RE: Stupid things religious people say
June 3, 2025 at 2:23 pm
(This post was last modified: June 3, 2025 at 2:25 pm by Fake Messiah.)
200 miles of sublime pain on a Hindu pilgrimage in Pakistan
When Amar Faqira’s 3-year-old son abruptly lost movement in his foot last year, doctors offered little hope, and panic gripped his family.
Mr. Faqira made a vow. If his prayers were answered and the boy recovered, he would make a 200-mile pilgrimage through blistering plains and jagged terrain to the Hinglaj Devi temple, a site sacred to Hindus, a tiny minority in Pakistan.
The child regained strength a year later. And true to his word, Mr. Faqira set off in late April on a seven-day walk to the temple, which is nestled deep in the rust-colored mountains of Balochistan, a remote and restive province in Pakistan’s southwest.
The goddess “heard me and healed my son,” Mr. Faqira said before the trek, as he gathered with friends and family in his neighborhood in Karachi, a metropolis on the coast of the Arabian Sea. “Why shouldn’t I fulfill my vow and endure a little pain for her joy?”
With that sense of gratitude, Mr. Faqira and two companions, wearing saffron head scarves and carrying a ceremonial flag, joined thousands of others on the grueling journey to Hinglaj Devi, where Pakistan’s largest annual Hindu festival is held.
Along a winding highway and sun-scorched desert paths, groups of resolute pilgrims — mostly men but also women and children — trudged beneath the unforgiving sky, in heat that reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius. Some bore idols of the deity associated with the temple. All chanted “Jai Mata Di,” a call meaning “Hail the Mother Goddess.”
“The real pilgrimage is in the pain, the feeling,” Mr. Faqira, the devotee from Karachi, said on the fourth day of his trek. “You cannot find it in a vehicle.”
One of his two companions collapsed from heat exhaustion after walking nearly 70 miles and had to return home by bus. Mr. Faqira carried on, his feet blistered and bandaged.
Each pilgrim walks with a personal vow.
Minakshi, who goes by one name, was part of a group of women dressed in yellow and red. She undertook the journey to ask the goddess for a son after bearing three daughters. Holding her 8-month-old, with her mother-in-law by her side, she shielded the child from the dust and heat.
“I believe the goddess will hear me,” she said.
Nearby, 60-year-old Raj Kumari was making her seventh pilgrimage, praying for her grandson’s well-being. Also on the trek was a childless couple, married since 2018, who were hoping for divine intervention in starting a family.
Many pilgrims belong to marginalized lower-caste Hindu groups — landless sharecroppers or daily wage laborers. Those who can afford the $11 fare ride inside a bus. The poorest pay $5 to sit on the roof in the blistering sun.
According to Hindu mythology, the Hinglaj Devi temple is one of the sites where the remains of Sati, a goddess of marital devotion and longevity, fell to earth after her self-immolation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/world...-devi.html
When Amar Faqira’s 3-year-old son abruptly lost movement in his foot last year, doctors offered little hope, and panic gripped his family.
Mr. Faqira made a vow. If his prayers were answered and the boy recovered, he would make a 200-mile pilgrimage through blistering plains and jagged terrain to the Hinglaj Devi temple, a site sacred to Hindus, a tiny minority in Pakistan.
The child regained strength a year later. And true to his word, Mr. Faqira set off in late April on a seven-day walk to the temple, which is nestled deep in the rust-colored mountains of Balochistan, a remote and restive province in Pakistan’s southwest.
The goddess “heard me and healed my son,” Mr. Faqira said before the trek, as he gathered with friends and family in his neighborhood in Karachi, a metropolis on the coast of the Arabian Sea. “Why shouldn’t I fulfill my vow and endure a little pain for her joy?”
With that sense of gratitude, Mr. Faqira and two companions, wearing saffron head scarves and carrying a ceremonial flag, joined thousands of others on the grueling journey to Hinglaj Devi, where Pakistan’s largest annual Hindu festival is held.
Along a winding highway and sun-scorched desert paths, groups of resolute pilgrims — mostly men but also women and children — trudged beneath the unforgiving sky, in heat that reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius. Some bore idols of the deity associated with the temple. All chanted “Jai Mata Di,” a call meaning “Hail the Mother Goddess.”
“The real pilgrimage is in the pain, the feeling,” Mr. Faqira, the devotee from Karachi, said on the fourth day of his trek. “You cannot find it in a vehicle.”
One of his two companions collapsed from heat exhaustion after walking nearly 70 miles and had to return home by bus. Mr. Faqira carried on, his feet blistered and bandaged.
Each pilgrim walks with a personal vow.
Minakshi, who goes by one name, was part of a group of women dressed in yellow and red. She undertook the journey to ask the goddess for a son after bearing three daughters. Holding her 8-month-old, with her mother-in-law by her side, she shielded the child from the dust and heat.
“I believe the goddess will hear me,” she said.
Nearby, 60-year-old Raj Kumari was making her seventh pilgrimage, praying for her grandson’s well-being. Also on the trek was a childless couple, married since 2018, who were hoping for divine intervention in starting a family.
Many pilgrims belong to marginalized lower-caste Hindu groups — landless sharecroppers or daily wage laborers. Those who can afford the $11 fare ride inside a bus. The poorest pay $5 to sit on the roof in the blistering sun.
According to Hindu mythology, the Hinglaj Devi temple is one of the sites where the remains of Sati, a goddess of marital devotion and longevity, fell to earth after her self-immolation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/world...-devi.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
