You aren't treating me disrespectfully - you're treating those supposedly reputable universities with (presumably germane) courses on religion philosophy or comparative religion disrespectfully, by attributing to them a glaring lack of scholarliness and limited comprehension of their own fields.
Billions of people and thousands of years is not an exaggeration, you know. The Bhagavad Gita is literally that influential and revered. Disagree with it's teachings if you will, but to refuse to acknowledge it's global influence and acceptance is simplistic bigotry, not discussion.
And your tired repetition of the word "tract" is a sophmoric insult, meant solely to express disrespect while declaiming otherwise. How clever of you.
While you're at it, why not simply claim that India itself is inhabited by vast swaths of illiterate masses who's beliefs, practices, rituals and customs can only charitably be described as barbaric and unfit for accommodation in western societies?
Oh wait, you already did.
You write: “you’re treating those supposedly reputable universities with (presumably germane) courses on religion philosophy or comparative religion disrespectfully, by attributing to them a glaring lack of scholarliness and limited comprehension of their own fields.”
This comment suffers from twin defects. Why do you accuse “me” for reporting the historical fact of what university faculty committees sift for debate they consider worthy of rational thought in which the Gita gets a footnotes’ worth of reference? Second, you then insinuate that this omission constitutes a glaring lack of scholarship.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that first you rightly demand scholarship and debate and then complain of a lack of scholarship if scholars decide to relegate the Gita to the ether. And, then you chide me for a “sophomoric” description by calling the Gita a tract.
Of course would you not agree that “India itself is inhabited by vast swaths of illiterate masses who’s beliefs, practices, rituals and customs can only charitably be described as barbaric and unfit for accommodation in western societies” if explained in the context that Hindus of this perspective are prone to kill and torch when attempts are made to engage them in “rational” inquiry about the validity of their beliefs as a prelude to conversion?