harbans wrote:
Meanwhile was scouring the net, and there seems to be a pretty good response from Americans in general to this article. There's a forum where the discussion has gone to 30 pages..
This article described postmodern thought...and not specifically Hinduism.
The whole "what is right for you is right for you, what is right for me is right for me" idea is flawed at the core. We can dress it up however we like, but it's all the same. "There is NO absolute Truth" is the essential truth.
Evangelical Christians (white, and other races too...it's petty to use race as a defining factor in an article like that imho, but I digress) believe in an absolute Truth - a plumbline by which we measure all else. This is why Christianity is hated by so many. There mere act of believing the Bible is an assault on other beliefs.
The public schools teach postmodern thought at every turn. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes not. This, more than differences of opinion in science and history, is the reason so many Christians pull their kids out. The *Worldview* is as different as night and day. The stats are no suprise to me.
My dh is 10 years older than I (I'm 35). He hates wearing his seatbelt. I Always put mine on, usually before I even start the car. I recycle, he does, but only b/c I get on him .
My point? I believe it's b/c of what we learned in school. His generation wasn't taught, aka brainwashed, to do either; however when I was in school, both of those things were pushed at every opportunity. As was tolerance and unity amongst cultures. I can't count how many times I was shown the kids from different nations, standing in circles, holding hands with big old smiles on their faces.
Now, the examples I gave are not bad things, but I use them to point out how in ps I was showered and showered by a certain agenda and much of it stuck.
With the influence of all the things I mentioned earlier in this post, I'm not surprised at all of the swing in the Universalism direction.
I think the Hindu thing is a red herring, as of course, these views are not Hindu, per se, even if they have something in common with Hinduism.
It seems like three possibilities are being raised here.
1. It's the current political correctness: I'm okay, you're okay.
2. It's the reality of living in a multi-cultural, multi-faith society. If you have good neighbors who are Muslim/Jewish/Agnostic, it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that they may, in fact, be spending the afterlife in hell.
3. It's a religious shift similar to what happened ~1800, where universalism is on the rise vis a vis other flavors of Christianity. Much of the 20th Century was about the rise of evangelical Christianity and maybe this is a reaction. (Of course, that could still leave #1 partially responsible for causing this shift.)
Abdul Kalam is the former president of India, the head of state of the world's most populous functioning democracy. A national poll picked Kalam as "India's Best President." He is also a Muslim, and a renowned Indian patriot. As a scientist and aeronautical engineer, he played an important role in developing India's missile technology, and his work was seen by his compatriots as a valuable contribution towards enhancing India's national security. However, his stature, and even Indian airport security protocols that exempt dignitaries from being frisked, did not exempt the personnel from Continental Airlines from doing just that, as he prepared to board his flight to the United States.
What the former president of India had to endure is apparently not an isolated incident, but rather reflective of a pattern. Another recent example has sparked deep outrage in India.
The Indian community in Chicago invited one of the leading actors from India to participate in the windy city's India Independence Day parade. He is Shah Rukh Khan, known as the "King of Bollywood." However, he might as well have been King Canute, as far as the INS personnel at Newark International Airport were concerned. He was detained and subjected to humiliating treatment. It seemed that he was going to be forbidden entry into the United States, until the Indian consul general intervened.
When published in the 1960s, this book had a revolutionary effect on our understanding of the American Revolution. Its impact is undiminished by the passage of the last 40 years. Bailyn's scholarship and exposition remains as exciting as it must have been at the time of initial publication. Bailyn attempted to take a fresh look at the thinking of the individuals who made the Revolution. His work was based on an extensive survey and analysis of the large number of political pamphlets published in the years leading up to the revolution. His work benefited as well greatly from a number of other significant works of scholarship, such as Caroline Robbins' book on the Commonwealth tradition in 18th century thought. More than anything else, Bailyn succeeded in determining what key terms like 'power', 'liberty', and republicanism meant to the Revolutionary generations. In doing so, he was able to strip away anachronistic accretions from these terms and ideas and recover the actual thinking of the Revolutionaries and their opponents.
Bailyn's achievement is manifold. He was able to show that dominant intellectual influence on the Revolutionaries was a compound of classical models, Common Law legal tradition, Enlightenment ideology, covenant theology, and a strong tradition of British intellectual and political dissent that had its roots in the Commonwealth period of the 17th century. The latter tradition was especially important and acted as the binding matrix for other traditions and interpretative lens through which other received ideas were focused. Bailyn shows how these ideas were articulated in the specifically American context and how they led inevitably to confrontation with the expanding imperial authority of Britain. This conflict led to new expansions of the basic ideology, some of which would represent completely novel ideas. The traditional ideas of representation and consent, constitutional basis of society, and sovereignty were overthrown and replaced to a very large extent by the concepts we still uphold.
The development of these new ideas and the necessity to give them practical scope would lead to what Bailyn artfully termed "The Contagion of Liberty"; the expansion of concepts of rights and freedom well beyond the original categories of thought received by the Revolutionary generations. These would include attacks on slavery, the questioning of establishment of religion, speculation about democracy as a legitimate and potentially stable form of government, and an increasing emphasis on social equality generated from the realization of political equality. As Bailyn remarks, the thinking and writing on these topics provides the bridge between the world of the 18th century intellectuals and what would become the world of Madison and de Toqueville.
Bailyn's analysis and scholarship are superb. The organization and quality of writing in this book are outstanding. Just as important, Bailyn is very good at supporting his analysis with well chosen excerpts from contemporary political pamphlets. His judicious choice of quotations not only serves to support his conclusions but gives a fine idea of the words and thoughts of the Revolutionaries and their opponents.
This is a fundamental book for understanding the American past.
This work is a classic. Bailyn brilliantly traces the ideological background of the revolutionaries. He shows how they were steeped in the radical libertarian and republican opposition literature of 17th and 18th century England. He overturms traditional interpretations that stress Locke as the primary influence by demonstrating the vital importance of such men as Algernon Sidney, John Milton, John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, Lord Bolingbroke, and a host of others. Despite this, Bailyn does not deny the centrality of Locken natural rights philosophy, as many more recent scholars have. He sees the basic philosophy behind the revolution as one which views power as the eternal enemy of liberty. Power must be watched and restrained tightly, otherwise it will exceed its bounds and bring about the end of liberty and the initiation of slavery. He also delves into various issues relating to this philosophy that surrounded the break from Great Britain as well, including the unsettling consequences of their revolutionary agenda(e.g. new views of slavery). In the revised edition of the work, Bailyn extends his analysis to the new U.S. Constitution. Contrary to many other scholars, Bailyn maintains that the new Constitution did not represent a repudiation of the Revolution, but rather, its fulfillment. I myself am still a bit skeptical concerning this point, but his scholarship is sound, and his reasoning is suggestive and challenging. Above all, I would have to say that this work is an absolute *must* for any individual who is interested in early-American history or political philosophy. Moreover, it is also very instructive for liberty loving Americans, as it reveals the nature of the truly radical libertarian foundations of our nation.
John Snow wrote:Every time you buy Bollywood DVD/VCD in Jackson Heights or in NJ you know its going to awood bahi period.
olorin wrote:John Snow wrote:Every time you buy Bollywood DVD/VCD in Jackson Heights or in NJ you know its going to awood bahi period.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4916759,prtpage-1.cms
Sorry if already posted, but the truth is eventually coming out; about why SRK was questioned intensively.
All the South Asian bonhomie is just a camouflage for hidden Baki sympathies.
harbans wrote:http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1149065#post1149065
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harbans wrote:http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1149065#post1149065
. Agree with JE Menon's assessment of soccer mom central. 
(fjs93 @ Aug 19 2009, 05:36 PM) *
As soon as I read this...:
"there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal."
...I stopped.
Jesus saith unto Him,"I am the Way,the Truth,and the Life,no man commeth unto the Father but by Me."
Shame you didn't read the very next sentence in the article.
Jesus saith unto Him,"I am the Way,the Truth,and the Life,no man commeth unto the Father but by Me."
Code: Select all
Vedanta will interpret it as "I" as the Self/Atman/Soul. And, since all Saints (no matter which faith) are Self Realized, it really does not matter, The Christ being one of them. Thus one of the Paths.harbans wrote:
But from the conversation what i gather is they did'nt realize all these years of yoga fads and rationalism, they were really turning Dharmic all the while. This article has found great readership all over, not only in the US. While no one is saying it will actually convert folks to Hinduism, what it certainly will do is bring a greater focus to Hindisms basic tenets amongst not just intellectuals but common Americans who previously did'nt see Hinduism in this light and assumed it on the basis of Wend Donginers and Witzels portraals of fringe exotic exceptions. Reminds me of a Chinese Ambassador to the UN..India counquered China without having to send a single soldier over her borders..
(where I stand{s} for Intellect {not me} 
)
Hari Seldon wrote:Very true. Listen to Sri Krishna talk to Arjuna when showing him the VishwaRupa. The words on paper come across as supremely egotistic and arrogant only - until you realize it's not Krishna but the Universe itself speaking.
ramana wrote:Acharya, There was book on yoga that you brought to a BRF mtg.
The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."
Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."
asprinzl wrote:I am all for all religions including Hinduism as long as it is not the Deepak Chopra kinda new age Hinduism. He, if successful would pacify Americans so well that they all would be marching in unison in their trancedental happiness head long into the Islamic/Jihadi death chambers like cattle.
Avram
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. That video cracked me up. LoL those dumb girls has absolutely no clue about ethnicity or geography, its quite hilarious. Umm yea an "Indian is when an african and an asian have a baby" out of this world.harbans wrote:Actually she did pretty well. Clearly she did'nt counter insult Christianity. She tried in her own way saying 'One God many paths'. And towards the end when they hold hands she to their dismay says she thought of Krishna. What is clearly evident that the upbringing of Sara is less bigotted than Molly and her 'regular' friend. This was an attack on 'faith', albeit a minor one. In the end she walks off on them. She was initially taken aback and felt very uncomfortable but comes off as tolerant and non appeasing. I agree that parents must inculcate values and knowledge about core doctrine, such that their children can possess 'tools' to ward off such 'assaults'.
Viv Sreenivasan wrote:She should have tried to convert those two bitches to hinduism.
harbans wrote:Actually she did pretty well. Clearly she did'nt counter insult Christianity.
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