Originally Posted by
tonmoy.dhaka
Crisis of faith is barely a consequence of "Not knowing" . As an agnostic/atheist myself, I understand some of Roey's sentiments, although I do not agree with his "Trump like approach" to making those points.
A few days back Ahmed Shafi (Bangladesh's leading Islamic scholar) made his disciples vow not to send girls to school after the girls reach a certain age. After enormous criticism, Shafi's response was that environment in a co-ed school is not suitable for girls/women. In other words he is trying to protect the women.
A lot of ahmed Shafi's apologists believe he said no wrong. No one bothered to ask why should the women suffer because of crimes committed by men?
Ahmed Shafi made similar comments in the past, he compared working women (specially those in garment sector) to whores. He also called women "Tetul".....
I have no problem with religion as long as it does not adversely impact other people. However when religion is being an impediment to the advancement of society, I think it is he responsibility of everyone to protest.
One of my major wish for Bangladesh is that, I get the right to criticize any religion without having to be scared. Writers like Daud Haider or Tasleema Nasreen had to flee the country because of their criticism of Islam.
Anonto Bijoy Das was a blogger/writer who was hacked to death and his writings barely even touched religion. He used to write mainly on Evolution. He infact translated a lot of article in Bengli concerning evolution biology.
Even translating a book on evolution makes someone a target and this cannot be allowed in any civilized society. Specially not Bangladesh. The sad thing is that people silently support this kind of murders perpetrated on bloggers/atheists. Hence Bangladesh got Holey Artisan.
Criticism is important also because healthy debate helps people to learn. For the first 25 years of my life I only learned a very sanitized version of Islam and Muhammad. That is true for most people in Bangladesh. If Islam or any religion is the Best than people should not be scared to answer to criticism. Also last I checked, no ill health issues arise when sensitivities are hurt.