Bharat Rakshak

Agnimitra

RoyG, thank you for your clarifications. What does a "right" have to do with dharma? Ethics I can understand. Obviously, rights and responsibilities are the subject of ethics, and ethics is a subject under Dharma. Everything else is what I'm essentially saying. Ok, some might have got the ...

Agnimitra

1) You assert that we are a polytheistic society. This is the worst. (Poly)theists state the following: There is the self, and there are divine being(s) external to it. Dharma on the other hand posits the following: The self is an illusory manifestation of the ultimate reality (consciousness). Ther...

Agnimitra

Infact, your support for Indic Monotheism would have been accused of being some kind of EJ conspiracy. Now, I can appreciate why you changed your ID. Well, I changed my ID to protect against others not on this forum, since I regularly mingle with EJ's, Muslims, outside, and sometimes discreet is be...

Agnimitra

Secularism is to Christianity as voltage stabilizers are to India. Haha, good one! The tense balance between secular and religious in the West, or classical (science + 'pagan' philosophy) and sacred, is completely unnecessary in India where there is a completely different historical experience and ...

Agnimitra

Nice thoughts, RoyG ji. Philosophy of jurisprudence is intrinsically related to worldview of the here and transcendent.

Agnimitra

>>It remains true that the guild system is what prevailed/became widespread in Europe as it emerged from its dark ages. Very true. For instance the Dutch East India Company (VoC) was a guild-driven enterprise. I was at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam earlier this year when they had an exhibition of th...

Agnimitra

Presumably, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the entry of Europe into its dark ages, European micro-infrastructure was largely destroyed. Was it somehow different from the destruction of Indian civilization so that some other mechanism of preserving residual knowledge could prevail? Or di...

Agnimitra

^^^ Who said anything about "best"? If we keep arguing about "best", etc., we're not going to get anywhere. Can we get to an objective discussion without value judgements? Let's understand the "system" or "systems" or "jungle (no system)" first, wha...

Agnimitra

What the table suggests to me, with its super-specializations, is that jati was a way of conserving knowledge, especially practical knowledge. There were no institutions in the ancient world where one could go to learn about, e.g., grain wholesale trade, not just the methods, but all the contacts f...

Agnimitra

Cross post Now, caste system is a weakness for any religion, but organized monotheistic creeds can minimize the effects of this weakness to some extent. On the other hand, caste system is a fatal flaw for a polytheistic, unorganized, and multi-linguistic society. BRF has been embracing a well infor...

Agnimitra

Ramana garu, another observation in support of my schema. When Xi visited India shortly after Modi's election, to talk about investments and trade... at the very same time, PLA troops were staging yet another incursion in Himachal. WTF? I mean... what sense does that make, right? Why would you be l...

Agnimitra

Have you had a strange feeling about the nature of the J&K separatist movement lately? I feel it has taken a turn away from the old path of overt Islamization (which had bad-PR associations, given the kind of publicity Taliban, Pakiban and Al Qaeda garnered for themselves over the last 15 years...

Agnimitra

Rudradev ji, if Iran's interest is with Russia's carrot to China and against the alternative US-guaranteed carrot via Af-Pak, then what explains Iran's pipeline overtures to Pak? Perhaps Iran has also been exploring a possible stake in both carrots as each one grows? For the foreseeable future, tha...

Agnimitra

And another thing. People here want "visible" action. I was not alive at the time of the '71 war but I know some forum-ites certainly were. I would like to ask them for their recollections: at the time we were arming, training and deploying the Mukti Bahini, was this involvement widely tr...

Agnimitra

So if we do mapping where among the different scripts would Tocharian fit? Its not Brahmi or Nagari aka curly/wurly! Agnimitra? And can someone compare to Tibetan? It is similar in many ways to the Siddham script , which was widely exported to N.E. Asia, and is currently found on some shrines in Ja...

Agnimitra

X-post from Out-of-India thread: Wendy Doniger to speak in Hyderabad The timing of the visit is interesting. Univ. of Hyderabad is still burning. They've brought in Kanhaiyya and co. Added: The organizers are leveraging one varsity with another. A section of Hyderabadi Muslims is stepping in. Useful...

Agnimitra

FYI - Interesting that Ted Cruz chose Iran war supporter Frank Gaffney as top foreign policy advisor. Gaffney once claimed that President Obama is Muslim, said Hillary was associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and that Iran was very much involved in 9/11. His think tank has been allied with the Me...

Agnimitra

Wendy Doniger to speak in Hyderabad The timing of the visit is interesting. Univ. of Hyderabad is still burning. They've brought in Kanhaiyya and co. Added: The organizers are leveraging one varsity with another. A section of Hyderabadi Muslims is stepping in. Useful to follow such events to see th...

Agnimitra

Honestly, the Caliphate is nothing but Pakistan redux... created by the same powers, for the same reasons, serving the same geostrategic purposes, using the same Sunni Islamist philosophy. GD and UB ji, there is only a very thin and porous border between the Caliphate becoming India's or Pakistan's...

Agnimitra

Seriously. An ISIS Caliphate located on the Mediterranean-facing half of West Asia, and looking Westward in their ambitions for the most part, is a huge problem for whom exactly? Is it a greater problem for us than Bakistan and its various contents currently present? Does it add in some significant...

Agnimitra

How are the Hazaras treated in Afghanistan? Do they feel kinship to Kabul or Tehran? Very hardcore Shi'a, so religious affiliation with Tehran, but strong identification with their position in the Afghan mosaic - though educated Hazaras will often say, 'Earlier (premodern times) borders had no mean...

Agnimitra

There is growing Saudi influence in India too. The upcoming Modi visit also envisages some close Saudi institution building in India. That should be discouraged. I thought Saudi funds to India were being diverted from building high-walled madrassahs to DMIC and other urban projects. Wasn't this the...

Agnimitra

It may be a complete waste of effort on my part, but I am convinced that even a little bit helps, they go home and talk to their spouses and their relatives, the word is bound to spread, albeit slowly. Whether it will change the world in any way, I doubt it, but I am damned if I am going to just si...

Agnimitra

Peregrine wrote:Further developments in the Land of the Pure and Home of the Terrorists

Did Aamir Liaquat accidentally defend secular democracy?

Naturally, he is defending his Ahmedi-killing Shi'a fanatics against the rule of the majority Ahmedi-killing Sunni fanatics.

Agnimitra

My objection is to give these things more importance than they deserve, considering we don't get any reciprocity from these people. arshyam ji, understood. The rest of the fault is their own faulty education system. I was watching a film on the McCain-Palin campaign last night, and the good lady co...

Agnimitra

^ I suppose we as Indians are supposed to be aware of every damn shyte that happens in Europe. But no one gives a fig's leaf about similar issues in India when things happen The way these attacks will shift public opinion and affect political shenanigans in Europe and the US will have a direct bear...

Agnimitra

Bangladesh confirms first case of Zika virus

Agnimitra

Europe offers deal to Turkey to take back migrants Several sticking points were holding up the effort to reach agreement with Turkey. The Turks, for instance, are demanding at least 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion), but a draft of the European offer simply repeats an early pledge to give half that am...

Agnimitra

Saudi Arabia proposes NATO like military alliance of Muslim states under Pak leadership http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world-saudi-arabia-proposes-nato-like-military-allaince-of-muslim-states-319477 Historical template: 'Slave mercenary' moving up to gradually take over as new dynasty. Demographic...

Agnimitra

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/14/christian-persecution-by-hindus-rises-in-india-say-humanitarian-groups.html Part of "Christian charity" goes to organizations set up specifically to "document" narratives of Christian persecution and 'martyrdom' around the world. These pai...

Agnimitra

^^ 'Hell' = 0 is wrong. Words like 'Sheol', etc refer to different echelons of hell.

Agnimitra

sanjaykumar wrote:I am sure I am missing the point but Fear and Trembling is theology rouged at the window tempting philosophy, to use kierkegaard's own words.

Yep, just as math ultimately yields to philosophy via the many logico-philosophical half-leaps to unfold its own subjects.

Agnimitra

Some insights into how a particular stream of thought among American 'social engineers' factors different religions (among other things) into some Hegelian view of cycles of socio-historical evolution. Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1814 I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, ...

Agnimitra

Your post, albeit interesting, is Wissenschaftlehre more than empiricism. Philosophically maybe, but with an intent set on political realism. By invoking the ideal, one can rearrange the real. You also ignored the empirical evidence from meeting and knowing a higher proportion of people of Christia...

Agnimitra

i have the utmost admiration for post Christian westerners. They are truly evolved human beings. The reality indeed is that bible thumpers are increasingly outed as anachronistic and absurd. This is a view from a self-created bubble, IMHO. In terms of numbers, at least in the US, the proportion of ...

Agnimitra

Useful to observe the way different denominations within Christianity also evolve, realign, etc. Specifically, the dynamics between Western Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox (Russia, etc).

The Ligonier Meeting...

...is an example of attempted deracination and grafting.

Agnimitra

The historical record of 'universal' monotheisms is ample and clear. Let them explain and justify the barbarisms exhorted by their deities; pagans await explication. No point in awaiting apologies of course. That is good for the usual tu tu main main. They mention untouchability, you mention their ...

Agnimitra

With Christianity all but wiped out in the West, conversions have reached their peak in India. Christianity is far from "all but wiped out in the West". This is a mistake many Hindutva-vadis make. In fact, the West is at a point where the pendulum is poised to swing back, at least in cert...

Agnimitra

"The curious rebirth of Zoroastrianism in Iraqi Kurdistan"

http://projects21.com/2015/11/26/the-cu ... kurdistan/

Agnimitra

^^that's weird, must be some block from the US side? Am pretty sure the MEA does not put such limitations itself. But yes, ironic indeed. You are right. Cultiral content being published by MEA is being blocked by the US on YouTube. Tweeted here https://twitter.com/Parikramah/status/661257454907465728

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