I read this on Sens blog and felt like writing an open letter to him.
Dear Sen,
I am surprised at this post as this defies all logic. You have taken a point and totally blown it out of proportion. It seems like you must have been drunk when you wrote this, anyway, the support you show for people like Jo is an indicator. The incident that you quote from freedom at midnight can happen in any country ruled by a powerful king. Dont you see examples of such incidents around the world, the answer is very simple. Power corrupts! When one man is king and has so much of authority he sometimes does tend to think that he is god. I am sure that the some of the kings and queens of England must have thought that they were gods, why draw a conclusion from one historical fact? I do agree that our civilization has been backward in terms of scientific development; I would also argue that it is 600 years of colonization by barbarians from the west and the Middle East has left us in shambles.
The British made sure before they left us that they deprived us of most of our natural resources, they took all the valuables that we had accumulated over centuries. We are a very ancient civilization and our practices and culture has withstood the test of 1000s of years. We aren’t the same anymore and there is no need to feel ashamed to be part of such an ancient culture. I agree that the change will come but it will be slow. Remember that what you write here is most likely to hurt people who believe in the rama’s and Krishna’s. I do not believe in any religion but I do believe that there have been great people in India like Buddha who in fact renounced all his material life and searched for inner peace in a society that was full of poor people. He lived among them and showed them the true meaning of life. He was a philosopher and a saint and also someone who lived with the people in their distress and bore it upon himself to deliver them from their ignorance. We have had such wonderful examples of reformers from India. Let us not forget that we have also produced people like Gandhi. I am sure Jo will keep sucking up to whatever you say just because he can attack Hinduism and spread Christianity. If Hinduism is evil so are Christianity and Islam. All religions are equally evil. So do not limit your criticism to Hindus alone please try criticizing the Christians who try their best to convert the innocent man and brain wash him into believing that the only way to salvation is Jesus Christ.
It seems like your criticism is one sided and that you have pretty much given a clean slate to the west which comes up with concepts like intelligent design. I think the purpose of this post has been ill defined by your attack on one particular group of people. You cannot generalize and speculate unless you have concrete evidence and using one particular incident is not enough evidence to question everything you read. You have to also accept that there are regions in India that are severely under developed and where illiteracy and poverty rule. We try and publicize those incidents to the rest of the world but forget our own duties at trying to rectify stuff in our own country. Empty criticism will not suffice, follow it up with action. Action speaks louder than speech. IF YOU CAN FOLLOW UP YOUR WORDS WITH ACTION IT WILL BE WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD. Unfortunately, our blogsites have become a hub for negative criticism. We forget to think positively and find solutions to our problems, instead we sit back and brood on the issue itself which I feel is not healthy. I understand your concern and appreciate your desire for progress but I think that ending on a positive note and acting to promote awareness are the only things that will help our country. We need to mobilize people for the cause, not criticize their beliefs and be antagonists. Lets be agonists and not antagonists!
5 comments:
"We need to mobilize people for the cause, not criticize their beliefs and be antagonists. Lets be agonists and not antagonists!".
how are u going to classify ur talks regarding jo.He left generic comments for my posts, which didn't have anything to do with christianity('You cannot generalize and speculate unless you have concrete evidence' where is ur concrete evidence on this?).But your attack on him and ur efforts to assert the hindu supremacy disappoints me.These hate talks are no different than the way a VHP/RSS supporter would have talked.
I dont think i have to talk about christianity and islam (or for that matter jainism, sikhism and the 100 other religions in india) if i have to talk about hinduism.I will write about islam or christianity when iam addressing a problem regarding them.If iam not believing in krishna lifting a mountain, hell iam not beleiving that jesus died and ressurected the next day.But i dont think, i HAVE to write about it cause iam writing about hinduism. This talk of talking about all religions is an age old trick of the hindu nationalist parties.
Lot of people are hurting my aethistic sentiments by putting pictures of rama and krishna and writing glorified version of the hindu mythology.Are they thinking about me when they are putting there post??.Is the sentiment of the minority like me, does not hold against the majority??.And i thought there was lot of tolerance in hinduism.
The incident i quoted from Freedom at midnight can happen anywhere, but does that falsify the fact that it could have happened here and the so called gods could have been normal kings.I dont care about the british history in india.The question is simple, is there a chance or not?.yes or no.
I have given the example and told that MAYBE the story of rama and krishna could be one like that.What i have done here is opened a perspective for people to look at.If 10 people are looking at a story in a certain way and a 11th person introduces a new perspective is that wrong?.Well most of the scientific discoveries happened because few people saw common things with different perspective.Some people think people would be safe in the romantic world of hindu mythology where krishna lifts a mountain, dances on a snake and that everybody should keep believing and seeing the stories in the same way people have been seeing since prehistoric days.But i dont beleive in that and iam not waiting for someone else to speak up on what i think about hinduism.
Robbie - I'm surprised to note that you seem to perceive any opposing point of view on Hinduism as an imposition of other religions. You seem to be worried about conversion, rather than discussing the greatness of Hinduism. My question to you is, Who are people that are getting converted ?. Why do they do it ?. What can you do to prevent it. Do your research. What's the point in barking up the wrong tree ?.
Sen - It is a grave mistake to perceive religion using a scientific eye. You may not believe in God, but there is a reason why others do. It is the same kind of belief by what you live. From where you stand, you are only ready to accept things that a scientific community has accepted. If I ask you, how many planets are there, you would definitely laugh at me and say there are nine, but at some point in time, we only knew about a smaller number of planets. So, even for science , nothing is absolute.
Regards,
PA
:-D
Open letter, Open comment and no reply !!!
What a life ! now it hurts my sentiment to not see reply from the author :P
i think ur being a bit judgemental when u refer to jo, just because he is christian doesnt mean he is an evanglist, i personally have slight rite wing leanings, and have written bout the intolerence of christianity, which jo read, he of course was taken aback by my stand, but nevertheless he was open to discussion, which is important, and not once did he condem hindusim in the entire discussion that followed. here is the link,
http://srivatsanmurali.blogspot.com/2005/07/religous-debate.html
initially he ofcourse supported chiristianity, but even then accepted that evanglism is prevelant, and also the caste system in christianity, pls read the extensive discussion in jos blog (link provided in my blog).
christianity is intolerant towards other religions, i don like being called a barbarian just bcoz i am a hindu, but therefore do we judge every christian withou knowing them?? then what is the difference between the hindu outlook and the christian outlook?
i am reminded of a small incident, there was a christian reearcher who did extensive research on the vedas, and after reading them wanted to convert to hindusim and apporached the paramacharya of the kanchi mutt (senior to jayandra saraswati), the seer said that in hindusim the concept of conversion doesnt exist and that he will fulfill the spirit of hindusim if he is faithful to his faith, that is follow sanathana dharmam. this is the level of tolerance that hindusim has, imagine a man is asked to remain a christian and follow it, yet he is told that if he follows it properly he is a hindu in spirit by none less than the paramacharya.
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