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Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
I think it is very likely that Penguin simply counted the beans and decided that continuing to fight this was not worth the expense, even if they were eventually vindicated in court. It's like a war of attrition where even if you can win eventually, the amount of sheer numbers of men and materiel you need to pour in make it not worthwhile.
The controversy has undoubtedly sold quite a lot of copies of the book outside of India to those who might otherwise never have heard of it. Is it "deliberately and maliciously outraging the religious feelings" of Hindus? If Hindus didn't want to read it, it probably wouldn't sell well in India. It presents an alternative view, but just because some people don't like it doesn't mean that there was any malice or attempt to cause outrage. I understand the intent of these laws, they want to avoid goading conflict between religions. But these laws can have the effect of allowing one faction of a religion enforce orthodoxy upon others. Fortunately, with today's technology, banning a book doesn't stop it, it only promotes the book.
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That's the problem with any such law that would allow criminal or even civil penalties for maligning someones religious beliefs. Self censorship because of legal duress is as much censorship as book burning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Ah, Immanuel Velikovsky. The precursor to Erich Von Daniken. Velikovsky! Whose scientific credentials are second only to the researchers at Answers in Genesis. Velikovsky! Without whose writings we would never have known that 17,000 years ago Jupiter pooped out the planet we know today as Venus.
Sheesh.
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I'm always learning something new from this site. I had never hear of Velikovsky and am now informed. I do recall seeing the film version of Chariot of the Gods in high school. Not thankfully in a science class, but believe it or not in a creative writing class