{"id":12799,"date":"2010-03-23T17:56:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T17:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/tantric-guru-in-india-fails-to-kill-skeptic-bad-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2010-03-23T17:56:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T17:56:41","slug":"tantric-guru-in-india-fails-to-kill-skeptic-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/tantric-guru-in-india-fails-to-kill-skeptic-bad-astronomy.php","title":{"rendered":"Tantric guru in India fails to kill skeptic | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With all the religious nutbaggery going on in the US of A, it&rsquo;s sometime easy to forget that there&rsquo;s a whole planet of wackiness out there. <\/p><p>The outspoken and hard-working Indian rationalist <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sanal_Edamaruku\">Sanal Edamaruku<\/a> had enough. When the \"guru\" Pandit Surender Sharma claimed he could kill a man using nothing but magic powers, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/world\/asia\/article7067989.ece\">Edamaruku challenged Sharma to kill him on live TV in India<\/a>.<\/p><p>For some reason, Sharma eventually agreed, and what played out on the air <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NpwCuv_izn4\">is pretty funny to watch<\/a>:<\/p><p><\/p><p>Gee, this would&rsquo;ve looked silly without the dramatic music. If any BABloggees in India would post a transcript in the comments, I&rsquo;d be grateful!<\/p><p>My favorite part is Edamaruku constantly smiling and shaking his head, giving Sharma exactly what he deserves: derision. Still, millions of people in India follow gurus like this purveyor of nonsense, so it&rsquo;s serious business. I imagine that Sharma will lose exactly zero followers after this, given people&rsquo;s ability to rationalize failure (not to be confused over <em>being rational<\/em> about failure).<\/p><p>I&rsquo;m very glad that this guy was exposed on national TV in India, but I have to think that Mr. Edamaruku could&rsquo;ve saved quite a bit of time and effort had he pointed out one simple thing:<\/p><p>If this guy is so powerful, <strong>why does he wear glasses?<\/strong> <\/p><p><em>Tip o&rsquo; the turban to Mike Wagner.<\/em><\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/Hdi2ZP33JJ9Aw_SeoR59eRhC6z4\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cf45e_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/Hdi2ZP33JJ9Aw_SeoR59eRhC6z4\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cf45e_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cf45e_NDL8Lk1JVBI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cf45e_tAMgmfv_fQc\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With all the religious nutbaggery going on in the US of A, it&rsquo;s sometime easy to forget that there&rsquo;s a whole planet of wackiness out there. The outspoken and hard-working Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku had enough. When the \"guru\" Pandit &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/tantric-guru-in-india-fails-to-kill-skeptic-bad-astronomy.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}