Religion Thread - 5

[G Subramaniam]

Maulana Mohammed Ali who paid this 'noble' (!!) tribute to Mahatma Gandhi in 1924 in Aligarh and Ajmer: 'However pure Mr. Gandhiji's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman, even though he be without character'. An year later when he was questioned at a public meeting in Lucknow, the immortal and irreplaceable Maulana Mohammed Ali cheerfully accepted and even 'improved' (!!) upon his previous command performance by saying: Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi.

[Alok_N]

sorry, TSJ, for the delay in getting back to you ...

If I could access all the energy that is contained in say..... a quart jar size of space-time vacuum, I could boil the entire Pacific Ocean off in just a few minutes. The trick is getting the energy. What I could do is lower the temperature of the space-time vacuum below absolute zero. That should do the trick.

Jerry Garcia had an excellent advice for Cosmic Charlie:

Dum-dee Dum-dee Dum Doodley-doo
go on home, your momma's callin' you

[G Subramaniam]

By today's Standards, Julian was no more than a secularist

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

Julian is called by Christians "the Apostate" because he converted from Christianity to Theurgy. He himself, as attested to in private letters between him and the rhetorician Libanius, had Christianity forced on him as a child by his cousin Constantius II, who was a zealous Arian Christian and would have not tolerated a pagan relative.[citation needed] "Reacting violently against the Christian teaching that he had received in a lonely and miserable childhood," A.H.M. Jones observes, "he had developed a passionate interest in the art, literature and mythology of Greece and had grown to detest the new religion which condemned all he loved as pernicious vanity. He was of a strongly religious temperament, and found solace in the pantheistic mysticism which contemporary Neoplatonist philosophers taught
--
He also forced the Christian church to return the riches, or fines equalling them, looted from the pagan temples[citation needed] after the Christian religion was made legitimate by Constantine. He supported the restoration of the old Roman faith, based on polytheism. His laws tended to target wealthy and educated Christians, and his aim was not to destroy Christianity but to drive the religion out of "the governing classes of the empire — much as Buddhism was driven back into the lower classes by a revived Confucian mandarinate in thirteenth-century China."[3]

Julian reduced the influence of Christian bishops in public offices. The lands taken by the Church were to be returned to their original owners, and the bishops lost the privilege to travel for free, at expenses of the State.


Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by Edward Armitage, 1875On 4 February 362, Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee freedom of religion. This edict proclaimed that all the religions were equal in front of the Law, and that the Roman Empire had to return to its original religious eclectism, according to which the Roman State did not impose any religion on its provinces.

--

Constantine and his immediate successors had forbidden the upkeep of pagan temples, and many temples were destroyed and pagan worshippers of the old religions killed during the reign of Constantine and his successors.[citation needed] The extent to which the emperors approved or commanded these destructions and killings is disputed, but it is certain they did not prevent them
--
In his School Edict Julian forbids Christian teachers from using the pagan scripts (such as the Iliad) that formed the core of Roman education: "If they want to learn literature, they have Luke and Mark: Let them go back to their churches and expound on them," the edict says.[3] This was an attempt to remove some of the power of Christian schools which at that time and later have used at large ancient Greek literature in their teachings in their effort to present Christian religion superior to the previous. The edict was also a severe financial blow, as it deprived Christian scholars, tutors and teachers of many students.

In his Tolerance Edict of 362, Julian decreed the reopening of pagan temples, the restitution of alienated temple properties, and called back Christian bishops that were exiled by church edicts. The latter was an instance of tolerance of different religious views, but may also have been seen as an attempt by Julian to widen a schism between different Christian sects, further weakening the Christian movement as a whole

[Alok_N]

Alok_N boss kudos to you and to your alma mater too

Alok, Glad you didn't imbibe the DIE values fro your alma mater! Kudos.

my alma mater gets a bad rap because the idiots are highlighted ... we had our own running joke about the Principal, Mr. Rajpaul ...

Q: Why was Rajpaul holding up an umbrella on a clear day?

A: It was raining in Oxford.

[G Subramaniam]

http://www.rassias.gr/9011.html

(All dates "era vulgaris" = Christian Era)

314
Immediately after its full legalisation, the Christian Church attacks the Gentiles: The Council of Ancyra denounces the worship of Goddess Artemis.

324
Emperor Constantine declares Christianity as the only official religion of the Roman Empire. At Dydima, Asia Minor, he sacks the Oracle of God Apollo and tortures its Pagan priests to death. He also evicts the Gentiles from Mt. Athos and destroys all local Hellenic Temples.

326
Emperor Constantine, following the instructions of his mother Helen, destroys the Temple of God Asclepius in Aigeai of Cilicia and many Temples of Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, Baalbek, etc.

330
Constantine steals the treasures and statues of the Pagan Temples in Greece to decorate Nova Roma (Constantinople), the new capital of his Empire.

335
Constantine sacks many Pagan Temples of Asia Minor and Palestine and orders the execution by crucifixion of “all magicians and soothsayers". Martyrdom of the neoplatonist philosopher Sopatros.

341
Emperor Constas, son of Constantinus, persecutes "all the soothsayers and the Hellenists". Many Gentile Hellenes are either imprisoned or executed.

346
New large - scale persecutions against the Gentiles in Constantinople. Banishment of the famous orator Libanius accused as... "magician".

353
An edict of Constantius orders the death penalty for all kind of worship through sacrifices and "idols".

354
A new edict of Constantius orders the closing of all Pagan Temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Executions of Pagan priests. First burning of libraries in various cities of the Empire. The first lime factories are built next to closed Pagan Temples. A large part of Sacred Gentile architecture is turned into lime.

356
A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the Pagan Temples and the execution of all "idolaters".

357
Constantius outlaws all methods of Divination (Astrology not excluded).

359
In Skythopolis, Syria, christians organise the first death camps for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles from all around the Empire.

361 to 363
Religious tolerance and restoration of Pagan cults declared in Constantinople (11th December 361) by the Pagan Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus.

363
Assassination of Emperor Julianus (26th June).

364
Emperor Flavius Jovianus orders the burning of the Library of Antioch. An Imperial edict (11th September) orders the death penalty for all Gentiles that worship their ancestral Gods or practice Divination (“sileat omnibus perpetuo divinandi uriositasâ€

[svinayak]

Constantine takes Christianity to a state religion; Destruction of Pagan Rome.

The final triumph of Christianity owes to political considerations, and as a first step the Church would adopt many of the ceremonial observances of ancient Rome. When the Christians had increased in numbers and formed a considerable party, the political equations changed. Now a contender to the throne could find support among them and use their services. The church would thus emerge victorious. It would not be content with merely taking political control of Rome, but also inherit its haughtiness, exclusiveness, pride...and much worse as we shall see below.

The critical turning point was the reign of Emperor Constantine, initially Augustus of the western empire. In a crucial battle to gain control of the Roman empire, Constantine used a Christian symbol as his banner to gain the support of the Christians in the war. Constantine soon saw that it would be to the empire's advantage if it could harness the zeal of the Christians and turn it to support of the imperial government. A la the position of the secularists of today's India, he pretended that he did not fully appreciate that Christians rejected all other gods. In 313 AD, he issued the "Edict of Tolerance" which legalized Christianity throughout the empire.

Constantine became both Christianity's patron and champion. He gave the bishop of Rome imperial property where a new cathedral, the Lateran Basilica, would rise, and provided for the building of churches across his part of the empire.
All the state financing thus provided to the bishop of Rome was with the expectation that the Christian lobby would support him as Emperor. Further in order to control "barbarians" and prevent them from destroying the Empire, Constantine encouraged the clergy to convert them to pacifist Christians. Private sacrifices to the gods were prohibited, and only the church would have this privilege. He would embark on construction of churches on a scale much grander than the Christians had built so far. He granted the Christian clergy special privileges. He allowed people to will their property to the church. He exempted the clergy from taxation, military service and forced labor, as was the case for priests of other religions. (An unforeseen result was rush of wealthy men joining the clergy, to claim tax exemptions. In 320 AD Constantine would correct this by making it illegal for rich pagans to claim tax exemptions by pretending to be Christian priests.) Under pressure from the clergy he appropriated the day Sunday of Sol Invictus, the Sun god of the prevalent Mitra tradition, and declared it the official holiday for Christianity. Sacred days of the Pagans would no longer be holidays. He claimed his success as being an indication of favor from the Christian god, and likewise attributed the failures of those recent emperors who had harrassed the Christians.

But in a far more dangerous move, he virtually allowed the clergy to run the state. Members of the Christian clergy were given the status of imperial administrators, they became essentially government bureaucrats. He vested Christian bishops with the authority and power of judges, against whom there would be no appeal. Secular and ecclesiastical law now became one. The church community, "Ecclesia", now became the body of the state. Under Constantine's successors the Church would push this unity to seamless perfection. As a result, paganism and heresy were synonynous with treason; their ideas were not merely spiritually wrong, but more seriously were acts against the state.

With this reciprocity, the Church grew wealthy and powerful. Corruption followed power to the clergy and it was so rampant that internal and external rebellions broke out. To suppress this opposition the church fathers looked to every avenue to control the congregations and resorted to violence and coercion. This was a key motive in their arguments for a central authority and a strong leader. This would consolidate the institution of Papacy, with the Pope at the helm of affairs, with a hierarchical set up of archbishops and patriarchs. A new definition of sin was developed and a mode of repentance would be laid out. We shall visit later the doctrines of "papal infallability" and "manifest destiny".

Meanwhile, the emperor in the east, Licinius, grew fearful of the respect that Christians in his realm had for Constantine. He expelled Christians from his household and executed a few bishops. In 323 AD, Constantine and his army entered Greece. Then he drove another wave of Goth invaders north and back across the Danube River. Although Constantine was still in what was officially the Western half of the empire he was close enough to the east to concern Licinius. We also mention controversies arising in fundamental interpretations of Christianity in the church played a role in exacerbating the situation (see the Arian controversy in the section on the Greco-Roman Divide below). Licinius attempted negotiations with Constantine, which failed, and war erupted. In late 324 AD, Constantine's forces defeated those under Licinius, and Constantine became Augustus of the whole empire. He had publicly promised to spare the life of Licinius, but nevertheless had him subsequently executed by strangulation.

In 330 AD, Constantine took up residence in his new capital at Byzantium: New Rome. Three years later he returned to Rome to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his taking power there. He continued to hold the office of Pontifex Maximus, and he was still the leader of the empire's pagans, but he refused to take part in the city's pagan rituals. Rome's pagan majority was offended, and Constantine returned to New Rome annoyed. Wishing that his pagan subjects would give up their religious rites, Constantine kept the pagans fearful and cowed as he confiscated from their priests much of the wealth the pagan religions had accumulated, including their sacred icons. He ordered the gold and silver statues of the pagan gods and temples to be melted and to be used for the embellishment of the churches.

So great was his contribution to Christianity that the later day church was to turn him into a mythic figure. In fact, he is often referred to as the thirteenth Apostle. (The papacy, in fact, laid claim to its secular rulership and ownership of central Italy upon a document forged in the 8th century called the Donation of Constantine. The forgery, alleged to have been written by the emperor, gave the church vast lands and secular authority over them, lands the popes would rule until the late 19th century and of which the Vatican City State is the surviving tiny, yet, extremely rich, remnant.)

Empowered thus, the church turned upon the Pagans and the Jews, and unleashed an orgy of bloody destruction.
Anti-pagan laws were enacted. Sacrifices in the temples were prohibited and were punished with death. The altar of the Goddess Victory was removed from the Senate in Rome, although, the senators, most of whom were pagan, were assured of their continued religious rights. Sorcery and divination was outlawed; soothsayers, diviners, astrologers, augurers and magicians were denied the right to practice. The law stated: "let the curiosity to know the future be silenced for all, forever". In its place would stand the Christian dogma that only its God could know anything of the future and only its bible could interpret reality. Various ways of torturing pagan victims were now invented.

There would follow a massacre of pagans and destruction of pagan places of worship, burning of ancient libraries across the Empire. Amongst millions of murders, each one equally tragic, we mention the famous account of the mathematician and astronomer Hypatia of Alexandria. On the orders of, the local bishop (Cyril, but according to some accounts by Peter), a Christian mob dragged her from her home and flayed her flesh from her bones with shards of glass and seashells. The Christian leader, Cynegius, demolished a temple-citadel on the Persian border. Scholars believe this was probably the temple of the Semitic Moon-god Sin at the citadel of Carrhae. Another temple that was attacked in this area was that of the Great Goddess of Syria (Dea Syria) at Hierapolis, a city, on the western bank of the Euphrates. In 314 AD The Council of Ancyra denounced the worship of Goddess Artemis. In Dydima, Minor Asia, Constantine sacked the Oracle of the God Apollo and tortured the pagan priests to death. He also evicted all the pagans from Mt. Athos and destroyed all the local Hellenic Temples. In 326 AD, he destroyed the Temple of the God Asclepius in Aigeai of Cilicia and many Temples of the Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, Baalbek, etc. In 330 AD, he plundered the treasures and statues of the Pagan temples of Greece to decorate Constantinople (New Rome). In 335 AD he sacked many pagan temples of Asia Minor and Palestine, and ordered the execution by crucifixion of all magicians and soothsayers. The Christians across the empire became more and more violent, taking the law into their own hands, harassing peasants suspected of sacrificing and making offerings to the gods, assaulting and robbing them much like the Nazi gangs that assaulted and robbed Jews in Germany and Austria. The bishops, and their monks, formed gangs that roamed the Egyptian countryside ransacking and looting temples and pulling them down. Throughout Syria and Lebanon the thuggishness of the monks was particularly barbaric.

The position of Jews had also become far more precarious. The Christian victors thought, as the pagans had not, that they had a divine mandate to oppose the Jews, who had now lost many of their rights. They were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize. Political measures against the Jews did not immediately follow, but the events did not bode well either for Judaism or for any religion other than Christianity. Eventually even Christians who did not follow the "right kind" of Christianity were to face slaughter, this will be better understood in the section on the Greco-Roman split below.

Summary and consequences:
We have seen in this section Christianity transforming from a mere religion to a political movement that had successfully hijacked a key nation-state in the European setting. Although inheriting a decimated army, a bankrupt exchequer and facing invasions, it would be able to transform into a rigid, self-perpetuating, hierarchical militant nation-state. Its initial strategy was to convert and pacify the attacking barbarians, then manipulate them against each other. Eventually, it would maintain its own army, intelligence, tax structure, and a good hold over international geopolitics. Like a vulture, the Church was able to strengthen itself by feeding off the dead body of the Roman Empire. Rome of the Christian church would have exactly the same reasons that Rome of Caesars had to expand and conquer new lands. There was now an important additional motivation: divine ordination of plunder, loot, murder and rape. The "Doctrine of Manifest Destiny", would sanctify the perpetration of such torture and horror on the non-believers, by claiming that their suffering was anyway God-ordained and well deserved.

The stage was now set for global conquest. By 600 AD Spain, Portugal, France and England would be forcibly converted to Christianity. Ireland fought back longer, but the Irish pagans were subsequently converted by 700 AD. Between 700 and 1000 AD Germany and kingdoms to its East (Aryan Pagans) succumbed. The Pagans of Russia were converted around 1050 AD. Scandinavia the last Pagan land in Europe would fall to Christianity in the 1800s.

But rather early on in this expansion, the Church found itself in a predicament of an altered geopolitics. Hitherto, kings had ruled empires, fought with other kings and conquered a few neighbouring lands. But now, this had been fundamentally altered. The church was no kingdom, although it tried to behave like one, perhaps like an upstart, but a successful one at that. But yet, it perceived its ideological reach as global, which dissolved national boundaries. Its solution to this dilemna was unique. It would create what might be termed a virtual kingdom for itself, today called the Vatican. It would play politics on a much larger scale by maneuvering kingdoms against the other. Each converted kingdom would be controlled by papal representatives stationed along with every converted noble and king.

The rise of islamic jihad would put a check on the activities of the church in the brief interlude of 1050-1500 AD, as would a reorganized Jewish resistance. But the church would not be cowed down. It would push for control of more economic resources and trade routes, opening up the routes to discovery of South Africa, India and the Americas. About 500 million Pagans would be massacred in these lands and property worth trillions of dollars plundered. All this would be legitimized and sancitfied under the doctrines of Papal Infalliability and Manifest Destiny. Much of this wealth would be used in the World Wars, motivated in good part by the church's renewed drive to find the millions of Jews, many living in disguise, among us. These two wars would shatter economies the world over. The church would now turn its attention to cleaning Africa and the remainder of South America, creating wars and terorist movements, propping up dictators etc. Of consequence to us is that India and China and Japan would now be a renewed priority.

[G Subramaniam]

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch22.htm

Christian Congregation burnt alive two Indian girls as witches

A Christian congregation in Arunachal Pradesh tied to poles and burned alive two tribal girls, Komai Simai and Khodang Tikhak, at the behest of a priest belonging to the Tangsa Baptist Christian Association. The girl’s had been accused and found guilty of practising witchcraft !140

140 (i) The Indian Express, English Daily, New Delhi, August, 8, 1996.

[Kumar]

Let's say Kumar has to explain Godel's theorem to 3 different people:

1. person A gets it after some reading and serious thought

2. person B struggles for a bit ... Kumar says, "look, don't worry about the proof, focus on the essence of the theorem which is very powerful"

3. person C says, "me head hurts" ... Kumar says, "well, why don't you just memorize the statement of the theorem"

a true Bhakt in the Mirabai tradition is person B ... both person A and B realize the same truth ...

person C has effectively made a statue of Godel and is worshipping it ... however, all 3 find peace which was missing in the ignorance of the theorem ...

As pointed by others, C is the largest group and the most vulnerable group regarding proselytization.

This was one of the reasons I had said earlier that hindus need to defend all their deities, their sages, their scriptures...all of them. But some folks had an allergy to terms like "Krishna experience"

Problem is that if you rob the group "C" of his baby-Krishna, his loving Ganesha, his Hanumanji, Rama, bholenath and associated stories, there is not much left for him to relate to. If someone then tells him that the brightest hindus have turned scientific and they don't think much of your Ganesha, Krishna etc but only of Brahman & Maya & logic, then that will be a major self goal.

May be a person of group C can't comprehend Advaita. But his child possibly can. If that person is lost because of an intellectual hubris, then his successive generations are too.

This was besides the point that greatest sages/saints/yogis attest to a real existence of major deities, and many ordinary folks get their confirmations through their own little wheelings & dealings with the divine.

[G Subramaniam]

Notice the vitriolic feeling of the priests. Why do they have to feel this way? Ancient pagans never felt that way about each other's gods. Rather, they tended to look for similarities. For example, the Romans identified Jupiter with Zeus, and Julius Caesar identified the Gaul god Toutatis with Jupiter. Also, it's rather ironic that the ancient pagan Gods were considered more of a threat than Islam, after losing the entire Byzantine empire! Such is the power of a mere concept, in this case 'monotheism'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international ... 02,00.html

Greek gods prepare for comeback


Helena Smith in Athens
Friday May 5, 2006
The Guardian


It has taken almost 2,000 years, but those who worship the 12 gods of ancient Greece have finally triumphed. An Athens court has ordered that the adulation of Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena and co is to be unbanned, paving the way for a comeback of pagans on Mount Olympus.
The followers, who say they "defend the genuine traditions, religion and ethos" of the ancients by adhering to a pre-Christian polytheistic culture, are poised to take their battle to the temples of Greece.

"What we want, now, is for the government to fully recognise our religion," Vasillis Tsantilas told the Guardian. "We will petition the Greek parliament, and the EU if that fails, for access to worship in places like the Acropolis, for permission to have our own cemeteries and, where necessary, to re-bury the [ancient] bones of the dead.
About 98% of Greeks are Orthodox Christian, and all other religions except Judaism and Islam had been banned.

Yet the pagans say as many as 2,000 Greeks have signed up to their movement. Mr Tsantilas, 42, a computer scientist who came to paganism after toying with Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, said worshippers perceived the ancient gods as the "personification of the divine".

But Greece's powerful Orthodox Church takes a less charitable view, accusing the worshippers of idolatry and "poisonous New Age practices".

Father Eustathios Kollas, who presides over the community of Greek priests, said: "They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past."

[Alok_N]

This was one of the reasons I had said earlier that hindus need to defend all their deities, their sages, their scriptures...all of them. But some folks had an allergy to terms like "Krishna experience"

well, allergy is not the term I would use ... "useless" is a more available concept ...

Problem is that if you rob the group "C" of his baby-Krishna, his loving Ganesha, his Hanumanji, Rama, bholenath and associated stories, there is not much left for him to relate to. If someone then tells him that the brightest hindus have turned scientific and they don't think much of your Ganesha, Krishna etc but only of Brahman & Maya & logic, then that will be a major self goal.

for the record, I have no problem if every Indian lost those concepts that you cherish ... I see nothing wrong with holding on to Vedanta, while trashing Hanuman etc ...

it is a free market of ideas ... if Jesus beats Ganesha, so be it ... those are mere symbols, IMO ... but if clueless "faith" beats reason and logic, we have scored a "self-goal" ...

so, please explain why you would wish to defend ignorance ...

May be a person of group C can't comprehend Advaita. But his child possibly can. If that person is lost because of an intellectual hubris, then his successive generations are too.

"hubris" is your term ... I characterize "god proliferation" more as "callousness" of the likes of some members who are defending meaningless symbols ...

This was besides the point that greatest sages/saints/yogis attest to a real existence of major deities, and many ordinary folks get their confirmations through their own little wheelings & dealings with the divine.

this is actually crap ... what is "real existence" ... when you characterize it thusly, you make no difference betwen a Yogi or Moses on a Mountain ...

if that is your defence, then I would say, "by all means feel free to follow Moses ... what difference does it make which dude has the miracle du jour?"

[rongsheng]

Rakesh,
Thanks for you replies. I appreciate your effort.
You are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe. No qualms there.

christian god's character is very interesting. Christian god's sons including Satan and christian god have similar tastes. Example :--

job 1.6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... &version=9;
Hmmm I thought christian god only had one son. I guess not. Wait, it looks like Satan and christian god are pretty tight. They like to joke around, exchange views,and a little bit of

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... &version=9;

Yes a very bad custom. And a God who allowed that must truly be bad. Perhaps you can ask God why He is being so bad? Perhaps you can also ask him if He can share His throne with you. You can surely give him some pointers about human nature, justice, love, compassion, etc. I am sure he would be enlightened and very interested to hear your views.

I will let Richard Dawkins answer that.

The god of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic-cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Root_of_All_Evil%3F
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... f+all+evil
(Aside , in the documentary Dawkins interviews our friedly evangelist Ted Haggard who at the time was the chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals. He is completely "Heterosexual"
Dawkins is the author of a number of books, including The Selfish Gene , The Blindwatch maker , The God Delusion etc.

christian god is not interested in hearing human views. If you read your bible carefully, you should know that.

Please provide the verses so I can read what you are saying.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... &version=9;

Thank You. I need to do some more studying and cross referencing before I comment on this.

Thanks for studying.I am waiting.

]

For example, Virgin birth is a clear case of Matthew using mistranslated Greek Versions. In the new testament only Matthew and Luke say Mary was virgin when she had Jesus. Luke copied mostly from Mark and Matthew. Matthew was using a greek translation of old testament which had a incorrect translation.

Do you have any evidence to back any of your above claims?

Rakesh, I gave you the exact translation of Isaiah 7.14, but you chose to ignore it. The issue is the Hebrew word "almah". In Isaiah 7.14 it should be read as "Young woman" and not "virgin".

According to : “Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Languageâ€

[Alok_N]

I will let Richard Dawkins answer that.

The god of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic-cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide.

aah ... I was wondering when and if Dawkins will enter the debate ...

I have a link to an excellent critique of Dawkins' book by Sean Carrol:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/10/29/the-god-conundrum/

please take the time to read this discourse ... I know Sean and he is serious ...

[Kumar]

Advaita has become highly popular amongst those of an intellectual bend. And it is a formidable system of philosophy. Usually advaita sounds utterly nonsensical at the beginning. But persistence pays. And first real "understanding" of Advaita always fills one with awe. I distinctly remember feeling so grateful for having born in India and a hindu to be given the opportunity to understand that awesome system of thought.

But whosoever has spent enough time struggling with advaita and upanishads, knows that upanishads carry more than the system of advaita encompasses. Also advaita is great in providing the larger universal contours, but is very limited in finer level details. The treatment of "Maya", though logically alright, often encourages asceticism and withdrawal from the world. The refrain is: "mukti is the purpose of life". The big question is, if "mukti" was the only purpose of life, how did a being end up in the morass of Maya in the first place. Why couldn't it have just stayed up there in the higher realms? How did he even fall? This value-judgement that "mukti" is the "only purpose" of human life is a weaker point of advaita.

The rediscovery of great philosophical systems of Kashmir-Shaivism during the last century has enlivened the debate. Kashmir shaivism is a highly refined philosohy, has "advaita" principles, but the "Maya" or "shakti" aspect is given much larger weightage which is missing in traditional advaitic treatments. Other than Adi Shankara's shuddha-advaita, only Kashmir-Shaivism has a true advaitic-foundation. Abhinavagupta's "Tantraloka" is an encyclopaedic masterpiece that has a much larger canvass than traditional advaitic treatments. For a beginning small but fundamental text of "Shiva-Sutra" is most useful, then "Ishvara-pratyabhijnA", "spanda-kArikA" (the doctrine of universal vibration), parAtrinshikA etc can be taken up.

"Shakta" traditions got some fillip with Sri Ramakrishna who was devotee of Mahakali. But Swami Vivekananda was primarily an advaitin (or neo-advaiti if you insist). Ramana Maharshi was primarily advaitic but also preferred the shrI-vidyA shAkta text "TripurA-Rahasya". Sri Aurobindo eventually turned very much towards Shaktism. He gives biggest importance to the play of Shakti within the world and how it is trying to induce the Divine wisdom/will/freedom even within the lowest rungs of consciousness, such as vital, physical or even lower levels, through an evolutionary movement.

In this view mukti is an experience to be had in the sense of climbing a mountain to have that as an achievement and to get the lay of the spiritual landscape including its highest, but that is not the final or only goal. The real goal of human life is then to bring down the divine freedom & power & wisdom from its higher-mountain down into the lower levels of ordinary human condition in the day to day life in the world.

If you want to get a condensed "shAkta" viewpoint, not from a philosophical, but a practioner's viewpoint, try to get your hands on a short (about 60 pages) book "The Mother" by Sri Aurbindo. It is an absolute gem, laden with concentrated wisdom for those who prefer to consider divine as a "Mother".

[Satya_anveshi]

for the record, I have no problem if every Indian lost those concepts that you cherish ... I see nothing wrong with holding on to Vedanta, while trashing Hanuman etc ...

it is a free market of ideas ... if Jesus beats Ganesha, so be it ... those are mere symbols, IMO ... but if clueless "faith" beats reason and logic, we have scored a "self-goal" ...

so, please explain why you would wish to defend ignorance ...

Alok ji,

I see your point but I humbly suggest that these two (holding onto Vedanta and trashing Hanuman) are not mutually exclusive.

Isn't there ample evidence for the bolded part in your statement? Once the C is lost, then it will be 'his way or high way..'

...aren't we facing 'faith' bombs from learned members on this esteemed forum. I couldn't imagine that all these days while bashing Islamists, that we have similar types who may be immune to LOGIC in our midst.

Also, if someone is holding onto Vedanta, how can he trash Hanuman? He may only have a feeling of ..."been there done that".

[Alok_N]

But whosoever has spent enough time struggling with advaita and upanishads, knows that upanishads carry more than the system of advaita encompasses. Also advaita is great in providing the larger universal contours, but is very limited in finer level details. The treatment of "Maya", though logically alright, often encourages asceticism and withdrawal from the world. The refrain is: "mukti is the purpose of life". The big question is, if "mukti" was the only purpose of life, how did a being end up in the morass of Maya in the first place. Why couldn't it have just stayed up there in the higher realms? How did he even fall? This value-judgement that "mukti" is the "only purpose" of human life is a weaker point of advaita.

again, I will refer to Gurudev, because your critique apparently is not well-founded in anything ... this is just my take based on my severely limited knowledge ...

unfortunately, comments such as yours are what get us into the Sanskrit cross-fire ... load your bazooka if you think that you are ready to take on Valkan dude ...

[Alok_N]

Isn't there ample evidence for the bolded part in your statement? Once the C is lost, then it will be 'his way or high way..'

this is the difficult part ...

if everyone played by the same rules, there would be no problem ...

what I mean is that there would be a true "free market" of ideas ... but alas, the market is not free because the customers are not equally/freely qualified ...

which is why I have been harping on the fact that science education is the only way to bring about enlightenment among the so called "C" believers ...

[Kumar]

this is actually crap ... what is "real existence" ... when you characterize it thusly, you make no difference betwen a Yogi or Moses on a Mountain ...

if that is your defence, then I would say, "by all means feel free to follow Moses ... what difference does it make which dude has the miracle du jour?"

Ah..., so I suppose you have "scientific-proof" for the existence of Brahman!

Mere logic doesn't do anything regarding the axioms. All the juice is in the axioms. Logic just helps derive stuff from those chosen axioms. If axioms of a system of philosophy such as advaita can't be scientifically justified then what are you defending? A mental idea of Brahman? Well...

In absence of scientific evidence, I choose to fall on time tested hindu tradition of "experience" which yogic-tradition provides. This is also called not throwing away the baby with the bath water.

You can choose to fall on your unscientific axioms too.

[Alok_N]

Mere logic doesn't do anything regarding the axioms.

mere assertion does not conjure up axioms ... drop your "all knowing" facade and start pin-pointing axioms .... else, you are just another EJ ...

I am deliberately ignoring the rest of your post unless you substantiate this claim of yours ...

get with the program ... folks here are posting definitive analyses, while you are playing the role of peanut gallery ....

get past that, if you will, and post a crisp criticism ... start with Valkan's post of "logical advaita", for starters ...

[Kumar]

But whosoever has spent enough time struggling with advaita and upanishads, knows that upanishads carry more than the system of advaita encompasses. Also advaita is great in providing the larger universal contours, but is very limited in finer level details. The treatment of "Maya", though logically alright, often encourages asceticism and withdrawal from the world. The refrain is: "mukti is the purpose of life". The big question is, if "mukti" was the only purpose of life, how did a being end up in the morass of Maya in the first place. Why couldn't it have just stayed up there in the higher realms? How did he even fall? This value-judgement that "mukti" is the "only purpose" of human life is a weaker point of advaita.

again, I will refer to Gurudev, because your critique apparently is not well-founded in anything ... this is just my take based on my severely limited knowledge ...

unfortunately, comments such as yours are what get us into the Sanskrit cross-fire ... load your bazooka if you think that you are ready to take on Valkan dude ...

Valkan has been firing very well. I don't have much to argue with his views as I agree with them.

And you have firing hiding behind him! What to do with you?

[Kumar]

mere assertion does not conjure up axioms ... drop your "all knowing" facade and start pin-pointing axioms .... else, you are just another EJ ...

What are YOUR scientific axioms of Advaita?

[Alok_N]

Valkan has been firing very well. I don't have much to argue with his views as I agree with them.

And you have firing hiding behind him! What to do with you?

ok, you win ...

your agenda is unclear, but I have no interest in digging it out ...

however, you, as it turns out are completely clueless about a philosophical debate ...

despite your periodic apologies etc, you revert to personal attacks ... for example, if you have scietific doubts, feel free to post a critique of my analysis of causality, Bell's inequality and hidden variables ... why don't you?

I seriously doubt if you have anything constructive to add ...

feel free to respond and have the last word etc ...

[Kumar]

Alok,

Thanks for a superb rant. But do you seriously expect a reply for that piece of art?

Re: My agenda:

It is to protect hinduism in its fullness.

[Alok_N]

OT

[rongsheng]

aah ... I was wondering when and if Dawkins will enter the debate ...

I have a link to an excellent critique of Dawkins' book by Sean Carrol:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/10/29/the-god-conundrum/

please take the time to read this discourse ... I know Sean and he is serious ...

Thanks Alok. It is very interesting.

Rakesh,
Here's something more for you from Alok's link.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... version=31;

[Kumar]

Alok, Silence is good for the soul.

By the way, I am still waiting for YOUR scientific axioms of advaita.

[Alok_N]

Thanks Alok. It is very interesting.

Rakesh,
Here's something more for you from Alok's link.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... version=31;

rather than quote links from that blog, it would be more interesting if folks were to take on his analysis with an Advaita hat ... there is plenty to disagree with there ... the trick is to find it and respond ...

here's an example:

Unsurprisingly, the monotheistic conception reached its pinnacle in the work of Aristotle. In the Metaphysics, he presented a version of what we now know as the cosmological argument for the existence of God, which (in Wikipedia’s rendering) goes something like this:

1. Every effect has a cause.
2. Nothing can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, there must be a first cause; or, there must be something which is not an effect.

compare this logic to Valkan's ... is point #2 ok in the context of SJA? ... does #4 truly follow from #1-3?

[bala]

Thanks to Valkan for that superb discourse on Hindu philosophy. That philosophy book, in English, would do wonders to thwart the EJs.

Question for the Xtian followers. Are all people whether good or bad (deemed by the Bible) born prior to Jesus Christ gone to hell?

[SaiK]

is it not axioms starts with "given that it is true..", and thus have a relative scope until proven that it does needs proof, hence disqualifies to be an axiom? let say "atman takes value true", we all agree it is true from now on, since it is universally accepted, in different lingua. now we go on.. to say "atman is housed in you {and again takes a true value}",.. but here you need a factor called "time", else atman would join paramatman, and takes false value in the axiom. hence, we need to correct the axiom to say "atman is housed in you till you die". when we say "atman is physically located in heart or brain", then it does not qualify for axiom since its not universally accepted principle or truth, that it is located in heart or brain.. hence proof is needed, and we may have to explicitly define what we consider to be axiom and what is not.

my other question is, if atman itself takes values or needs proof in a different system, then it fails to be an axiom in the universal sense. hence, one of the reasons to merge atman and soul concepts. if atman itself is a concept, then it very well qualifies to be a theory rather, though it may be well established in hinduism. so how is such a concept becoming an axiom,? may be i took a wrong example here.. since groping in the dark for the religious axioms.

[Murugan]

the absolute vacuum has 2 out of 3 properties of Sat Chit Anant ...

Alokguru, it should be sat chit Anand...

[Alok_N]

why quibble over whether the limitless is absolute bliss or not? ...

anant-anand is potaeto-potaato ...

[Kumar]

why quibble over whether the limitless is absolute bliss or not? ...

anant-anand is potaeto-potaato ...

This pearl of wisdom..., and someone has been talking with such a loud voice about vedanta. Hare Krishna...

[abhischekcc]

This value-judgement that "mukti" is the "only purpose" of human life is a weaker point of advaita.

I am not sure whether this is a weakness of advaita philosophy per se, or of the circumstances it was forced to developed in.

Adi Shankar's main purpose in life was to defeat Buddhism in India. He had to develop a philosophical system which was superior to Buddhism in the areas where Buddhism claimed superiority over sanatan Dharma. Namely, the mukti/nirvana area.

Do keep in mind that Hindu view of life encourages 4 purusharthas (ambitions) - Dharma (acting according to one's nature), Artha (material progress), Kamm (pleasure gratification) and Moksha (spiritual benediction). It was Siddhartha Gautam who came and disturbed this fine balance and put all the emphasis on spiritual progress.

People will probably flame me for saying this, but Buddhism is the root cause of India' collapse. The effette passivism encouraged in Buddhism first led to hedonism (exemplified in the Bhakti movement), then to utter disregard for political independance.

[nitinjindal]

This is my first post.

I started reading this thread when a friend recommended me. Me, being an atheist for all practical purposes, this thread has been very useful for me to get a crash course on understanding hindu religion.

My question is regarding a debate with my muslim friend. I tried to explain him the logic behind idol worship, by quoting S. Valkan's post verbatim

I remember you not liking the idol worship in hindu culture. So, I thought I shall do somethingfor hinduism for a change, by trying to educate you.

To be omnipotent and omniscient, "God" has LOGICALLY got to be omnipresent .

Can an omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent "God" bind itself to be ABSENT from "idols" ? Laughing

And if it IS present in those idols, what is the objection to "idol worship" ?

He gave me a reply, to which I cannot reply since I have limited understanding of religion. I can't even question the facts mentioned in the email. So, please some one with knowledge (may be Valkan himself) do me a favor and post a reply to my friend's message. Here is the message

because idols are not symbolizing Him
they symbolize something/someone else
the INTENTION at Hindu's heart is not to worship the single diety of universe. They symbolize dead humans, or animals, not their creator. There has to be a distinction in mind. I've heard that originally Hinduism wasn't supposed to be worshipping warriors of Ramayan, but later on like many other religion was altered by humans. Remember, intentions determine what you are doing worship for. We also prostrate in front of a black stone at Kaaba, but it is nothing but a symbol for someone whom we are not permitted to see. Like Umar bin Khattab said When Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph, came to kiss the stone, he said, in front of all assembled: "No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither harm anyone nor benefit anyone. Had I not seen Allah's Messenger kissing you, I would not have kissed you."

Thnx and regards,
Nitin

[SaiK]

can zUnya (sUnya{ta}) take the value of unreal (antimatter) part of m-theory (maya), where brahman is non existent as well. it could be the parabrahman where the vast emptyness lies, that the space within self merges per my understanding of death (the famous example: instead saying the mud pot broke, advaitically we could say it, the space in the pot merged with the vastness)..

it could mean that the brahman in you is part or complete zUnya.. since such an antimatter is unstable, it may not be proved to be in existence in Earth(but only can be replenished). a concept of zUnyata presence can be assumed, since life exists, and is driven by the messages sent via zUnyata system(now that it has taken properties). it could be also assumed that such a highly unstable system, could be just used by the "Unknown God(s)", to send messages..



sorry, i was just speaking off my mind...

[Alok_N]

He gave me a reply, to which I cannot reply since I have limited understanding of religion.

no, you have limited understanding of the part that you quoted "verbatim" ... why not try and understand it before quoting?

[nitinjindal]

He gave me a reply, to which I cannot reply since I have limited understanding of religion.

no, you have limited understanding of the part that you quoted "verbatim" ... why not try and understand it before quoting?

I thought I understood it fine. Could you be a little more specific.

nitin

[madhu]

because idols are not symbolizing Him
they symbolize something/someone else

I feel direction of prayer also to be symbolism….. Hindus use idol to worship god and Muslims use direction as idol to worship god.

Man cannot imagine something unimaginable and worship it as god. He needs a symbol/idol to imagine god and it be stone or direction.

[Kumar]

Abhishek,

You are right that Adi Shankara's advaita was to a significant degree a reaction to Budhhism, especially of shUnyavAda. And "shUnya (nothingness)" and "nirvANa (extinction)" were countered by "sat (pure existence)" and "mukti (freedom)" respectively in advaita.

Its perhaps true that focusing so much on mukti is also a vestige of Buddhist periods' focus on nirvANa, and the emphasis continued by inertia even when the terms and philosophies had changed.

Adi Shnakara's monk system was also partly modelled on Buddhist monk system. Many critics have accused Adi Shankara of being "prachchanna bauddha" (hidden buddhist) for such reasons.

Despite a strict jnAna based attitude of advaita, the practice had some variations. There seems to be some connection with shAkta shrI-vidyA as some mathas have shrI-yantra-s installed. Adi shankara is supposed to have also written many devotional hymns and bhakti seems to be a part of the tradition too. But the emphasis on asceticism & other-worldiness continued even when advaita had won its battles against the buddhists.

[Alok_N]

I thought I understood it fine. Could you be a little more specific.

specifically, if you understood fine, you would have no difficulty refuting this bogey:

because idols are not symbolizing Him
they symbolize something/someone else

[Pulikeshi]

yawn, wake me up when something fun happens again.. we are back to advaita/dvaitha rehash.
Forgetting the Person-C (Customer)
We got ourselves to blame for not creating any new product in eons! We can't even agree if we have a product
The only way to beat EJ is to help Person-C ( & D)move to A/B.
Yet we are worried about losing customer base - arevaderche ciao!