Understanding Sanatana Dharma

tahmed #657

{{Wrong example. Nietszche, voltaire etc. ridiculed their OWN religions.}}

A highly questionable assertion from several points of view.

First, once you have abandoned religious faith, you have no religion; at best you can be said to have been brought up in a particular faith tradition which you then rejected; thus Nietzsche came from the German Lutheran tradition in which his father was a divine.

Secondly, Nietzsche expended a lot of ink discussing and criticizing the ‘priestly mentality’ and hieratic tradition of Judaism which he claims the Christ tried to undo. One could of course argue that Judaism was the lineal ancestor of his own native faith tradition, and it was Judaism’s role as progenitor of Christianity that excited Nietzsche’s interest. [But by the same token one could describe Islam as merely a very successful Christian heresy and therefore a suitable target for criticism by Christians or ex-Christians.] Nietzsche in any case went on to develop a general critique of religion. Claiming that he ridiculed only his own religion is patently false. Voltaire’s case is interesting; he spent much energy excoriating Christianity (‘Ecrasez l’infame!’) and on occasion compared Islam very favourably to it; in other instances he was expressly hostile to Islam; and he would very likely be hostile to the common essence of the Abrahamic traditions.

Third, there is no shortage of dead Europeans of some fame and considerable intelligence who attacked a multitude of other belief traditions, both the beliefs of pagan Hindus and Buddhists and the religion of the infidel Turks, to say nothing of the blaspheming Jews. Most of these characters were Christians and their motives of religious apologetics were a bit too obvious, so I decided not to mention them and instead chose intelligent nonbelievers as my exmaples.

In any case, what appears to underlie the distinction you draw is the notion that criticism of one’s native religious tradition is acceptable, whereas that of ‘alien’ religious traditions is absolutely non-kosher. I find this quite unsupportable. Any discourse must be evaluated, any argument judged, on its content, first, last and foremost. The identity of the originator may give valuable hints as to motive or thought processes but is not relevant to a judgment of whether the discourse has any substance. I cannot grant any merit to the distinction you draw.

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tahmed #657

{{The correct example is that of a communal mob, in terms of the stupidity and primitive mindset it represents.}}

{{This parroting of sexually laced rubbish is just that.}}

Here is an excellent article from the Guardian, September 15th 2001, by Richard Dawkins, well-known evolutionary theorist and outspoken atheist, which explicitly refers to the nubile 72. Whatever else Dawkins may be, he is not stupid. Must have had a poor upbringing …Or is it mob mentality? Or primitive mindset?

Religion’s Misguided Missiles

Excerpt

“Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this - it`s a long shot, but it just might work. … Harps and wings wouldn`t appeal to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there`s a special martyr`s reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive.”

…

“…I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don`t mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one`s own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr`s death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?”

End excerpt

As long as young men trained in madarsas and camps in you-know-where, are sent off to kill the kafir with the guarantee of a waiting 72 if they die in jihad, you can expect those at the receiving end of the jihad to shine an unsympathetic light on this ‘sexually laced rubbish’. Better get used to it.

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ali_1 #653
I still remember your beautifully explicit posts on Ahmedis and others on sex with Hindu women. Those drove off at least 3 Indian female posters I can name who never posted here again. Some Indo-Pak dialogue that was.

And since you claim to be so angelically pureminded in spite of that, chowk has a mechanism for voting off a poster. Instead of making sexually explicit comments then whining how evil I am, why don`t you poor persecuted Pakistani `liberals` and `intellectuals` just petition for me to be banned - this I never understood.

alephnull: Wrong example. Nietszche, voltaire etc. ridiculed their OWN religions. What I wrote was ``ridicules OTHER people`s religions``. Big difference.

The correct example is that of a communal mob, in terms of the stupidity and primitive mindset it represents. The only difference being that on chowk we have ``educated`` men and women demonstrating the same level of thinking as the thugs that constitute a communal mob. Both are equally cowardly in terms of there being no fear of retribution.

And Nietsche, voltaire etc. had something interesting to say (n. spoke out against the ``christian charity`` and in favor of the strong, which is something one can disagree with but at least there is some thinking behind it). This parroting of sexually laced rubbish is just that. All I can say is I am glad you dont find pakistanis (other than ali1 a long time ago, and even he has gotten bored and stopped) dong this, although for every one target for sexually laced cheap shots in islam there are ten in hinduism if anyone wanted to lower himself to this level.

pakshaer aka barachota: a sher does not come in through the back door by changing his nick. Be a man and apologize for going over the line and come back as yourself.

#644

[quote]
..yes coolal -- we mean ALL pakistanis regardless of their mental state
[/quote]

:-)

Soooooo, are we to take it that IF the chowk staff don`t give you an answer or give you an answer that you don`t like, you too will go elsewhere Like your esteemed co-poster?

#644 by omar_r_quraishi

``and by the way i dont think most pakistani musicians are too bothered whether people in india know about their music, other than of course because of commercial considerations``

This is an interesting point. I wonder if Indian market would welcome Junoon and rest of the Pakistani artists with all the patriotic songs they do. As I mentioned at another place, Junoon did a concert here a couple of years back. As usual they were nice enough to let us gather in front of the stage and party. The crowd had a large number of Indians too. Everything was rock n roll as usual till they started a patriotic song “Jazba-e-Junoon”. When they reached the “Pakistan kabhi na bhoolo” part, a portion of the dancing Indian crowd stopped, which was followed by embarrassed looks and whispers. But soon they realized that it was ok and joined the chorus in best spirit of having fun with the music. So if they expand their market to India, would it be a similar case of initial shock, followed by getting to the chorus? Thanks.

The best way to foster better `Indo-Pak understanding` is to stop fomenting terrorism in India.

Plausible deniability about fomenting terrorism works only in the short term. Deniability does not work when fomenting terrorism goes on for sooo long that firangs become career experts on it, start writing books about it and give US congressional testimonies about it, and even Council for Indian Muslims in UK join in the `Paki-bashing` by demanding that Musharraf shut down Pakistani terrorist organisations.

Speaking of which, removing barachota`s posts allows people to make wild and inaccurate allegations. I doubt anyone who wanted `` India and Pakistan to cooperate`` would gratuitously mention the Gujarat riots and Modi so early in this thread like barachota did. He then posted 191 posts in 16 days, most of them attacking other posters or Hindus as group, even attacking their temples.

This sort of trouble mostly begins when a `respected` Pakistani with nothing to say on the subject at hand goes to a board where Indians are debating on some Indian subject mostly written by an Indian and posts a self-righteous post bashing `Paki-bashers` or `hate-mongerers` there even though Indians are doing nothing of the sort on that thread.

That happened on this thread too - Indians were discussing Hinduism, not Paki-bashing and along come a hero and his sidekick who started whining about Paki-bashing and Modi. You can go to articles by dost-mittar and Farzana and see the gratuitous posts on `Paki-bashing` and `hate-mongering` make their appearance.

And in all the articles on the front page, Indians are interacting on only one or two - I myself have posted only on the Kashmir thread.

All this whining is simply two things, 1. some people are sore losers aka master obfuscators 2. the sad reality that the biggest impediment in Indo-Pak relations from the Indian side( the ISI/Musharraf`s ongoing policy of killing Indians) can not be defended or denied by right thinking Pakistanis, so they should not even try(esp. given that they had nothing to do with these policies anyway). Musharraf ki policies ney nikamma kar diya unko, varnaa aadmi woh bhi they kaam key.

#639 by HP

[If the Chowk staff fails to answer my questions then all Pakistanis need to look at the this project that does not need Pakistani membership at all and start thinking about the alternates and some are available and others can be developed- not a problem at all.]

HP, a lot of Pakistanis have already looked at this project and concluded that it has sadly turned into a platform for Pakistan and Islam bashing. Some of them, like me, use chowk`s unplugged forum for social chit-chat. Others have just moved on.

I came to know about chowk from an email sent out by a friend in the fall of `97... addressed to about 100 people, who are members of a Pakistani networking group (ex-NED/techie types living in the SF Bayarea). None of them, except for me perhaps, interacts on or even browses chowk.com now.

If you pull out older articles (`98, `99) and read the interacts, you`ll find several articulate and learned Pakistanis like yourself who used to interact here, but they probably realized the futility of ``dialogue`` with sadna types and decided to move on.

So will you.

regards

PS. You keep referring to ``RSS types/drones`` in your posts.... I think you are mistaken. These are not card carrying RSS members, just average middle class Indian Hindus.

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tahmed #646

{{try to overcome your poor upbringing instead which never taught you that only a stupid man ridicules other people`s religions.}}

On the contrary, religions have in the past been attacked, criticized, ridiculed, systematically demolished by very clever men, of the caliber of Voltaire, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell. Abstaining from this enjoyable bloodsport is no mark of superior virtue or more refined upbringing.

#643 by nb
“So it is acceptable to attack living women, but not acceptable to point out truths. If the Prophet took young wives and people point it out,that is unacceptable too”

One last conversation with you. Was comparing a woman with the Prophet in context?

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“lurking reptiles and rodents on Chowk,”
Well said a-null #583
Now these reptiles and rodent are free to roam around and abuse every thing Pakistani.
This gang of RSS drones-moles-trolls/Kerala clowns has full control of the site.
These “rodent and reptiles” and roaches(A-null wrote that first-roaches my addition) –Sadist seductress, A-null, and the fake Pathan are challenging people calling them “Mai ka lal” as nobody can respond to them any more. As they have full support from the chowk Staff.

“Chowk does not claim to solve the political or social problems of Pakistan and/or India. Rather, it provides a platform for dialogue, introspection, and familiarity amongst the people to break taboos and facilitate a climate for lasting peace and understanding. http://www.chowk.com/show_about.cgi

Can anybody from the chowk staff show a single post out of the umpteenth thousands posted by these rodent and reptiles and roaches(A-null wrote that first-roaches my addition) to promote or even remotely subscribe to this goal?
I would like the chowk staff to read post # 583 by A-null where he openly talks about the India and Pakistan rivalry and if this person and his friends the sadist, and the fake pathan, aka the Kerala clowns do not even subscribe to the goals of this site and instead promote the opposite goals than why are they being protected?
If the purpose of this site is to promote “Rivalry between India and Pakistan” than why not make appropriate changes in the site goals?