An attempt to malign our religion by an Islamist in the Article. Can I get good refutations of this man claims?

Question

here is the link of the article. You can use Ctrl+F and use Hindu to find all the stuff he says about our society and our gods.

Some Quotes from the Article

There is a sacred ritual described in Hindu scripture that is so vulgar that Hindu scholars refused to translate it. Later Western academics like Wendy Doniger have provided full translations of the Hindu sacred Veda scriptures that describe this shocking fertility ritual called the Ashvamedha

The ritual begins when a horse is suffocated to death. The king and his four queens walk around the dead horse chanting prayers. The chief-queen recites: ‘O horse, you are, protector of the community on the basis of your good qualities, you are the protector of happiness. O horse, you have become my husband.’ When the prayer is complete, the chief-queen lies down next to the horse. As the priests observe, she pulls the dead horse’s genitalia and puts it into her own. She then recites the sacred prayer: “This horse may release semen into me.” The king then recites another sacred prayer: “O horse, please throw semen on the upper part of the anus of my wife. Expand your penis and insert it in the vagina.” According to the Harivamsa Purana, the Hindu god Indra eventually enters the body of the dead horse to have intercourse with the queen as the king watches.[2] The ritual is complete after the queen spends the whole night with the dead horse’s genitalia inside her, thus ensuring fertility for the Hindu kingdom. In one instance, the mother of Rama is also reported to have participated in this special ritual. You might think that this is a marginal practice in Hinduism, but many sacred Hindu temples — such as the Khajuraho temple in India — depict these acts of bestiality and group sex on their “holy” walls.

In Hinduism, the god Shiva ignorantly decapitated his own son because his wife Parvati had a child without him knowing. That’s the level of ignorance of these gods. So, if a polytheist cheats, steals, lies, murders, and rapes, he won’t have to worry about divine retribution because the gods probably won’t even know about it. This connection between increased dishonesty and polytheism has actually been experimentally proven in numerous studies

In Hinduism, gods like Indra, Krishna, and many others are depicted as serial rapists. The Hindu text Bhavishya Purana describes how the gods Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma, worked together to gangrape Anusuya, a hindu sage’s wife. The Hindu god Kali is often depicted holding a severed head, wearing a necklace of decapitated heads, and dead baby fetus earrings. One Hindu sect, the Aghoris, even to this day give “sexual satisfaction” to goddess Kali by having intercourse with rotten human corpses. In fact, studies show that in countries like India for example, a large percentage of the Hindu population justifies crimes like rape and child sacrifice by appealing to these gods. Look at how much anxiety Hindutva has about Muslims converting and marrying Hindus

Sources used for his claims

1. Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism, Page 16-18. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
2. Harivamsa Purana, Bhavishya Parva 3.5.11-13
3. Talmud, Bava Metzia 59a-b
4. Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief by Justin Barrett, Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood by Olivera Petrovich, A Natural History of Natural Theology: The Cognitive Science of Theology and Philosophy of Religion by Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt ↑
5. The Weirdest People in the World by Joseph Henrich pages 131-146
6. “Religion and Sexual Behaviors: Understanding the Influence of Islamic Cultures and Religious Affiliation for Explaining Sex Outside of Marriage.” By Amy Adamczyk. “Why Muslims are the world’s fastest-growing religious group.” Pew Research Center. “The Future Global Muslim Population.” Pew Research Center. “Are Muslims Distinctive? A Look at the Evidence.” Pg 109-131, By M. Steven Fish. “Key findings: How living arrangements vary by religious affiliation around the world.” Pew Research Center. “Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion – Revisited.” By Ronald Inglehart. “The relationship between suicide and Islam: a cross-national study.” By Ajit Shah, Mahmood Chandia

Answer 1

The Islamist article peddles standard attacks on Hinduism. Let me discuss the article one by one.

1. Asvamedha yajna

Aśvamedha (‘[that in which] a horse is immolated’)

Aśvamedha is one of the most ancient, but major, sacrifices mentioned in the Vedic literature. It is mentioned in the Ṛgveda (1.162; 163) and described in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (13.1-5) and the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (3.8.9). It derives its name from the fact that an ‘aśva’ or a horse is made the ‘medha’ or animal for immolation. Only emperors and very powerful kings who desired sovereignty could afford to perform it. It belongs to the ‘Ahīna’ group of Soma sacrifices, i.e., Soma sacrifices in which Soma is pressed for more than one day; and, this can be from two to twelve days.

The rite begins on the 8th or 9th day of the bright half of the month of Phālguna, when the horse, which must be all white in colour with dark spots, is bound, bathed and consecrated near the fire. The animal is then let off to wander about at will for a year, guarded by an escort of four hundred armed men, including one hundred princes. The kings or chieftains of the places which the horse enters, should either accept the sovereignty of the sacrificer and pay contributions or tie up the horse and face an armed conflict. In case the challenger wins, the sacrifice will get nullified. Even the death or disease of the horse will result in the same and the sacrificer will have to restart the whole process with a new horse. Meanwhile the sacrificer is expected to perform a number of rites everyday, during the period the horse is away.

After the successful completion of the expedition and the return of the horse, the regular rites of the sacrifice commence. It is a Soma sacrifice of three days’ duration. The horse is immolated on the second day, along with a number of other victims, wild and tame, from the elephant to the bee. Before the carcass of the horse is cut up, the chief queen lies down beside it (by way of fertility spell) while an obscene dialogue between the priests and the other women of the king’s harem is enacted. Before the offering of the omentum, ‘brahmodya’ riddles (theological dialogues where questions and riddles are propounded and answered) are proposed and solved. The concluding bath (avabhṛtha-snāna) takes place on the third day.

The sacrifice involves many subordinate rites and large quantities of gifts are given away to the priests and others.

Though long lists of kings who had performed the Aśvamedha have been given in the Vedic works already referred to, the sacrifice itself seems to have become rare even by the time of these works, since they call it as ‘utsanna’ (‘gone out of vogue’). It appears to be a curious mixture of popular religions, tribal and symbolical elements, inextricably mixed up and a remnant of a hoary past.

During the period of recorded history, Puṣyamitra Śuṅga (2nd cent. B. C.), Samudragupta (4th cent. A. D.) and some Cālukyan kings of South India seem to have performed it. The last one to perform it was Jaya Siṁha II of Jaipur in the 18th century.

A Concise encyclopedia of Hinduism by Swami Harshananda

This yajna has an element of fertility rite. At one time fertility rites were popular all over the world but now have almost entirely disappeared. The last such yajna was done three centuries ago and only super powerful Kings and not ordinary Hindus used to do it. The Islamists are flogging a dead horse in their eagerness to bash Hinduism.

2. Decapitation of Ganesha

Read my answer to this question: Why didn't Lord Shiva realize that he was beheading his own son?

I don't want to repeat my answer. The beheading didn't happen. So the conclusion drawn that polytheists cheat etc. because gods won't know about it is to be rejected with scorn.

3. On gods raping

(a)Indra is a post and is a jiva holding this post. Indra is not god.

(b) The Bhavisya Purana story about gods trying to rape Anusuya and Anusuya turning them into babies is obviously not an actual event. No Jiva can turn Shiva, Vishnu or Brahma into babies. The story is about the power of chastity. Taking this story so literally would be missing the point.

(c) Kali's iconography has been discussed here by me: Why is goddess Kali shown topless?

(d) Aghoris don't do anything for Kali's sexual satisfaction. It is just straightforward slander and calumny. Aghoris deal with corpses to destroy their desire for the world. I am surprised that this Islamist is criticizing Aghoris for allegedly having sex with dead bodies. There are Muslim clerics who say that Islam allows one to have sex with a dead spouse. Check the following news: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Egypts-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-DEAD-wives-branded-completely-false.html

(e) The claim that a large percentage of Hindu population supports rape and child sacrifice due to these stories is slander and calumny.

(f) There is no link between Hindutva fear about Muslims converting and marrying Hindus with the above stories.

Polytheist

The Islamist keeps talking about Hindus as polytheists. That is obviously not true but is to be expected from a certified slanderer.