Jagat

A friend sent me a few comments that were made about me over on Nitai's Chaitanya Symposium . Nitai (Neal Delmonico) is an old friend, with whom I unfortunately do not keep in very close contact. Our approaches to bhakti and spiritual life differ somewhat, particularly where mood is concerned. For some reason, Nitai finds it necessary to find nothing positive in the Vaishnava movement that brought him to "Chaitanya Vaishnavism" and I do not agree with this, as I feel it impacts negatively on our sādhanā when we do that kind of thing. But that is his business. He has a good brain and is well read, so I hope the best for him and his spiritual ambitions. And whether I agree with him or not is irrelevant to the fact that he is one of the foremost scholars of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in the world and deserves respect for that fact alone. Here are some of the things that were said: Nitai : What can I say about Jagat? He at present prefers sahaja-dharma to Vaishnava dharma. His ...

My basic idea here is simply this: I don't think that after Marx, Nietzsche, Huxley, Spenser, Freud, Sartre, Camus, and the rest of the 19th and 20th century's giants of atheistic thought, that there will be much new to be said. I have read most of these authors and also responses to their thought by Christian authors like Borhnoeffer, Tillich and Niebuhr. Nevertheless, I think that there is value in the contribution all these thinkers made, and atheism had a strong influence on the development of Christianity in the post WWII period, both as a transformative in liberal mainline Protestantism as well as in the reactionary fundamentalisms. Of course, I find liberalism more attractive, and that is one of the reasons I appreciate the atheist critiques of fundamentalist thought. In India, the influence of Buddhism meant that the most basic arguments of atheism were given much more credence philosophically and theism could not credibly grow in India without the intermediate ste...

Most people who are atheists are arguing against a specific concept or definition of God. They are pretty much all arguing straw men. Here are some examples: They are arguing against religion, like Christopher Hitchens. "The Catholics exterminated the Cathars. Muslims forcibly converted their conquered enemies." Or against stupid traditions that have been part of religion. "Religions have always been misogynistic." They are arguing against specific beliefs. "If God is good, then why is there evil in the world?" They are arguing against a particular concept of God. "If God is all pervading, why do you think of him in human terms, which is obvious projection?" They are responding to poorly constructed defenses of theism. "Why should there be a cause of all causes, when infinite regression makes as much sense?" And, of course, a real favorite: The concept of faith itself. Belief in revelation, etc. Basically, they are all mi...