Stupid religious behavior for the day

The BBC has an article about carrying religious beliefs too far:

A fifty-year-old man in northern India has been killed in a mob lynching, allegedly over rumors that his family had been storing and consuming beef at home.
Mohammad Akhlaq (photo) was kicked and beaten with stones by a group of men in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh state.
Akhlaq's twenty-year-old son was also seriously injured in the attack, and has been admitted to a hospital.
Six people have been arrested in connection with the incident. Police are probing who spread the rumor.
Slaughter of cows is a sensitive issue in India, as the animal is considered sacred by Hindus, who comprise eighty percent of the country's billion-plus people.
Uttar Pradesh is among a number of Indian states who have tightened laws banning cow slaughter and the sale and consumption of beef. The beef ban has also provoked outrage, with many questioning how the government decides what is on their plate.
Akhlaq's family said the family had stored mutton, and not beef, in their fridge. The police have taken the meat and sent it for testing, reports said.
"Some locals spread rumors that Akhlaq had cow meat at his home and engaged in cow slaughter. Following the rumors, they attacked his home," senior local official NP Singh told The Indian Express newspaper.
Senior police official Kiran S told the AFP news agency that the "announcement about the family consuming beef was made at a local temple".
The incident happened in a village, barely thirty miles away from the Indian capital, Delhi, where Akhlaq, a farm worker, lived with his family.
His eighteen-year-old daughter Sajida told the newspaper that a "group of more than a hundfed people from the village" reached the house on Monday night. "They accused us of keeping cow meat, broke down our doors, and started beating my father and brother. My father was dragged outside the house and beaten with bricks," she said. "We had come to know later that an announcement had been made from the temple about us eating beef. There was some mutton in the fridge. The police have taken it for examination."
Reports said local villagers, protesting against the arrests, had clashed with the police, and damaged a number of vehicles.
Eleven states, including Uttar Pradesh, and two union territories (Federally-administered regions) in India ban slaughter of cows, calves, bulls, and bullocks.

Rico says if you're gonna lynch a guy over a steak, he suggests you do not try it in Texas... (And killing cows is bad, but sheep? No problem...)

There are, of course, people, even in India, with opposing views, as the BBC notes:

Indians expressing outrage that beef has been banned in the state of Maharashtra have generated one of the world's top trending hashtags.
India has a contradictory relationship with beef. It's a secular country where many eat the red meat, but Hindus, who comprise eighty percent of India's population, revere cows, leading many parts of India to place restrictions on beef. But ever since Maharashtra, one of the country's largest states, with Mumbai as its capital, imposed an especially stringent beef ban, the hashtag #BeefBan has soared up Twitter's trending charts. It has become one of the most used terms on the network across the world, appearing more than twenty thousand times in less than 24 hours.
Much of the conversation was critical of the decision, and tweets laced with sarcasm appeared in abundance. "Eat what we tell you to eat. Watch what we tell you to watch. Wear what we tell you to wear. Don't complain. We are a democracy. #BeefBan," was a typical example. Others used it to flag what they saw as hypocrisy in the decision. "Now ban all these please," another said, posting a picture of all the products in which cattle are used.
Some made dark jokes to highlight other social problems facing the country, like the series of high profile rape cases. "Good to know a cow can now step out after dark and wear what she likes," wrote comedian Neeti Palta.
The overwhelming weight of opinion expressed on social media was in opposition to the ban. That may suggest that liberal voices are more dominant online, however, not that the decision is unpopular. Most tweets were published in the urban areas around Mumbai and New Delhi. Still, a distinct segment of the conversation did show support for the move. "As a Hindu, I fully support #BeefBan. Killing or instigating to kill any living creature is a sin," said one tweet. Indeed, vegetarians calling for the ban to be extended to other animals joined the debate in numbers.
Discussion of the ban dominated Reddit's India subforum, making up the top four discussion topics. Humor seemed to be the order of the day. "In addition to a weed guy and booze guy, I now have to find a beef guy?" said one comment.