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Re: new site needs your point of view
In article <4htujd$9kf@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai) offered:
[...]
>>
>>His question was: "Am I Hindu?"
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>>Your opinions are welcome.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Why opinions? I have a concrete answer.
How dare you have a concrete answer. You are thereby implying that
other answers are incorrect, and thereby you are violating one of the
main tenets of the new variety of postmodern Hinduism: there are no
wrong answers. Of course, this also has a flip side of "there are no
right answers", but that doesn't seem to bother anyone these
days. People seem more concerned with not being wrong than actually
being right.
>The previous tejas had disappeared and he wore a
>sheepish grin on his face.
Communications Decency Act Alert! You have mentioned tejas (the
original name for Texas), sheep, and grinning all in the same
sentence. We try to keep this newsgroup totally free from anything
which might run us afoul of the CDA, and this borders dangerously
close. The only worse thing you could've mentioned would've been the
K*** S****.
>He had a wooden board around his neck, suspended by
>a string like a garland. On the board was written: 'I am Suka Gosvami'.
>Needless to say, I was thoroughly confused.
Yes, it should've been obvious that when a person says something like
"I am Suka Gosvami", what that person _really_ means is "we are all
Suka Gosvami". You see, people, especially ones responsible for
imparting knowledge, rarely say what they really mean, so we have to
ignore what is said in some texts and figure out what is really meant,
even if they might be contradicted by the events described. For
example, some simpletons will no doubt take a literal approach to
interpretation when the main character of a story says "worship
Me". It should be clear, both from ontological and epistemological
standpoints, that what that person really means is "worship yourself".
>The answer to Vivek's question should now be obvious. *Drum roll*,
>*** crash of cymbals ***,
>
> "HE IS a VAISHNAVA, but NOT a HINDU".
Aha, once again, you are wrong, err, I mean, we all are right:
You forgot some key parts to the story:
a) the infinitesimally small Vietnamese girl who could only repeat
"Niy Nauq" repeatedly, which we all know is the name of the HINDU
GODDESS QUAN YIN, only spelled backwards
- I have been told that the Quan Yin tradition is in fact Hindu,
appearances and facts notwithstanding, so this should've been
the first clue that the person is a Hindu. The person is in
all likelihood not a Vaishnava, because as far as I know, the
Vaishnavas don't worship Supreme Master Ching Hai or Quan Yin,
whereas I am told that both are Hindu.
b) He asked if his captors were THUGGIES, and they assured him that
they were not, and that he'd be released soon.
- I have been told that Thuggees are most definitely NOT Hindu,
and since the captors were not Thuggees, they are not ruled out.
Of course, the logic by which Quan Yin is Hindu and Thuggees
are not Hindu has not been explained to me, but I guess I am
not prepared for such deep insights.
c) they accidentally destroyed one MOSQUE, and they annoyed the
inhabitants of a GURUDWARA
- I have also been told (really) that all good Hindus should
unquestioningly take the same viewpoints on the above events.
I had a girl practically shout at me that Sikhs are Hindus,
and that they should be told such at every opportunity. I, of
course, didn't ask _why_ we needed to remind them of such things,
since that seemed like a pointless "why" question, violating
the concept of "you will do as instructed by your superiors
in the Hindu Youth ranks". Anyway, I found one of the Sikhs in
our department this morning, and told him "deny it if you want,
but deep down inside, you know you're Hindu".
d) Also, don't forget the references to the Physical Immortality
Project.
- We know that the Physical Immortality Project is Hindu, because
some rishis from a long time ago lived for very long times.
>PS: The above article was a parody on opinions expressed by various people in
> srh and ah. Some of the incidents date waaayyy back.
While we're not dealing with facts, I just wanted to say that in some
recent thread, it was stated that someone was politely arguing with me
when someone else butted in. Of course, that was not me, but
Vijay. However, I should've learned by now that when people say
"Vivek", what they really mean is "all of us", since I am part of the
One. Therefore, the sentence translates to "I was politely arguing
with Myself when I rudely butted in". By the way, I was appalled to
see the word "butt" used in this newsgroup, even if it was in verb
form. I hope the Communications Decency Act will protect us from such
acts in the future.
So, while someone might naively try to point out that the original
statement was wrong, since it referred to Vivek and not Vijay, the
true, modern, touchy-feely, ignore-the-text interpretation would let
all of us be not wrong.
-Vivek
"OK, but this time, I get to be Yoko Ono" - anonymous
