Posted on 07/28/2009 7:37:17 PM PDT by Willie Green
Festivities in a new temple dedicated to the Indian monkey god Hanuman in Frisco, Texas, earlier this month remind us that a minority of religions exists within the shores of the United States that is relatively silent. The faith that is the subject here, of course, is Hinduism, which in that North Texas town, at least, is enjoying an "expanding population," according to the Dallas Morning News. Despite the fact that Indians have been quietly enriching the American melting pot for decades to centuries, few non-Indians know much about the colorful religion of Hinduism.
In actuality, the term "Hinduism" represents not a monolithic faith but a conglomeration of more or less varied religions, sects and cults largely originating on the Indian subcontinent and often incorporating beliefs, doctrines and traditions dating back several thousand years. What we perceive of as "Hinduism," then, encompasses and embraces a wide variety of beliefs, to the extent that even recent icons such as Elvis Presley, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa have reputedly made it into the extensive Hindu pantheon of a traditional "333 million" deities, demigods and saints, etc.
According to his hairdresser-cum-spiritual advisor Larry Geller, the "King of Rock and Roll" Presley, who was raised a Christian, was fond of reading books about Eastern spiritual traditions. The affection for Indian philosophy by members of the music group the Beatles is legendary, especially in the case of George Harrison. Many Indian gurus and yogis have found welcome on this side of the Atlantic and Pacific, and the ancient physical and spiritual exercise of yoga in a myriad of forms is practiced by up to 20 million Americans.
Yet, Hinduism remains a mystery to most Americans, both at times intriguing and bizarre with its sundry gods and goddesses. Part of the reason for this oversight is because Hinduism in its fullness seems so alien to cultures largely dominated by either the Abrahamic faiths with their aloof monotheistic God or the "New Atheism," which has a tendency to ridicule and dismiss such lively piety.
Hinduism plays nice in the U.S.
Another reason Americans as whole are largely oblivious to Hinduism is because its practitioners in general do not rabblerouse, set up terrorist camps, call for the destruction of the U.S. Constitution, bilk the American public for millions, establish bogus "charities," engage in unethical and seedy "televangelism," lobby Congress for special favors and consideration, challenge constantly the principle of separation of church and state, abuse the First Amendment and all of the fun stuff (sarcasm) we are used to seeing from fervent religionists in our country and elsewhere.
This lack of aggression by Hindus in America does not reflect that they do not take their faith very seriously, as they certainly do. Like Christians who proclaim that Jesus Christ is real because they have had visions of him, devout Hindus often feel as if their deities have made their very real presence known, as in the case of Cheeni Rao, author of In Hanuman's Hands, who while going down the destructive path of drug abuse was "saved" by the monkey-headed god. Rao's experience was every bit as life changing as that of Christians in a similar position—and this instance illustrates that the form of a profound spiritual presence purportedly experienced is largely if not entirely dependent upon one's cultural conditioning, not upon any "ultimate reality" or "absolute truth."
"Hinduism" as a monolith has its flaws—and non-Hindus both religious and secular will no doubt point them out—including taking itself too seriously to the point where, in its native land, a certain amount of strife and atrocity can be traced to Indian beliefs, such as the rare but ongoing practice of widow-burning or sati in various districts, as well as other sexism, prejudices—such as the caste system—and violence committed by its fanatical minority. Yet, while some "enlightened gurus" have been opportunists preying on a gullible American public with enticing stories of metaphysical and supernatural wonders, so far traditional Hinduism's practitioners generally have not brought unsavory and violent "traditions" along with them to their new homelands and demanded they be allowed to break the law of the land in practicing them, unlike members of other faiths.
We can only hope that other religionists in the United States and elsewhere will follow suit and behave in a similar, more spiritually mature manner as the American Hindu population, rather than bullying and elbowing their way in, exploiting the system and creating enmity. Rarely if ever do we hear complaints or derogatory news items about Hindus in America, while members of other groups such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam often make it into the news for unethical and illegal behavior. Does this frequent broadcasting of these three faiths result because they are under a bigger microscope, or could there be a problem with the Abrahamic monotheism itself, whereby it insists on its own way, to compel and force itself upon people against their will, with dire threats of eternal punishment for rejecting it?
Concerning the fanatical monotheism depicted in the Old Testament, from which the Abrahamic faiths arose, in Pagan Christs (17-18) John M. Robertson remarked:
Monotheism of this type is in any case morally lower than polytheism since those who held it lacked sympathy for their neighbors. Most of the Jewish kings were polytheists. What I am concerned to challenge is the assumption—due to the influence of Christianity—that Jewish monotheism is essentially higher than polytheism, and constitutes a great advance in religion.... If the mere affirmation of a Supreme Creator God is taken to be a mark of superiority, certain primitive tribes who hold this doctrine and yet practice human sacrifice must be considered to have a 'higher' religion than the late Greeks and Romans."Monotheism in America will simply need to become accustomed to the fact that this country is inhabited by polytheists such as the Hindus as well as atheists, humanists and secularists, and to stop being so aggressive and insistent upon its own way. That's America under the U.S. Constitution, a fact that freedom lovers everywhere will appreciate.
purile = putrid
Newton’s faith: Arianism.
“Dominating the secular intellectual milieu in which the Cappadocians lived was Platonism, which, when mixed with unreflective Christian theology, bred Arianism, the most prominent heresy at the dawn of the fourth century. According to Platonism, the One or “first cause” radiated immaterial and material entities in a hierarchical, categorized way. If this conceptualization had remained unchecked, the Christian God could have been given a Platonic veneer: the Father as the “first cause,” the Son or Logos as the primary emanation from the One, and the Spirit as a further emanation of the Logos. Arianism held that the Son of God was a being created by the First Person and could not be considered divine, an attractive option incorporating both classical Greek thought and the historical event of the person of Jesus.”
Perhaps — however you said that the riots at the Golden Temple were due to some kind of temple of hindus built there — that is wrong.
I know that. I was only following the same guidelines Steelfish set to describe who a Hindu is, and who a Catholic is.
To him, rioters are Hindus, while at the same time, Latino druglords are not Catholics. I applied the same, back to him.
| The Bhagavad-Gita. |
| Chapter XII |
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The Bhagavad-Gita
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KRISHNA: |
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| Yet not by Vedas, nor from sacrifice, | 335 |
| Nor penance, nor gift-giving, nor with prayer | |
| Shall any so behold, as thou hast seen! | |
| Only by fullest service, perfect faith, | |
| And uttermost surrender am I known | |
| And seen, and entered into, Indian Prince! |
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| Who doeth all for Me; who findeth Me | |
| In all; adoreth always; loveth all | |
| Which I have made, and Me, for Love’s sole end, | |
| That man, Arjuna! unto Me doth wend. | |
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Here endeth Chapter XI. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ,
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entitled “Viswarupdarsanam,” or “The Book
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of the Manifesting of the One
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and Manifold”
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The problem with Islam is fundamental. It was designed after the observations of the prominent faults of the other two religions it was invented out of- Judaism and the various flavors of Catholicism and Syrian Christianity. It ascertains supremacy and dominance over all other faiths, and by doing so, paints on itself a big, round target.
Atheism has so far concentrated on the various religions of “Christianity” and its fallacies. That’s changing. If the YouTube videos are anything to go by, Islam is the new target.
The Muslims, by the strict definition of their aims and faith as conferred upon themselves by their religion, are fundamentally antagonistic to all other religions and any hopes of reconciliation is founded on ignorance on part of the Muslims themselves, regarding the aim of their faith.
I get the gist of what you are trying to establish, but the NLFT does have Christianity as part of its agenda. The ethnicity is Khaasi. The violence is of Christian Khaasis upon tribal Khaasis. Their constitution clearly specifies Christianity as its driving agenda.
The LTTE is not a religious organization, and had prominent Catholics like Anton Balasingham as one of its chief strategists.
As for Jindal “toileting” something for Catholicism, I doubt he’s ever read the Gita. In America, it has become a silly popularity contest to proclaim religion for any position of power. Politicians like Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have a chance in today’s politics. Too much of the idiot masses has been empowered with the right to vote, in opposition to what was the norm at the time of the Founding Fathers- only a privileged minority exercised the power to decide.
That said, George Santayana, to borrow the delicacy of words Steelfish is an expert in utilizing, “toileted” his Catholic faith for Atheism.
1. Rather than reading Gita, give the Gospel of St. Luke a try!
In this, you will see real people being described, real witnesses, specific events being detailed, descriptions, and eye-witness accounts. You will find people such as the closest disciples of Christ in a state of fear and dismay after his crucifixtion go into hiding. Yet three days later they actually ate with the risen Christ (not some apparition) and went onto preach the good news to the pagans at the time (the Gita crowd), many of them were converted, and all except for St. John were martyred. It was on the blood of martyrs the Church flourished.
For more than two millenia thereafter some of the most brilliant and searching minds on this planet have examined this revelation that has mushroomed to all corners of the globe. Countless departments of higher education, theologians, scholars and historians of every color and stripe have examined the synoptic Gospels and the Catholic Credo.
Innumerable magazines, reviews, books, treatises, journals, and articles to this day continue to examine this revealed Truth. Conversions have occurred by the galore from the very learned (GK Chesterton) as have miracles of faith. Be informed this is not the stuff of some obscure Gita tracts.
2. As Cronos so well points out, the specific targeting of Catholics, Christians, and Sikhs for butchering by Hindus is somehow downplayed by you to shifting this genocidal and barbaric criminality to the NLFT and you try to compare this to the LTTE. The LTTE is no different than the Basque Terrorists, a well organized militia, well financed by expatriates, suicide bombings, and in control of fairly well defined geographical enclaves.
To try and compare a rag-tag band like the NLFT to these groups is more than absurd, it is flatly untrue. To use this as a cover to expunge Hindu atrocities only helps validate the sheer illiteracy of the Hindu masses and their firebrand swamis who feel that exposure to the synoptic Gospels will reveal the fraud of the myths in the Gita and the pantheon of Hindu deities -including gods incarnated as monkeys, elephants, baboons, lions, and reptiles and in the end spell the doom of their parasitic temple livelihood.
You even tried lamely to equate a garden variety type isolated act of theater vandalism following screening of the Da Vinci Code to arson. But the mass slaughtering of Sikhs and the torching of their properties by rampaging mobs of Hindus is explained away as incitement by governmental machinations.
Such is the nature of the pathetic defenses you offer to assuage the vile acts of Hindus.
Finally about the use of the word “toileting” It needs bearing that the Christ Himself used colorful language such as “brood of vipers” to describe willful unbelievers in the face of revealed truth.
And as for comparing Santayana to Gov. Bobby Jindal, well I’ll let this comparison speak for itself.
The Money Line. Remind you of anyone ;>>
You can pack a lot into a post. Always a pleasure to chew on.
Who?
In this, you will see real people being described, real witnesses, specific events being detailed, descriptions, and eye-witness accounts. You will find people such as the closest disciples of Christ in a state of fear and dismay after his crucifixtion go into hiding. Yet three days later they actually ate with the risen Christ (not some apparition) and went onto preach the good news to the pagans at the time (the Gita crowd), many of them were converted, and all except for St. John were martyred. It was on the blood of martyrs the Church flourished.
LOL, you are assuming mythology for fact, here. There's no solid proof of any of this, other than from the Bible itself, written and compiled from scraps of literature decades after this supposed Christ was dead. Poor records of any of these fantasies exist from Roman sources, if any, and plenty of texts have been ordered to be destroyed by this cabalistic group for fear of upsetting their grand plan. All your sources for your mundane, superstitious beliefs came from dubious characters themselves, and years after they were supposed to have happened. Large and significant details of the happenings of the era amusingly coincide with past mythologies of the region- including those of the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians and the Mithras, among others. Prominent festivities of this superstitious cult have their origins in pagan ones, including Christmas and Easter.
Go even further back in time, and this cult was built upon the superstitions of even spectacular human imagination. Moses talked to bushes, fire wrote Hebrew sentences on stones, seas parted on command, and the Jews enjoyed ritual mutilation of baby penises, whilst indulging in "purity" rituals and other garbage.
For more than two millennia thereafter some of the most brilliant and searching minds on this planet have examined this revelation that has mushroomed to all corners of the globe. Countless departments of higher education, theologians, scholars and historians of every color and stripe have examined the synoptic Gospels and the Catholic Credo.
Pure tripe.
There is nothing brilliant about swallowing whole the products of fantastic human imagination; and of the characters- the own contemporaries of whom barely maintained any record of such supposed spectacular happenings, and all sources of which end up coming from the same bunch of unreliable and dubious characters who spread the fantasies to usurp a decaying empire, and made themselves absolute rulers.
Catholicism is a cult that indulges in such spectacular human attributes as idolatry, Satan-rituals, imperialism and the like. The Founding Fathers recognized the dangers posed by these barbarians, and the fact that the areas of the lands this scourge was prominent in- Spain, Italy, Argentina, etc., have all been susceptible to dictatorships. The same coterie indulged in dubious means of financial support, such as selling "salvation", buying sins with payment, empire-building, and then supporting the despicable king-priest-peasant cycle of social hierarchy to further their nefarious activities.
Innumerable magazines, reviews, books, treatises, journals, and articles to this day continue to examine this revealed Truth. Conversions have occurred by the galore from the very learned (GK Chesterton) as have miracles of faith. Be informed this is not the stuff of some obscure Gita tracts.
"Revealed truth" and 20 cents will get you a cup of coffee.
Obscure Biblical tracts, many of which were cunningly hidden and then destroyed from the investigative eyes, were all part of the scheme to sell garbage, and "harvest" souls. Suddenly, in the age of science and technology, no spectacular miracles, no verifiable apparitions, none of the supernatural happenings that intrigued the primitive minds. How strange, LOL!
2. As Cronos so well points out, the specific targeting of Catholics, Christians, and Sikhs for butchering by Hindus is somehow downplayed by you to shifting this genocidal and barbaric criminality to the NLFT and you try to compare this to the LTTE. The LTTE is no different than the Basque Terrorists, a well organized militia, well financed by expatriates, suicide bombings, and in control of fairly well defined geographical enclaves.
Listen, before indulging in verbal diarrhea, please don't obscure facts by claiming the rioting murderers as Hindus, while being dumbfounded at the same time when proof of the Hindus who HELPED the Sikhs was pointed to you. Comparing the Congress thugs to Hindus is akin to comparing the NAZIS to Catholicism- the leader of whom was a product of the Catholic culture itself- Adolf Hitler.
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Beheaded villagers’ bodies found in forest
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Agartala, Jan. 16: Police yesterday found two bodies in a jungle under Birganj police station in South Tripura. Police sources said the two victims, identified as Alam Mia and Sohrab Mia of Dalak village, had left for the neighbouring Chishtipara village under Gandacherra police station on Wednesday morning to purchase bulls from the market there. They did not return. Tribals of Kalajhari village, situated between Dalak and Chistipara yesterday spotted their beheaded bodies lying in the jungles and reported the matter to the police. A large group of police and Tripura State Rifles (TSR) jawans reached the spot and found the bodies, which were identified by their relatives. The villagers claimed that a group of National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) militants had killed the two men and taken away their bulls. The families of the victims, originally residents of Paharpur village, had shifted to Dalak village to escape militant depredations. In a separate incident, a listed NLFT militant laid down arms at the Purba Karbook camp of the special police officers yesterday. Police sources said Champrai Reang, former resident of Khuripara village under Natun Bazar police station, had joined the NLFT in 1998. He had taken part in a number of strikes on security forces as well as civilians. He deposited a countrymade gun to the police. |
SOURCE: The Telegraph
To try and compare a rag-tag band like the NLFT to these groups is more than absurd, it is flatly untrue.
NLFT, rag-tag? By what standards? These murderous mobs are only "rag-tag" for specimens of ignorant buffoonery such as yourself. Go see Global Security reports on the group, before mouthing your ass off.
If that doesn't help, I'll lead you to BBC articles on the same.
To use this as a cover to expunge Hindu atrocities only helps validate the sheer illiteracy of the Hindu masses and their firebrand swamis who feel that exposure to the synoptic Gospels will reveal the fraud of the myths in the Gita and the pantheon of Hindu deities -including gods incarnated as monkeys, elephants, baboons, lions, and reptiles and in the end spell the doom of their parasitic temple livelihood.
Nobody is using this for any cover. If you cannot accept that the culture that you want to champion also had its dubious characters, then tough luck. Fact remains fact, however bitter it is to your tribe.
And again, for the n-th time, please exercise some degree of intellectual honesty by not mixing the teachings of the Gita with other superstitions. If you persist, I'll point out how Catholics raise encapsulated pieces of dead flesh, dead bodies, "relics", idols, snakes and the like to divine status, and continue to indulge in doing so, by calling them "venerations". They kiss, cuddle, wrap themselves with and around all this garbage for "spiritual" and "physical" cures.
The Catholic culture is vividly evident in the slums of South America, and other hell-holes, as per the standards you delight in applying to the Hindus.
This scum of the earth has been allowed to infiltrate and settle without legal sanction in vast areas of the cities in the United States- all pouring out like human sewage from the lands of Catholicism, south of the border.
They come here and indulge in unspeakable crimes, violent murders, cheating, theft and intimidation, all directly leading to the failure of large swathes of the American frontier.
Then there is the cult of pedophilia that the culture promotes, which is an entire section for discussion, altogether.
All these, strictly as per the standards you have established to describe "Hindus".
You even tried lamely to equate a garden variety type isolated act of theater vandalism following screening of the Da Vinci Code to arson.
Smashing theaters, destroying property, rioting, burning pamphlets and books from publishing houses, all these are not excusable, my dear ignorant friend! And "garden variety"? Considering the fact that you share religious and cultural kinship with the murderous criminal aliens from the south of the border, arson and rioting might be "garden variety" to this cult you belong to.
But the mass slaughtering of Sikhs and the torching of their properties by rampaging mobs of Hindus is explained away as incitement by governmental machinations.
Such is the nature of the pathetic defenses you offer to assuage the vile acts of Hindus.
Ooh, rampaging mobs of Hindus. What are you, daft? The anti-Sikh riots had nothing to do with Hinduism and ALL to do with the Congress political party, the same coterie that sustains its power based on votes from India's minorities, especially the Muslims and the Catholics.
By your own standards, the NAZIS were a product of a Catholic culture. I repeat, by your own standards, as faulty as they may be.
Finally about the use of the word “toileting” It needs bearing that the Christ Himself used colorful language such as “brood of vipers” to describe willful unbelievers in the face of revealed truth.
Christ himself was a myth. Deal with it. All of this character's details come from unverifiable and dubious sources, many of them deliberately destroyed by this cult of usurpers, the successors of which established the Papal Office as the continuation of the Roman Imperial regime, and indulged in such disgusting activities as accepting monetary compensations for sins of adultery, the whole deal not too different from the activities of today's pimps. Let alone that, the same cabalistic tribe indulged in empire-building, demarcating the planet for different constituents of this cult, and orchestrating mass slaughters and persecution, only limited by their relatively poor technological capabilities- swords and primitive muskets. Women were burned, men were tortured and executed, at will and with wanton abandon. The Founding Fathers of this very nation recognized the garbage for what it stood, and rightly relegated it to the sidelines in their day. You would be one of those of the tribe of the happily ignorant to smile with glee and claim a common "kinship" with these people in spite of their great efforts to distance themselves from the Catholic cult that you claim allegiance to.
Almost all of America, its bounty and its success, and that of the Western World which came about 1600+ years after the establishment of the cult of Catholicism, came about after the people of these lands rejected wholesale, the Papal garbage pouring out of Rome, lead by none other than the likes of Martin Luther, who cleansed the cult of its barbarism and ignorance, to lead to the foundation of modern Deism, that lead to secular/ atheistic leaders who ultimately established and guided the supremacy of these lands.
Places that stuck with the superstitions of Catholicism, ended up being the hell-holes of South America.
That said, it was hilarious to watch you squirm when you were impotent to do anything when it was shown to you by others and me, that Deism is not Catholicism, or even the mythological Christian umbrella culture, for that matter.
And as for comparing Santayana to Gov. Bobby Jindal, well I’ll let this comparison speak for itself.
Ooh, a more-or-less average politician, with nothing significant under his belt, is now compared to one of the most prominent American thinkers? What kind of a Jindal fanboy are you?
He's insecure, egoistic and immature.
Must be running large medical bills for blood-pressure pills and anti-depressants, I bet.
The last refuge of the fool is when he starts to call names!
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