Jagdip Singh

Waheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Kee Fateh !

I think the only thing worse than the original post is the first reply by someone who really needs to stop posting without learning how to write english properly.

Quite ironic that he is from "England".

Dear original poster, you started off with some good questions and i was finding myself both interested and intrigued in your direction of analysis. Then i realised what a damn fool you are. You come to a sikh website and ask us to tell you why sikhism isnt the way you'd like it to be.

I just asked simple questions if it's a crime to do so according to yourself then please ignore them.

You know what the answer is to that? Go elsewhere. No one cares if you convert to christianity. You arent dont any favors to anyone by asking these oh-so-far-fetching questions.

It's attitudes like those that are responsible for Sikh youths becoming non-believers and instead of increasing Sikhism's worldwide numbers by converting non-Punjabis this Sikh religion seems to be losing it's own members to other religions and remains as a regional religion of Punjab.

By the way I am also exploring Buddhism, Islam and other religions. Are you going to mock them too?

The fact that you are so arrogant to mock the beloved founders of our faith is horrible. Learn some freaking respect. Most of the people here would kick your ass into the ground for being so rude about our gurus.

If mocking is equivalent to asking simple questions then I am guilty of doing so. Why are Sikhs reluctant to ask questions about Sikhism and follow blind faith?

You might have noticed i didnt answer any of your questions. The reason for that is that your approach isnt one of genuine interest and curiousity but one of contempt and condescension.

My interest is "genuine". This is just a poor cop-out on your part for not being able to adequately answer ANY of the questions.

and to most people the entirety of the bible is a bunch of sakhis and mythology. How can you be so pompous on the basis of such questionable authority? Do you really believe life was created as in Genesis? There is a whole lot of evidence saying that aint true ma friend...

Go ahead and slander Christianity. Is that your answers to the questions? Do you have no other response? I am not a Christian yet

The new testament is a heap of second hand account transmitted through various cultural periods with each leaving their mark on the text. who knows how authentic that text is, and its hard to verify anything back to the original.

Actually the new testament is a continuation of the Old testament as Christianity claims to be a continuation of Judaism. Its authenticity is not questioned in the way that the authenticity of both the Dasam Granth and Adi Granth are questioned. The Adi Granth is nothing more than a compilation of the work of individuals with the same ideology over a period of a couple hundred years. Hardly the "word of God" as some Sikhs claim.

If that is the motivation behind your actions. IF you are driven by making others look bad and yourself a bit better. Then you are probably a poor religious person. You are the sort of person who causes trouble. You are the root cause of fanaticism.

I am driven by the quest of knowledge and truth. If the truth hurts then so be it.

Its a silly idea to allow someone to ask so many questions in one thread. Its gonna be a mess to follow. Can some admin address this?

Since you unable to provide answers you have to resort to ask for a ban?

This is my final post on this one-sided fanatic hateful site. I am leaving on my own accord. I will try a third Sikh forum: Sikhnet.com . Sikhawareness.com and sikh-history.com both failed to answer a single question.

Actually ranveers second post was quite good. and neo makes a good point about christian missionaries. I find it funny that these idealists come on here and talk about these perfect ideas yet have probably never applied them in their lives for a good amount of time.

I never asked for an attack on Christians or Christianity. I asked simple questions about Sikhism. None of you have bothered to answer a single question.

The biggest questions for me remain:

1. What is the exact need for keeping hair? If hair then why not fingernails?

It makes us look cool. Few sights are more beautiful than a singh or kaur. It partially serves to distinguish sikhs amongst others. But apart from that, it suffices to say that its our thing. We do it, no one else does it. Its a sikh thing. We owe no one any justification.

A NON-ANSWER. Once you find a reason for hair then you can give a reason why nail cutting is allowed. Thanks in advance.

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2. Why did Gurus not marry outside of caste? They talked the talk but their actions indicate otherwise.

Because they werent a bunch of holier-than-thou point scorers. They didnt live their lives with the sole aim of making as many remarkable choices as possible and then gloating in their moral superiority. They didnt make all their decisions just to make a point. You think that is a good quality to have? To do things just cuz it makes you look good? Its freakin pathetic. And the gurus were above that sort of nonsense. The gurus lived their lives without dramatising things. They took what came their way in stride. Gurus made sure each decision was made in harmony with philosophy but there was no need to make it a point to have each decision mean something profound and meaningful on its own.

Another NON-ANSWER. What is the lie in saying that they only married in caste and talked about abolishing caste? The best way to abolish caste is intermarriage. That is something the actions of all the Gurus showed that they didn't beleive in 1 iotta.

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3. Why were females not allowed to take part in the Seva when the Saravar of Harmandhir sahib was being cleaned?

Im not sure if you are even right about this, but I wouldnt deny it anyway. Because the SGPC are a bunch of monkeys. They are poor leaders driven by political goals who fail to represent sikhs honestly. If they make backward decisions then more than anything else, that serves as an indictment of their flawed ways.

Again another non-Sikh. Sikhism talks about equality. In practice its policies regarding women's participation is the same as the Taliban's treatment of women. Why is there almost no women granthis when they make up 1/2 the population? Sorry I must correct that last statement. Since Sikhs have been killing off their baby girls it's correct to say that women are closer to 35% of the Sikh population in India.

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4. How can SGGS regarded as the word of God when all of its contents were selectively chosen from many different authors who existed in different time periods and were of the same ideology. It appears to be just 1 big compilation of like minded people's work.

As opposed to what? What do you want us to say here? We celebrate this diversity. Its not seen as a negative thing, how can it be? Make your case that it isnt the word of god. And when you go about doing that, please prove to us how any scripture found anywhere is the word of god. You'll find that it is impossible to do. Its a matter of belief and we sikhs believe sri guru granth sahib ji is true. You want us to apologise for that?

This is another cop-out NON-ANSWER. It's a compilation of similar ideas of people with similar ideologies. Can you even tell me why only some of Kabir's shaloks were included in this Adi Granth?

Can you tell me why Sikhs worship the Adi Granth as an Idol?

Can you provide me with any evidence to show that Sikhism is not just another sect of Hinduism and that Guru Nanak was not merely just reforming Hinduism. He never claimed to be a messenger of God himself. He never claimed to start Sikhism. If you have proof of any of that please provide it.

All that you believe is blind faith. That is all you have shown in your non-answers and hateful responses to legitimate questions. Would you treat a white man who was interested in converting the vey same way?

As we can not have a fair discussion of ideas here, and some people have resorted to slander of other religions and threatening me with bans I am leaving this site on my own accord.

This is my final post. I will post the same questions on Sikhnet shortly.

By the way I am looking at Arya Samaj a lot closer than Christianity. Are you going to attack Arya Samaj and Hindus now and go on and on about how Hindus did this and that to Sikhism? Get a life you fundamentalist haters. Arya Samaj is the exact same Sikhism without the meaningless rituals. Just tell me which came first Adi Granth or the Vedas ? That's why Dharmender the actor and Shaheed Bhagat Singh both were members of this great religion.

I wholeheartedly agree with Swami Dayanand ji's comments about Guru Nanak. Nanak was nothing more than a fraud.

Bzz! Sorry wrong. A name is but a name. IT doesnt have to mean anything at all. The fact that you see a name as being equivalent to practising casteism is your fallacy. Honestly, how hard is it to determine someone caste? Its trivial if you really wanna know. The smart thing is to realise that attempting to pretend that castes dont exist doesnt make it so. Its also smacks of idealism when in reality people do subscribe to caste. That isnt necessary bad, a point which obviously escapes a person concerned only with establishing moral superiority. You see, if you can live your life, by treating others fairly, irrespective of their caste is, then you have conquered casteism.

This statement shows us that You along with a great deal other Sikhs endorse caste. Don't you get it? Caste is a man-made artificial way to split people. Those who are "low caste" are humans too. By having names like Dhillon, Gill, Randhawa and flaunting your being Jatt and Khatri heritages you people are in effect slapping across the face those who have not been fortunate enough to be born into upper class homes. I am of Jatt heritage myself but strongly am opposed to caste because I sincerely believe in FULL EQAULITY. The same cannot be said of Sikhs and Sikhism.

Waheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Kee Fateh !

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

This is my response to Raveender:

My response to no 5 is this...dont generalise, not everyone uses their caste names, there are some who do, some who dont..it doesnt make anyone less of a sikh or more of a sikh..

Anyone that uses a surname different from Singh and Kaur and uses name like Dhillon, Gill, etc. is a casteist and following caste. That is another way to advertise one's caste.

I dont recall ever reading anywhere that any of our gurujis asked any of their followers to do the wrong thing or something that didnt make sense.

That is fine but I am not an advocate of blind faith.

To no 7, there are definining moments in the life of Guru Nanak Devji, very early on even, which showed him to be a spiritual and person immersed in thought, there are the events where he dissapeared and returned back from a river, mind my inability to explain the whole story to you but i think its better for you to go out there, read up on this and make your own educated decisions. Ifyou would like to find out more about any of our Guruji's, then im sure your well stocked local Gurduwara will have enuff info for you to read to your heart's content..and if for some reason it doesnt, then well..there's this thing called the internet where you could learn more than you could imagine on any given subject

How do we know that Guru Nanak wasn't just a mere reformer of Hinduism? He never claimed to start any new religion or to be any messenger of God.

A question id like to post back to you is...how do confirm to me thatthat Jesus Christ was a legitimate messenger of GOD?

Read the bible.

If all you can do is attack Christianity then we have nothing to talk about. It is a sad state of affairs when you have no other choice since you obviously can't answer questions on Sikhism. This is one reason why Sikhism is declining and Sikhs are looking at other options for religions. The days of blindfaith are over.

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

2 things:

1. I am not a Christian yet. I am exploring Sikhism itself and other faiths too. So please lay off attacking other religions and just answer questions.

2. I am not here to attack Sikhism. I apologize if any of you percieve it to be that way. I am merely seeking answers.

n answer to qu8, Guru Gobind Singh Ji did not cry when he was told that his sons had been killed and this is what shockd all the sikhs around him who asked why he wasn't crying and he is said to have said that why should he cry for his 4 sons when he has thousands of other sons (his sikhs) to protect and look after. I don't know where you heard about him crying, but this is what I have read.

Read the Zaffarnama. Examine the tone of the writing.

qu10 - We don't cut our hair because it is a living gift (since it grows) that we have been given by god, so we should look after it. I think that by cutting our hair we are throwing god's gift back in his face and saying we aren't thankful for what we've been given.

Why is the same not true for fingernails?

qu7 - what do u mean by "what proof"? Are you talking about miracles and stuff, of which there r plenty, coz if not, then what proof is there that Jesus preached the word of god??

Read the bible.

qu9 - what do u find ritualistic and rigid about sikhism - u r not very clear on that - coz I've been a sikh for almost 10 yrs and I have found it to be one of the less ritualistic religions and there is much more freedom in sikhism than you may find in other religions.

Keeping hair, kirpan, kachara, etc.

qu11 - Sikhs aren't allowed to eat any meat at all, whether it's kosher or not.

Really? then why did Akal takht take out a hukamnama in 1980 declaring it officially to be allowed?

qu12 - again you do not state what gives Jesus Christ a legitimate claim to being a messenger of god, and not our gurus.

read the bible

qu14 - There is nothing saying that sikhs all over the world worship pictures of the gurus coz as my dad says have you seen/spoke ot all the sikhs in the world to get this idea? The guru jis themselves said that they shldn't be worshipped as idols. People have their pictures to respect them, but i can't speak for everyone.

The SGGS itself is worshiped as an idol. I bow down before no one except God himself. Pictures, books, rocks and snakes cannot be real incarnations of God.

qu18 - gdwaras are open to all. It may just be that "specific castes" attend them, but they would not throw anyone out because they aren't of that caste - besides sikhs don't believe in caste. I admit that different sects seem to have been created within sikhism, so it may not be so much specific castes, but more likely a specific sect attends certain gdwaras.

Have you not heard of Lubana, Ramgharia, Nanaksaar gurdwaras?

qu19 - I can't say if what I say is 100% correct, but Guru Gobind Singh Ji refered to god as Waheguru, Ram, Hari - basically saying that all religions have their own name for god, but in effect they are all talking about the same god, hence trying to show that there is only one god and he may have many names, but he remains the same.

That is fine but why do Sikhs get so worked up when a Sikh leaves Sikhism and joins christianity out of choice?

qu20 - It is difficult to answer some of ur qus coz u write a lot of assumptions. As far as I know, Sikhs do not get "upset" when someone leaves sikhi of their own accord, as long as it is that and not force. One of the guru ji's said that if you are a sikh try to be the best sikh u can be, if you are a muslim try to be the best muslim you can be etc - basically whatever religion you are try to be the best.

Just read the "Anti-Sikhism" part of the forum. Read sikhnet or sikh-history.com. There are posts after posts slamming Christianity the religion just because some people chose to join it out of choice. Why does Sikhism not accept a person's right to choose his or her religion?

The biggest questions for me remain:

1. What is the exact need for keeping hair? If hair then why not fingernails?

2. Why did Gurus not marry outside of caste? They talked the talk but their actions indicate otherwise.

3. Why were females not allowed to take part in the Seva when the Saravar of Harmandhir sahib was being cleaned?

4. How can SGGS regarded as the word of God when all of its contents were selectively chosen from many different authors who existed in different time periods and were of the same ideology. It appears to be just 1 big compilation of like minded people's work.

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

Raveender instead of dodging questions and attacking Christianity please just answer all 20 questions. thanks in advance.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Ke Fateh!

I had earlier asked these questions to another Sikh forum. They were unable to answer them. Hopefully this forum won't be the same way.

On the other forum I read many posts about how Sikhs should eliminate caste. I am very much against caste. I have a list of things that will explain why caste has not been rejected by Sikhs as well as other questions which are driving me and others away from Sikhism and closer to Christianity. Please don't hold it against me for asking such questions. I only want to hear some real answers. Please spare me the sakhi stories and other such mythology. :

1. Why did all 10 gurus only marry within their Khatri caste? An intercaste marriage by any of the Gurus would have encouraged more Sikhs to do so.

2. Why were all 10 gurus of the Khatri caste background ? 7 of the last 10 were direct descendents of the same Sodhi line of Khatris. What method was used to choose the next Guru ?

3. If the Gurus were truly messengers of God then why didn't they take their birth in a dalit's home ? A message of a holyman representing the dirt poor is more likely to get more support then the message of a holyman from a rich businessman background.

4. I support intercaste marriage because everyone is equal. On that same basis (Sikhism) I support Interreligious marriage too. Why are so many Sikhs against Interreligious marriage? What is their reason? Everyone is equal according to the Guru Granth Sahib. If it is for the fear of losing a Sikh to another religion then let me remind those Sikhs that in the Guru Granth Sahib it says that there is more than 1 path to God. Equality as talked about in the Guru Granth Sahib refers to equality of all mankind. Guru Granth Sahib's teachings on caste/creed/race equality do not apply to the Indian subcontinent alone.

5. Why do Sikhs continue to use their surnames or list their caste names as surnames when all Sikhs have been instructed to use just "Singh" and "Kaur" ?

6. Did Guru Nanak Sahib ever claim to be a messenger of God or in contact with God ? How do we know that what he said was true or not ? How do we know that he was not just reforming Hinduism by mixing in some islamic elements ?

7. What proof is there that what Guru Nanak Sahib preached was the word of God ? Was it merely blind faith of Indians who will believe in anything ?

8. If Guru Gobind Singh was truly a messenger of God then why would he cry and feel sad when the Sahibzadas were killed? His own message says to not get attached to worldly things. If he truly were a messenger of God he would have given his own life to save others in the same way Jesus Christ did much earlier.

9. Why has Sikhism not spread outside of Punjab and Punjabis ? Yes, there are some non-punjabis that convert. On the whole the overwhelming majority of Sikhs are Punjabi & most don't follow it. I have found Sikhism to be too ritualistic, rigid and unreal of a religion to live with in the year 2004.

10. Why is haircutting not allowed? Please give a proper reason.

11. Why is Kosher meat not allowed to be eaten by Sikhs? Again I want a proper answer.

12. Why is there no reference to Jesus Christ in Guru Granth Sahib ? If ever there was a prophet to have a legitimate claim to being a messenger of God it is Jesus Christ.

13. How can Guru Granth Sahib be regarded as the "word of God" when all of it's contents are just 1 big compilation of holy men with the same ideology ? There are some like Bhagat Kabir who has some of his baani in Guru Granth Sahib and the other half of his baani is not included.

14. Why is there so much importance placed on the Gurus themselves? They are not God. Sikhs all over the world have pictures of the Gurus & often worship those pictures.

15. What is the position of Sikhism on gays and gay marriage ?

16. What is the position of Sikhism on Abortion ?

17. If Sikhism is indeed not just another sect of Hinduism then why does the Dasam Granth in the words of Guru Gobind Singh claim it to be ?

18. Why are there gurdwaras which are only there for specific castes ? Shouldn't gurdwaras be open to all?

19. Why did Guru Gobind Singh (As stated in his own words in Dasam Granth) worship such Hindu gods like: Ram, Bhavani Devi, Sun God and demigod Inder ? This sounds very hypocritical. On the one hand his message is of One god and on the other he worships multiple incarnations of God .

20. If Sikhism truly believes that there is more than 1 path to God then why do Sikhs get upset at others who leave Sikhism for other religions out of their own free choice? It is simply a matter of choice.

If any of you have the answers please let me know.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Jee Ke Fateh!