[Buddha-l] The religious practice ofgoing aftersomeone's job--India/USA

[jkirk]

> Vedanta should count - Hinduism in general, although its a little
> difficult to actually say just what Hinduism is. Buddhism counts,
> especially if we ignore artificial political boundaries and speak
> more generally of South Asia - or "the Indian Sub-continent".
>
> The secularist critique of religion, in very broad terms, is a 
> generalization
> to all Religions of the critique of Christianity that was developed by
> Europeans during the Enlightenment. I just made that up - but I think
> it will hold water. In practice secularism tends to treat all Religions
> as if they were just different instances of a general phenomenon of
> which Christianity is a typical or even paradigmatic example. But other
> religions have very different track records - especially with respect to
> the specific shortcomings of Christianity (or, more accurately, Latin
> Christendom) that the Enlightenment was a response to.
>
> - Curt
>
> jkirk wrote:
>
>>
>> Which religions of India do you consider to be indigenous, and what
>> in your view is the 'secularist' critique you refer to?
>> Joanna
============================================
Yes, there is a big question, or several of them, as to what IS Hinduism, so 
I'm not going to get into that now. However, let us not forget that there 
were and are tribal people in India whose religious beliefs and deities were 
affected and changed by Hinduism because of their one-down position in the 
various versions of Indian society wherever they lived--not to leave out 
their various cultures which were systematically repressed if not "benignly' 
ignored.
As for a secularist critique, you and many others today, for some weird 
reason, are too prone to claim that a secularist critique was invented as a 
critique of Christianity, as though secularist concerns were never 
appropriate anywhere else in world history. In India today, whether we call 
them secularist concerns or human rights concerns, the two are intertwined 
in the resistance of low caste people who agitate for the government to 
become "truly secular" instead of a front for the, er, dominant religion--in 
this case a version of Hinduism as favored by certain religio-chauvinist 
political parties. Actual secularism, as in the original Indian 
constitution, would not favor any religious group, nor would government 
funds (as under the BJP until Congress once again took over) be used to 
support any number of religious establishments, ideologies, processions, and 
other activities. The 1989 or so destruction by Hindu chauvinists of the old 
Babri mosque in Ayodhya is a good case in point. Time and space here don't 
allow me to go into the details. But ask any low caste person (or Muslim) 
in India if he prefers a secularist government, and the answer would be a 
resounding yes.

Best, Joanna