Dear Kalyan,
Dear Dak Sir kumar,
Very well said. I couldn't have said it half as well if I
had tried for a week. You deserve the Dakghar Golden Nib Award.
You awarded this Nib too soon, sir. In any case, you should let the
"vanishing left" see my responses before they join the cheshire grin.
With their permission, I think some responses to them are in oorder. That way
they and I can argue some more.
I will share your message with the IITK75 elist if you don't
mind, especially since you have also, quite in the passing, very neatly
demolished one of the standard Janasangh arguments lately trotted out by
Vijay Gupta.
Now which was THE standard demolished Jansanghi argument?
I will also share Prem's message --- with your permission Prem.
I hope that this pair of messages will give my good and well-meaning friend
Krish something to chew on before he attempts to yoke together yet again the
miserable donkey of religion with the fine horse of upright conduct.
Now which was THE standard demolished Jansanghi argument?
Regards,
Arun
Regards and humour, Dak Sir Kumar
I think Arun's original stand on religion and morality can
be paraphrased into a set of questions
and answers:
- Is there a moral consciousness in thee human world, a consequence primarily of
civilisational development,
that imbues individuals *entirely independent of religions and their
institutions*?
Answer: Yes, of course. I take Arun's declaration of his atheism to mean this
simple assertion.
My interpretation, but limited to the consequence part. Which is
why Taliban will classify him a Hindu and make him wear the special clothes. I
don't think the argument that he is an atheist really will wash!
- Are religions and their institutions,, not to mention their teachings and
scriptures, a necessary and
sufficient condition for the existence and continued development of this moral
consciousness?
Answer: Of course not. Institutionalised relgion preens as though it were true
just to get a good press
and sustain its pseudo-relevance in this day and age.
- what moral consciousness?
(Warning: a leading question) Do religions and their
institutions often act in such a manner as to violate or otherwise degrade this
basic and non-negotiable moral consciousness of the human world?
Answer: Of course they do, but they are not the exclusive source of such
insanity.
- what moral consciousness?
For me the most invidious thing is the mapping of particualr
conflicts or behaviour on to religion. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are
invariably portrayed as *Islamic* strongmen, whereas they are what they are;
they are also practising Muslims. In Kashmir or Palestine we have conflicts
whose contours
are not primarily religious (in both cases, they pertain to territorial claims
and/or aggression), nor
can they be dealt with as such, unless we want to go back a millenium or so;
however, the fact that Muslims
are involved in both conflicts seems to give rise to all kinds of atavistic
stereotyping and primreview
malevolence. Is it right or logical to link the conduct of our parricidal and
fratricidal Crown Prince
Deipenda to his being a Hindu? Is Prabhakaran taking up cudgels for Hinduism
against the Buddhist
Sinhalese? Then, why are Islam and Islamic societies/communities perceived in
such false monolithic categories and therefore demonised in ways that are
completely extraneous to the real issues of conflict?
Abuse of religion for distinguishing the victims is older even than color,
hair color, eye color etc. You forget a very importnat point though. Neither
Dependra, nor Prabhakran either claimed, or would have been supported had they
tried, support for their action as Hindus. But the name of Islam is being
maligned in Afganistan and in Palestine with the knowledge and lack of
resistance by supporters of Islam! That it is not a religious phenomenon, but a
nationalistic one, is the principle reason I am more on your side than VijayG.
Let this Jihad become universal, and I will certainly change my tune. Apart from
minor loyalty switch, my switch can have deep consequences too based on
unbreakable encryption.
This peurile Hindutva fantasy built up by the Jansanghis through
raising the Muslim bogey wouldn't
last a day, if the truth, as opposed to the demonology, about the lives of
Indian Muslims were
widely known and acknowledged.
That the lives of Indian muslims are putrid I don't deny. That it is because
of systemic discrimination I strongly deny - it aint true in my experience or
knowledge. I repeat my question - who are these Jansnghies? What sustains them?
How can the left demand ANYTHING beyond control of Bajrangi-kinds? Like it or
not they are not going to be purged. Propagandistic attacks only serve to create
more Ronald Reagans.
I do not believe with Joey that the secular Left is
vanishing fast. It is true that the Jansanghis have
come to head a coalition government at the Centre after a decade of wilful
bloodletting, but it is also
true that they are being beaten back by the common people and with good reason.
I look forward to the day
when, after their brief and ludicrous stint of political ascendancy, they will
slide back into being
the kind of lunatic fringe group hanging out in Brooklyn, plumbing the depths of
their own degradation
for all to see.
"Secular left", or near-communists-like are hopefully vanishing fast
after the world sees the remanents of the evil empire. I hope like Prakash that
a saner alternative is created to American right wing than chinese communists.
Atheist or Agnostics or belivers in Human rights like challu and vijay should be
joining forces around a common program.
Kalyan
As an Indologist and Anthropologist of (Indic) Religion, I am aware that most Westernized Indians--esp. techno-junkies like many of us--are somewhat ignorant of the deep-structure of these categories, viz. Religion and Ethics.
Wrong Sir for calling it "deep-structure of these categories, viz. Religion and Ethics" ignorance. In fact I would call it "meaningful ignorance of pseudo scholars".
Simply because we haven't had the time &/or inclination to acquaint
ourselves with accepted scholarship in these and cognate fields. [In fact, from
a small informal sampling, I was even astounded to find that Ph.Ds in Science
are rather ignorant of the work of Philosophers of Science--even of Popper, let
alone Lakatose; or de Bono, who has begun to be included in such curricula]. Let
me therefore make my contribution to this little exchange. To wit:
Of the list you cite, only Karl Popper is known to me. Yet I can safely
ignore the existence of others without even knowing about them, or even making
an effort at acquaintance of works! And not because they would be called pseudo
scholars if I bother either. THIS magic is rather fundamental to me for it
relates to sizing up competition with non-anecdotal, non-extrapolational, and
non-statistical means. Neither of these make any sense for proving your
encryption can't be broken! How does one prove something can't be done? By
deriving a contradiction from existence or by showing that solution class can
not have the solution... These so called philosophers of science can be safely
ignored because if they knew what they were talking about, then they would also
be aware of halting problem, deep paradoxes like continuum hypothesis,
philosophical implications of remarkable work of chaitin of IBM, and mine; and
clearly they couldn't have!
1. As per Prof. Ninian Smart--an expert on Indic religions at the
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara--more theism usually means less philosophy.
Thus, Madhava's "dvaita" speculations are less sophisticated than
those of the Buddhist/non-theist Nagarjuna. Again, the latter is quite as
elegant as a modern ethical philosopher like GE Moore.
As ... (alleged) expert .. wrote theism usually means less philosophy...
Standard scholarly foolishness in that they can't distinguish between
fundamentally different reasons for a reference - attribution, brevity, and
quotation. "As einstein said ...": big deal (quotation).
"Parallel theorem, Gita page 122": brevity. (Prof. Ninian)
attribution. I don't distinguish between lawyers (cite cases) religious-scholars
(cite bible...) scholars (cite other morons ...) ... This whole business of
argumentation by quotations is enormously stupid and fundamentally
anti-scientific. I would not even a spend a penny on these often left-wing
loonies.
2. Theism does not automatically imply high numinous content. For
example, the legalistic theism of Calvin
has much less meditational/religious content than Buddhist non-theism.
Aside from Work for the Dole, the inadequacy of
pensions and the tightening of access under the policy of Mutual Obligation,
other aspects of critical importance in relation to social policy analysis is
the current advocacy by Federal Government that community development be
auspiced by Social Partnerships (Centre for Corporate Public Affairs, Corporate
Community Involvement – Establishing a Business Case, 2000) !!!!!!!!!
3. Morality and religion are seen as quite distinct categories in
traditional Hindu and Buddhist religiosity: a "good" person need not
have had "religious" experience(s). On the other hand, the Judaeo-Christian
traditions systematically conflate the two.
Unnecessarily insults Judaeo-Christian beliefs and inflates
traditional Hindu and Buddhist religiosity. Or vice versa! What is more
being an agnostic, I would LOVE to see some one define Hindu to me! Budddhist
Judaeo-Christian-Islam I'll buy. But Hindu! Dak Sir Kumar may not like it, but
he is one !! Also who is this traditional Hindu?
4. Finally, atheism can include "religious experience",
defined in contemporary terms say as a "psychological" experience,
such as in Maslow's "transcendence". That would obviate its
trivialization
into the apodictic positivism of the post-medireview West. (This can be aptly
cariocatured as being like
the view of a drunk who searches for his keys under the streetlight, rather than
where he had actually
lost them, simply because there is more light under the lamp....
But not obviate its podunkization
into the apodictic positivism of the post-medireview West.
Regards,
Prem