All Comments (8)

Hello, nice site :)

Hello, nice site :)

Candide, only the lucky ones die and come back as jackasses. All jackasses do is eat and breed. They have a distinct bray that is prayers to come back as what they are the next time round.

Norrie Hoyt is a disillusioned optimists. Just guessing of course but s/he's now talking to self. Thanks for the lesson Norrie. Looks to me like Harvard has turned into a Bible college too. I see not. Thanks for restoring my "faith" in higher education.

India is the most religious country in the world. And also the most backward and diseased (except for a small area of technologically advanced westernized people in the bigger cities.) Washing in the Ganges River is so spiritual it is bound to kill you!

I think it would be useful and nice if the Panelists would enter the fray, mix it up and participate in a dialogue with the commentators.

With that in mind I'm reposting a question I asked you a couple of weeks ago. I'd love to know your answer to this:

Norrie Hoyt:
Professor Eck,

I think I have some idea of Harvard's atmosphere - I went to one of its graduate schools. It is - or was - a home for the new criticism and deconstruction, I believe.

How would a Harvardian answer this?:

"Dog" is a three-letter word which refers to a sort of animal that I recognize. That sort of animal is the referent of the word "dog."

"God" is a three-letter word that refers to - what? "God" appears to have no referent. Nothing that I can recognize as such, anyway.

Please explain. Thanks.

Posted December 24, 2006 3:42 PM

How supremely idiotic! How did you ever become a Harvard perfesser!

Did it occur to you that the reason the line stretched for miles was that the people had no running water, indeed nowhere to "bathe" except in the river?

Some goofball priest told them that it was "in order" to begin the day with ablutions to "cleanse" themselves while praying to God. Even if there had been no goofball priest they would have gone to the river to wash up. Of course, as we have learned in modern American corporate life, Compliance Officers are needed to ensure that corporate employees and officers do what our "goofball priests" (the regulators) require. Superimposing religion on all this was simply a Compliance issue.

How little things change.

The statement that there is an "impulse" to begin the day with prayer reflects a dubious conclusion based on a condition, rather than a cause. If this is a statement that there is some "instinct" to start with prayer, then the author's own experience in Montana and at Appleton Chapel belie it. After all, if there were some "instinct" to begin the day with prayer at the time of morning ablutions, Professor, you'd be praying in the shower at home, not waiting for someone to "organize" a prayer meeting every morning. But then you are a perfesser of religion, so you have to put on a demonstration.

The arguments about school prayer involved the same sort of approach -- some need to have prayers to start the day. Heck, so go ahead and pray at home BEFORE you get to school.

The actual reason for morning prayer -- first of all people have been scared into perceiving that there is a need to do it at all -- is that it's when time is AVAILABLE because the rest of the day is going to be spent working.

Obviously, since many churches have evening services, indeed, mid-morning, afternoon, and even midnight services, it's all a matter of scheduling, not some ridiculous contrived notion that everyone has an urge in the morning.

OTOH, maybe I'm being too harsh -- the question is what was YOUR formative experience and you have dug deep to pick Banaras. I'll accept that although I do find it pretty comical that watching thousands of Indians washing up in the morning and yelling "Hey Ram" or "Jai Ganesh" is a "formative" religious experience.

Wow!!

PS the pole through her gut was a condemnation to hell of the first type, the forever wound. Ancients expected objects in the near vicinity of the body to be duplicated along with the dead body on the nebal bridge.

The rising sun is highly inspiring. What your "morning watch" did was repeat a ceremony begun by the person on who's life the fictional character Jesus is based, Amenophis IV. As advertised, she was a rebel, set out to change the law.

Prior to her the Egyptians looked west towards the setting sun to find their spirituality. The sun setting was equated to death and the sun rising to the rebirth in the next life. She believed she was fathered by the sun and therefore she would be reborn after her death right here on earth. Thus it would not be necessary to have any more Pharaohs. She would simply come back to life everytime she died right here in this world instead of coming back to life in the next world like everyone else.

The high priest tested that theory, impailed her and waited to see if she returned. He expected the pole to return with her should her theory prove to be true so he was just a little nervous. Did she come back to life for a short period of time? Got faith?