The Capture of Christianity

Re: # 100

"When studying religions, IMHO, the point is not which is 'true' (because none are, except in the eyes the believers themselves), but what kind of impact these religions have on human spirit, what kind of societies these religions invariably create, and what they do the soul of human being living by and large in those societies once such religions become the dominant and active concerns of masses."

Kaal ji,

That is a very impressive statement indeed.

It sounds something like "Pragmatism" philosophically ( I am reading Richar Roty's 'Consequences of Pragmatism' presently) - when you just look for consequences of a belief over the human living and not getting bogged down by the "truth-claim" of that belief.

It is like Jainism's Syad-Vada in which every representation of an elephant is truely perceived by the blind humans as per their own point of view.

I agree- Islam and Abrahmic religions are too much worried about "truth-claims" of all religions and are less worried if that were to lead to greater intolerance and violence by the proponents of such absolute "truth-claims" or not.

Masanamuthu, glad you feel so. But we ought to still keep an open mind, and if and when Murad bhai chooses to answer simple questions, we should be willing to modify our opinions. At this point, I just don't think his obsessions and patterns of behavior are driven by fear of Islam, and any interest in actually learning about anything other than Islam. His basic concern is: "Why didn't christians/Hindus/Jews tear to pieces what I wrote?"

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Laddu bhai, even as a proud idolator and practising Hindu you do realize that a lot of stuff in religions - ALL religions -

(1) is very old and undocumented, at least not reliably - so one can always reject anything they want by asking for 'conclusive proof.'

(2) is simply a matter of faith - which looks totally silly to anyone from the outside.

So it takes absolutely NO genius or intelligence to question other people's beliefs and show them to be ludicrous.

When studying religions, IMHO, the point is not which is 'true' (because none are, except in the eyes the believers themselves), but what kind of impact these religions have on human spirit, what kind of societies these religions invariably create, and what they do the soul of human being living by and large in those societies once such religions become the dominant and active concerns of masses.

Vedic dharma extended as far as Persia.
Even till today you would find the chaturbhuj vishnu idols on the side of top domws of the masshad masjid.
Zoroaster was certainly a vedic person.
Un fortunately everything was destroyed by Arabianism that swept across.
Even Kurdish language has similarities with sanskrit and it appears some vedic artifacts were discovered in Kurdish land during archeological excavations.

Re: # 95

Kaal,

I am really impressed at your insights you have provided here regarding an Islamist in the guise of a "historian" trying to map (rather caricaturize) other faiths.

Murad is doing exactly what his "love" for a 'formless God' has taught him to do - to hate idolatory, paganism ,animism and every other faith that would dare to find the almighty in the smallest of things of this material world.

Re: # 78

"
• How idolatory has crept back into the Christian idea?..."

Muradji,

Would you care to tell us what you Islamist understand by the term "idolatory"??

Kaalchakra,

I see your point now of Murad'ji being a closet Islamist while claiming to be a "historian". :-)

Murad bhai, there is nothing to tear to shreds in this article. This is pretty old stuff that "army of Baptists, Seventh day adventists, Mormons and other Christians" is quite familiar with, and has dealt with before.

Now, between you and I, they have dealt with it by simply closing their eyes to it or by coming up with absurd interpretations of their own.

But again, that is precisely what people of faith do.

Re: # 85

Great stuff but what happened to christianity that is the main concern of this article.

I'm surprised that an army of Baptists, Seventh day adventists, Mormons and other Christians have not pounced upon this piece and tried to tear it shreads.

Ok, here we go. This is where we got sucked into that discussion:

"Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions"

This is an irrelevant point, both directly (about whether Paul manufactured his own Christianity) or indirectly (Paul or no Paul, Murad bhai is certainly scoring cheap points for Islam using hackneyed old materials about other religions).

Let's bring the discussion back on track. Either Islamists can high five one another about how they brilliantly found another set of earth-shaking 'new' (to them?) material about Chrisianity (and convince themselves of the truth of their own versions of Islam), or understand the politically Islamist nature of ALL of Murad Bhai's work.

Does anyone know why we got into studying Indo-Iranian languages here?!

Murad bhai, as far as I recall, has never claimed to be Persian or Central Asian or Turkish (many others do, and as Muslims, they have a full right to claim what they wish).

Murad bhai's focus has been exclusively religious - about Hindus, and now about Christianity.

Murad Bhai, your being a crypto Islamist is extremely relevant. And, the fact that you make statements - in fact one after another - without ever bothering to defend them when questioned on them, convinces me, at least (and should others) that you have no interest in knowing or understanding things as they were or are.

Essentially, Murad bhai, you are a sad case of an Islamic propagandist.

Again, I (and hopefully many others) would change our opinions if you volunteered to answer some basic questions put to you. For someone who makes bold claims to knowing the truth and learning etc, that is the least people expect.

Re: # 82
HP...
Mr. Beduine-clone, it is not taught in the history book. It is natural way of thinking and drawing conclusion. Govt. sponsored books are full of distortions....

Now, coming to old cliche/bluff of asura, proto-indo-european etc...
Sanskrit Language varies with region and some of the western Sanskrit is closer to contemporary Iranian language, called avestan. That does not make Iranian language as the base of Sanskrit....

Who teaches these things and in which university that Avesta is older than Rig Veda or language of Avesta is older than Sanskrit??

#83 Posted by HP on November 6

what do you find so new about the folowing details you gave?
Do you think that linguists and philo-logist use Indo-European and Indo-Iranian for no reason, you think those who say Sanskrit is oldest attested language still known to us (for example Sumerian would have been older but we do not know it) know less number of common words than you supplied?


Do you know of any kind of Sanskrit outside of India?? What is avesta is avesta language irrespective of affinity, Latin is Latin and German is german, all of them have affinity to sanskrit but sanskrit is much older than them???

Despite being old Sanskrit is much better structured than all of them, because people worked on it, those Hindus worked on it to make it better.


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Proto-Indo-Iranian Old Iranian (OP, Av) Vedic Sanskrit
*açva ("horse") Av, OP aspa aśva
*bhag- OP baj- (bÄ?ji; "tribute") bhag- (bhaga)
*bhrÄ?tr- ("brother") OP brÄ?tar bhrÄ?tá¹›
*bhūmī ("earth", "land") OP būmi bhūmī
*martya ("mortal, "man") OP martya martya
*mÄ?sa ("moon") OP mÄ?ha mÄ?sa
*vÄ?sara ("early") OP vÄ?hara ("spring") vÄ?sara ("morning")
*arta ("truth") Av aša, OP arta ṛta
*draugh- ("falsehood") Av druj, OP draug- druh-
*sauma "pressed (juice)" Av haoma soma

Misssed lot many statements, will see if i can retrieve it..


This is bad, I should be able to use "back" button and retrieve it, how does chowk-site eat that stuff??

#85 Posted by HP on

HP,

First you should understand that no matter what you say, you won't be able to skip the history of Pakistan/Afganistan/India where Hindu/Budhdhist civilization developed.

Second if you have understood what you copy pasted, can you write in simple statements what you mean. What do you want to say? Be courageous and state it. Do you want to state that Avesta is older than Veda and language of Avesta is older than Sanskrit? Give whom you are referring to, whichever first, second or third class scholars they are.

Indians don't read about history and dates of Vedas in Indian schools, it is taught by those westerners. You may be happy to find any third rated references, similar to like a muslim claiming to be a sanskrit scholar and then telling what is written in Gita, you may have found a zorastrian claiming something in similar way. But irrespective of that make some small and strong statements and with the best scholar or whatever you have for it. So that we can see what you are saying.

Caucasus mountains). This ultra white color of race doesn't get created even in 10,000 years. It needs long long time, much before even Sumerian civilization these white people were born somewhere. You can not convert a black to white(without cross breeding) and white to black even in 10,000 years. The white race originated at least 40,000 years ago. And the oldest dicussed civilization of sumer is only 7000 year old.


So it is possible that Aryans or their forefathers from Caucasus mountains or Siberia or some other cold place migrated south ward and spread in central Asia, Europe, India and Middle east. It is certainly possible that they took some similar stories, one of them being the idea of great flood, with them. But all this is very old. All white people originated at one place and spread south wards, when they travelled from Africa to that cold place is so mysterious that we can't even think how it was possible (some ice age, when they were not white, were not perhapas modern man by then?).