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Re: ARTICLE : Biased Reuters news reporting again ! .. is it any surprise ?
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To: soc-religion-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Re: ARTICLE : Biased Reuters news reporting again ! .. is it any surprise ?
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From: vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai)
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Date: 5 Sep 1996 18:32:42 GMT
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Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
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Organization: Hindu Students Conference, Rice Univ Chapter
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References: <ghenDwqLwI.BKK@netcom.com> <ghenDwt2DL.MG9@netcom.com> <5077j8$rdd@news.ececs.uc.edu>
In article <5077j8$rdd@news.ececs.uc.edu>,
<thambiu@skule.ecf.toronto.edu> wrote:
>The Shiva Linga is a "representation" of
>the male aspect, or Shiva himself, not Shiva's sexual organ. When Hindus
>worship the Shiva Linga, they worship Shiva himself, not his sexual organ.
>What better way to distinguish the male aspect than by the simple form of
>the male sexual organ.
[...]
> No, it is holy because it contains a murti of Shiva himself, not his penis.
This might seem crystal clear to some, but count me as one of the
people who would read the above statements and come to the conclusion
that Reuters can't be faulted for what they said.
The sentence that begins with "what better way" seems to indicate that
yes, the lingam is indeed supposed to be a representation of the
penis. The issue, then, is that the worshipper is not worshipping the
penis, per se, but all of Shiva through the lingam form.
So if Reuters or someone else says that it's a penis, they're half
right. What they lack is the understanding that it isn't a sex cult,
but a normal form of worship. So, rather than railing on them for not
knowing the whole story, it seems better to educate them on the other
half of it.
Denying their statement and then admitting in passing that it's
basically correct is just going to confuse more people than it helps.
-Vivek
