Dr Kharshiing reminded the Prime Minister that beef-eating has always been the traditional food habit of the tribals of Meghalaya. If a ban is imposed on the slaughter of cows, it will disrupt their way of life.
yes, my apologies about the earlier rant on IT/Vity issues ... when the rubber hits the road, our "religious concerns" about a constant availabity of liquor is supreme ...vina wrote:Ah.. Alon ji.. We really are kindred souls.
All wine shops are closed in NYC on Sundays as well.. That bothered me into a rage as well. We are not talking of hard liquor .. but just wine like say a cabernet or a shiraz.
I can see the trials and tribulations that you have undergone are making you to express rehearsed claims of lack of torture ... My heart bleeds for your suffering ... Be brave ... these Christian Tyrants will ultimately be defeated ... Believe in your Faith ... Alcohol is superior to some Christian Silliness ...Of course, the Sunday liquor ban is for purely secoolar reasons onlee.
careful there .. the Christian Government is watching ... be vewy careful ...Nothing at all to do with the flock of faithful to herded into the Sunday church and not be drunk while listening to the services ..Nothing at all I tell you.. In God we trust of course.
Several states in India on the other hand, eat beef and enjoy it too. Kerala and the north-eastern states have a large number of beef-eaters.
Should one eat an animal that a substantial chunk of the population considers as sacred?
The answer to that would depend on whom you ask. There are many for whom the answer will be no. Why offend others, especially when there are many other kinds of non-vegetarian food you could eat? Here, I suspect that a sizeable chunk of beef-eating Hindus, Muslims and Christians would not want to eat beef if the question is put to them in this way. However, there are many for whom the question means nothing, as they would either want to eat what they feel like eating. And I am sure there would be some Hindus, Muslims and Christians among them too. I do not know if their numbers would be more than those who would not want to eat beef if it offends someone. What if it is not? If more people would prefer not to offend others by not eating beef, does it mean that diets should be decided by a majority vote? In that case, what if the majority was vegetarian or non-vegetarian and felt offended every time someone would not conform to their ideas? Would someone who would not want to offend the non-beef eaters extend that principle to a choice between vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism?
Should the government of the day decided what should constitute an individual's diet, be it based on religious, or say, health considerations?
....................................
We come back to the same question. If the majority would want a ban, is it right to have one? Does democracy mean majority decisions on everything? What if the majority in one state wants something different from the majority in another? What if the majority wants war, or the majority wants a king?
My personal take on the issue goes thus.
I do not like to offend people. If I were asked nicely enough without the slightest element of a threat, maybe I would stop eating beef. I would like to respect the feelings of Hindus.
However, if the question is whether to have a ban or not, I can state that there is a pretty good chance that I will eat beef. No one should be allowed to dictate what I eat, smoke, drink. Individual freedom wins over sentiment.
Recently on NDTV, Rajdeep Sardesai asked BP Singhal why they do not educate people on the merits of not eating the cow. He said they were doing it. So why not have a ban when there is a consensus on a ban, Rajdeep persisted. There was no clear answer. I have a clear answer. Even if there is a consensus, there should not be a ban. Educate me to hell about the demerits of beef-eating, and I would be happy to listen and make up my own mind.
I think individual rights lead to the well being of society. I also think that death and destruction have always accompanied those that have been defenders of "the greater good of society." There is an implicit elitism involved here, in that a select few believe they know what this greater good is, and since the "greater good" is often intangible, many things can be justified in the name of the "greater good."Does individual rights more important that well being of society?
now you're talking ... welcome to the world of suppressed minoritie of one ... I am impressed that you have lived your life without having experienced it thus far ...Calvin wrote:Alok - If this is a discussion of "majority rules", it is irrelevant how important it is to *me*. Since, by definition, I am a minority of one.
none whatsoever ... if you align with the majority, beg and whine, you will have "rights" ...Given this "majority rules" in order to understand the extent to which the "majority" can "rule", are *any* rights that are inalienable under any circumstance.
At least I know where you stand on this. Now the question is whether you think this is a preferable state of affairs, or not?none whatsoever ... if you align with the majority, beg and whine, you will have "rights" ...are *any* rights that are inalienable under any circumstance?
Please give me your definition of DEMOCRASY. Doesn't ELITISM antithesis to concept of Democracy? Are you one of those who casually say Indian voters are illiterate and hence can be taken for ride by selected few ?I think individual rights lead to the well being of society. I also think that death and destruction have always accompanied those that have been defenders of "the greater good of society." There is an implicit elitism involved here, in that a select few believe they know what this greater good is, and since the "greater good" is often intangible, many things can be justified in the name of the "greater good."
Calvin wrote:At least I know where you stand on this. And now we can respectfully disagree.none whatsoever ... if you align with the majority, beg and whine, you will have "rights" ...
Wrong example. Non-smokers form majority, but they do NOT support robbing the smokers who form minority.what is this "consensus" that you bring up? ... there never is "consensus" in any society ... it is always the tyranny of the majority ... I pay $3 per pack of cigarettes because 68% of the idiots in my state decided that the 32% could be taxed with prejudice .
RM-ji, in California, the majority has voted a few years ago to tax the minority ...Rahul Mehta wrote:Wrong example. Non-smokers form majority, but they do NOT support robbing the smokers who form minority.
Seeing the state mandated reservations in private institutions, it appears that the Supremes cannot always be counted on. Please note that this should have no religious connotations associated with "private". In fact, it is likely that the vast majority of private institutions are "hindu" owned.If these practises are impinging on individual rights such as Life, Property and Practise of faith, will they be curtailed by Indian Constitution?
Only? Surely you jest."Elitism" in Indian voters is only found in section of society which follows "FATWAS"
well, at least now it is an allegory rather than "central" ...Calvin wrote:Alok: The issue of beef still stands, because it is an allegory. You think that the majority should get its way on any issue, and that nothing is protected or inalienable.
OT :Rahul Mehta wrote:Wrong example. Non-smokers form majority, but they do NOT support robbing the smokers who form minority.what is this "consensus" that you bring up? ... there never is "consensus" in any society ... it is always the tyranny of the majority ... I pay $3 per pack of cigarettes because 68% of the idiots in my state decided that the 32% could be taxed with prejudice .
What we are trying to understand here is the elusive concept of "Truth". What is the deepest Truth must necessarily be so always and everywhere. Truth must be an ABSOLUTE Reality. If so, then Absolute Reality can only be defined as that reality which cannot be negated in ANY locus in Space-Time.
Ah.. now you have hit upon the truth. You are right that the majority of "private" institutions are Hindu and certainment.. It sucks to be a minority.. These are not mutually incompatible.Calvin wrote:Seeing the state mandated reservations in private institutions, it appears that the Supremes cannot always be counted on. Please note that this should have no religious connotations associated with "private". In fact, it is likely that the vast majority of private institutions are "hindu" owned.If these practises are impinging on individual rights such as Life, Property and Practise of faith, will they be curtailed by Indian Constitution?
C'est la vie. It sucks to be a minority
So glad you made that comment.CPrakash wrote:Thats because booze outlets (hard likkers like whisky and vodka) in Pennsylvania are run by the state govt and they take a holiday on sundays?Alok_N wrote:[
I was p*ssed no end that I could not buy booze on a Sunday in Pennsylvania ... bothered me to a rage ...
- you could have always bought beer (Which is sold by the pvt outlets onlee)..
What post?CPrakash wrote:
Whats the beefeating population in india? See my post above for an idea.
Why dont we offer horse meat year round and also export it worldwide.Tilak wrote:
Would be correct if the Indian Government, lets the vendors sell for one day in month/year and let people stock up or) let them switch to chicken ?
Unlike other states in India, Travancore (and even Kerala) was in a unique situation, as far as the caste equilibrium was concerned (probably because a large section of keralites were budhists to start with and with the receding budhist influence, they were all lumped in as lower castes). The three so-called upper castes (brahmin, kshathriya, vaishya) were so few in number ( < 10% of the entire population at any point in time) that the king was forced recruit from the lower castes like Nairs for his army.A sizeable part of the Ezhava community, especially in central Travancore and in the High Ranges, embraced Christianity during British rule, fed up with the injunctions of caste system enforced by the Monarchical state. The Ezhava Memorial" was a charter of human rights drafted by the Ezhava community, the endorsement of which by the Travancore State was a condition that they set forth, were they not to convert to Christianity en masse
I have alsways suspected that if people in the US had to slaughter and butcher their own meat they would eat far less of it. We are so removed from the process where it is already portioned, chilled and wrapped in plastic, that we don't even associate it with the animal. I have had to butcher a large animal (deer) and it is not fun work. The smell when you open the body cavity.... Do humans smell like that when they are opened for surgery?shiv wrote:Speaking of cows - part of my public health training in medical college was to visit an abbatoir where we were given a demonstration of how cows were killed so that people could get comfort from the time gap between death and plate and call it meat rather than carrion.Sajan wrote:It is not a "cow thingy", it is a question of individual rights.
Shiv made a comment that people can eat a dead cow instead of resorting to cow-slaughter. I showed an example of what happened to dalits who skinned a dead cow and how the perpetrators have escaped the consequences. In this forum itself, example of raping a woman is being put up as a justification for mob violence in the event of cow-slaughter.
The feet are tied up and the cow is tripped so it is lying on its side.
Every cow has a fold of skin running down its neck from chin to chest. The skin is grasped firmly in one hand and a long knife in the other hand is used to slice "shika-shika-shika" through the skin, muscle. windpipe and arteries.
Once the arteries are cut, profuse bleeding starts and the cow is lying on a slight incline that leads to a gutter into which the enormous pool of blood flows. I suspect that if cow are like humans and have 70 ml blood per Kg - a 400 Kg cow will bleed 28 liters - or two buckets of blood.
The cow kicks about a bit - fruitlessly since the legs are tied and it breathes a bubbly breath trough the cut windpipe before it dies. I believe that halal meat requires that the animal bleeds to death.
After that is is ready for skinning and carving to become your yummy steak. Has anyone actually seen this or done it? It's an amazing experience.
What is this caste equillibriumSajan wrote:
Unlike other states in India, Travancore (and even Kerala) was in a unique situation, as far as the caste equilibrium was concerned (probably because a large section of keralites were budhists to start with and with the receding budhist influence, they were all lumped in as lower castes).
You are right, I was very insensitive to the vegetarian muslims - must be because i havent seen any in my part of the country. maybe there are several in karnataka, but very few in AP. But this one shoe fits all wont work throughout. Some state governments might get away with banning cow slaughter, but not all - certainly in AP you cant.shiv wrote:What post?CPrakash wrote:
Whats the beefeating population in india? See my post above for an idea.
Are you suggesting that 130 milion Muslims eat beef?
I believe you haven't actually spoken to Indian Muslims about their dietary habits.
On a different note - I am fascinated by the subject of "strange bedfellows"
One example is a horde of Muslims and another horde of shiv sainiks violently protesting the male-female liaisons of Valentines day.
All Muslims eat beef therefore you are treading on Muslim rights is another curious creator of "strange bedfellows"
An all muslims eat beef suggestion throws into the dustbin all vegetarian Muslims as well as those Muslims who deliberately do not eat meat. A large number of Muslims are converts in India and retain many cultural characteristics that they had, including the avoidance of beef.
So the sentiment that "seeks to please" Muslims by saying 'Oh I am sure you are upset by a cow slaugther ban" is joining the "Hindoo Fundoos" by dismissing all Muslims as being incapable of retaining any former Hindu cultural characteristics.
Strange bedfellows - like I said.
My point about "faith" is not to claim it is useless. IMO vedanta is based on "experiences" of the upanishadic Rishis. To have a "faith" in those experiences as axioms, and to derive a philosophical system from those experiences taken as axioms is just fine. My objections were to the "scientific-logical" claims.SriKumar wrote:Intriguing. Definitely a line of thought worth pursuing. But all I can say that one has to start somewhere, and if that 'somewhere' is always labled as 'faith' (and by implication, any conclusion drawn from this 'starting point' is irrelevant because it is based on faith), then it becomes a problem to start any discussion, let alone pursue a discussion. It almost seems to suggest that any discussion is useless. But the concept of 'A' denying the subject in himself is definitely intriguing (begs the question: if there is nothing to start from, where do you go from thereKumar wrote:Srikumar, please look at the following example.
May be A can't deny the subject in himself. But B can deny the subject in A. Budhist shunyavAda constructed a logical system denying everything, i.e. everything is shunya, the object, the observer, the observation and even Wikipedia. In that system even A denies the subject in himself.
By positing the undeniable existence of the subject, you are creating an axiom.
"I am" is a great axiom because most people would relate to it. Not that it is not an axiom.
Regarding:S.Valkan wrote: As you folks wish.
I'll try a brief logical explanation WITHOUT the need to take recourse to scriptures.
This may put some to sleep, drive some others to madness. So bear with me.
What we are trying to understand here is the elusive concept of "Truth".
What is the deepest Truth must necessarily be so always and everywhere.
Truth must be an ABSOLUTE Reality.
If so, then Absolute Reality can only be defined as that reality which cannot be negated in ANY locus in Space-Time.
Now, logically, anything in the 'past' is nothing but memory, and anything in the 'future' is nothing but imagination.
They are BOTH contradicted in what is the 'Present' ( NOW).
Similarly, what is NOT here is contradicted HERE.
So, essentially, the ONLY incontrovertible truth is that of the 'immediate present' ( HERE and NOW ).
But what is this 'Present' ?
In one instant, the 'present' will become the 'past'.
So, obviously, the 'Present' is simply ONE instant of experience.
Now, what experience does anyone/anything have in ONE instant that is NEVER contradicted ?
The CONTENT/OBJECT of an experience in one instant is contradicted in the next.
But there is one experience that is NEVER contradicted,- the experience of the existence of the experiencer.
So, the only self-evident ( uncontradictable ) experience is "I AM",- the experience of Existence of the experiencer.
But even my concept of "I" is a matter of a whole lot of axioms, which are all not necessarily self-evident.
'I' can refer to the body(I am tall), senses( I am near-sighted), mind(I am unhappy), intellect(I am successfull) and so on.
So, this "I" is contradicted from one instant to another.
This cannot be the uncontradictable SUBJECT of the experience from instant to instant.
So, what is that uncontradictable 'I' that is the experiencer ?
Since there can be no experience without a Subject ( Experiencer ), and 'I' am the Subject of ALL that I experience at every instant ( if I am not experiencing, WHO is ?), 'I' must be the irreducible SUBSTRATUM of ALL my experience.
So, what is this irreducible substratum ?
The only self-evident, irreducible component of all my experience is "AM", or - more precisely - "IS". ........ Strike 1.
Object IS. Thought IS. Emotion IS.
The 'IS' is ALWAYS present in all experience.
This "IS" is an experience of Existence in general.
Now, what is the difference between Existence and Non-Existence ?
This is the most difficult part to grasp.
Think deeply.
The difference is simply the AWARENESS of Existence.
So, Existence is synonymous and coterminus with Awareness. One cannot be conceived without the other, LOGICALLY. ........ Strike 2.
Now, can there logically be a boundary/limit for Existence ?
If there is such a boundary, it is logically of the nature of Existence too.
So, there can logically be NO LIMIT on Existence.
So, Existence is LIMITLESS. ....... Strike 3.
Now, put all of them together.
Existence/Awareness is Limitless.
So, the uncontradictable experience of the 'Present' is simply that of Existence-Awareness-Limitlessness.
This is logically true for ANY experiencer, and ANY locus of experience.
So, ALL experience of the 'Present' is ultimately of the nature of Existence-Awareness-Limitlessness ( Satyam Jnanam Anantam ).
Now, logically, if only the experience of the 'Present' is the uncontradicted reality in ANY locus, the ABSOLUTE REALITY in ANY locus must be of the nature of Existence-Awareness-Limitlessness.
By definition, Absolute Reality or the "Truth" is "God".
So, the Hindu concept of "God" ( Brahman ) is "Satyam Jnanam Anantam".
Now, since the SUBSTRATUM of ALL my experience is the uncontradictable 'I' ( subject ), and since the Substratum of ALL my experience is Existence-Awareness-Limitlessness, ....
The real 'I' must be Existence-Awareness-Limitlessness as well.
.....
So the real 'I' is non-different from "God" ( Aham Brahman Asmi ).
Just as a Wave is non-different from Water as the underlying absolute reality, although each wave seems to be "different" from each other conceptually as a 'form'.
And this is what the Great Rishis of the Vedas realized 5000+ years ago.
Where would you want to go from where? All is shunya in shunyavAda, including here, there wherever...!But the concept of 'A' denying the subject in himself is definitely intriguing (begs the question: if there is nothing to start from, where do you go from there
Why not a simpler explanation like people from Madurai hounding out Kannagi after she burnt Madurai and was hiding in Kodungallor ?It could be the commomeration of victory over buddhists. Profane songs may have been used to drive out budhist monks from the temple and neighboring monasteries with support from the ruling kings of that era.
And some references and links from Sajan please (other than wikipedia). There are a lot of opinions being expressed by him as history.Acharya wrote:What is this caste equillibriumSajan wrote:
Unlike other states in India, Travancore (and even Kerala) was in a unique situation, as far as the caste equilibrium was concerned (probably because a large section of keralites were budhists to start with and with the receding budhist influence, they were all lumped in as lower castes).
Humans actually don't smell too bad until tissues are rotten from gangrene when the smell is as bad, or worse than a rotting corpse. But the smell of flesh being burned by cautery smells just like meat cooking.TSJones wrote:
I have alsways suspected that if people in the US had to slaughter and butcher their own meat they would eat far less of it. We are so removed from the process where it is already portioned, chilled and wrapped in plastic, that we don't even associate it with the animal. I have had to butcher a large animal (deer) and it is not fun work. The smell when you open the body cavity.... Do humans smell like that when they are opened for surgery?
nice towel .. but no dice ...Johann wrote: Alok,
I think we are talking past one another.
Religion's USP is not just about the ultimate nature/laws of the universe, which of course physics grapples with.
It also spends a lot of effort on the nature of consciousness, the origin of life, etc.
"say" all sorts of crap you like ... but, then when it comes to providing evidence, crap such as yours fails the ultimate tests ...That is why I say those in esoteric physics are not the only scientists who are in a position to comment on various religion's degree of congruency with science.
I would put it as wounded civilization as VS Naipaul says.shiv wrote:
The treatment of Hindus in india is seen by Hindus as somewhat similar to apartheid, except that there is no acknowledgement from the alien forces that entered (Islam and the Church) that such discrimination existed.
As long as that occurs - there will be this sort of battle going on in India, a reflection of which is seen in these threads.
What resurgence Acharya?Acharya wrote:
I would put it as wounded civilization as VS Naipaul says.
It is reclaiming back but modernism has put an entire generation under a 'modern' outlook who are ignoring the resurgence.