, Sarika has been suspended (hey, UK types…is that what “excluded” means?) for wanting to wear her kara.
Sarika said of wearing the bangle: “It’s very important to me, it constantly reminds me to do good and not to do bad, especially with my hands.”
Her mother said the Sikh Federation had supported them and she would do “whatever it takes”.
Maybe the law is on Sarika’s side?
Jagtar Singh, secretary of Sikh Federation UK claimed the school was breaching the 1976 Race Relations Act in its treatment of Sarika.
“The department for education and schools in England have said that if a headteacher or governing body were to deny a Sikh child one of their articles of faith such as the bangle then they would be breaking the law,” he said.
“If you are a practising Sikh, you have no choice, you have to have the kara. It is the one symbol that virtually every single Sikh wears.”
but, anna, WHAT ABOUT DEUTERONOMY??? not that i am dissing you, i am just saying you can either be a good christian or a good person. choose.
seriously, though, it is going to be very interesting how assimilation and integration are going to play out in the coming years. i am personally against this procrustean policy of removing all external signifiers, but the question is where the line should be drawn.
apart from that, have people looked at that recent harvard poli sci study on diversity decreasing the quality of civic life? strikes at the heart of all the arguments about tolerance, integration and so on.
I have a question about the Sikh turban. I’ve only ever seen western female followers of Sikhi wearing it. Is it a requirement for women Sikhs to wear but they have opted out on it or is it optional for women and not men, or is it optional for both? Are the western women I’ve seen with all Ks part of a minority non-maintstream sect?
jasmine (#63): I don’t care either way about this issue, but your argument has at least 3 holes:
1) No one is talking about the whole world. This is the UK we are talking about. The UK is not the whole world. The whole world is not the UK. As a result, it doesn’t make sense to say:
I’ll go further and say that, in fact, the UK consists of a few historic nations, and has a historic polity. Just as it is not the whole world, it is not a hotel or a flea market. Like it or not, certain ideals and traditions go back longer in it (as in every other polity/nation) than certain others.
Also, your other sentence has a flip side:
2) It is ignorant to say that: “[even atheism is an ideology. And] a relatively western one, at that.”
Google carvaka.
3) “Diversity is a key to overall human health globally”
Questionable claim. I personally adore diversity and live an utterly cosmopolitan life, but I also acknowledge that the vast majority of human beings are more comfortable with homogeneity. An earlier post points to the recent study by Putnam et al; there is a lot of other literature on the topic, some referenced in the Boston Globe article.
Of course, none of this means this chick shouldn’t be allowed to wear her kara. Carry on…
I assume that if wearing turban and sword is not a requirement for female sikhs, then the kara is not either? Or am I wrong?
Are there any sikhs on here that would know the “scriptural” answer to this, the words of gurus, etc?
I was just discussing this thread with my mom. I was raised Sikh, but I’m not particularly religious and don’t remember many details about the history of the 5 K’s. Now, according to my mother, who is very knowledgeable about the religion, you aren’t required to wear a kara if you haven’t taken amrit– the 5 K’s are decreed in the context of the requirements for taking Amrit. It’s not written in the Guru Granth Sahib whether or not someone who hasn’t taken Amrit must wear a kara (again, my mom’s not a Sikh scholar, so if someone knows better, feel free to correct). I’m hoping this isn’t going to be an incredibly inflammatory remark, because even if you’re not an Amrit Sikh it’s still considered an essential part of the religion and it’s offending to be told that it’s a piece of jewelry. It’s really the only one of the 5 K’s that every Sikh follows. As someone posted earlier, amrit is essentially baptism.
UAE intern, the women you see wearing turbans are Amrit Sikhs (essentially, they’re more orthodox than the rest of us). If you have taken amrit, then you are required to follow these rules:
1. You must follow the 5 K’s (listed in previous posts). Wearing a turban is considered part of Kesh– to have unshorn hair. Thus women Amrit Sikhs also wear turbans in order to fully comply with the 5 K’s. 3. You must refrain from alcohol/tobacco 4. You must not eat meat that comes from an animal killed for “ritual sacrifice”– this means halal meat (it arose as a way to defy the Mughals). Although this rule is almost always interpeted as vegetarianism (Vegetarianism has long been under debate in Sikhism. It seems that most non-Amrit Sikhs eat meat, but I have never heard of an Amrit Sikh who isn’t a vegetarian).
Sorry if this is a convoluded post, but I’m tired and I don’t feel like revising to attain a semblance of eloquence.
My understanding is that halal meat is not sacrificial meat. It is just a way to slaughter the animal according to Islamic injunctions. The animal is not being sacrificed to Allah. I don’t know if Islam sacrifices animals to god outside of the kabbah. Does it?
My understanding is that halal meat is not sacrificial meat.
You’re right, sorry. poor choice of words. I was double checking my post with a website about Khalsa (Sikhs who have taken Amrit)and that’s how they worded it. I can’t find the link right now. But Sikhs aren’t supposed to eat halal meat.
WHOA WHOA WHOA. First, please consider reading an English translation of the Sikh Rehit Maryada — it explains a lot of these questions.
The Sikh turban is mandatory for men. It is NOT mandatory for women. Some women opt to wear the turban, but it is not required. This exemption is explicit in the Rehit. Keep in mind that the requirement is to keep one’s kes, meaning hair. This means that even if amritdhari (or non-amritdhari but practicing) Sikh women are not wearing a turban, they are still required to keep their hair uncut.
Wearing the kirpan (or as you called it, sword) is mandatory for men and women. In fact, all 5 K’s are mandatory regardless of your gender. The only variation is on whether or not one wears a turban.
Sikhs are not allowed to eat halal meat. They are allowed to eat meat. There is still a lot of debate on whether or not Sikhi requires vegetarianism. The “compromise” was to make no explicit rule for or against but to leave it to the discretion of the individual. There are plenty of amritdhari Sikhs who eat (non-halal) meat.
With respect to the question regarding the 5K’s (and whether one must wear them), I think a fair interpretation is that if you are moving along a spiritual path towards taking amrit (which is NOT a baptism! I hate that conflation of terms!), then one ought to integrate the 5 K’s into their dress. This does not mean that one MUST integrate each aspect, but there is a normative value in “working towards” embracing the 5K’s as part of the Sikh concept of sant sipahi. I think it’s also fair to say that if you are going to cast aside one of the 5K’s (after having worn it), this is symbolic of a spiritual break with the faith. If you are amritdhari, you are required to wear all 5 K’s without exception.
Camille, why the “WHOA WHOA WHOA”?
Is amrit comparable to “diksha” in the Hindu tradition? Meaning roughly the taking of mantra and instructions for it’s chanting and other spiritual sadhanas from a guru.
camille: pls explain why taking amrit is not considered baptism?
Romans 12;18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men., and again the “civil” aspect- And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him. Mark 12:17
While this is nice stuff, it’s a bit of a stretch to say it promotes acceptance of all faiths as equal.
You quoted from the LAW (Deuteronomy)- and I , and others responded that was superseded by Jesus.
then show me something he said that would indicate acceptance of all faiths, as explicitly as the rejection of all faiths were stated?
I think your bigger problem with Xtians or any others- is you really expect them to be different than everyone else-
I dont think people are getting it. The problem is not with people, it’s not even with the religion. It’s with the misrepresentation of the religion as preaching “tolerance”, where tolerance is defined the way I put forth in #133
If you follow someone who said “I am the (singular) way, the truth and the life”- by definition that excludes other faiths. That is in total opposition to what you wrote in #133 :“Not only does it mean respect, it means the acknowledgement that other faiths are equally valid and whatever goals purported by your faith is equally reachable.” I haven’t tried to equate tolerance/acceptance with that. Just as I noted my observations that submission to a different abrahamic faith,does not equate to a color /culture blind acceptance of other coreligionist.
The way that opposition was to be expressed in the O.T is different from the way opposition is explicitly scriptually expressed in the N.T; eg no commands to smite the unbelievers.
I am the (singular) way, the truth and the life”
Who follows someone that says this? where is this coming from? If you’re quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, I’ve already said the only group who follows the narrow minded interpretation of that is Iskcon, and they are indeed intolerant.
The way that opposition was to be expressed in the O.T is different from the way opposition is explicitly scriptually expressed in the N.T; eg no commands to smite the unbelievers.
The NT I believe has a lot of edicts that support proselytization, which is not a direct command to piss on non-believers, but certainly isn’t any kind of indication of tolerance. I don’t know whats so difficult to accept about Christianity not preaching tolerance, many Christians themselves agree with the intolerant views preached to them.
Commands to proselytize:
Matthew 28:18-20-
And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you… (link)
Christians.
The bible, N.T; John 14.6
Ok then– so your paretns all ok with my burning crush on you right? (just teasing 😉
I dont understand, what I wrote in #133 is what I claim as religious tolerance, and my entire thesis is Christianity doesn’t preach what I wrote in #133. So this means you agree with me.
As I matter of fact I do, any Xtian who presents to you that all religions are the same , is I think being disingenuous, or is very liberal in their interpretation of soteriology as presented in the NT and by historical Chrisitna thought. On the other hand- I think your definition of what tolerance is isn’t in the mainstream.
Always— is the HMF for feisty?
As I matter of fact I do, any Xtian who presents to you that all religions are the same , is I think being disingenuous,
ding ding ding. we have a winner. So Xtians who are intolerant indeed have doctrine on their side. (which could explain why many [white midwestern, in particular] Xtians are intolerant)
On the other hand- I think your definition of what tolerance is isn’t in the mainstream.
Then what is your definition of religious tolerance? “My religion is better, but I won’t kill you for believing yours?”
Always— is the HMF for feisty?
I dont throw the full expansion out willy nilly.
Yes those jesus land militants are really something arent they?
I suppose if you have to phrase it that way, you could.
Don’t be coy, I’m your special friend
HMF, you are being way too simplistic and showing your ignorance. There are different Christian churches, some are very liberal and progressive, and others are ultra-conservative and racist… and they all read the same religous book. So, it is not religion itself that is either tolerant or not, but the people and culture where religion is practised.
Let’s not forget a simple fact though: the shameful fact that Indians are converting from hinduism to christianity, islam and budhism because these versions of religion in India accept everyone as equal, unlike hinduism which enforces the caste system.
There are different Christian churches, some are very liberal and progressive, and others are ultra-conservative and racist… and they all read the same religous book.
Then they ignore or dismiss or “dont follow hard and fast” those passages which I’ve quoted both in the Old and new testament.
So, it is not religion itself that is either tolerant or not, but the people and culture where religion is practised.
But those intolerant people have a lot of scriptural foundation to support their beliefs.
unlike hinduism which enforces the caste system.
Now you are showing your ignorance, because this is merely a diversion that has nothing to do with inter-religious tolerance. I’d ask you to actually provide me some kind of scriptural backing that “hinduism” enforces the caste system. All I can think of is the mention of varna (which is not the same as caste)
I suppose if you have to phrase it that way, you could.
Maintaining a heirarchy goes against the very notion of religous tolerance.
And not because the vast majority of them live in urban and rural areas that are only now (with the exception of Chicago) becoming less than homogeneous? that would have NOTHING to do with it, right? If you took a survey of the midwest xtian population and asked people if they had actually read the Deuteronomy passage you referred to, d’ya think it would come back as 100%, “yes I read it and I regard heathens as perpetual targets for proselytizing because of it.”?????
conflating tolerance with Unitarianism ,goes against the grain of freedom of religious expresssion. if I want to accept/worship/follow x, y, z I will, if I don’t I should be free (within reason) not to… which I believe was the orginal point of this post: public/private expression of faith. At any rate this is circular — my family “tolerates” my vegetarianism, but It doesn’t stop the Turkey from turning up dead for dinner every thanksgiving.
laters
“yes I read it and I regard heathens as perpetual targets for proselytizing because of it.”
No, but that wasn’t the claim. It’s usually the priests and leaders of the religions who make such statements, and it’s usually when their intolerant views are called into question – as they are the ones that draw upon scripture more often than not, the common man gets it from surrounding society and these heads, and sure it has loads to do with midwestern white america being a homogenous population, but it still isn’t an excuse, and doesn’t disprove that Christianity preaches intolerance. (certain doesn’t preach anything remotely close to tolerance)
At any rate this is circular — my family “tolerates” my vegetarianism, but It doesn’t stop the Turkey from turning up dead for dinner every thanksgiving.
religious tolerance is a different animal all together, I believe it’s the very heirarchy you speak of that sows the seeds for religious violence. The flipside is one could lose religious identity (which is what occurs in India to some degree, but thats a different discussion) However, tolerance is not the same as practicing. No one is saying that one tolerant of all religions or eating habits should actually practice them, heck a even an individualized, personal heirarchy might even exist and be reconciled with a tolerant view. That is, I believe my religion is the best for me, and your religion is the best for you, and ultimately the goal of each is the same.
The question is, if your family devalues someone who does not eat turkey or meat in general (and I’ve had many white & black americans say things like this – ‘but it’s thanksgiving, ya gotta have turkey!’), then that’s just a superficial and meaningless ‘tolerance’.
GET BACK ON TOPIC.
Please.
This is not about Christianity, though it’s surprising how many of you wish it were.
Without preamble, Torpedo: you’re a little myopic if you don’t think the ethnic minorities residing in the west don’t in some way set the tone for their diaspora in the entire world. Due to greater access to wealth and resources, these individuals and their personal dress code and actions have a vast impact. For example, when I was in India, my cousin was desperately trying to get me to listen to his favourite artist- Jazzy Bains, who is, of course, a mix artist from the west. Upon closer examination, his CD rack consisted of Cheb I Sabbah, and other Punjabi DJs making it in NA and England. These individuals are closely followed and emulated. Everyone in India brags about having visitors from “abroad” and always want to know the latest styles and trends that these people are following. So, in a sense, what happens here, happens there.
2/ The Carvaka movement, while significant and quite interesting, never achieved mass popularity the way that atheism has done in the west. Millions upon millions of self declared western atheists cannot really compete with the sharply limited numbers of Carvaka in India. (Such atheists often feel the void and subscribe to other ideologies: the cult like health food movement, environmentalism, or fanatical devotion to empirical science- all of which are tied to material interests.) The Carvaka ultimately succumbed to other religious forces and did not have a large, discernible effect on Indian society. I trust that you can appreciate the distinction.
3/ You can basically take all of the scientific literature on the value of diversity within any species and apply it to human beings. There is quite a bit of it. Steven Durlauf has critiqued Putnam’s failure to address confounding variables in his research, which are more complex that one would initially have thought. He published an entire paper on this in 2002, which I can’t locate on JSTOR or I would link it for you. But far more importantly, Putnam is not speaking to a grand scale ie. the success of human beings as a species a thousand years from now. Instead, he is looking to the immediate health indicators of ten or twenty years, regardless of their effect on quality of life, and none of which significantly inhibit survival.
Sorry- I meant to say, than one would initially have thought..
..
incorporating their effect on quality of life.. considering a coffee run 😉
this is weak. let us not equate the proven scientific benefits of genetic diversity with cultural diversity. i am interested in reading the critique of durlauf, and will look for it, but claiming that intangible, unproven benefits of cultural diversity 1000 years in the future somehow trump the established proximate indicators is a gargantuan cop-out. and as a brown person in america, i do want to believe the case for diversity, believe me.
Ahem. Again with the anthropocentricism! Please take a hike–literally–and look closely. Any healthy ecosystem is composed of a variety of organism which serve a multitude of functions and maintain key feedback loops. A diversity of grasses, a diversity of bugs and microorganisms, critters, trees, ferns, whathaveyou, some of which may even lie dormant most of the time like that idiot cousin of yours who sits in the basement drooling on himself and playing video games until you have a crappy day and he turns out to be the only one that can cheer you up and get you back to the important work you have to do.
One particular “weed” might be food to a certain bug which might be the preferred dessert of a certain kind of lizard which is favored by a particular kind of bird whose droppings fertilize another grass, which, when decomposing, fixes certain chemicals in the soil which are necessary to maintain the pH of the water table and it’s all just fuel for the forest fire 30 years off which will finally raise the temperature high enough for those redwood cones that need intense heat to crack open and spill their seed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “weeds” are our friends.
I know it might seem like I’m splitting hairs and I’m certainly no biologist but I just want to emphasize my point that diversity–both inter-species and intra-species–is not a luxury, it is a key component to robust health. Just like you can’t take a big pile of livers and call it a human being, we all need each other in ways we may not always recognize at any given moment. Promoting monoculture is promoting suicide.
and similarly, humans should be divided into groups, each of which does one function and this responsibility is transmitted in a hereditary fashion from parent to child. in fact, this system is still extant among one of the world’s largest populations, thereby demonstrating its efficacy.
similarly, sometimes you need sanctuaries to protect certain species in an ecosystem from harming others. humans should similarly be ghettoized to protect themselves and others when they cannot live together.
please. let us not draw conclusions by woolly-headed analogy when real data exists.
My only argument is that the indicators are have little to do with other, more deleterious circumstances if diversity were not to exist. Yes, we’re more stressed by diversity; however, we’re concomitally more vulnerable without it. There are examples of this- in Africa, half a valley was eating a fruit called genmoka- I think there are several names for it, actually, but this is the one I remember- and curing it, and drying it. There were three tribes in the valley, and the dominant tribe (Tribe One) fought a war with one of the other tribes (Tribe Two), the result being that within two generations, Tribe Two began curing and drying their genmoka when it was previously eaten fresh. The third tribe began to copy the first tribe, with an eye to marrying into it and not being conquered- they eventually started to the tithe to the first tribe in the same way as genuine members of the Tribe One. Eventually, those two tribes became relatively indistinguishable from each other, and although they had some of the same habits, they had the upper hand in the Valley. Tribes One and Two both ate the same genmoka in the same way; Tribe Three was poorer and ate less genmoka, but also adopted its consumption as a status symbol, and prepared it cured and dried. What happened but that this fruit store became infected with a toxic and relatively untraceable mold spore and everyone consuming it sickened and died. The third tribe took longer to die, but as more people died and more fruit became available, they ate it and died as well. The anthropologist Sussex wrote about this in like, the fifties, and I have seen it held up as a parable that argued for diversity. The example will never happen in modern times because of scientific knowledge, but like circumstances can be generated in the case of a myriad of our human and cultural habits tested against a host of unforseen variables- such is life, after all- and it is here that I maintain that the genetic arguments against homogenity hold merit if you’re assessing the same thing culturally. The Sussex example was buried in one of my textbooks- for the most part, this issue has never been studied from this perspective. But its important for these kinds of issues to think big, instead of shutting out ideas from other disciplines and fields that ultimately all speak to the same condition.
Its so obvious that I didn’t belabour it, but I very briefly used Sussex’s example to supplement Sapir-Whorf’s Theory of Linguistic Relativity, in a position paper on linguistic diversity, in which I argued that whole ways of being, thinking, and conceptualizing are being winked out of existence and that a single language is the ultimate mindtrap, effectively reducing the number of ideas in the world and divorcing us from potential clues to the relative success of humanity (ok, Harbeer, we can apply this to the world, all its attendant species) as a whole- similar to what happens when a plant that can cure cancer is eradicated from a jungle.
There’s also the hippie argument that blindly participating in a larger cultural system leads us to abandon key things associated with traditional cultures that assisted us in the past; for example, soft drinks used to be made with probiotic live cultures that are no longer commercially viable because fermented products have to be consumed within a certain time scale or they’ll explode or no longer be palatable; seeds given to farmers once used to regenerate themselves and often no longer do, resulting in far less self sufficiency in the case of disaster, and less economic independence; small scale herds were grass fed, instead of mass produced, chemically injected grain fed creations because so many people are demanding the same food from the same source that it can no longer be kept naturally disease free and clean in a mass produced context. Economically, I can see the value of having a bloc style, liberal economy, but nothing in life is free- while there are some benefits (enough to eat for an entire society for those few of us fortunate enough to be in the “west” is one) some of the losses in such a system directly affect human health.
Dravidian lurker, in your very last comment, are you being sarcastic? I’m having a hard time figuring out your thought, either way..maybe I should have coca beaned it instead of sipping my matteine out of a bombilla 😉
uae, the “whoa whoa whoa” was in response to the back and forth regarding whether or not aspects of the 5K’s were voluntary — it was meant to include both your questions and Jasmine’s responses, so I hope it didn’t come off too aggressive (it was meant as a “wait a minute, please let’s refer to the religion’s definitions instead of speculation”).
I don’t know enough about Hinduism to be able to compare amrit to diksha, unfortunately 🙁
db, baptism has a very specific Christian connotation, and within Christianity has a specific meaning as per rebirth. While taking amrit is certainly a religious rite of passage, I actually think it is more similar to one’s bar/bat mitzvah or Confirmation. I think using the term “baptism” conflates the meaning of the ceremony as well as the terminology. I think it is worth it for Sikhs to use the terminology ascribed in the religion because it has a discrete, specific meaning, and because if I can learn the proper names for rites of passage for other religions, I think it’s easier to build understanding if Sikhs themselves use the correct terms when speaking to non-Sikhs.
dravidian lurker, were you the one who mentioned that cultural diversity may not always be good? (or was that razib, or someone else?) You might enjoy these articles. 🙂
camille: so would you prefer initiation to baptism (as it’s used here), if one were to stick with using the english language? although i can see the value in using words/concept specific to a particular culture/religion to make it part of the common language, i don’t think baptism has the connation of being a strictly christian act and i do not see it as a conflation of terms. language changes over time to take on various meanings…sometimes different from their original usage.
11.3 is what i wanted to draw attention to as well…
Wow. Tone it down with the assumptions, will you?
I realize that many commenters on SM have been exposed only to the American version of Christianity. This is but a minority within the larger Christian numbers around the world. Could you please refrain from extrapolating to the entire Christian world.
Guys…. The topic has seemed to stray, as well as get far too intellectuality challenging for a nice Sikh Welsh boy. I live down the road from this school. (unfortunately). It seems interesting that this was not highlighted in any of the regional news. If this was a similar incident involving an Islamic ‘article of faith’ I’m sure they’re would have been more ‘media empathy’.
RANT OVER.
BTW this is the first time I’ve stumbled across this blog… its great, another procrastination tool!
DR 🙂
Leave Cousin Chuckles out of this. This isn’t about him. Or that hilarious helmet he has to wear.
I know you just lamented, like others before you, that this post straying off topic (I fully realize that my above comment isn’t helping at all), but with your frivolous reference to Islam and insinuation that the media is unfairly sympathetic to them, you’re not contributing much to the dialog either, chief.
185 · db said:
Baptism is something that can be done against the will of the baptized (babies don’t consent to their baptism). Baptism is necessary to be “saved.” You don’t have to take amrit to achieve mokhsha in Sikhi. As I stated earlier, you don’t even have to be a Sikh to be “saved,” according to Sikhi.
Just because it’s a rite involving water does not make it analogous to baptism. I think initiation is a better word, but if Sikhs can learn about other religions and call their rites by their proper names, I don’t see why non-Sikhs can’t return the courtesy.
Baptism is something that can be done against the will of the baptized (babies don’t consent to their baptism). Baptism is necessary to be “saved.”
babies also don’t “unconsent” it. in fact they probably don’t even know what the F is going on.
I think initiation is a better word, but if Sikhs can learn about other religions and call their rites by their proper names,
It’s the benefit of being a majority in power, you can tell the minority (in essence) to go fuck off and not have your life change in any reasonable way.
According to this site, rates of atheism in the United States are highest in California and in the Pacific Northwest. These are also the regions with the highest per capita number of health food stores. These regions also have the highest relative concentration of scientists in the country, thanks to the IT industry- which is home to anyone from biophysicists to computer scientists to engineers. It is entirely possible that health food aficionados and scientists are more likely to not believe in God after indulging in their respective pursuits rather than before (search me on this one), but the correlation is there, yeah?
Anyway, I was just at the Temple las’ night where 500 people were fireworkless because the government wouldn’t give them a freakin’ permit, so the children spent their time chasing around the place with candles.. back on topic now? I hope so.
Since everyone is done discussing the actual post, it’s time to close the thread.
I appreciate how everyone heeded our attempts to steer things back on track, that sort of cooperation makes moderating easier for the over-worked.