Randip ji, and other jios!
In order to make any sense of this I had to put the sexual elements of the debate to one side. Calling attention a person's character or his lack of education, in order to undermine his/her argument, is a form of logical fallacy called argumentum ad hominem. Evidence of low character tells us that a person has a low character. Evidence of low character does not shed light on whether or not his/her argument is supportable in evidence or in logic. Lack of education does not necessarily impair the ability to think clearly.
My own position on this is not objective either. I am suggesting that KA was picking at some assumptions believed by him to be baseless -- his motivations are unclear to me at this time. To date he has managed to rile a lot of people up, managed to get himself excommunicated (which probably doesn't bother him, again one has to imagine why), and achieved this by throwing a long list of allegations into the arena, none of which strike at the core of the Sikh religion. If you don't agree with me on that last point, just for the moment indulge me. My question is: why did he bother?
He is not going to find much in SGGS to support each and every one of his points independently. A handful of tuks. That is all. Similarly his opponents are not going to find much in SGGS to refute him. Even where history can give some arguments some weight, historical evidence doesn't help him either.
Two examples.
Baba Deep Singh Ji's memorial: KA argues against the need for a memorial for Baba Deep Singh Ji where Baba Ji's severed was laid to rest. He refers to this as idol worship. He questions even whether Baba Ji's severed head had fell at that particular place.
This allegation cannot be supported in Gurbani. It can't be refuted in Gurbani either. One has to depend on the oral tradition to support this statement. The oral tradition is a fallible source of evidence in any culture. Even if archaeologists found bones, could they prove they belonged to Baba ji? It doesn't matter. What matters is his conclusion -- idol worship is being promoted. Here KA is himelf drawing a faulty conclusion -- KA has neither evidence nor logic on his side. He is making a claim that suits his agenda or frame of mind-- whatever that is - by attributing motives to people, as if he is a mind reader. Go through the list. There are a number of arguments like this one about Baba Deep Singh ji and his head. In the end, it is the moral of the story about Baba Deep Singh that is a core belief in Sikhism, not Baba's head or where is fell.
This is the one that slays me the most.
Khanday-Batay, Amrit & Mantar: States that the water put in a sarovar or bowl (Khanday-Batay) can never be called Amrit. Nor can anyone blow any Mantar (WaheGuru) in water and turn it into anything powerful (Amrit). He credits the Brahmans for creating such a belief.
Imagine that I am waiting quietly during the amrit ceremony for my turn to be baptized. I am nervous, I don't know how I will react, I want to feel the force of the Naam enter my heart. But in the back of mind I have this doubt. Maybe KA is right. Maybe the ceremony is based on a incredible belief. Would this really stop me dead? And would I run out of the ceremony thinking, WoW I have just narrowly escaped from the trap of Hindu thought and saved my intellectual integrity? Of course not. All of this is hypothetical in my case, but of course I would not react this way. Who else would run away once he/she was now aware of KA's claim? The only person to run away would be the person missing the real point of the amrit ceremony. If panj pyaare did not use this ritual they would use another ritual. And ritual is important for symbolic reasons -- ritual conveys the spiritual content of an event, it solemnizes the event. The mantar was chosen because of its spiritual content.
So I was trying to be very responsible in thinking through KA's points. Trying to find historical support and support from Gurmat (or lack of support in Gurmat) when it finally hit me -- I might agree with him about something in fact or theory, but his arguments are only theoretically interesting. He is toying with people.
