India bans Book by University of Chicago 'scholar' Wendy Doniger.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-india-book-ban-wendy-doniger-20140213,0,582965.story ^ | bakeneko

[bakeneko]

Wendy Doniger, a 'Hindu Scholar' at the University of Chicago, has had her book banned, or interrupted, by Indian authorities because it denigrates the Hindu religion.

This is a long article and I am still reading it myself, but, having been a UofChicago Student myself in a previous life, I had to go to a 'meet the faculty' dinner and listen to this woman speak; in which, she spent two hours talking about the sexual practices of a village in India she visited. This, I guess, gives her as a UofChicago demigod the capacity to speak for the entire Hindu congregation. I found myself daydreaming all the time of pancakes on bunnies' heads.

As a Marxist, Doniger reduces all of Hindu mythology to a Marxist and homosexual interpretation. She has spawned now two generations of Hindu studies professors at universities who share her deconstructionist view of the world's oldest religion.

And now Real Indian Hindus are mad as hell and are speaking out. Maybe because now the West has abandoned its own moral credibility.

[mrsmel]

I think at one time, I too might have seen it that way, but with the domination in American culture of certain agendas, people are getting afraid and/or fed-up. We already know that in America, MSM does not allow a real dialogue on the merits or demerits of, for example, the global warming or sodomite agendas. The only time they mention an opposition is to marginalise it, freeze it, demonise it-the Alinsky tactics. They never allow the opposition to speak for itself. People can see what’s going on.

[wideawake]

Do you believe in freedom of speech, or do you believe that governments should arbitrarily decide what people can read, write and say?

[wideawake]

Why should the aggressiveness of leftists in the US justify the aggressiveness of leftists in India? They are both wrong.

[little jeremiah]

I believe in freedom of speech. I also believe that what we have in the US now is not freedom of speech, but licence. For the first 150 years, “freedom of speech” did not cover obscenity, pornography, descriptions of child molestation nor its advocacy, plays about Jesus being a fag, the Vagina monologues, and the like. Nor did it cover naked dancing, women stomping on kittens on youtube, prostitues covering themselves with chocolate on stage, “Gay Pride” parades, and on and on ad nauseum.

It meant “Freedom to express your ideas”.

And that’s the way it should be, and the way the Founders meant it to be. What we have now is utter perversion of freedom of speech. I’m not even touching on ‘hate speech’ and what is forbidden, that’s another topic.

[little jeremiah]

The people who don’t want Wendy’s nasty perverted book sold are not leftists.

[wideawake]

We're not discussing actions like stomping kittens. We're discussing writing books about comparative religious theories.

And yes, the people banning the books are leftists. They are the watered-down Indian equivalent of national socialists.

[bakeneko]

Whatever they may or may not be, the Government of India is not bound by our constitution or bill of rights.

For you to insist upon it makes you just as imperialistic as Wendy.

[little jeremiah]

Stomping kittens on youtube was decided by the SCOTUS as falling under freedom of speech.

And according to you, the founders of the country were national socialists because they did not find that blasphemy, pornography or obscenity to be covered under freedom of speech.

[Elsie]

Wait 'til BYU gets wind of THIS!!!

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Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[wideawake]

(1) The SCOTUS found no such thing.

(2) The Founders did indeed countenance blasphemy and obscenity, certainly by the definitions operative in their day.

(3) We are not discussing pornography or stomping on kittens. We are discussing a volume of hack comparative religious theory.

[wideawake]

Of course India is not bound by such concerns as freedom or maturity - the Indian government has the option of suppressing freedom and acting like a primitive tyranny if that's what it wants.

If you think speaking the truth about India's mistakes is "imperialism" then you are clearly an advocate of Marxist-Leninist analysis of international relations.

I don't buy into, nor am I cowed by, socialist rhetoric.

Wendy Doniger is free to write what she likes and Indians have a natural right to read whatever they like, regardless of what their silly government says.

[little jeremiah]

1. Yes they did, I did the Moral Absolutes ping list for about a decade, and I remember that case.

2. Obsenity, pornography and blasphemy such as is tolerated (or celebrated) today would never have been countenanced by them, and the mores of that time (much better than ours today) did no countenance such things even by their more stringent parameters.

3. The hack comparative religious theory is considered by practicing Hindus to be blasphemy and obscenity. Why shouldn’t they forbid it if they want to?

[little jeremiah]

A lot of people just hate India and the Hindu religion.

[wideawake]

(1) You may remember a case that involved that question, but you'll search long and hard before you can find any SCOTUS ruling that says physically torturing animals is free speech.

(2) You are again wrong about the Founders. The works of Thomas Paine were inarguably blasphemous by every 18th century standard. And Titus Andronicus was inarguably obscene - yet was printed at Philadelphia in 1795 even as it was being bowdlerized in its home country.

(3) They shouldn't ban it, because they should value liberty over despotism. They should recognize that all human beings have inalienable rights.

There is also the practical difficulty of allowing governments to devide what can or cannot be said and what does or does not constitute something as amorphous as "blasphemy" and "obscenity."

(4) Why do you strain so hard against the facts to defend the Founders (from something they were right about) when you clearly deplore the Declaration they risked their lives for?

[wideawake]

Would someone who hated India expect the best of the Indian people, or would they expect and/or applaud the worst?

I wonder if I'm the only person in this conversation who has actually been to India and visited Hindu holy places.

[little jeremiah]

You think physically having been to India gives you knowledge?

I remember you from previous discussions and it’s pointless to discuss with you.

[little jeremiah]

Have fun discussing with your mind.

I bow out and will leave you with your thoughts.

The SCOTUS did issue a ruling that women in high heels stomping on small animals on Youtube is protected “speech”.

[wideawake]

I think going to India on purpose to learn about it indicates a lack of the blind hatred you impute to me. And I did learn some things there that added to my knowledge.

I'm sorry you lack the resources for a reasoned discussion.

[wideawake]

Again, SCOTUS did not rule that the activity was protected - and anyone who makes or "stars" in such videos is open to full prosecution, and the videos themselves may be used as evidence against them.

The SCOTUS' point was this: banning the videos after the fact can have unintended and unconstitutional consequences - such as exposing people who use the videos as a way to shame, identify and punish the criminals who made them to criminal prosecution themselves.

Life is complicated, lj, and sometimes you actually need to stop and think through the consequences of your actions. Actung rashly can often produce results that are the opposite of what you wanted.