On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote:
Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the
host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus
on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions.
And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped.
Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here.
Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly
taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving
meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was
God! Run!
I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in
as an exercise in food materialism.
Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with
actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my
meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something
quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the
HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the "meal".
I don't get the outrage.
It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and
worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of
church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with
charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can
easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of
the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Body
modification freaks also feel that insertion of needles can induce
pleasurable trance states. Let's not forget to invite them. And
voudoun trance rites often involve the sacrificing of small animals
to the Loa: VM, Voudoun Meditation. Yes, you too can enjoy an
effortless technique that takes you 'down to the crossroads' without
ever having to leave your chair.
Perhaps you should look into what the actual goal of Hindu mental
ishta-devata meditation is, since you don't seem clear on what it
actually is.
Can you name one common place you would find the Hindu 16-fold offering?
I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My
Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have
something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a
Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would
another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu,
teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu,
somehow make teaching TM a religion.
I know of numerous people who became Hindus--some have even received
the sacred thread.
And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools
give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great
religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These
holidays CLEARLY have religious roots.
They're just appealing to the majority of their students I guess, but
that is an interesting objection. Of course none of their religious
rites would appear on campus if they are absent.
No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. Clearly a
violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan
religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the
Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House.
Easter eggs to not appear in the Christian bible--unless you happen
to have a very different bible than I do!
And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually
give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids!
Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy.
(I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am
riffing on. )
