Showing posts with label Jehovah's Witness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jehovah's Witness. Show all posts

RMF Summary: Week of March 5 - 11, 2013

March 7
Jesus Yoga - the website
Ravi shares a link.

March 7
My new blog - THE HIJACKING OF WHARTON
I just tweeted this new blog. (Given the controversial nature of my blog, it took them 2 days to finally accept it completely unchanged.) ..


Karthik comments:
"... In a Daily Pennsylvanian report, Toorjo Ghose, one of the U Penn humanities sepoys who led the campaign to disinvite Modi, has sought to justify his position as not being contrary to free expression:

"Ghose said he did not believe it was a free speech issue because Modi had been invited as an honored, plenary speaker and this position was tantamount to the conference endorsing his development ideas.We are under no obligation as an institution to endorse his brand of politics and that's exactly what we would have done had the invitation gone through, Ghose said."

In fact, Ghose is lying, and U Penn had every obligation to let the Wharton students' invitation stand. By inviting Modi to speak at their conference, the student organizers of the Wharton India Economic Forum had expressed their intention to do exactly this: facilitate a distinguished guest who represents certain ideas of development and a certain brand of politics. The WIEF conference is organized by students of the Wharton School, and should they choose to endorse certain ideas of development by association with the guests they invite, it is entirely within their rights of open expression, guaranteed by the University of Pennsylvania itself, to do so.

See the Provosts' Guidelines for Open Expression, as listed on the U Penn website:


Of particular relevance here is:
"D. In case of conflict between the principles of the Guidelines on Open Expression and other University policies, the principles of the Guidelines shall take precedence."
...
The rank hypocrisy of Ghose, who himself availed of constitutional free speech guarantees by participating in the Occupy Philadelphia movement, stands vivdly illuminated. Apparently, open expression is fine as long as it happens to serve his own political proclivities.  Political positions in opposition to his own are to be silenced by any means necessary; blackmail, activism and thought policing are perfectly acceptable when it comes to obviating the WIEF student organizers' right to open expression. "
Rajiv's response: "This is why I am glad to see that Kartik and many others have posted their comments on Huffpost. This is how ideas spread, not through private whispering. Thanks to Kartik and others..."
Karthik further adds:
"It's an astonishing volte-face. The shrill Sepoys who relentlessly castigate Modi on allegations of human rights abuse, invariably respond with deafening silence to the Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh. In fact, some of them actually transform into David Duke-calibre Holocaust Deniers on that subject. One particularly nasty specimen is Sarmila Bose, who has crafted an entire "scholarly" career out of systematically minimizing the scale of Pakistan's atrocities. In a curious inversion of the usual Sepoy propensity to cite overblown atrocity-lit, Bose has actually deflated the well documented figures of three million murders and ten million displaced by the Pakistani army, to arrive at merely "thousands" of victims. 
... In Bose's case, the Hidden White Hand accidentally showed itself by clicking "Reply All" on a certain e-mail chain. The encouraging words of the Woodrow Wilson Institute's William B Milam, urging Bose to simply ignore those who questioned her credibility, were inadvertently sent to everyone who had been included on that chain... including her questioners! ..... 
Here is an article by Naheem Mohaiemen, a Bangladesh history scholar, which lays out a devastating critique of Bose's thesis. The debate continues, with Bose's response answered by a crippling rejoinder from Mohaiemen:

Hope the above references are useful."
March 9
An encounter with Jehovah's Witnesses
I just wanted to post a note about about my recent encounter with Jehovah's Witnesses. It was Saturday and while I had better things to do I started on fixing ...
...They started on the idea of "being saved". I asked, "saved from what"?
"Oh, don't you know, we are all born sinners", said the JW. I then asked why I was a sinner and the reply was exactly along the lines Rajiv Ji talks about - Adam/Eve and Original Sin, Virgin Birth blah blah blah. And therefore, he concluded that we must accept Jesus as our savior. I
gave him a small talk about my birth being divine and God being within myself and the notion of God realization etc. Then I asked him if he (the JW) would pay for my sin. He said No, but that Jesus would. I pointed out the fact that either he unwilling to do what JC would do and
therefore somewhat hypocritical, or expected another person to pay for his faults including any sin he commits. A blank stare ensued and by now they were a tad uncomfortable. Seeing his weakness I had to nuke now, so
I asked rather innocently "Does Jesus believe in the Original Sin"? He frantically searched his copy of the Bible and merely muttered, Umm, Jesus believed in the Old Testament ... and so must be... Was time for them to leave. [But I myself do not know if JC himself
believed in the original sin]...."

March 9
Universities in US & China are getting lessons on human values from
Universities in US & China are getting lessons on human values from the great epic - Ramayana ...

AHMEDABAD: Students at universities in China are getting lessons on human values from the great Hindu epic - Ramayana.

Wise sayings from Valmiki's text are being adapted by the universities teaching Hindi in China and are being made relevant to the current world situations. At least six leading universities in China including the prestigious Peking University, the Beijing Foreign Studies University as well as colleges in different parts of China are teaching Hindi, which has become a popular foreign language in China.

"We are taught verses from Ramayana as part of literature classes at the university," said Eric Huidram, a student-turned Chinese translator and interpreter from Manipur.

Several universities in the US have included reading the Ramayana as part of comparative humanities and literature sessions on Asia.

It was through the efforts of Chinese indologist Ji Xianlin that many Chinese learnt the language of Sanskrit and the epic Ramayana. Ji, who founded the Department of Eastern Languages at Peking University, translated Ramayana from the original Sanskrit to Chinese in poetry form. Ji's translated work of Ramayana and Mahabharata will be displayed at the culture park being planned at Kailash Mansarovar by India China Economic and Cultural Council (ICEC)..."



[Sandeep's 'Rediscovery of India' is among the very best, if not the best blog whose content if filled with original Indian thought]
March 9
Fwd: [TheBecoming] Fwd: How Wharton Scored a Huge Self-Goal by dis-i
JP shares: How Wharton Scored a Huge Self-Goal March 5, 2013 By  Sandeep Balakrishna




[We will create a separate webpage for the collection of Rajiv's links below and display it on the right of the blog]
March 11
My Wikipedia entry is obsolete, misleading
".... fix the Wikipedia entry on me.
  • It gives too much importance to wendy doniger as though i have nothing useful or original of my own to say, and i am some sort of heckler bothering her.
  • even in the context of doniger it does not lead the reader to my extensive articles at Sulekha (at least half a dozen large ones) on the whole freudian psychoanalysis issue.
  • there is no mention of BI or BD- each even deserves its own page. There is abundant material available on these books at their respective web sites, and other places like the hitchhiker's guide.
  • no mention of my YouTubes
  • No mention of my writings on Huffington Post, FirstPost, Niti Central, Patheos, Beliefnet and lots of other places.
With all due respects may I point out that our folks often tend to suffer from:
  • Paralysis by analysis: this means going on and on with planning, analyzing some very large scale project that becomes too unwieldy to ever happen, rather than DOING something manageable quickly which can be extended later.....
....specific examples of changes to my Wiki entry that I feel would be fair. Here are some that come shouting out:


RMF Summary: Week of January 21-27, 2013

January 22 (continuing discussion)
Confused celebrities who are intellectually deficient, ashamed of be
Here is a typical example of a confused celebrity who is intellectually deficient and appears to be ashamed of being different (no pun intended). Shaan (a.k.a....

January 23
Swami Vivekananda Chair, University of Chicago
Prashant shares: Namaste to all! Please read the scanned image of a recruitment advertisement in the Times of India, 23rd Jan 2013 asking for applications for the Swami...

Rajiv comments:
When GOI made this grant to set up the chair a year or two back, I pointed out that U of Chicago is the home of Wendy Doniger from where emerged the Freudian psychoanalysis of Sri Ramakrishna, the guru of Swami Vivekananda. What irony that the genre of scholarship that has done the most damage to Vivekananda's guru gets the multi-million dollar chair endowed supposedly to teach about Vivekananda. You can image what kind of spin that chair will teach. Similarly, the India chairs set up by GOI in some other countries have had questionable occupants. Many tend to be selected based on being cronies, sepoys, or if they are well-intended they lack the ability to stick their necks out and change the discourse in any meaningful manner.

The same it true of some non-govt initiatives set up by "Hindu activists". The selection process in one recent academic appointment was a gimmick to give the appearance of being a genuine search. One applicant told me that when he went for his interview, he was told by an insider that the selection had already been made, and this interview was just to show that the selection was objective and fair..... This candidate felt so angry at the blatant abuse of academic due process.

I am saying all this because its unclear if the newspaper advertisement is genuine or merely for show.."

January 25
2014 Vedic conference in Kozhikode .. headed by anti hindu Harvard Witzel
Venkat shares: 
Quote: "A committee of international Vedic scholars, headed
by the workshop chair, Prof. Michael Witzel (Harvard University), will make the final selection of papers to be presented, totally expected to be around 40 in number."

I wonder if anybody in our esteemed group is in a position to
inform/influence the organizer about Michael Witzel who no friend of India and and certainly no Vedic/Hindu scholar and does not deserve to head the committee.


Website
Kozhikode to host 6th International Vedic workshop


Shambu responds:
"This is Prof. Witzel's baby since 1989 - he started it, as his answer to the WAVES conferences. He decides who is in and who is not. Therefore it is limited to his small network of Indology friends and naive Hindus.

With the demise of the Aryan Invasion Theory, and then the followed-up Aryan Migration Theory, Indology has been struggling to gather food: udara nimttam baukrta vesham. Of late, the secular Government of India and the NarayanaMurthys have been rescuing it.

If we care about India, Samskrita, the Veda, and all that has sprung out of it, we need not fight it out and waste time, since it is in its death bed. Time to meditate and recite viSNu sahasranaamaavali!...

Rajiv's comment: 
By what criteria and on what evidence did you conclude that AIT/AMT are dead? In which institutions and segments of population are they dead, and in which are they alive? How about rigor in gathering evidence and then informing us. For example, please address:
- I dont find it dead in textbooks in India or USA.
- I dont find it dead on the GOI web sites where they discuss Indian history.
- I dont find it dead in the publications of people getting padam bhushan type of awards, and academic chairs for India studies.
- Worst of all, I dont find it dead amongst scholars being given grants and funds by so-called dharma civilization foundations.

Also, maybe you should follow your advice to not bother with such issues and practice: "Time to meditate and recite viSNu sahasranaamaavali!""

Gopal pings the organizers and forwards their response:
"This is the response I got from Srikant[] one of the Organizers,


Respected Sir,
I have received your mail and have noted the contents. As the organizers of this 6th Vedic International Workshop have decided, the main focus of this conference is the Tradition of the Vedic Shakhas in Kerala and other parts of India. They will not entertain any discussion on Aryan Problem and related controversial issues for which there are other platforms. No one, including Prof. Witzel, will be allowed to speak or make a presentation that directly or indirectly points to those issues or supports anti-Hindu propaganda, or denigrates Indian Culture. We do not subscribe to such views and are not interested to spend our time for initiating such a discussion.
As for Prof. Witzel's position as the Chair, it has been there for the past several years, since 1989, when he initiated this workshop. I have attended the past three workshops and have found no controversial issues discussed. ....
Prof. Witzel has done significant work on the Vedic Shakhas and published several articles. You may read them and refute his arguments, if you so desire. 
.....
I hope I have made our position clear.

Can the members of the forum decipher it and provide a respectful response."

Venkat replies to Gopal:
"....  link and content of a dossier of Witzel anti Hindu nature which you should forward to Shrikant[].

Thus Spake Professor Michael Witzel
A Harvard University Case Study in Prejudice?
_________________________________________________
CONTENTS: Pg. No.
1.0 Background 2
2.0 Statements stereotyping Indian Americans…………………………………………………..
2.1: Indian Americans are ‘lost’ and ‘abandoned’
2.2: Indian American scholars are all chauvinists
2.3: Indian/Hindu American groups are Hindu fundamentalists
2.4 Rudeness towards Indian Americans and Indians
2-6
3.0 Statements Stereotyping scholarship in India and Indians in general……………………
3.1 Direct attacks by Witzel-..."

Vishal comments:
"...What [Srikhant] says ... is true. The conferences have rigidly stuck to studying Vedic traditions in the past.

Witzel will be 70 in July this year - so not much time for him to keep going. Given his health, people think he is 80.

But what are WE HINDUS doing to study our traditions OURSELVES? Most Hindus have not even seen copies of the Vedas, nor have heard them being chanted.

Given this situation, we should follow the dictum, "one should learn Dharma even from the lowliest..."

Venkat responds:
I received a reply..:
 ... Thank you ... Let me make it clear that I do not subscribe to his views nor do I support them. My area of study is limited to .... This is the reason why I try to help ....

Rajiv's comment:
His reply is typical of washing one's hands of responsibility.
"I only do my work, poor little me." "I have my eyes closed to what others do."
 

January 26
Rajiv's new blog on FirstPost.
Kaajal posts:
Please read Rajiv's new blog on FirstPost. The title: We need to Study Western, "White" culture on our own terms. This blog draws upon Rajiv's writings from a few years ago on identity formation of Indians in America. In particular, Rajiv
draws our attention to the importance of studying "whiteness" as a means of fully understanding Western culture and its claims of universalism. [Here's the e-group link to the December 2012 discussion cited].
 

January 26 
"Guardian article dividing Hinduism on Republic Day
Ganapathi shares:
".... article appeared in left-liberal newspaper The Guardian of UK, against Hinduism once again making an artificial division in..."


January 26
Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (Jehovah's Witnesses) Leaks
Chirayu shares: Anybody researching on Jehovah's Witnesses may find this interesting. Recently the hackers collective known as anonymous hacked into the JW's servers and released about 700 MB of data. You can download the release from here ..."