What with Christopher Hitchens all over the airwaves and the Internet and the boom in atheist books, I felt I needed a break from relentless criticism of religion. So, last night I sat down to read George MacDonald Fraser’s “Flashman and the Mountain of Light”—and what did I find at the beginning of the chapter I was on? This:
“If there was one thing worse than Jawaheer’s murder it was his funeral, when his wives and slavegirls were roasted alive along with his corpse, according to custom. Like much beastliness in the world, suttee is inspired by religion, which means there’s no sense or reason to it . . . “
And then a bit later:
” . . . why, Alick Gardner told me of one funeral in Lahore where some poor little lass of nine was excused burning as being too young, and the silly chit threw herself off a high building. They burned her corpse anyway. That’s what comes of religion and keeping women in ignorance.”
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