Jagat

I recently came across the following headline on Alternet, Don't Look on the Bright Side: Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us . My immediate reaction was, “Optimism is NOT magical thinking.” I have written about this before, that religion, reduced to its essence, is simply an optimistic world view . Religion means optimism. Faith means accepting that Something is behind everything after all, that there is a meaning to existence, a purpose that has more depth than mere survival and the trivial enjoyments and pursuits that preoccupy the majority of people. Even an atheist has to find, accept or devise -- if for nothing more than practical reasons -- that there is some structure, some purpose to his own presence in the world. Science, for instance, cannot stand without a faith in the existence of structures and laws that are fathomable. In a world where suffering is omnipresent, on//e needs a reason for living. Otherwise, the only logical option, in the face o...

In the context of the discussion on modernity and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, I had the following notes that were not included. These are more or less disorganized. ...It should be noted that the general response of liberal Christianity has been to identify religion most generally with the search for meaning (See Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life ). The influence of modernism, however, has been such as to "demystify" the religious tendency: the experience of God and the experience of the world have somehow become indistinct. In other words (in the Christian way of expressing it), since God created the world as an expression of his own desire, (or in the Hindu way of expressing it) the world is a manifestation of Himself or His energies, that therefore the highest value in life can be found in this world--in its pleasures and pains, in the life experience itself. In the hierarchy of values, of course, justice, love and compassion stand at the forefront, and to act in accordance wit...