no-kidding dangers of belief

Niloy Neel

Discussions of spiritual persuasions are often imagined to be held in a room full of smooth and soothing gentlemen wearing leather patches on their elbows. Or perhaps in some lavishly decorated bit of temple. Or at some gathering where everyone hums harmoniously "ommmmmmm."

OK. But I think it is worth the effort to be informed about the crass outcroppings of belief ... not just the ones attributed to "extremists" or "fundamentalist wack-jobs," but to the very one looking back from the bathroom mirror. No shit ... anyone with any belief can be a flaming asshole ... which is human and OK except when that fire is rained down on someone else.

Belief, any belief, deserves serious scrutiny.

A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say.

Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city's Goran area.

He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh.

No bobbing and weaving. No "my belief is not capable of such extremity." Cut the crap. Own the violence and horror that is inherent is the most swooning credulity. Sip the laced Kool Aid belief brews by its very nature. Anyone trying to explain it away ("the true faith is not like that") is whistling past a graveyard in which others -- but not me -- are invariably buried.