| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Dr. Jai Maharaj" |
| Date: |
15 Jan 2005 04:22:57 PM |
| Object: |
A humanist future: Now that [Christian] God is dead |
A humanist future: Now that [Christian] God is dead
Forwarded message from "G.Subramaniam" <gsubrec@comcast.net>
[ From: "G.Subramaniam" <gsubrec@comcast.net>
[ Subject: A humanist future: Now that God is dead
[ Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005
A humanist future: Now that God is dead
By Richard Holloway
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Edinburgh -- The madman in Nietzsche's "Thus Spake
Zarathustra," who lit a lantern in the bright morning
hours and ran to the market to proclaim the death of God
to the scoffing bystanders, realized he had come too
early: "My time is not yet. This tremendous event is
still on its way. ... It has not yet reached the ears of
man." It has reached them now. Its time has come. God is
dead.
That may sound like a quixotic claim in a time transfixed
by religious controversy, with the devotees of rival gods
at each other's throats, but it is true: God is dead, and
we are alone in the world. What Nietzsche and his madman
failed to mention is that God has died before. Human
history is littered with the tombstones of God. It is
said that at the death of Jesus, when the veil of the
Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, a
cry swept across the ocean, "Great Pan is dead." Pan, god
of grove and pasture, was killed by a god from the desert
who commanded his disciples to have no other gods but
him. In spite of the latter-day pagans who dance round
Stonehenge at the turning of the year, we know that Pan
is dead.
But so is the god who destroyed him. He died the death of
a thousand cuts inflicted by some of his own followers.
Decent people, they could not resist the attractive
freedoms of secular society, so they tried to teach their
ancient god new tricks. They wanted him to go easy on
women, for instance, and to stop beating up gays: a
courageous thing to attempt when the old monster had
already set down his opinion on those subjects in the
Bible. The attempt to liberalize Christianity was
honorable, but when you subject a religion to meticulous
historical and scientific analysis you expose all its
violent absurdities and doom it in the eyes of the very
people to whom you are trying to commend it. This is why
the most humane and tolerant species of religion on earth
today, Liberal Protestantism, is also the most
endangered.
The Pope, a fervent champion of the old god, understands
this, which is why he resists any attempt to adapt Roman
Catholicism to the emancipatory values of secular
democracy. The popes of Evangelical Protestantism
understand this, which is why they crow with delight at
the death of Liberal Christianity and gloat over their
capture of the citadel of American democracy.
What neither group realizes is that they are themselves
dancing on the grave of God. The fact that humans are at
war over religion is evidence that there no longer is a
single, absolute and universally compelling meaning to
life. There no longer is a unifying authority to which
humanity can submit or against which it can rebel. In
other words: God is dead.
Even the confident religions know this. When their god
was overwhelmingly alive he did not permit them to mingle
with the followers of other gods: Now they come together
to increase the volume of their protests against the
noisy indifference of the scoffers in the market place.
But the god of the marketplace is also dead. Secular
confidence in the ability of atheistic rationality to
deliver the good society has been undermined by an
invasion of the angry ghosts of dead religion and by the
ugly excesses of materialist consumerism.
So what are we to do, those of us who know that God is
dead? The first thing we should do is celebrate the fact
that we have been delivered from idols, and are now on
our own. And we must resist the temptation to cure our
anxiety by manufacturing new idols to serve. We should
learn from our history that idols created to console us
always turn out to be jealous gods who take us to war
against their rivals. In spite of our ancient and
dangerous longing for them, we should accept that there
are no absolutes.
The only thing we can be certain of is that there is no
certainty -- including that one. Committed to being
uncommitted, we should relish the irony of our position.
Knowing what we know, we should stand closer to outsiders
than insiders, remembering how the gods love to divide:
So we should make alliances with poets and protesters,
rarely with priests and politicians. We should not expect
to win many battles against the world's tyrannous
addiction to idols, but nor should we ever allow
ourselves to be defeated by it.
Meanwhile, we have the great Israeli poet, Yehuda
Amichai, to encourage us:
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the
place
where the ruined
house once stood.
Listen for the whisper.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/11/news/edholloway.html
End of forwarded message from "G.Subramaniam" <gsubrec@comcast.net>
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not so send
peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
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| User: "Dr. Jai Mahadouche" |
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| Title: Re: A humanist future: Now that [Christian] God is dead |
16 Jan 2005 02:38:09 PM |
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Johnny Judas Jay "the jackass jyotishithead" Maharaj wrote:
A humanist future: Now that [Christian] God is dead
Forwarded message from "G.Subramaniam" <gsubrec@comcast.net>
If either of you Christian-bashing morons had even a smidgen of
intelligence, you may have realized that the article is not about a
"Christian" god. But then, intelligent posts are not what is expected
out of either of you retards, anyway.
--
Jai Mahadouche
http://www.claptrap.com/jai
Om Shanty
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2004/12/17/stories/2004121700070100.htm
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/oct/29kp.htm
http://www.secularindia.com/sangh_parivars_hidden_agenda.htm
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.stopfundinghate.org/sacw/part1.html
While in almost all the developed countries, the female lead in the sex
ratio, it is in India that the males dominate the chart. Worse still is
when we take a look at the child sex ratio, between the age group of
zero to six. For the nation, the child sex ratio is 927. But the figures
drop significantly when we see the community report card: 950 for
Muslims, 925 for Hindus, and a shocking 786 for the Sikhs. Call it
shocking or dismal, but the fact remains that the growing female
foeticide and getting rid of the girl child before she reaches the age
of six, is a dastardly crime.
Here is the modern India for you, fast heading towards a daughter-less
nation. In an era of new economy based on knowledge-based systems and in
a fast-track mode, the Hindu rate of growth has also acquired a new
dimension. Here is the new Hindu rate of growth for you, linked to
rising literacy – the higher the economic growth the more is the mass
slaughter of the girl child.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept04/Sharma0928.htm
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: A humanist future: Now that [Christian] God is dead |
16 Jan 2005 05:10:21 PM |
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"Here is the modern India for you, fast heading towards a daughter-less
nation. In an era of new economy based on knowledge-based systems and
in
a fast-track mode, the Hindu rate of growth has also acquired a new
dimension. Here is the new Hindu rate of growth for you, linked to
rising literacy - the higher the economic growth the more is the mass
slaughter of the girl child."
This is happening in China, too, and it will soon be seen elsewhere.
But the joke is on those who wish to better their lot by having sons
only. Those who are too smart or too compassionate to kill their
daughters will find their girls marrying *up, The peasant's grandsons
are likely to be the children of a merchant. The teacher's
grandchildren will be scientists or politicians. If they don't kill
their daughters, then the girls in ten ot twenty years will be married
off to the high ranking males.
Kermit
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