From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus)
Subject: Re: Some Comments [RSS : Silent Revolution etc.]
Organization: The Net-Anarchists of SCI, Inc.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 03:45:16 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.010809.28769@cs.wayne.edu> uds@wsu-eng.eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju Udaybhaskar) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.054730.20102@colorado.edu> paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus) writes:
>>3] India has managed to avoid the worst pitfalls of religious 
>>   fundamentalism that many countries have fallen prey to.
>>
>>   We have leap-frogged an age of the Church ruling the State and
>>   directly arrived into a secular state, without suffering periods
>>   of state sponsored religious favouritism.
>
>I feel otherwise.  We have gone through stages of severe
>religious governance, all through history...

1] I thought it was clear from the context, but what I meant was
   the modern Indian state, after independance.

>
>>   Now that is being changed, insidiously and we regress into 
>>   the past, where we will begin again to think of ourselves as
>>   Hindus, Muslims and countless other denominations.
>
>regression is dangerous.  But then again, thinking oneself to be
>a hindu, muslim or other  is in no way a regressive act.  The jesuit
>attitude of converting another person to your faith (or erasing the
>effect of anotherfaith as we see in india NOW)) is lethal to mankind.
>Maybe lethal is inappropriate -- poisons everyone's mind; might be better.

2] Here again, I might have relied too much on the context, the
   point being that there is a danger of us thinking of our religious
   affiliations before we think of ourselves as Indians.

   The point I made in regard to the Jesuits was with respect to the
   education of Christians. The Jesuits are known for the zeal with
   which they impose a framework of beliefs to the exclusion of others.
   Which incidentally is a travesty of the word Catholic. The problem
   that the Jesuits present to the impressionable mind are subtle and
   perhaps more dangerous, because the Jesuits are very well educated
   people. This form of intellectual strait-jacketing would have been 
   very limited in its effect on non-believers.

   What you probably had in mind was the tendency of the missionaries to
   save souls. I think what they do is a form of misguided and forced 
   altruism.

>
>
>>  All religious fundamentalism is backward looking, regardless of 
>>  its denomination.
>>
>>4] I have no doubts that India has remained secular only because the
>> .... . Spare a moment to see why modern states have 
>>   finally fallen into the secular form of democracy. See why allowing
>>   a religion to permeate the state apparatus, slows down social and
>>   material progress. 
>
>religous attitudes of the people in general
>cannot be a braking factor.  Its zeal and fanaticism
>which slowly degenerate into intellectual blindness.  Its this
>final stage that causes deterioration of human life in society.`
>Broad outlook and open mind -- these are the first casualties
>of zeal and fanaticism.  One can be highly religious
>and still be open minded -- but one must be educated
>or worldly-wise enough to be so even-handed.
>

3] Perhaps this is becoming a dogma for me, but I believe, firmly
   that the state and the church must not be mixed.
   I believe that the prohibition on prayer in school in America,
   is a step in the right direction, even atheism is a personal
   belief set that is as dear to its followers as any other 
   religion.

   This is perhaps an offshoot of what I have once said before
   regarding the question of choosing one racial type over the
   other as personal preference. Any instituition that implicitly
   serves a social contract with a populace must not differentiate
   between citizens in any manner. The examples I have mentioned before
   were Banks, and schools etc.  Government would serve as another
   good example of an instituition that exists as a social contract
   with all of its citizens, and must not show any bias towards the
   relgious beliefs of one set of people versus the other. One way
   is to show respect for all, as is done on many ceremonial 
   occasions, but it is much more elegant and practical to avoid all
   involvement of religion with government.

4] One net person has once jumped to the conclusion that I must hate
   religion, because of what I write.
   Nothing could be further than the truth. 
   I treat my religion as a personal thing, something as private as 
   the state of my love life. :-)
   

5] Stay Cool.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.    ~ ~                                                                     .
.    o o      signito ergo sum.              paul chemmanoor.                .
.     |    i sign therefore i am.            Computer Science department.    .
.     =                                      Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.     .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian