Page 85 - Islam and Far Eastern Religions

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The River Ganges occupies a very important place in the Hindu religion. It is
imagined that a Hindu who washes in the Ganges will be cleansed of all his sins.
Because of that belief, elderly Hindus spend their time near the potentially lethal-
ly polluted waters of the river. Why is this river regarded as sacred? How does the
river take away the sins of those who wash in it? Can someone who commits the
most heinous crimes be spiritually cleansed merely by entering and leaving those
waters? Hindus prefer not to think about such questions, because a single mo-
ment’s thought would reveal how ridiculous this belief actually is. Some of the su-
perstitious Hindu rituals involving the Ganges are:
- Hindus who picture the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in human form use
these in the entrances to their temples. 19
- In accordance with superstitious tradition, Hindu priests poured 850 liters
of milk from silver ewers into the Yamuna, a tributary of the River Ganges, in or-
der to purify it. 20
- The Ganges and the Yamuna meet at the city of Allahabad. Hindus hold the
superstitious belief that they will be freed from all their sins when they wash at the
confluence of these two waterways. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus therefore
pour into the region during the year. It is obvious what a facile and nonsensical re-
ligion Hinduism is from the way that it links purification from sins to such a mean-
ingless ritual like entering and leaving a river, rather than, as is the case with Islam,
repenting, asking for Allah’s forgiveness and committing never to commit the
same sins again.
The cruelties that Hindus inflict on the seriously ill also reveal what a dark
life this false religion offers. The patient is taken by his friends and family to the
River Ganges. Rather than looking for ways of curing his disease, they believe that
carrying the patient to the banks of the river is a far more meaningful task. The pa-
tient’s worst and filthiest covering is laid over the vehicle in which he is being car-
ried. The patient is then placed on top of it and then left on a rock, supposedly, “to
be cured,” but actually to die there. There are many sick people on the brink of
death along the banks of the Ganges. Filth and discomfort of all kinds abound here.
Everywhere can be heard the sounds of weeping and wailing caused by people’s
sicknesses. As death approaches, half the person’s body is immersed in water, and
he dies in that position. 21 These inhumane practices are literally intended to kill.
Many people have lost their lives because of the unhygienic conditions and un-
healthy influences all around, even though they had the opportunity to receive
hospital treatment. This ritual is literally no different to murder.