I'm getting the feeling that the reason there are no updates on his site is because he's the sole developer of the site... and there's no-one else to provide updates. Presumably, therefore, he has been in jail since July 4.

If anyone would like to donate to his defense fund, here's a link: http://www.rationalistinternational.net/defence_fund/

Edit: His phone number is listed here: http://www.rationalistinternational.net/home/sanal_edamaruku... -- perhaps someone currently in India can attempt to contact him, to get any additional information? I'd really hate to see this guy go to jail...

PS: I did not get to talk to him. He was not there but someone else told me that he is OK.

I donated. I may be broke, but I’m not being prosecuted for thinking logically. Least I could do.

Yesterdays incident. Indian here, I stay in Bangalore.

A Fakir arrives, beating drums. Now I don't offer alms because I am dead against institution of beggary. But this guy refuses to leave and continues to beat the drum. Exhausted I offer him 5 bucks and ask him to leave. In return he asks me to put my hand forward. For a moment I thought he will give me the money back. But he gives me a black stone and tells me I going to be lucky by next Friday.

I plan to throw away the stone, and I don't generally take things like that. He comes back after 10 minutes and asks me to give 100 bucks so that we can go back and do mystic work. Now I realize this is just and elaborate plan by this guy to go back and smoke grass. So I refuse, He asks me return the 'black stone' and nevertheless thanks me for the 5 bucks.

On top of this my mom says, Its good he took the stone back, as it would have contained a Harry Potter 'Imperious curse' kind of magic. Using which he could have controlled me(Can you believe it).

Another Incident:

A Eunuch comes begging, I am with a friend in his car heading back home Friday evening. He offers her 10 bucks and a 1 rupee coin. She takes the 10 bucks, kisses the 1 rupee coin and gives it back to him. When I ask, my friend says. Eucuch's kissing the coin means 'Good luck'.

When you have this sort of belief deeply ingrained in our culture, how do you fight superstition?

Its just these things are a part of culture and everyday life. People just find it difficult to do away with.

To others, it's at least worth a skim if you don't have much time.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/2008/2008031...

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJPYzxHM4g

I notice he throws some liquids at him, and touches his face many times. It would be quite easy to slip in some poison while doing that.

"For many, the regressive belief in superstitions and miracles is an escape from the hardships of life. Once trapped into irrationalism, they become more incapable of mastering reality. It is a vicious circle, like an addiction. They become vulnerable to exploitation by astrologers, godmen, dubious pseudo-psychologists, corrupt politicians, and the whole mega-industry of irrationalism."

The complaint against him is that he made a false statement that the 'miracle' was a scam organised by the local church to make money from devotees.

full text of the Church's statement below:

Statement from : His Lordship Bishop Agnelo Gracias, Mumbai Archdiocese

STATEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE IRLA CROSS – in the light of the TV Programme on the ‘Dripping Cross’

A general Observation: The official Church is slow to attribute supernatural causes to ‘extra-ordinary’ phenomena we observe in life. As far as possible, the Church tries to see if such phenomena can be explained by natural causes. Further, the Church does not pay too much attention to these extraordinary phenomena, even though she accepts the possibility that God may intervene in human life in an extraordinary way – what we often term a ‘miraculous’ way.

Coming to the ‘dripping Cross’ at Irla: One can doubt if this water dripping has a supernatural cause. The Church has NOT made any pronouncement on it. There is a lengthy scientific process that has to be undergone before any official pronouncement is made. It is quite possible that the dripping water may have a natural explanation.

What is surely objectionable are the statements made by the Delhi interlocutor, Mr. Sanal. We point out some of these erroneous assertions:

 Contrary to the interlocutor’s claim, the Church does not advocate the worship of images. There is a difference between honouring a thing and making it divine, something to be worshipped. We respect and honour the Scriptures of any religion not because the books are in themselves divine, but because they have a special significance for the adherents of that religion. We honour a cross because it is for us a reminder of the love of Jesus who died for us

 A second gratuitous assertion is that the dripping Cross has been created by priests who are out to make money! This Cross is not on Church property and the one who is alleged to have noticed the dripping water was not even a Catholic. To the best of our knowledge, no money has been collected by any priest. And surely, priests do not build churches with such money, as is claimed by the interlocutor.

 A third unwarranted statement is that the Pope or the Church is against Science. The interlocutor would only have to go to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the internet, to see the list of eminent Catholic scientists and how the Church has supported scientific research since the emergence of the European universities in the Middle Ages. There is a Pontifical Academy of Sciences, founded in 1603, which seeks to pay honour to pure science, wherever it is found, to assure its freedom and to promote its research.

I realize that the interlocutor has made these and other unwarranted statements out of ignorance – he is unaware of facts. The least he could do would be to apologize to the Catholic community for hurting it, even though it might be inadvertently.

+ Bishop Agnelo Gracias Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay

This is obvious.

It is neither “unwarranted” nor untrue.

Edit in response:

I’m ex-Catholic and aware of the so-called nuances here. It truly is fascinating how the Vatican does actually sponsor science in domains like astronomy, and yet claim dominion over totally unprovable, unsupported, and thus, yes, unscientific concepts like the eternal soul. One will note that not just Adam and Eve is discredited by evolution, but also the very notion of a divine soul (at which point was evolution paused so some godhead could insert the ethereal?).

The concept of “non-overlapping magisteria” (science for the real world, religion for the imaginary) has been thoroughly thumped by those daring enough to ask the relevant questions.

For those with any remnant of doubt in this area, a thought experiment. Hell, an actual experiment: Go to Mass next Sunday, but do not set in a pew; do not kneel; do not genuflect. Instead, stand in a corner wearing a lab coat and holding a notepad. Note the intense discomfort you both feel and cause. Then come back and tell me, with a straight face, science and religion are fully compatible.

For bonus points, name a scenario in which the lab coat is more out of place.

There's nothing fundamentally incompatible with believing in the Judeo-Christian god and also believing in a systematic pursuit of knowledge. Indeed, many scientists over time have explicitly pointed out how they thought it was their mission to uncover the beauty of god's creation, blah blah.

More down to the point, religion is an extra-rational experience. It's totally perceived on the emotional plane. Few christians actually believe that a dude named Noah actually ferried two of every animal in the word for forty days. The bible is full of allegory and you have to pick and choose.

For instance, the Catholic church came out for evolution back in '96 if I remember correctly. I don't know how you can reconcile evolution with Adam and Eve without accepting that it's probably just a story.

Yes, it is complicated and inconsistent but… scientists are unlikely to be strict literalists. Feeling a spiritual connection related to the teachings of Jesus doesn't prevent you from having an open mind.

That is without doubt the single stupidest argument for the incompatibility of science and religion I have ever heard.

>For bonus points, name a scenario in which the lab coat is more out of place.

A (non religious) funeral.

Sorry you think so.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough.

The purpose of this thought/actual experiment was to highlight the drastic difference between the official sort-of-maybe-mostly-okay-with-science line of the Vatican elite with the everyday reality of Catholicism and of the Catholic parishners. For example, while, as noted in this thread, evolution has been OK with Catholic leaders since 1996 (what pioneers! — pardon, that was rhetoric) — ahem, since 1996, my sister, born in that year, was skeptical that dinosaurs were not a hoax of museums since they were obviously incompatible with her strict Catholic upbringing.

(And good on her: she should doubt anything fanciful, though obviously in this case the facts are on the side of, you know, dinosaurs.)

Never does a Catholic priest remind his congregation that Adam & Eve (and thus original sin, as known to laity) is a myth.

Never does he encourage them to think critically.

What he does do is expect them to act as one entity playing their part in perhaps the most extensive hierarchy ever created.

Hierarchy is another antithesis to science.

Can I stop arguing yet?

The trick with myths is that they still teach a story. In this case, the trick with Adam and Eve is that the Church still believes in original sin, and considers it a heresy to teach against this. You can look up Pelagianism, if you are curious.

The only point I'll really disagree with is: Never does he encourage them to think critically.

The best priests will do this, and I've seen it done often. You can think critically constructively or destructively. I've seen numerous priests properly encourage people to look up what the church actually teaches, and to take the time to understand why. I'm Catholic despite my Catholic education, because I took the time to look at the morality text book and tried to argue against all the teachings. I discovered I personally agreed with most of them.

Finally, I like a number of individuals in the church, but I can't stand the hierarchy. They are humans and far too often lack the humility required in proper Christian leadership. Additionally, far too many of them DO push blind obedience, which is probably one of many reasons why church attendance has been dropping.

tldr(or possibly a Summary): There are many things to disagree with the Catholic church on, but claiming they deem religion and science as incompatible is mistaken. There are even more reasons to disagree with individual members of the hierarchy in what they say and do, but don't mistake individual human flaws with the institution, and don't mistake the current form of the institution with the full beliefs of the religion.

  The two processes are mutually exclusive.

If this is, in fact, true, then it seems somewhat dishonest of the article to not mention it.

There's a big difference (when it comes to defamation) between proving that something isn't true and accusing someone of deliberately fooling the public.

Sanal should've been a bit more careful with his wording.

Seriously?

He followed up the debunking by claiming the non-miracle was a scam, intentionally set up by local priests. He also made a number of blanket statements about how those who believe in the supernatural are "gullible", "regressive", "irrational", and so on. In essence, he's using his debunking as an excuse to engage in defamation (illegal in most places) and provocation (legal in the US, but illegal in India). He went beyond the solid evidence and into a realm of conjecture and supposition.

Guy made statements, interpreted as untrue about the church, and is asked to apologise for that.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dar...

Sad thing is, it isn't too far from the truth.

And that graph is ridiculous. Europe may have stagnated, but Arab counties were rising - which was the cause of the European stagnations - they were being attacked. It had nothing to do with religion.