Weakness in intellect? ROFLMAO! Do you detect nervousness in this as well? Good.
Your bicycle-chain circular-logic illogic is laughably visible in all your replies to me. Let us now delve into the details, shall we? Here goes:
Joan of Arc. Well, what do you think was the estimates for the numbers of “witches” that were toasted in Europe, in times far, far since the pagans were relegated to a fringe minority? For a period between 1400 to 1700, the estimates range from 40,000 to 100,000. Want citations?
There is nothing in the Bhagavad-Gita that condones or supports either the burnings or murder. At least, not nearly as explicitly as similar categories of violence is condoned in the Old Testament. Please note that in spite of your oft-repeated and frequently abused phrase, “Hindu roots”, you have absolutely and flatly failed to prove any substantial links making the practices more endemic to Hinduism, than was slavery, torture and murder endemic to pre-Reforms Christianity.
The Bhagavad-Gita, does not condone any of this nonsense. Prove otherwise, and you would have contributed something to the discussion, instead of maintaining polar orbits around your circular illogic-based false philosophy.
As for Parvati, aside from the hilarity of it, now you quote mythology as actual practice? What sort of translation did you apply, to decipher that for Parvati to transform from her previous form, she had to undergo physical immolation? After all, you are the one prancing all over about my “misunderstanding” of Old Testament violence, due to my “poor Hebrew translation” skills. All this, leaving alone the main FACT that the Bhagavad-Gita has this to say about mythologies and rituals:
“For not by Vedas cometh this, nor sacrifice, nor alms,
Nor works well-done, nor penance long, nor prayers nor chaunted psalms,
That mortal eyes should bear to view the Immortal Soul unclad.”
- Bhagavad-Gita, Ch:XI lines 313-317.
News to the speakers of the Indian “literary panel”, of the like of Kancha Illaiah, you mean, who is none other than a race-pandering racist, advocating that Catholic missionaries are responsible for sustaining discrimination in India, as shown in my past post to you.
You have not given any valid explanation for the necessity of hereditary priesthood in Judaism. All you did was make silly excuses using vague nonsense such as “psychologically proven”, “noble task of transmission” etcetera. Go back to the same yourself, and provide an objective, convincing, holistic, scientific reason for the benefits of hereditary transmission of priesthood in Judaism, instead of making laughable attempts at dusting off this contentious issue under the carpet, as if to convince yourself that I am going tire from your circular arguments and let you off. Strawman argument, it is not. I am explicitly declaring that it is not, and the onus is on you, to show otherwise.
1 Samuel 2-3 is a quote that better men than either of us have discussed about, and failed to arrive at a consensus. What makes you think that your utterly idiotic explanations involving excuses like “poor translation” and “misunderstanding” is going to persuade anyone who has been following this debate, otherwise? The verse is plain and simple. There cannot be any ambiguity in it, when the protagonist speaks of slaughtering infants and toddlers, enemy or not. It is plain, uncivilised barbarity right there, and there is no other way to look at it. Go ahead, give your best shot, and explain it away.
So far, your poor logic, poor attempts at explanation, pathetic circular reasoning littering almost all of your replies here, and a penchant for not being able to objectively criticise, together with the tendency to divert into obscure tangents, has utterly devastated even the most earnest of your arguments.
The rest of us, shall meanwhile, rejoice in the ‘little’ triumphs of a progressive people.
It might help this discussion if you first cure yourself of the diarrhea of adjectives and metaphors (”bicycle-chain circular-logic illogic”) you deploy to obscure a hopeless failure to explain away the evil of casteism; filthy rituals (mandatory feces-ridden baths in the Ganges); and the barbarism of Sati that have been embedded as core beliefs of Hinduism that are practiced to this day, albeit some to a lesser extent than others.
Your central defense is that the pure Gita forbids such practices despite several explicit tracts that justify deity-mandated violence. Your defense: 1 Samuel 2-3. Conveniently, the New Covenant of the New Testament and its relation to the Old Testament is conveniently overlooked.
As to Sati (widowed wife burning) you must hearken to practices of witchcraft found in the corners of the Dark Ages to expiate the guilt of Hindu practices that were endemic until the British put a stop to it and brought a measure of civilization to these Hindu savages to say nothing of the English Criminal Code that restored a measure of western law to the colonies.
As for the Gita itself, this is nothing more than a fictional piece of literature taking the form of a poem that recites a dialogue between two main characters Prince Arjuna and Vishnu cast as a Supreme God, incarnated as Krishna, and wearing the disguise of a charioteer. Enjoy the play.
Although I must confess, I’ll take Shakespeare’s Hamlet any day!