<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Mar 3 2009, 04:19 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Mar 3 2009, 04:19 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->well, while I generally agree, I think one has to bear in mind that unlike the bible belt in south east, California is one of the least "Christian" and most "liberal" states in the US. We have to differenciate between the anti-Hindu energy coming from mlechCha stream and christian stream, and do away with the tendency of equating the two. Here it is mlechCha-ism at play not so much christianism, while the two collude on so many agenda points.
[right][snapback]95138[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Psecularism is a facade of christianism. Christianism doesn't only use christian members. Christian-conditioned society need not be christian at all and still it will act invariably christian.
Long ago, the Church called the christian monarchies its "secular arm". It used this "secular arm" in wiping out Jews and heretics in its lands, the secular arm presided in tribunals of judgement of witches, heretics and Jews and pronounced the sentences of torture and death. The church wouldn't do this (it only puppeted the secular arm), because it is important for the church that it must not be seen to have any blood to stain its own hands (see for instance Joseph McCabe, IIRC he covers this important principle of the catholic church in a clear summary). Of course, back then the "secular arm" was entirely christian, it just didn't consist of <i>ordained</i> members.
In our time, there is a 'real' secular arm: the christian-conditioned arm - the modern secular governments of the west including their secular education. It may not profess christianism, but all of christian society is guided by christianism and christian hatred and/or (at best) non-understanding of paganism.
Consider Joseph McCabe. He left catholicism and became an atheist. One doesn't need to guess where he'd be on Hindu Dharma - I am <i>sure</i> he would have found it a greater superstition and falsehood than the catholic religion he knew intimately. Why? Because he is christoconditioned. He referred to Aurelius' Meditations as a piece of "soporific" (sleep-inducing, I believe) writing. He doesn't understand. And he never will. Because he can't.
Another example to do with him. Read between the lines in his description of Constantine's dad's view of 'God' - that it was monotheistic and was 'therefore' better than ('a step up' from) the traditional Greco-Roman view (a value judgement that McCabe is placing because of his christo-conditioning):
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical...chapter_16.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Constantius, on the contrary, seems to have been an easy-going and more or less cultivated man. He believed, with the Greek and Roman philosophers, in one god whose reality was figured or caricatured in all the deities of the Roman religion; and there can be little doubt -- indeed, it is clear -- that he transmitted his mild philosophy to his son Constantine.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Look at his wording - cultivated, philosophers, figured, caricatured, mild, philosophy - they add subjectivity, they show his views.
Such things are the ingrained biases in ex-christians and all of christian-conditioned society. (And Joseph McCabe is one of the greater intellectuals of the west, btw.) They think themselves open-minded, secular, knowledgeable, accepting even - right upto the point where they encounter the real pagan. And now, instead of giving them the European GrecoRomans for consideration, show them the Hindoo. And you (and they) will find that they suddenly do have far more in common with their christian counterparts after all, than they do with the pagans: in their prejudices and drawing up their noses at our way of life and what they think are our 'superstitious beliefs'.
(And note also that McCabe's initial sympathies during WWII years were <i>predictably</i> with the 'atheist' movement in Russia - as communism was called back then. This is usually another inevitability: there are two kinds of western christians - those who are christian and those who are anti-christian, such as the communists, such as the 'unreligious' fascists and neo-nazis. I don't think McCabe would have been a communist, but the comparatively little that was revealed to him at the time of what Soviet Russia stood for, did get his approval because it sounded good to him in theory.)
When Russell called communism a christian heresy, he was right. It is christian in every way except that it thinks it is not christianism and thinks it is against christianism. In every other respect it is exactly the same: the same exterminatory ideology, the same pattern of behaviour and thinking. And that also explains why Marx was a big fan of Britain's tyrannical oppression of Hindu Bharatam, and that's why he actually approved of Britain trying to convert Hindus into the 'Better Opium' of the masses, than leaving us to our dark 'superstition' of Hindu Dharma.
Consider how some people who quit christianism in the US are still as anti-semitic as before they left. (The Russian communists were the same.) And even when they call themselves anti-christian (like many racist/oryan orgs in AmeriKKKa), they are otherwise still christian in every way: all their previous hatreds, prejudices, ideas are still there. There is so little to distinguish between their christian and 'post'-christian selves.
Think of the way westernised (christo-conditioned) elements in psecular, non-christian Indian society have no understanding of Hindus or Hindu traditions. The Hindu way is entirely alien to them, they have been alienated from it by christian thinking patterns so that they now view it with practically the same non-comprehension as the west views it. This is a form of christianisation too. Even their arguments against Hindu Dharma are the old christian arguments.
There are many layers of christianism. Considering the west again, even after they quit the belief in jeebus and other christian fables, it doesn't mean they quit the orbit of thinking imposed on them by christianism. They cannot think outside of their box of conditioning. The <i>very</i> best that a christian-conditioned society can produce is a Thomas Paine (and there was only ever one). Never a Julian. The first is floating at the very outer boundaries of the box that christian-conditioning allows for, the second inhabits a different universe altogether.
Moreover, Deism (the religion of Thomas Paine) is the only decent religion that can arise in a world devastated by christianism, in a christian-conditioned society. And even that has little chance of success as the history of the Americas has shown. It's a religion with a very general, though positive, idea of some 'God' (the Creator). I'm not saying it's untrue, I'm just saying they do not have the benefit of experience the way Native Americans are vindicated in their ancient traditions. The Deist Creator will remain unknown to them because they think he is otherwise unknowable in this world (other than in regular nature). The religion is founded on an idea, a belief. It doesn't have the sort of knowledge of its God that ages of Taoist or Shinto experience has developed with their Gods.
America and the entire west is still christo-conditioned. It's embedded deep into their view on everything. They *know* nothing else, they're not used to contemplating concepts outside it. And anything they encounter beyond their ken is alien to them and they are prone to misunderstand, presume or judge it. America/west does not see Hindu Dharma on an equal plane to other religions.
Of course there is the atheist Carl Sagan with his kind sympathetic view of Hindu Dharma, and the UK's atheist David Attenborough with his non-judgemental bit on the Kumbha Mela and the Temple of Rats (Rajasthan?) in Life of Mammals. Carl Sagan is the *best* we can expect, but he's not the rule. He's the exception. David Attenborough is the next best, and even he is a rarity. A Joseph McCabe, however helpful against christianism, will not even be able to understand Hellenismos let alone us. And he *will* make value-judgements, and they will be derived in a straight line from his christian conditioning. But his is certainly not the worst nor even the most common consideration we can expect.
The kinder western non-christian seekers will be pleased with Buddhism - generally just the <i>ideas</i> of Buddhism. He'll be pleased with Hindu philosophy, including Vedanta, and of course the Gita. And definitely approve of Yoga. He may even be pleased with some stream of Hindu Dharma that seems monotheistic enough. And that's where all sympathies with Hindu Dharma will stop. It's exactly how western atheists since enlightenment were in love with Greek philosophy and Roman historiography but never sympathised with nor understood the actual traditions of the general Greco-Roman population. At best, the Olympic Gods and their narratives made for artistic inspiration. Though usually, western intellectuals have always described how Greek philosophy was 'inevitable' and that it 'naturally replaced' - in the human mental evolutionary sense - the Religio surrounding the Olympic Gods, whom they consider (as McCabe does) to be ridiculous and unreal. In the same manner, there are westerners that have been impressed with the Tao te Ching since it is 'philosophical' enough, but what they can't compute is when they find out that the real (traditional Chinese) Taoists have Gods. Western sympathizers of Taoism take great pains to tell Taoists that they "can't have Gods", that it's 'not actually' part of their religion, that they are confused and 'corrupting' their Taoism and not practising it the way it 'originally' was. There is only so much 'sympathy' most of the best of the west can give us. And that's the *best* I'm talking about.
You see, a lot of the ground-level Hindu Dharma <i>does not compute</i> to the west. Even the merely christoconditioned can recognise this as Paganism and generally has an intrinsic (christianism-instilled/christian-programmed) apathy for it. The west is <i>christo</i>west because it is christoconditioned, even when not consciously christian.
This is *very* different from how E Asian people (with a background in a natural tradition) who know nothing about Hindu Dharma view us. They are quite open to understanding even all those things that to western people would be the most outrageous elements in Hindu Dharma. The difference is entirely the way their minds have been cultivated, versus the way the west's been conditioned by christianism.
[right][snapback]95138[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Psecularism is a facade of christianism. Christianism doesn't only use christian members. Christian-conditioned society need not be christian at all and still it will act invariably christian.
Long ago, the Church called the christian monarchies its "secular arm". It used this "secular arm" in wiping out Jews and heretics in its lands, the secular arm presided in tribunals of judgement of witches, heretics and Jews and pronounced the sentences of torture and death. The church wouldn't do this (it only puppeted the secular arm), because it is important for the church that it must not be seen to have any blood to stain its own hands (see for instance Joseph McCabe, IIRC he covers this important principle of the catholic church in a clear summary). Of course, back then the "secular arm" was entirely christian, it just didn't consist of <i>ordained</i> members.
In our time, there is a 'real' secular arm: the christian-conditioned arm - the modern secular governments of the west including their secular education. It may not profess christianism, but all of christian society is guided by christianism and christian hatred and/or (at best) non-understanding of paganism.
Consider Joseph McCabe. He left catholicism and became an atheist. One doesn't need to guess where he'd be on Hindu Dharma - I am <i>sure</i> he would have found it a greater superstition and falsehood than the catholic religion he knew intimately. Why? Because he is christoconditioned. He referred to Aurelius' Meditations as a piece of "soporific" (sleep-inducing, I believe) writing. He doesn't understand. And he never will. Because he can't.
Another example to do with him. Read between the lines in his description of Constantine's dad's view of 'God' - that it was monotheistic and was 'therefore' better than ('a step up' from) the traditional Greco-Roman view (a value judgement that McCabe is placing because of his christo-conditioning):
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical...chapter_16.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Constantius, on the contrary, seems to have been an easy-going and more or less cultivated man. He believed, with the Greek and Roman philosophers, in one god whose reality was figured or caricatured in all the deities of the Roman religion; and there can be little doubt -- indeed, it is clear -- that he transmitted his mild philosophy to his son Constantine.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Look at his wording - cultivated, philosophers, figured, caricatured, mild, philosophy - they add subjectivity, they show his views.
Such things are the ingrained biases in ex-christians and all of christian-conditioned society. (And Joseph McCabe is one of the greater intellectuals of the west, btw.) They think themselves open-minded, secular, knowledgeable, accepting even - right upto the point where they encounter the real pagan. And now, instead of giving them the European GrecoRomans for consideration, show them the Hindoo. And you (and they) will find that they suddenly do have far more in common with their christian counterparts after all, than they do with the pagans: in their prejudices and drawing up their noses at our way of life and what they think are our 'superstitious beliefs'.
(And note also that McCabe's initial sympathies during WWII years were <i>predictably</i> with the 'atheist' movement in Russia - as communism was called back then. This is usually another inevitability: there are two kinds of western christians - those who are christian and those who are anti-christian, such as the communists, such as the 'unreligious' fascists and neo-nazis. I don't think McCabe would have been a communist, but the comparatively little that was revealed to him at the time of what Soviet Russia stood for, did get his approval because it sounded good to him in theory.)
When Russell called communism a christian heresy, he was right. It is christian in every way except that it thinks it is not christianism and thinks it is against christianism. In every other respect it is exactly the same: the same exterminatory ideology, the same pattern of behaviour and thinking. And that also explains why Marx was a big fan of Britain's tyrannical oppression of Hindu Bharatam, and that's why he actually approved of Britain trying to convert Hindus into the 'Better Opium' of the masses, than leaving us to our dark 'superstition' of Hindu Dharma.
Consider how some people who quit christianism in the US are still as anti-semitic as before they left. (The Russian communists were the same.) And even when they call themselves anti-christian (like many racist/oryan orgs in AmeriKKKa), they are otherwise still christian in every way: all their previous hatreds, prejudices, ideas are still there. There is so little to distinguish between their christian and 'post'-christian selves.
Think of the way westernised (christo-conditioned) elements in psecular, non-christian Indian society have no understanding of Hindus or Hindu traditions. The Hindu way is entirely alien to them, they have been alienated from it by christian thinking patterns so that they now view it with practically the same non-comprehension as the west views it. This is a form of christianisation too. Even their arguments against Hindu Dharma are the old christian arguments.
There are many layers of christianism. Considering the west again, even after they quit the belief in jeebus and other christian fables, it doesn't mean they quit the orbit of thinking imposed on them by christianism. They cannot think outside of their box of conditioning. The <i>very</i> best that a christian-conditioned society can produce is a Thomas Paine (and there was only ever one). Never a Julian. The first is floating at the very outer boundaries of the box that christian-conditioning allows for, the second inhabits a different universe altogether.
Moreover, Deism (the religion of Thomas Paine) is the only decent religion that can arise in a world devastated by christianism, in a christian-conditioned society. And even that has little chance of success as the history of the Americas has shown. It's a religion with a very general, though positive, idea of some 'God' (the Creator). I'm not saying it's untrue, I'm just saying they do not have the benefit of experience the way Native Americans are vindicated in their ancient traditions. The Deist Creator will remain unknown to them because they think he is otherwise unknowable in this world (other than in regular nature). The religion is founded on an idea, a belief. It doesn't have the sort of knowledge of its God that ages of Taoist or Shinto experience has developed with their Gods.
America and the entire west is still christo-conditioned. It's embedded deep into their view on everything. They *know* nothing else, they're not used to contemplating concepts outside it. And anything they encounter beyond their ken is alien to them and they are prone to misunderstand, presume or judge it. America/west does not see Hindu Dharma on an equal plane to other religions.
Of course there is the atheist Carl Sagan with his kind sympathetic view of Hindu Dharma, and the UK's atheist David Attenborough with his non-judgemental bit on the Kumbha Mela and the Temple of Rats (Rajasthan?) in Life of Mammals. Carl Sagan is the *best* we can expect, but he's not the rule. He's the exception. David Attenborough is the next best, and even he is a rarity. A Joseph McCabe, however helpful against christianism, will not even be able to understand Hellenismos let alone us. And he *will* make value-judgements, and they will be derived in a straight line from his christian conditioning. But his is certainly not the worst nor even the most common consideration we can expect.
The kinder western non-christian seekers will be pleased with Buddhism - generally just the <i>ideas</i> of Buddhism. He'll be pleased with Hindu philosophy, including Vedanta, and of course the Gita. And definitely approve of Yoga. He may even be pleased with some stream of Hindu Dharma that seems monotheistic enough. And that's where all sympathies with Hindu Dharma will stop. It's exactly how western atheists since enlightenment were in love with Greek philosophy and Roman historiography but never sympathised with nor understood the actual traditions of the general Greco-Roman population. At best, the Olympic Gods and their narratives made for artistic inspiration. Though usually, western intellectuals have always described how Greek philosophy was 'inevitable' and that it 'naturally replaced' - in the human mental evolutionary sense - the Religio surrounding the Olympic Gods, whom they consider (as McCabe does) to be ridiculous and unreal. In the same manner, there are westerners that have been impressed with the Tao te Ching since it is 'philosophical' enough, but what they can't compute is when they find out that the real (traditional Chinese) Taoists have Gods. Western sympathizers of Taoism take great pains to tell Taoists that they "can't have Gods", that it's 'not actually' part of their religion, that they are confused and 'corrupting' their Taoism and not practising it the way it 'originally' was. There is only so much 'sympathy' most of the best of the west can give us. And that's the *best* I'm talking about.
You see, a lot of the ground-level Hindu Dharma <i>does not compute</i> to the west. Even the merely christoconditioned can recognise this as Paganism and generally has an intrinsic (christianism-instilled/christian-programmed) apathy for it. The west is <i>christo</i>west because it is christoconditioned, even when not consciously christian.
This is *very* different from how E Asian people (with a background in a natural tradition) who know nothing about Hindu Dharma view us. They are quite open to understanding even all those things that to western people would be the most outrageous elements in Hindu Dharma. The difference is entirely the way their minds have been cultivated, versus the way the west's been conditioned by christianism.