Mumbai girl arrested for Facebook post

Wikipedia lists "western" examples because western canon is very well documented, and this documentation is reliable and extensive enough to quote from.

My readings of Indian history have led me to accept that the freedom of thought and speech have existed, formally and legally, for at least a thousand years - particularly, read up on the times of Asoka's rule.

Also, long before Europe became civilized, Indian society (Hinduism) had freedom of speech [1].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akeA0EvLEbs

Freedom of speech was ubiquitous feature of Hinduism.

Yes, there are arguments in the Western canon, but when Milton argues for freedom of expression in the Areopagitica, or Mill in On Liberty, they don't argue that you should support free speech because you're a Westerner. They don't make any special appeals to anyone's cultural situation. They make arguments that have universal application.

When you employ reasoning to advocate a principle, it does not become a territorial principle. It becomes applicable pending counterargument from anyone.

The argument that reasoning itself is a uniquely Western idea quickly becomes self-defeating. Anyone asserting anything has volunteered to follow certain logical rules of coherency, which have been derived in the West through observation, not proscription.

Demanding that others be silent, while you alone can speak, tends towards absurdity regardless of the continent upon which you happen to stand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy_in_India

There are clearly different laws that apply to different religious groups when it comes to polygamy and other, as you say, family or civil laws.

I wasn't trying to say that the entire legal system in India is bifurcated (multifurcated? =P) along religious lines. I was just pointing out that while the American legal system attempts to exclude religion from the law (to varying degrees of success), Indian tradition includes laws which take into account various religious traditions and customs.

It's just a different way of treating the issue of freedom of religion in the legal system.

The question is not "what role does religion fulfil", but rather, "if religion wasn't there, would things have been better?". Because, e.g. many recreational drugs ALSO provide values, hope, and guidance (on one hand), and some religions like Mormonism and Scientology also provide them, but apparently forbid leaving them (read about excommunicating in either) to the point that I find unacceptable in a society.

Disregarding the obstacle of definition of religion vs. e.g. cult vs. value system[1], my opinion would be, based on observing mostly-religious states vs. mostly-secular states (like Sweden and Norway), would be that value provided by religion is a net negative.

[1] if you insist, I will say that beleief X is a religion iff there's a government of a country with >10M residents that accepts it as a religion for the purpose of its law. Specific definition is immaterial - they will all coincide for 99% of the population, and will have essentially no effect in the grand scheme of things.

Seriously... Do you forget what was responsible for spreading education so rapidly around the world (give you a hint, it wasn't atheists).

There are a number of religions that are founded in rationality, and large components of others that are pure rationality. Just because you don't believe in (a) G/god doesn't mean you aren't religious. Just because you believe in a G/god doesn't mean you are irrational.

So if you already have a totalitarian state (see Shah Iran) bringing in religion will make it worse, not better (the current mullah Iran).

Sadly, I don't see any good perspectives. In rich countries, the main voting power belongs to people of considerable age. And they don't use much freedoms therefore freedom is not a selling point for politicians; medical care and pensions are.

And in poorer countries you can always band together enough Red Guards to establish a totalitarian theocraty if you don't have one already.