<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Aug 1 2007, 12:21 PM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Aug 1 2007, 12:21 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->the last fact about Lucas' involvement is indeed a red flag (?). Even Acharya S. has a rabid Anti-Islamist blog - but, even so, I think her case is the same as Gil-White's - both can only be expected to work within the mental frameworks which they are used to: For Gil-White, this the belief that Ancient judaism was the "anti-totalitarian" movement of the day. For Acharya, it is a belief in a rigid classification system of Sun-Gods, Lunar-Gods, etc- into which all data must be fitted.[right][snapback]71774[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Agreed with all of this.
My qualms about Acharya S and others like her are that they are history re-envisioners, where they re-envision according to their own interests and viewpoint. (In this they are essentially like Marx who wanted history written as per his style: the solely-socio-economics view.)
Gil-White to some extent is also a reenvisioner with his leftist reinterpretation of what ancient Judaism was. But at least he does not compound his error by citing ridiculously unreliable sources.
Acharya S though imagines that all the original religions sprung from one source and, like you say, is moreover of the belief that all religions were originally Goddess-worshipping and had female priests and that some grand war or power-struggle pushed women off the stage and brought in some patriarchical religion(s).
She shares this fantasy with many another faux-feminist 'historian'.
The fact is more obvious and more simple, though far less sensational: religions in general have always been both God- and Goddess-centric, until the ultra-monotheist tendency started that culminated in christoislamism's exclusiveness. Ancient peoples of natural religions always recognised that in nature there is the Shiva-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti, Yin-Yang, or other the male and female energy/God and Goddess that you can find back everywhere. Natural religions always held the creative power of the divine in awe and therefore saw it manifested as both male and female. The African Yoruban pantheon has male and female Gods, so too the Greeks and others. The Grand Spirit may be genderless but there are male, female and animal spirit guides (making it more even inclusive) in North American native American tradition.
Use of 'new age':
My bad. What I termed 'new age' was not with respect to the dictionary meaning of new age religion. (I have no problem with another person's religion as long as it does not harm me; and as far as I can tell, new age religions don't seem detrimental. Some of them do seem too made-up though.)
When I wrote 'new age' - and I realise it was wrong of me to appropriate the term in a totally different context - I meant in the sense of the kind of writing that passes for researched work/scholarship but that is actually very poorly researched besides being highly driven. It's the kind of work where every published source - be it from Tom, Dick or Harry - if it supports the writers' view, is included. There's no eye for discriminating nonsense from experienced and reliable writers.
The kind of written works I was referring to as 'new agey writings' are either over-imaginative, have some far-flung conspiracy theory, or are single-minded in pushing a pre-determined viewpoint (say ultra faux-feminist, or pushing some 'all religions sprung from the same source/we came from atlantis/aliens/Sumer/....') whereby they try to read all data as pointing to their theory.
And when the data does not match with their theory, they ignore it or toss aside traditional understanding to come up with a new twist. They also cite other equally ludicrous sources to backup their claims.
This kind of lazy-writing has had a long existence in the west: including among the earlier Oryanist fantasists. Like for instance a late 19th/early 20th century guy (forgot his name) who wrote something OTT on Oryans in Tibet. These kinds of works, though not part of mainstream scholarship on the Oryans, are nevertheless still cited by some laymen as research works proving Oryans existed.
Acharya S' is correct in doubting that jesus ever existed. From what I've read, it is clear that the jesus character of the bible never did exist - in so far alone do I agree with her (some of the bits she quotes from other writers are also reasonable, but I've not read everything she's written). It is known that he could not have come from Nazareth; that many of the things he said were taken directly from earlier philosophers' mouths, and the like; the resurrection was unknown to the first christians, and was added on later. All of these punch irreparable holes in the mainstream christian view. (The christians are not arguing for the saviour of the Gnostics remember, as they Gnostics never had a corporeal saviour; whereas the non-gnostic christians insisted on one.)
But AS' reasoning for the jesus-never-was stand is oftentimes dubious. Her argument includes: as no one believes in Mithra, Osiris and other Gods today, 'it is obvious that all these earlier Gods never existed, so jesus never existed because he fits the pattern.' However jesus' unoriginality says nothing about the originality of the Gods that preceeded jesus' invention. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that she goes a step further. It is entirely in compliance with her 'logic': because she's now desperately *forced* Buddha into her pattern of 25 Dec birthday, and the like, she concludes that 'by extension Buddha never existed'. But evidence of jesus' non-existence is not evidence of Buddha's non-existence. However, she imagines it is.
The west never had accorded more than slight credulity (if that) to eastern religions anyway. Eastern religions were always denied off-hand, so not expecting anything different here; just pointing out how her arguments are invalid.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lastly, the First charge leveled by Missionaries against Dr. Elst is that they are new age. Same is also case with Acharya S.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->My charge against AS is not at all related. As I said, I had made very inappropriate use of the term 'new agey'. Odd that I still can't think of a better phrase.
As regards missionary allegations against Elst - are they kidding? He is far from new age in any sense. In the only instance I can recall where he spoke of his own beliefs/views, he showed a very general spirituality, the kind such as many matured non-christian people in the west develop naturally.
Elst writes well - well-reasoned and logical. From those of his articles I've read, no trace of the absurd or stretched to be found that I can think of.
But missionary accusations always follow a pattern, so I shouldn't be surprised. Elst is however in a league entirely different from Acharya S. Christos merely find Acharya S too vocal and too influential (unlikely though some of her ideas may be, they nevertheless seem to appeal to many readers of her works), but I am sure Elst scares them <i>very much</i> for them to want to desperately tar him with 'new age'.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Both these individuals are liberal westerners, and it is inbuilt in liberalism that post-modernist/subalternist studies should not be sympathetically applied to the still-threatening Hindu: precisely why we have such phenomenon as Marx, Kipling, Witzel, Albrights, and Nussbaums being unable to grasp entities eg hinduism- and also why these two individulas do not satisfy our Dharmic sensibilities.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Well, Nutbaum, WitSSel et al are all just getting paid to lay the ground work for future subversion-cum-destruction, so I don't expect anything from them. However they are *not* merely following their own individualist liberal senses, because they are <i>specifically employed</i> by the higher-ups to do what they do. That is very apparent from how facts (for example on the actual death toll in the Gujarat riots, on evidence against any AIT/AMT) never stop them in their persistence to continue in their lies.
They have been educated to know that in scholarship you don't desperately cling onto a theory when the hypothesis has been disproven.
In Nutbaum's case the matter concerns journalism (and although US journalists aren't all that famous outside for their 'journalistic integrity' and although we can expect less from journalism in general than from academia), she is lying through her teeth and that shows not just purpose, but that the newspaper(s) she writes for (and definitely their higher-ups) have told them to stick to the lie.
Just like the Wendy+kids 'literary' output coming from the US universities. Anyone who thinks these people are misguided or have misunderstood Hinduism is wrong. They are not ignorant, not needing to be enlightened about Hinduism. They know they are misrepresenting it, and that is precisely their intention and the intention of those they are working for. They're not ignorant that the sycophant Indian lackeys they've hired are communists and that the latter's work is particularly shoddy, extremely motivated and unreliable - they know it very well, and are in fact especially chosen for their compliance, eagerness and lack of scruples when it comes to telling the truth (be it writing history or manufacturing the news).
Hinduism isn't the only religion and India isn't the only country the US govt is messing with. Though we feel special, our claim to uniqueness is unfounded.
My qualms about Acharya S and others like her are that they are history re-envisioners, where they re-envision according to their own interests and viewpoint. (In this they are essentially like Marx who wanted history written as per his style: the solely-socio-economics view.)
Gil-White to some extent is also a reenvisioner with his leftist reinterpretation of what ancient Judaism was. But at least he does not compound his error by citing ridiculously unreliable sources.
Acharya S though imagines that all the original religions sprung from one source and, like you say, is moreover of the belief that all religions were originally Goddess-worshipping and had female priests and that some grand war or power-struggle pushed women off the stage and brought in some patriarchical religion(s).
She shares this fantasy with many another faux-feminist 'historian'.
The fact is more obvious and more simple, though far less sensational: religions in general have always been both God- and Goddess-centric, until the ultra-monotheist tendency started that culminated in christoislamism's exclusiveness. Ancient peoples of natural religions always recognised that in nature there is the Shiva-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti, Yin-Yang, or other the male and female energy/God and Goddess that you can find back everywhere. Natural religions always held the creative power of the divine in awe and therefore saw it manifested as both male and female. The African Yoruban pantheon has male and female Gods, so too the Greeks and others. The Grand Spirit may be genderless but there are male, female and animal spirit guides (making it more even inclusive) in North American native American tradition.
Use of 'new age':
My bad. What I termed 'new age' was not with respect to the dictionary meaning of new age religion. (I have no problem with another person's religion as long as it does not harm me; and as far as I can tell, new age religions don't seem detrimental. Some of them do seem too made-up though.)
When I wrote 'new age' - and I realise it was wrong of me to appropriate the term in a totally different context - I meant in the sense of the kind of writing that passes for researched work/scholarship but that is actually very poorly researched besides being highly driven. It's the kind of work where every published source - be it from Tom, Dick or Harry - if it supports the writers' view, is included. There's no eye for discriminating nonsense from experienced and reliable writers.
The kind of written works I was referring to as 'new agey writings' are either over-imaginative, have some far-flung conspiracy theory, or are single-minded in pushing a pre-determined viewpoint (say ultra faux-feminist, or pushing some 'all religions sprung from the same source/we came from atlantis/aliens/Sumer/....') whereby they try to read all data as pointing to their theory.
And when the data does not match with their theory, they ignore it or toss aside traditional understanding to come up with a new twist. They also cite other equally ludicrous sources to backup their claims.
This kind of lazy-writing has had a long existence in the west: including among the earlier Oryanist fantasists. Like for instance a late 19th/early 20th century guy (forgot his name) who wrote something OTT on Oryans in Tibet. These kinds of works, though not part of mainstream scholarship on the Oryans, are nevertheless still cited by some laymen as research works proving Oryans existed.
Acharya S' is correct in doubting that jesus ever existed. From what I've read, it is clear that the jesus character of the bible never did exist - in so far alone do I agree with her (some of the bits she quotes from other writers are also reasonable, but I've not read everything she's written). It is known that he could not have come from Nazareth; that many of the things he said were taken directly from earlier philosophers' mouths, and the like; the resurrection was unknown to the first christians, and was added on later. All of these punch irreparable holes in the mainstream christian view. (The christians are not arguing for the saviour of the Gnostics remember, as they Gnostics never had a corporeal saviour; whereas the non-gnostic christians insisted on one.)
But AS' reasoning for the jesus-never-was stand is oftentimes dubious. Her argument includes: as no one believes in Mithra, Osiris and other Gods today, 'it is obvious that all these earlier Gods never existed, so jesus never existed because he fits the pattern.' However jesus' unoriginality says nothing about the originality of the Gods that preceeded jesus' invention. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that she goes a step further. It is entirely in compliance with her 'logic': because she's now desperately *forced* Buddha into her pattern of 25 Dec birthday, and the like, she concludes that 'by extension Buddha never existed'. But evidence of jesus' non-existence is not evidence of Buddha's non-existence. However, she imagines it is.
The west never had accorded more than slight credulity (if that) to eastern religions anyway. Eastern religions were always denied off-hand, so not expecting anything different here; just pointing out how her arguments are invalid.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lastly, the First charge leveled by Missionaries against Dr. Elst is that they are new age. Same is also case with Acharya S.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->My charge against AS is not at all related. As I said, I had made very inappropriate use of the term 'new agey'. Odd that I still can't think of a better phrase.
As regards missionary allegations against Elst - are they kidding? He is far from new age in any sense. In the only instance I can recall where he spoke of his own beliefs/views, he showed a very general spirituality, the kind such as many matured non-christian people in the west develop naturally.
Elst writes well - well-reasoned and logical. From those of his articles I've read, no trace of the absurd or stretched to be found that I can think of.
But missionary accusations always follow a pattern, so I shouldn't be surprised. Elst is however in a league entirely different from Acharya S. Christos merely find Acharya S too vocal and too influential (unlikely though some of her ideas may be, they nevertheless seem to appeal to many readers of her works), but I am sure Elst scares them <i>very much</i> for them to want to desperately tar him with 'new age'.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Both these individuals are liberal westerners, and it is inbuilt in liberalism that post-modernist/subalternist studies should not be sympathetically applied to the still-threatening Hindu: precisely why we have such phenomenon as Marx, Kipling, Witzel, Albrights, and Nussbaums being unable to grasp entities eg hinduism- and also why these two individulas do not satisfy our Dharmic sensibilities.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Well, Nutbaum, WitSSel et al are all just getting paid to lay the ground work for future subversion-cum-destruction, so I don't expect anything from them. However they are *not* merely following their own individualist liberal senses, because they are <i>specifically employed</i> by the higher-ups to do what they do. That is very apparent from how facts (for example on the actual death toll in the Gujarat riots, on evidence against any AIT/AMT) never stop them in their persistence to continue in their lies.
They have been educated to know that in scholarship you don't desperately cling onto a theory when the hypothesis has been disproven.
In Nutbaum's case the matter concerns journalism (and although US journalists aren't all that famous outside for their 'journalistic integrity' and although we can expect less from journalism in general than from academia), she is lying through her teeth and that shows not just purpose, but that the newspaper(s) she writes for (and definitely their higher-ups) have told them to stick to the lie.
Just like the Wendy+kids 'literary' output coming from the US universities. Anyone who thinks these people are misguided or have misunderstood Hinduism is wrong. They are not ignorant, not needing to be enlightened about Hinduism. They know they are misrepresenting it, and that is precisely their intention and the intention of those they are working for. They're not ignorant that the sycophant Indian lackeys they've hired are communists and that the latter's work is particularly shoddy, extremely motivated and unreliable - they know it very well, and are in fact especially chosen for their compliance, eagerness and lack of scruples when it comes to telling the truth (be it writing history or manufacturing the news).
Hinduism isn't the only religion and India isn't the only country the US govt is messing with. Though we feel special, our claim to uniqueness is unfounded.