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Post by vkaul1 on Jun 30, 2011 11:34:32 GMT -6
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Post by Nitaidas on Jun 30, 2011 12:56:22 GMT -6
This doesn't seem to square with recent polls that show that atheists know more about religion and religions than the religious. I think he is doing more than a little straw man construction himself. But hey! It is a hot topic these days.
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Post by Ldd on Jul 1, 2011 10:25:01 GMT -6
hi you all, sorry for popping unexpectedly from the blue. - my location has been very unsteady. Where does krishna fit in religions ? Nowhere -- since they are man-made. Religions cannot prove 'god' or even krishna exist, since they have no understanding of this kind of thing. These religions have been modified and spread with the purpose of enslaving humanity. so, though some teach of a higher nature and purpose - they end up confusing people with all kinds of contrived lies, Atheists noticing their dishonesty are out on a mission to defeat them.. Krishna's nature is described in sastra. He is imperceptible by those bewildered by maya. Only bhaktas have access to know him-- and hardly one out of millions. The bewildered soul can directly perceive his energy. that's as far as they can go.. they will have no proof of any aspect of his existence. thus many will say there is no god.. Its natural. Instead of forcing them to believe in god, i think they should be encouraged to do pious work., do good for the world and its entities. everyone can live in peace with his belief. I cant deny that this issue is a source of entertainment for us. But i think this approach is the only way to resolve this controversy. Of course the christians will not rest their swords and shields. and will perpetuate the war. meanwhile they are doing the most harm to the planet and its entities.
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Post by malati on Jul 1, 2011 17:41:52 GMT -6
hi you all, sorry for popping unexpectedly from the blue. - my location has been very unsteady. Where does krishna fit in religions ? Nowhere -- since they are man-made. Religions cannot prove 'god' or even krishna exist, since they have no understanding of this kind of thing. These religions have been modified and spread with the purpose of enslaving humanity. so, though some teach of a higher nature and purpose - they end up confusing people with all kinds of contrived lies, Atheists noticing their dishonesty are out on a mission to defeat them.. Krishna's nature is described in sastra. He is imperceptible by those bewildered by maya. Only bhaktas have access to know him-- and hardly one out of millions. The bewildered soul can directly perceive his energy. that's as far as they can go.. they will have no proof of any aspect of his existence. thus many will say there is no god.. Its natural. Instead of forcing them to believe in god, i think they should be encouraged to do pious work., do good for the world and its entities. everyone can live in peace with his belief. I cant deny that this issue is a source of entertainment for us. But i think this approach is the only way to resolve this controversy. Of course the christians will not rest their swords and shields. and will perpetuate the war. meanwhile they are doing the most harm to the planet and its entities. ADRS I know you are of Indian descent . I agree on most of what you said. However, I take exception of your critique of the christians, yes that might be true but I think all systems whether they are political/social/religious have their own skeleton in the closet. Do you think the Hindu society is perfect? Till now there still are widows being burned alive in India. And even devotees who consider themselves GV rationalize/justify the practice. I remember I heard an Indian ISKCOn guy talking in their program on the community radio here in Melbourne rationalizing sati. I think that's the term. To me, being non-Indian who have lived within the eastern and western culture, and being a GV, sati is objectively wrong. Also, there's a recent study that includes India as the 4th country where it's dangerous to be a woman, in the same league as Afghanistan, Pakistan,Congo, and Somalia. You have to admit that the Hindu literature is replete with ideas as woman being second class citizen. I do not think that being a GV you have to take the Indian culture wholesale, nor the social setting narrated in the shastras as the eternal perfect social system. Maybe GVism should be about taking the essence. |
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bets
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Post by bets on Jul 2, 2011 12:42:46 GMT -6
One thing atheists and theists can agree on is that people do tend to make the best case they can for the things they want to believe. On sati, the wonderful wonderful Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), the first woman governor of an Indian state, wrote a poem around 1905, titled "Suttee." You can find it online here: www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/in/sarojini_naidu_poems/suttee/. She wrote other poems which portray Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism as equally beautiful. The British at the time were doing a massive PR job portraying Indians as incapable of self-rule and using sati as their best, irrefutable, evidence. Naidu's response was to turn the PR around, as best she could, by making the widow's self-immolation a matter of deep grief, not of barbarism. She was romanticizing, of course, though I don't see her as a naive person at all. |
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Post by malati on Jul 2, 2011 16:55:57 GMT -6
One thing atheists and theists can agree on is that people do tend to make the best case they can for the things they want to believe. On sati, the wonderful wonderful Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), the first woman governor of an Indian state, wrote a poem around 1905, titled "Suttee." You can find it online here: www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/in/sarojini_naidu_poems/suttee/. She wrote other poems which portray Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism as equally beautiful. The British at the time were doing a massive PR job portraying Indians as incapable of self-rule and using sati as their best, irrefutable, evidence. Naidu's response was to turn the PR around, as best she could, by making the widow's self-immolation a matter of deep grief, not of barbarism. She was romanticizing, of course, though I don't see her as a naive person at all. Sati has been outlawed in India for a long time now but incidents still occur. The idea is strongly enmeshed in the religious literature. I do not agree with you that sati was made prominent by British to justify the idea that Indians were not capable of self-rule. The most probable reason was that they really saw it for what it was and so did many Hindus. British outlawed it during their time due to the efforts of a Hindu reformer , Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Of course this custom is not exclusive to India , other countries in ancient times had this practice. There's a theory that it was brought to India by Scythians, people from the ancient Central Asia and Greek. I noticed your use of the word "romanticize" to describe the poem of an Indian poet rationalizing sati. You are an english professor, bets, and you know the power of word to sanitize disgusting events/ideas. Yes, deep grief of the wife might be a reason, but how much of the incidents were induced by the culture itself because the widows were "expected" by their community or their religion to do just that. The fact that not all communities in India even in ancient times were into the custom, suggests that the custom is not inherent in a woman's psyche. If you look at history, you will see that this practice is tied to the idea that women are second class, or that women and servants are properties, chattels. Yes, in ancient times, servants were also burned with the master. I have never brought this subject up before anywhere, whether in cyberspace or outside of it but I was pissed when adrs brought her criticism of the Christian faith, which is history if you asked me. Christian don't kill anymore to spread their faith. Their practice is as sound as the IGM's. I do not apologize for my comment. Any Organized religions can oppress-- not just Hindu religion. And religion that is stuck to the ancient past will continue to oppress. Religion that buttresses its faith against the tide of history and dont relate to the present world will result in an outcome that is despicable. That is what I'm annoyed about. But you still see that even some in GV circles "insane" practices and ideas still get rationalized. Btw, Nitaidas, have you read my email about the cookbook. Let me know what you think and if the project is still going to go ahead. So I can make a plan of action just in case it wont happen. Thank you. |
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bets
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Post by bets on Jul 2, 2011 23:27:43 GMT -6
Malati, you're probably right about sati being tied to women's ordinary status being lower than men's. And I'm pretty sure Herodotus talks about sati as a Scythian custom. But I stand by my claim that the British did use sati as a way of devaluing Indians in general, just as they used the Cawnpore Massacre in 1857 as a way of justifying British rule. My source for thinking of the sati issue as a British propaganda tool is actually Flora Annie Steel, a Scottish woman who lived in India with her husband from the 1860s until about 1890. She worked with Indian women and published their folktales, and she wrote to British newspapers that the English press was exaggerating the frequency and over-focusing attention on sati, ignoring the ways in which most real Indian women lived and thought. She said the attention to sati was at least in part a way for the British to justify their colonial agenda. She even said that in some respects Indian women were more free than English women.
One of the nicer post-modern criticism words is "othering." It's an odd verb, "to other," but it works to describe techniques which people on one side of an issue use to insure that those on their side don't identify very well with those on the other side. Some Hindus "other" Muslims, and some atheists "other" Christians, etc.
Back to sati. I once read the Mughal Emperor Jahangir's autobiography and was surprized to learn that HE had outlawed sati back in Shakespeare's lifetime. And Pietro della Valle has a wonderful description of himself (around 1622) talking to a woman who was planning her own sati. She was being carried around on a palinquin from place to place, accompanied by drums and other music, feted, proud, confident. She tried to get him to come to the sati itself, planned for a day or two later. He tried to talk her out of it, and refused to attend.
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