Balkaar

Bhenji, there is nothing inherently wrong with such behavior. But we are Sikhs, we wear our sacred dastaars so that people might know us as followers of the Guru. Our lives are not ours to live. There are certain expectations and standards to which we must conform.

Their awkward sexual proclivities aren't even symptomatic of sexual repression, the Japanese have always had certain odd tastes. There is a particularly disturbing 19th woodcut by the celebrated artist Hokusai, which depicts two octopii performing oral sex on a woman. I'm all for respecting cultural differences, but really?

I wasn't approaching the issue from a cultural perspective Bhenji, I was trying to advance an argument from a religious position. Because, like it or not, Sikhi does have certain views on what people should be like and how they should behave. If a Guru Ka Singh attired himself in the manner of the bloke whose picture I provided, it would not be a good thing. We are not addressing the topic of sexuality either. I am a supporter of gay rights. In criticizing effeminate men, I am not criticizing homosexuals. It doesn't do to think in stereotypes.

I'm sorry, I didn't see this earlier. Actually this view seems reasonable enough Preeet. Are you totally fine with homosexuals having intimate physical relations outside of marriage? Don't worry about coming across as rude, you don't. As often as I disagree with the things you have to say, I've always found you to be polite.

No, I was turning Preet's logic against her. I don't believe the same is to be said for heterosexual marriages. I don't believe it is even to be said for homosexual ones.

Could the same not also be said for heterosexual marriages?

Not true. Darwinian evolution easily accounts for the existence of morality, without the presupposition of any godhead. Social cohesiveness was advantageous to our distant ancestors' survival, and therefore a distinguishing factor in natural selection. Social cohesion is after all only possible if the individuals who constitute a population are mindful of the well-being of those around them. Freemasonry is not atheistic either. The cult has a rule which explicitly states 'No Atheist may be made a Freemason'.

This video is replete with lots of little errors which convict the whole thing of being totally unreliable. - Guru Gobind Singh was not killed "trying to establish his new religion" (a phrase which leaves a distinctly Mohammedan flavour in one's mouth), he was stabbed by a Pathan while making camp and died of his wounds. Also, while interrogating that random bloke (he might've found an expert) at about 43:30, he doesn't even appear to know that Sikhism had a long history of persecution at the hands of Sunni Muslim sultanates and rulers. Is it any wonder then that he was so taken aback by the 'worship' of military hardware? We must've seemed just as sanguinary as the Muslims to him in that instant. - 43:50, the ridiculous idea that the decision to have a single spiritual book is an accretion from Islam. Besides which, the Sikh faith has two other holy Granths, Sri Dasam Granth Sahib and Sri Sarbloh Granth Sahib. Or for that matter that Sikhism is some sort of plagiarism of Hinduism, when exactly half of this gentleman's Christian Bible is an exact reproduction of the Jewish Pentateuch and Hebrew Bible. I believe I discussed this double standard in another thread. - 46:55 - (in ominous whispers) "These guys ... have real power... and real influence...and they're prepared to use it" Lol, no, not really. The Nihangs certianly used to be powerful, once upon a time, but as Jathebandis go groups such as the AKJ and the Damdami Taksaal retain far more influence over the Sikh Panth. Most contemporary Nihangs don't really do anything. Nor did they ever close down the entire state of the Punjab. This is nonsense. This bloke is either a fabricator, or very misinformed.

Firstly, gay marriage being permissible isn't the same thing as gay marriage being compulsory. Such a step would hardly be in keeping with the American constitution. Although I myself am strongly in favour the implementation of an Anand Karaj for homosexuals, the Sikh Panth is a democracy and my opinion doesn't rule.Even I accept that the Panth has to give its consent if something of this kind is to be allowed. All believing Sikhs should have a say in matters of their religion. A secular government however, should have exactly no say here. Sikhi is not their jurisdiction. For them to force Gurdware to perform gay weddings would be a profound insult.

If you want try and envisage the feminist utopia, look no further than Korea and Japan. There was a concerted cultural rebellion against traditional masculine values after the second world war by women, who began to prefer so called 'herbivores' (gentle and cautious men), men who were the antithesis of all that had once been expected of Japanese manhood. They began to desire men who would place them on a pedestal, who used cosmetics, were weak and vulnerable and felt an affinity for the feminine. Young men conformed to the expectations of women, and this was the result - Women don't seem to be able to understand the lengths to which many men will go in order to gain their approval. This ^ is why we cannot allow feminist rhetoric to become the prevailing ideology of womanhood. One of the reasons there is now a marked decrease in fertility in Japan, aside from an ageing population, is because men are too spineless to pursue women. When they actually do manage to secure a girlfriend they defer to her judgement in all things. The economy is suffering because they haven't the drive to pursue or advance their careers. Intake into the military is at an all time low. Purchase of cosmetics however, is at its historical zenith, rising further still. Sikhi values the qualities of courage, strength and physical prowess. Feminism would deprive men of all of these. Therefore, the two cannot ever be compatible, to answer the OP's question.

Because mass slaughters tend to hit the headlines, whereas more isolated incidents of brutality usually don't. The Tunisians effected this shallow move in order to protect their international reputation, not out of any antagonism towards hardline Islam. God rest those poor people.

Of course the notion of gay marriage would have seemed ridiculous to a contemporary of Guru Sahib. Not necessarily because the idea of two men in a relationship was considered abhorrent, rather, because marriage had nothing to do with love back then. Not until the latter half of the twentieth century did our people begin to marry for love - my grandparents had never even met one another until the day they were to be married. All marriage was in the old days, was a way for families to develop alliances with one another, for couples to produce legitimate children who could further the family line and consequently determine who was to inherit property (which has always been an extremely big deal where our people are concerned - see the widespread infighting over zameens that bedevils our lot). Love was irrelevant. And considering that gays could not produce legitimate children to inherit neither name nor land, a marriage between two men would have seemed utterly pointless. Back then. Times have changed. And so has the institution of marriage, which is no longer bound to these archaic notions. Love is its object now, not lineage or inheritance. Love is treated as the only reasonable justification for two people wanting to spend the rest of their lives with one another, all else is surplus to requirement. Gays can love one another. They fulfill the main condition for matrimony. Why, therefore, shouldn't they be eligible to be married?

Greeks, Scythians, Arabs, Afghans, you name it. If they raped, pillaged or invaded, chances are that their genes are floating about somewhere in the Punjabi genepool. That sort of thing came to an end with the arrival of the Sikh Panth, of course.

The Bengalis have one of the finest literary traditions in the subcontinent, that is true. And they have put us Punjabis to shame by the manner in which they have defended and cherished their mother tongue. But I'm quite certain that they're not Mongoloids. Proximity to Mongoloid peoples such as the Burmese doesn't count for much, the Bangladeshis are Muslims, I can't picture them intermarrying with the Burmese Buddhists. I also can't detect any traces of the horde when I look at them. With certain South Asian populations, like the Hazara of Afghanistan, the Mongoloid accretions are quite obvious. The Bangladeshis look exactly the same as their Bengali cousins to me - short and dark-skinned. Dietary differences can also boil down to religion, at least in the Indian subcontinent. Muslims consume more meat, the Hindus much less so. It is common knowledge, and unsurprising knowledge, when one considers that the Muslims revere a desert warlord whereas the Hindus place greater importance in gentler and more sagacious men. Punjabi Sikhs are almost identical to Punjabi Muslims with respect to their ethnic constitution (excepting the inbreeding/first cousin marriages by the Muslims, and the things that come of it), but the Muslims eat far more meat by comparison.

Naturally Kira veer. I think rudeness should only ever be permissible if it's clever or quick. Unfortunately many of the individuals on this forum are connoisseurs of the blundering, vulgar sort. Exactly. Accusations of 'slander' appear to be calculated to suppress the discussion of any questions of appreciable magnitude. I agree entirely, I asked those questions in a somewhat rhetorical spirit. I did not mean to iterate them as if I took them seriously.

'Slander' of another person is forbidden in Sikhi. This is also extended to the religious faiths these people profess. However we as a qaum have yet to quantify the term 'slander', and arrive at a collective definition. Everybody seems to have one of their own. One interpretation of the prohibition against slander is that nothing bad is to be said about anybody else's beliefs, period. This viewpoint is propounded by the more inert Sikhs who insist that Sikhi is somehow averse to prosleytization, that it considers all religions to be equally worthy of respect as divergent, but ultimately fruitful paths to God. Moreover this notion that Sikhi is passive and yielding is actually considered to be a point of pride for some people - the tired old idea "Sikhism has no missionaries", attended by a sort of subtle smugness. Is it any wonder that the Sikh voice is so muted in the interfaith and religious agora of the world, or that our religion is one which most people haven't heard about and whose views on anything are rarely sought? If slander is what these people claim it is, then could it not be argued that our Gurus were 'slanderers'? Is slander simply that which gives offense? It is not entirely inconceivable Guru Amar Das Sahib offended the religious sensibilities of a good many Muslims and Hindus when he prohibited their womenfolk from entering his darbar wearing veils. Was this slander? It seems rather like the behaviors which some Sikhs consider to be slanderous. Guru Nanak Dev Ji was hardly timid in his handling of other belief systems, he even made jokes at their expense. If he didn't keep quiet out of respect for their beliefs when he saw something fundamentally wrong with them, then why should his Sikhs?

Why did you give over two years of your life to this man in the expectation that what you had could grow into something more, when he explicitly stated that this contingency was not possible? Do not be mollified by his asking you whether or not you love him. That has nothing to do with a restless conscience on his part. Philanderers, or men who sleep around, enjoy knowing that the women whom they view with lust alone actually come to love them in return. It's all part of a blokeish ego trip.

Bangladeshis are ethnically Bengalis. Their language is also Bengali. The only factor distinguishing them from their cousins across the border is religious adherence, not ethnicity. It is a confected nation which should never have come into being, just like Pakistan. And India for that matter, the rag-tag patchwork which the Sikhs were deceived into becoming part of.

Yes Eduardo! I don't like the way certain individuals are accusing me of being a queen-in-hiding just because I defend gay people. Apparently that in itself means I'm as good as homosexual to these people. Even you felt the need to reiterate your heterosexuality to spare yourself the suspicion. It's ridiculous.

Western feminism has failed to be taken seriously because it retains archaic double standards alongside its supposedly progressive ideas. And the two are totally antithetical. For instance, they demand that women be paid the same as men, and yet they still expect their husbands and partners to pay for anniversaries/restaurants/outings/jewelry. To be perfectly candid, I just don't feel particularly outraged about the wage gap considering that men need the extra money to cover all the expenses demanded by their wives and girlfriends. Chivalry and feminism do not mix. We can have one or the other. Of course females should be paid as much as males, they are just as capable of being providers as men are. But then men shouldn't concurrently be subjected to these ossified standards of gentlemanliness. Objectification isn't exclusive to womanhood either. The cases of men suffering from stretch marks, caused by attempting to shed their pot-bellies in an effort emulate all the shredded hunks they see on television and in the media, has soared. Objectification is inevitable in a capitalist society revolving around the purchase of consumer goods such as whey powder or lingerie.

I agree, I think we ought to focus on the problems that truly matter, like whether or not we should have chairs in the langar and be allowed to tie up our beards. Of course no gay person has attempted to get married in a Gurdwara. They're not idiots, they know it would never be allowed under any circumstances, for the moment (we've all seen that even Muslims are being allowed to marry Sikhs in Guru Ghars). 5% of the human race is gay. From this, we can deduce that 5% of Sikhs are also gay. There are 30 million Sikhs worldwide, and 1.5 million of them are homosexual and suffering in silence. How exactly is this not relevant?

Nope. I have lots of goldfish and I'm still miserable :surrender:

LOL There's something I never expected to read

No offense brother, but the reason a lot of us Singhs are so bumbling and inept with girls is not because of our Kes, but a severe lack of self-confidence which in some instances borders on self-hatred ( attribute by most to their uncut hair). You'll find that most girls aren't open to getting to know any guy in the context of a relationship, let alone you. Ask a non-Sikh who goes out clubbing every week and attempts to chat up the girls what his success rate is and he will tell you that he is rejected far, far more often than he finds paydirt. Look at Singhs like Waris Ahluwalia and Jatinder Singh Durhailay, both of whom are considered to be very attractive. Those guys radiate charisma. They don't feel that their Kes impedes them in any way. They used to get bullied as children, but this had the fortunate side effect of causing them to develop character. We keep our kes to stand out. Standing out and going against the stream helps one to develop self-confidence. Being a Kesdhari/Amritdhari is a very good opportunity, if you capitalize on it rather than resent it. It also helps to be eclectic, well-read and well-spoken.

Well, why would someone living in a Muslim country where one can be killed for being homosexual choose to be gay? Why would a person in the Bible-belt of America decide to like people of the same sex, and invite the ostracism of everybody they ever knew? Nobody would choose to live such a life.