I like the phrasing in that first sentence. Hinduism is a huge and various collection of traditions and practices, such that (by implication) to use the word Hinduism to indicate it shows sloppy and superficial thinking. The West is just the West; nothing huge or various about us, it's okay to lump us all into one word. From the Vatican all the way to California, just one homogeneous puree. I know that wasn't what you intended to say, but I think it shows something about the way we right-on types think of ourselves and of others.
The last sentence (in the quote) is interesting too, as it confirms and highlights something I've felt for some time about militant atheism in general: that it's perfectly happy for people to believe in any gods or goddesses or fairy tales they like, just as long as they're not Christian. "Religious belief and practice...can be incorporated into a politics of...secularism"? That doesn't even make sense, assuming the word "secularism" actually means anything*.
I don't know enough about the h. and v. c. of t. and p. to comment on whether it's cultural chauvinism or not, but I'd have thought the fact that it involved believing in the existence of supernatural entities that cannot be proved to exist (which is the usual criticism levelled at Christianity) would be a bit of a problem. Apparently not, though.
Militant atheism = militant anti-Christianity. Everyone else is fine.
*Actually, of course, "secular" means "of or pertaining to a period of time," so strictly speaking it doesn't mean anything, but that's what happens when you try to confine the lyrical poetic flow of Latin within the almost brutal simplicity and directness of the Germanic languages. :)
no subject
The last sentence (in the quote) is interesting too, as it confirms and highlights something I've felt for some time about militant atheism in general: that it's perfectly happy for people to believe in any gods or goddesses or fairy tales they like, just as long as they're not Christian. "Religious belief and practice...can be incorporated into a politics of...secularism"? That doesn't even make sense, assuming the word "secularism" actually means anything*.
I don't know enough about the h. and v. c. of t. and p. to comment on whether it's cultural chauvinism or not, but I'd have thought the fact that it involved believing in the existence of supernatural entities that cannot be proved to exist (which is the usual criticism levelled at Christianity) would be a bit of a problem. Apparently not, though.
Militant atheism = militant anti-Christianity. Everyone else is fine.
*Actually, of course, "secular" means "of or pertaining to a period of time," so strictly speaking it doesn't mean anything, but that's what happens when you try to confine the lyrical poetic flow of Latin within the almost brutal simplicity and directness of the Germanic languages. :)