(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

As introductory books go, What Do Hindus Believe is fair to middling, but it contained a couple of eye-opening remarks about the relationship between the West, and the huge and various collection of traditions and practices called Hinduism, which particularly interested me in the light of militant atheism.

Firstly, there was a reference to attempts to "formalize" Hinduism, specifically, to "semitize" it: "that is, giving it the formal features of Abrahamic religion" (p 69). There's a parallel, I think, with trying to jam the promiscuous Germanic mess of the English language into the crisp, rigid Romance grammar of Classical Latin. You may shed some light, but much of what you'll come up with will be nonsensical or downright misleading.

Secondly, and similarly:

"Western ideas of secularism, which evolved where Christianity was regarded as the only religion and where it had a particular historical relationship with the state, are not necessarily relevant to India. There is no need to stigmatize Hindu religious belief and practice as forms of cultural chauvinism; they can be incorporated into a politics of Indian secularism which centres on the traditional value of equal respect for all religions."

Comments

[stevencaldwell.livejournal.com]

'Indian secularism which centres on the traditional value of equal respect for all religions.'

What does it say about Buddhism being relegated to being an offshoot of Hinduism, a variant of I think Vishnu practice?

This has always been of concern to me.

[infinitarian.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine in my university days, a postdoctoral philosopher and a Hindu, used to claim that there was no such thing as Hinduism -- that it was, essentially, the label given by westerners to all the indigenous religious stuff in India that they couldn't categorise as something more identifiable and monolithic like Buddhism or Jainism or what-have-you. Given the size of the population and the variety of beliefs that Hinduism comprises -- not to mention that he was in a far better position to judge the matter than I was -- I've remained fairly convinced by that.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

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. :)

[steve-roby.livejournal.com]

Ah, militant atheism. How I miss my days in the Young Secularist League, and the street battles we'd have with the splitters in the Rationalist Youth -- but how we'd all unite against the Anglican/Catholic Temporarily United Faction, the Baptist Brigade, and the Sikh/Muslim/Jewish Alliance of Convenience (Ravinder, Ali, and Ruth, until she decided the whole thing was too silly).

Kate, if you're trying seriously to work through all this stuff, perhaps you should consider that the concept of "militant atheism" is right wing Christian propaganda. Yes, Dawkins, Hitchens, and a few others have finally turned on the religious the kind of scorn the religious have aimed at atheists for a good long time. But it's not a movement. Atheism itself is not a movement, nor is it, for most atheists, a belief system. It's the refusal to take part in a belief system. The so-called militant atheist books of the last few years are an attempt to clear some space for the freedom to refuse following the aggressive resurgence of militant Christianity and Islam, in particular, in the post-9/11 world.

Talking unironically about militant atheism is like talking unironically about political correctness.