God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

jayakris wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:12 pmIt really needs a lot of intellectual dishonesty to yourself for you to say that you want separation of church and state. Unfortunately, you are not aware of how much you are deceiving your own logical thinking because of the leftist (or at least the so-called "progressive") brainwashing you have.
Actually, prasen, that and much of what I said above sounds overly critical of you. Not at all said with an intention of losing a friend. Just arguing with you, that is all.

I actually don't know if you indeed feel or think the way I said you do. In reality, I am just pouring out a lot of frustration I have on leftists lately, and what they are doing in India, especially after this whole Sabarimala issue. I am kinda saying "you" but imagining a lot of leftist commentators on this issue, whom I have found extremely vacuous in their arguments and in many cases downright disingenuous. So I may be attributing it all to you. Having known you for long, I know that you have your own thoughts and logic. So, do take a look at what I am saying and see if any of what I say actually apply to how you think. And feel free to call me some names too :)
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by arjun2761 »

Wow, this is pretty deep analysis and debate. Jay's arguments do make sense to me.

Overall, while I believe all religion is based on myth, they originated for a good societal purpose which was to govern human society and provide meaning and understanding about life and its surroundings in the cosmos when most people had no other way to understand either. Yuval Harari has a pretty good set of books which discuss the origins of religions and the purpose they served in our agrarian societies when they originated. Now with scientific advancement, the knowledge of life and the cosmos is much better and in many cases science explain them better than religious explanations (e.g., evolution versus creationism in Christianity). Although science cannot explain everything, it explains many aspects better than the religious explanations, so a rational mind should likely question the religious explanations of things for which science does not yet have explanations (i.e., there is no reason to believe that the myths have better explanations). However, among the religions, you could argue that there are aspects of Hinduism which align better the current understanding of science than any of the Abrahamic religions.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by Rajiv »

Jay reading your posts , agree to your opinion and each and every sentence nails the conspiracy hatched by the Communists with covert support from the Congress to push their nefarious narrative .
What is frustrating that in spite having 80% Hindu population , the Communist pay scant respect to the traditions and are fully committed to trample the uniqueness in order to implement its agenda.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

Responding to something that came up in the Australian Open thread, and about Sania marrying a guy from the bug country... that seemed relevant here
knarayen wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:30 pmWe can debate this endlessly, but the day when Pakistan Government treats Hindus and Sikhs, and folowers of Dharmic civilisation with mutual respect and with equality, as India does with followers of other religions as baked into India’s constitution - when that day comes, then I drop my perspective on Pakistan.
Generally you are right, but there are matters where India actually treats her Hindus worse than does Pakistan. At least Pakistan has a prohibitive majority of people who believe that beliefs are beliefs, that they have their respectful place in human lives, and that core beliefs are not there to be questioned. That is unlike the majority of influential Indians (who mostly claim to be "Hindus") who say that we treat all religions equal, but really do not respect any faith's fundamental tenets - whether it is Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, or Sikhism.

Please read this article (Sabarimala and the dangers of overrating arguments) by a relatively well-respected Christian writer, Manu Jospeh from Kerala, who wrote about how a Hindu temple in Pakistan is allowed to operate, the guard even waving a stick and yelling at Muslims who try to walk in there. Then look at what a state government managed to get the Indian Supreme Court to do to a temple (Sabarimala) where the Hindus are asked that their deity itself be made different overnight. Which of the two countries really allows Hindus to believe what they believe?

The belief that is asked to be changed is not a socially-unacceptable concept at all. Is a God who is believed to have made a promise to stay truthful to a woman who loved him, and promised not to see other young women, promoting a socially damaging concept? Is believing in that, causing anybody harm? When that is the concept of the deity installed at that spot, is any young woman who says they will see that deity a "devotee" of that deity? But the state government took charge of "defending" the Hindu devotees beliefs, and conspired to mislead the Supreme Court by arguing against the concept! An utter failure in delivering justice. And the leftist Indian writers and intelligentsia sang hallelujah.

It seems Pakistanis consider non-Islamic faiths as second-rate but they at least consider a faith a faith. In India, I now feel that people are so ready to think of faith as unimportant and easy prey, whichever religion it is. The Muslims then blame Hindus, while it is not Hinduism but rather the Indian political-constitutional thinking that causes much of the issues. The faiths that get trampled upon so easily by the state in India are Hinduism, Sikhism, etc, which don't have the powerful and politically-aware authority hierarchy that Christianity and Islam have. Thus the state is scared of touching the faiths and practices some religions have, unlike in the Hindus' case where they are easy pickings.

The Nehruvian state managed to lock up Ram's birth place which even the Muslims who had a mosque there agreed (back in the 50s) to be Ram's birth place based on local legends. Those Muslims did not even object to a temple being built there for this reason, back then. Instead, the Indian state tried to keep the truth away from the larger Indian population for decades and the leftist Indian "intelligentsia" spread the canard that Ram itself was a myth and that there was no "proof" that he was born there. The Muslims in Ayodhya did not want to question Hindus' beliefs, as they at least accepted that Hindus' beliefs are beliefs (even if they feel that the beliefs are all sub-standard). But the state tried to make Hindus drop their beliefs altogether. Hindus reacted to it, and the rest is history.

I have lost a lot of respect in the Indian state and our constitution through the latest Sabarimala saga. My Indian passport is due for a 10-year renewal again in 6 months, and for the first time I even considered changing citizenship to USA for which I have been eligible for some 25 years... But I won't do that yet - as I still love India, disappointed to the core as I may be, at the cluelessness of fellow-Indians when it comes to what a religion is, and about the lack of understanding of Hinduism and "beliefs" in general among fellow "Hindus" who influence the destiny of the nation and the course the nation charts.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by knarayen »

Jay, perhaps i was overly simplistic about my assertion that the Indian state respects all religions equally. In practice, what i said in my view is more representative of the United States than India in my view. I agree that the so-called leftists in India have, especially with the Sabarimala case, shown their true colours. I think i was projecting a wish, or fervent hope, of what India could be like rather than the reality. :-(

Great analysis - i will read it more carefully the second time around.

Prof
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

I knew what you meant, Prof. There is no question that non-Muslims are ill-treated in Pakistan. I was talking about a different angle that there are things going on India which are pushed by a vast group of folks who are really against all beliefs (the leftists, many of whom don't even know that they are leftists), and that the underpinnings are much deeper than you or I would have known. This Sabarimala issue is really an eye-opener. I really hope that the Supreme Court will see what is going on here.

Meanwhile, the state government continues their campaign of misleading the Supreme Court, with what they did just today - ‘List of 51’ women who entered Sabarimala: Kerala government accused of lying to Supreme Court (Times of India)

This was an attempt to show that there is no issue and that all kinds of women devotees went up there... and that everybody is accepting the SC's earlier judgment (which the SC's constitution bench itself later decided to reconsider in an extremely rare move). But today's act by Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan really may have gone too far. It seems even the leftists in the press are hard-pressed to call it anything but a straight lie to the SC from a state government, as all kinds of people who called these 51 women are finding nobody who is really under 50, except the 2 women that the state police brought in disguise and hid in the kitchen to bring in front of the deity at 3 am when the temple opened several days ago (and even those 2 did not climb the sacred 18 steps). What kind of joke does the communist government think the country is? Outright lies to the supreme court?
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by gbelday »

Thanks Jay for your posts. And prasen for yours without which I wouldn't have got to read Jay's. Everything that Jay wrote resonates with how I feel. I could in no way have expressed my thoughts so logically and in such detail. You should write a book or atleast a column, Jay. These posts and your posts on religion in general on Sports-India (many many years ago) have been very educational (much more than the Vedanta lectures that I attend).

Btw, I finally got my US citizenship this year (got my Greencard back in 1997). I have had to deal with too many issues in India (land grab, financial fraud, issues with family property etc) and I told myself that I am here to stay in the US. I will still be a staunch supporter of Indian tennis and sports but everything else about that country (politics in particular) makes me super agitated.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by SaniaFan »

Jay I have only one question. Why are you not blaming Supreme Court and just blaming the Kerala Govt? At least I didn't see a strong statement against the courts. Supreme court should not have given such judgement.

While I see that you feel strongly about this subject but I see your diatribe(if I may say so) only against the govt and media plus the people with certain ideology. Why not against the courts?
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

SaniaFan wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:44 pmJay I have only one question. Why are you not blaming Supreme Court and just blaming the Kerala Govt? At least I didn't see a strong statement against the courts. Supreme court should not have given such judgement.
While I see that you feel strongly about this subject but I see your diatribe(if I may say so) only against the govt and media plus the people with certain ideology. Why not against the courts?
Good question. It is because I have to first believe that the Supreme Court was generally ruling on the merits of the arguments. I see that there is a decent chance for it, having read some of the proceedings and summaries. The case was by activists against the temple, and the Devaswon Board had to defend it. The state government controls the Devaswom board, and did not defend. Instead they brought in communist historians and other false experts to argue in favor of the activists! What can the Supreme Court do? They are supposed to rule based on the arguments in front of them. I am not a legal expert to say that the 4 who ruled in favor of the activists were wrong in their judgment, and that the the only woman, Indu Malhotra who dissented, was right (But Indu Malhotra actually gave arguments in her dissenting opinion, on behalf of women devotees, that the "defendant" should have given to the court! It was all quite unreal to see)

But even if the 4 judges were at fault, and they were leftist thinkers who wanted to use a temple for crazy and unnecessary activism, the bench did decide to reconsider the case, so it is still sub-judice. So, till they give a final word sticking to their earlier decision, and I see that it was even after right (corrected) arguments were given to them, I should not be directing my diatribe at them. The parties in the review petition are different, and they may actually give proper arguments to the court. I am told that a constitutional bench accepting review petitions is almost unheard of, so my guess is that the court itself felt that the state was preventing the right arguments from being made in the original case, which must be why they entertained review petitions from others, so as to hear their arguments too. I may be giving too much credit to the impartiality of the Indian Supreme Court, but for the time being they get the benefit of the doubt from me. The state CM gets none of that. His intentions are crystal clear from his actions and words.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

Thanks, depleter, for posting the links. Advocate Sai Deepak, an IIT Kharagpur grad who later studied law and is an unbelievably articulate speaker on this issue, is one of the few non-Malayalees who understood the core issue, without buying the twisted menstruation story canard that the Indian press (fully under the firm control of the leftists) spread about this.

It is very simple. The concept behind a temple deity (who has personal rights as a minor under the Indian constitution) says that the deity wishes not to see young women. Is it right for the state to tell the deity to change, against the wishes of a prohibitive majority of the devotees, when the said wish hasn't caused (and will not cause) any social harm, and that too with no consultation with the Hindus or the Hindu religious leaders on what it all means? To me, it is nothing but murder of a deity by the Marxists.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by Sin Hombre »

Agree with this

Courts continue to interfere in Hindu temple of #Sabarimala, refusing to accept denominational status for Hindus but affording it to other religions. Such court regulation of a majority religion only happens in India, not in the West.

https://twitter.com/davidfrawleyved/sta ... 2264069121


Think with the major terror attacks from earlier today, I think this issue with refuse to go away.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by jayakris »

To some extent, we can say that the Supreme court is playing an activist role with some social message, but at the same time, in my view, this is more of a case of checks and balances being completely broken down. When a state government of non-believers just twists the argument and misrepresents the temple that they are supposed to defend, and there is no real defense offered against some non-believers' case against the temple, should the supreme court do something about it? They probably see that the state is just not offering a defense, very deliberately, but should/can they say "you state, you bastards, we don't believe what you are saying, so we rule against you?". That is a bad precedence too, as a State government's word should generally be taken at face value.

A total losing proposition for Hindu believers of the temple who can't even properly offer an argument that this is asking to change the God they believe in, on a matter where the God has only the highest ideals of truthfulness and honesty in promising that he won't give darsan to women because he promised a woman just that. The devotees try to explain, but the defendant's lawyers straight-out lie in court that devotees are worried about "Ayyappa being tempted by women" and that everybody thinks of "menstruating women" to be making the place unclean. All bull-shit that no devotees believe. None of that is the reason why young women devotees never went to Sabarimala. They knew that they did not want to break the promise their favorite God made, to not see them. They know that Ayyappa's blessings will be with them, when they think of him in their minds. And they don't even ever consider Ayyappa as a God that would get angry at them, and that is also not why they stay away. Ayyappa is one of the most "down-to-earth" Gods out there, made out of the legend of a man who lived just a few centuries ago.

So frustrating to be a Hindu devotee of the concept of Ayyappa and to see that the Indian constitution gives us no protection, when the state run by non-believers just deliberately misrepresents the matter in the Supreme Court. The cynic in me want to say that the Supreme Court justices are all leftists (except Indu Malhotra) and are playing the game with the State... but that's an accusation that I do not want to make, as it is still sub-judice and the court hasn't given their final word.

But the court doesn't show the decency that I show to them. When the matter is sub-judice, and right after they had heard the review petitions (but not given their verdict on them), just last week, justice Chandrachud of the 5-member bench went to a couple of legal conferecnes and gave speeches that pointed out the Sabarimala ruling as an achievement of 2018 by the SC that paves for women's equality. Shouldn't he know that he is required to be impartial at least till his own final word is given on the matter and when other judges are yet to vote? If he wanted this case to be used for social activism and even says it when it is still sub-judice, shouldn't he recuse himself?

We have nothing short of a breakdown of the basic principles of justice occurring right in front of our eyes, and we can't do anything about it.
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by prasen9 »

jayakris wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:01 pm
jayakris wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:12 pmIt really needs a lot of intellectual dishonesty to yourself for you to say that you want separation of church and state. Unfortunately, you are not aware of how much you are deceiving your own logical thinking because of the leftist (or at least the so-called "progressive") brainwashing you have.
Actually, prasen, that and much of what I said above sounds overly critical of you. Not at all said with an intention of losing a friend. Just arguing with you, that is all.
I have stayed away from this thread because I get too involved in arguing and that does not really get us anywhere. Just reading this because it was at the top of the page. I am not offended by it at all. I love arguments as you know. But, I guess I am getting old and avoiding things. But that statement does not bother me at all. Nor do I feel that you were overtly critical.

I do not know if it is leftist principles or progressive brainwashing. Maybe it is. However, the problem of the state endorsing religion is that it has to pick winners and losers. The issue is whether we can design a set of laws that are not partial to any religion especially when the religions or beliefs of people are at loggerheads to each other. I think we can and I think it is a better design. If you believe religion comes before impartiality, then you will draw different conclusions.

I think this because my own logical thinking. That said, we are all influenced by the environment we grew up in. So, maybe I am brainwashed. Can't say one way or another.

I have not read the previous replies, the rest of this post (the one I quoted) or the other posts below this one. I already got hooked into replying :-) So, I do not want to spend more time arguing on this topic and am quitting again :-)
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Re: God in trouble in God's own country... Sabarimala

Post by Kumar »

Wow! ! Great arguements, Jay! I learnt a lot today
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