All Comments (24)

Ma Kali or Chamunda is the Tantric Goddess Tara -Her origin is more Tibetian than Hindu.

The mainstream Hindu Mother Goddess is very different.

Dr. Doniger wouldn't be mentioning Kali if she knew this, anti Tibetian writings isn't kosher.

Yes those blood sucking hindus, I mean if it werent for the hindus, who would have subdued the american west, annihilated all the native americans in the world's worst genocide, killed off tribes in south america under the banner of the lord jesus christ, killed those damned aborigines in australia for the church's civilizing mission, killed off all pagan traditions and temples on the edge of the sword in europe, enslaved all of africa with the brutal sword of christianity, launched the crusades for the protection of our non-violent and benevolent lord jesus against those violent muhammedand ! Yes those damned blood letting hindus and their bloddy gods, a violent culture like the hindus is definitely to produce a violent person like Gandhi ! and Buddha ! oh such violence, such horror !

KR_DC

Nice straw man there...

'Hinduism' does not state that God created woman to distract man. I think you are confusing Hinduism with Christianity...

What Wendy is trying to say that we have wars, and in our imperfect world, the right thing to do might often be to fight the war (like when she says that the god convinced the human to fight the war against the human's wishes). Wendy says, that at the same time, you are truly wise if you realize that nothing good comes out of war. Not everyone in the world realizes this. If EVERYONE in the world realized this, there would be no war, and we would all be living better lives.

Dear Ms. Doniger,
I wish for a change you started thinking logically. According to the Hindu religion, god created woman to distract man because men were apparently so pious that they were being gods. The Hindu mythology is also full of stories of gods at war with each other. So your conclusion that Hindu gods promise a deeper philosophical peace is confounding.
Whether or not there is a reason for war or not is a question that requires understanding the human heart. Man is predisposed to evil and sin and hence the need for war.
I hope you will come to realize the Truth before the day of reckoning dawns upon you and it is too late.

" Paganplace. Read it again in the morning as it it pretty self explanatory.

Posted June 2, 2007 7:47 AM "

Actually, sorry. Not so much. :)

Maybe you could seek a bit, yourself, for how to say whatever that was supposed to be. :)

Terra
I just wish more members of the body politic would wake up and participate. I still think we'd lead better (in re Democracy) by example than by other means, oh, maybe invasion for instance. The shining kingdom on the hill shouldn't need to rain down cannonballs to the less fortunate below.

Tim,

So we need great business leaders or govenment leaders to tell us what to do? We need to be led by those who prove themselves in leadership, how?

Tim- "I rejoice when justice prevails regardless of the situation and even if violence is required by the governmental authorities. We can not use force on a personal basis but that responsibility rightfully belongs to our governmental officials and if they don't carry out their duties to protect us, using violence if necessary, then we need to get rid of them."

So attacking Iraq was ok, even if our men and women and Iraqi innocents are killed, because our govenment officials say it is to protect us? and they lied. THEY LIED!

So Tim, where does it say in the constitution that our officials (President) is to protect us? Do you know what the constitution says? Where in the constitution does it say we are to attack when we have not been attacked? Find it.

You take joy in our leadership killing others because they say it is to protect us. I bet the Germans or the Japanese could have said the same thing. Wouldn't it be better to make sure that leadership was right first, and just?

We are responcible for what our leadership does. Other nations do not have that. We are a democracy, we are in control, not some great leader. (Some how I see the Headman in Space Balls when I say Great Leader.)

terra

Oh yeah! But the Devil gets the blame and Jesus gets the fame for getting them off the hook when they get caught. Different thread but there is nice Mr "born again" Colson raking in the bucks with his "prison fellowship ministry." Religion: leaglized confidence game. Critical ingredient of the con, FAITH.

War is when whole gangs of people become nice, a better class of people entitled to the wealth of others, life being the greatest of wealth.

When are Christians going to demand the gold plundered from the Americas be returned to the heirs of it's rightful owners. The Devil won't let that happen?

Don,

Exodus 21:12
Exodus 21:15
Exodus 21:16
Exodus 21:17
Exodus 22:19
Exodus 31:14
Exodus 31:15

Leviticus 19:20
Leviticus 20:2
Leviticus 20:10
Leviticus 20:11
Leviticus 20:13
Leviticus 20:14
Leviticus 20:15
Leviticus 20:16
Leviticus 24:16

And so on and so forth. Some of these law are kind of humorous.

Sorry I meant Bgone not boone

Boone, I don't recall saying anything about the devil. All the examples I gave are of people I think who made their own decisions. We both know that we have the same opportunity to do either good or evil. That's all I am saying. Nobody makes me do anything, including the devil. God does not tell me what to do either. It's my choice and this is the beautiful thing about it all, don't you agree. I appreciate you bringing this up because I do not want to leave the impression that I think the devil made somebody do something.

Are you being sarcastic when you say that they sold their souls for the treasure of the earth? If you believe that then what is the difference if someone were to say they sold their soul to the devil? I just don't see much difference in the symbolism. You know the earth is a symbol for the dominion of Satan. Just a thought.

Yeah Tim, the Devil made them do that. Religion is Devil worship which explains it all.

http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul for those who can't read page 2. The folks you mention "sold their souls" for the treasure of earth. Even big Al Capone did a little hard time and died a miserable early death from a sexually transmitted disease.

Interesting Don. Of course that's been changed from "Thou shalt not kill." That's not even the original 5th.

5. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt be killed. And that goes double for the firstborn son of God, Pharoh.

Get educated! http://www.hoax-buster.org page 2. The Bible is a proved hoax. We need a new source of God's goodness and mercy. Visions anyone?

Exodus 20:13

Paganplace, I see you are a regular contributor and you like to critique others. I am honored as a new contributor that you have singled me out as worthy of your attention and sage wisdom. My posting caught your attention and that's something to be thankful for and I encourage you to read and comment on my future postings. Keep seeking and you shall find, Paganplace. Read it again in the morning as it it pretty self explanatory.

Ok, Tim, ...and this says what about what?

There are some really rich guys in jail and I have to say that it is something that pleases me. That guy who ran World Com and the guy who ran Tyco. I even gloated over Martha going to jail for awhile. Saddam had palaces everywhere and he is not just in jail, the guy is dead. There is a God. Sorry I have no right to make that connection but it just feels good to think that just maybe..... All these guys had lots of money, power, women but they still lied, cheated, killed, raped and so on and so forth. So can we really blame the worlds problems on people being poor, having bad childhoods or living in poverty, no hope, and divisiveness. Some of the happiest people are those with nothing. Some rich folks are very giving, decent people who care and love a lot. Without those great leaders of business and government we would all suffer for lack of leadership, vision, and wisdom. I rejoice when justice prevails regardless of the situation and even if violence is required by the governmental authorities. We can not use force on a personal basis but that responsibility rightfully belongs to our governmental officials and if they don't carry out their duties to protect us, using violence if necessary, then we need to get rid of them.

"The sad reality in this dilemma is innocent people die."

The sad reality is calling the dead 'Guilty' doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Anonymous you bring up an interesting scenario with the cop and the mass murderer at VT.

As a pacifist I try to find ‘a way out’ without violence first, without death second. On a personal level I can always choose a path of non violence, that could end with my own death. My preference of course is for the second option, without death, especially if it is my own!

I guess my problem with making an exception, kill the rampaging gunman, is that where do we start with peace and non violence? AT some point we need to draw a line in the sand or we can always end up at war. How about a 3 person gang vs the cops? How about a 100 person gang vs the cops? At some point that is war on the streets. I just think it is a slippery slope. The larger problem I have with war is it is a handful of people (governments or leaders) telling the masses to kill other people we don’t even know. The crazy part is… WE LISTEN OT THEM!

In my mind the other part of the solution is preventing the conditions that led to the confrontation; poverty, no hope, divisiveness, abuse, greed etc. This problem has tentacles, thus so does the solution.

Getting back to your gunman scenario, in this single instance being passive and taking him in without killing him could indeed cost more innocent lives. This raises the question of do we ‘spiritual’ people really think that we are all one, all equal and all life is worthy. Would we willing sacrifice innocents to demonstrate our point and if we do would that make a difference?

In this single instance it may seem a little insane. But if repeated this over and over again at all levels then at some time do we reach the tipping point. If this leads to one day preventing our country from going to war, how many people in the long run have been saved?

The curious part is we have a hard time thinking that if we ‘let’ innocents die in my scenario above it is horrible, insane. We have little problem sending people to die in war.

The sad reality in this dilemma is innocent people die. If that is the way it has to be I think that innocents dying in the name of peace has a much different impact than innocent people dying in war, whether that is a war against a country or crime.

Perhaps we have evolved enough as a society to prevent people like your father from having to sacrifice, at least that is my hope. With the instant information available around the world and the UN (as feeble as it some times seems) I think it is much less likely that a Hitler type person could take his domination outside his borders.

I am just looking for a different way, the current way seems hopelessly flawed.

I would say there's no 'reason' (in a grand sense we seem to have so much trouble reconciling with,) to ever have war at all.

Fights happen.

I was watching one of my father's favorite miniseries this Memorial Day:

"Band of Brothers."

There's a point there where one of our heroes is in on a truck in a column on the Autobahn as American forces roll the other way past captured German soldiers and one stood up, and shouted something predictably bleeped out in virtuous America, ..the 'virtuous' censorship means I have to try and paraphrase the honesty of it:

"What are we *doing* here? What were you *thinking,* you fascist *f'n* *slaves!*"

Fights happen.

But, *what were *we* thinking,* on this one?

'We' *weren't.* Not even in terms of doing the wrong thing *well* if we really wanted to do it anyway.

Personally, I think religious thoughts that say The Book says 'Thou Shalt Not Kill,' end up just finding 'justifications' in the same book to do pointless things.

So busy 'justifying' that they don't *think.*

"What are we doing here?"

It'll never be a "Just War."

It's *just war.*

I think 'justifying war' *creates wars.*

We are *not* "The Greatest Generation."

In large measure because 'we' *skipped a step, here.*

Our government is *literally hiding the bodies* because this is *not* a sacrifice in the cause of 'Good.'

Just a stupid 'war' they want us to blindly follow, not *really* honor the 'sacrifice' they make of our troops.

I've seen enough actual violence to know 'winning' isn't 'Everything.'

If this is a wondrous "sacrifice," then the least we can do is F'n *look* at it. Not to mention who's sacrificing whom for what.

What are we thinking *now?*

I have always been told to be careful with the words "always and never" You know, like "never say never." The author is presumptuous enough and so sure of herself that she uses the word never with no qualifications. She has superior knowledge. We can argue over the current war in Iraq but we could also argue over if the police should take the life of a mass murderer at Virginia Tech. If that mass murderer had not killed himself, I am sure that most of us would agree that the police should kill him as soon as there was the possibility of doing so in order to stop the killing. My father was in WWII and I will be forever grateful for the sacrifice he and the rest of "The Greatest Generation" made to save us from Hitler and Japan. Otherwise, I might have grown up under the boot of Hitler. So Ms. Doniger, never say never.

"Lock and load! Now send them to hell. When we're finished the only place Japanese will be sopken is in hell." Where Japanese was being spoken at the time was called hell by those there locking and loading. The simple conclusion is, "war is hell."

War has it's roots in hell or, more correctly, hell has it's roots in war. The union of the two is unmistakable, both cases being true.

About 5,000 years ago a man, maybe the first "son of god" invented hell. He claimed to have the power to intercept the dead on their journey to the next life. Hell solved the problem of what to do with them, the ones sent to hell by his soldiers. Not only were his soldiers immune from retaliation in the next world but the ones who died fighting in his name were martyrs, guaranteed entry into HIS NEXT kingdom in the NEXT world. So hell, like most all important inventions was born of necessity.

Hell is the central hoax of the Bible, a proved literary hoax. Take hell away and what do you have left to attract the faithful in Christ, the one who gets us through the roadblock between this world and the next invented by the FIRST son of god?

http://www.hoax-buster.org There's more than one variety of hell, improved over time while war is still the same thing, "lock and load. Now send them to hell."

QED

It amazes me that people who are so facile in quoting the New Testament insist on their service to a vengeful G-d.