Thursday, January 10, 2008
WINNING AT ANY COST
In spite of being severely criticised and castigated by various people for the very bad behaviour and attitude displayed by the Aussie team in the second cricket test at Sydney, Ponting and his men seem to be blissfully unaware of having done anything wrong. Here is a sampling of their resposnes.
Ponting believed there was nothing wrong with Australia's on-field conduct during the match. "I have absolutely no doubt about this match being played in the right spirit," he said.
Ricky Ponting still believes his team does not need to alter its behaviour, but has admitted he would do some things "a little differently" if he could return to the Test in Sydney.
However, Ponting does not believe the team is arrogant. "I don't think anyone wants the way Australia plays cricket to change," he said. "Everyone likes to see a tough, uncompromising brand of cricket ..."
Hussey said the players had "never stepped outside the rules or the laws of the game". "We have a great pride in playing for the baggy green cap and for playing for each other," he said in the Australian. "We know how hard it is to get an opportunity to play for Australia and we want to play as hard as we possibly can."
McGrath, who till recently was part of the team and who is himself a master of the art of foul-mouthing, backed the integrity of Ricky Ponting while supporting Australia for their "hard and fair" attitude. "From an Australian point of view, I know the way the guys play and I have total respect for every guy that pulls on a baggy green. The Australians play it hard and fair."
Cricket Australia (CA) threw its weight behind Ricky Ponting and his team-mates against accusations of unsporting behaviour and said sparks are bound to fly when the game is Test cricket and not "tiddlywinks". "Test cricket is what is being played here. It's not tiddlywinks," said Sutherland, asserting Australia always played the game hard but fair.
CA chief executive James Sutherland looked unperturbed by the barrage of criticism that has been hurled at Ricky Ponting and his team-mates for their behaviour during the Sydney Test against India. "The Australian cricket team plays the game tough, tough and uncompromising. It's the way Australian cricket teams have played the game since 1877 under all sorts of different captains. That is the way Australians have expected their teams to play."
Not to be outdone, Allen Border and Steve Waugh too pitched in with their own support for Ricky Ponting and his men. Border said that while he thought Australia had no need to apologise for their on-field behaviour, which has attracted widespread criticism, it was time for international sides to start understanding each other more. "What we think is just routine banter they take offence at - it is straight-out cultural stuff," he told the Courier Mail.
Steve Waugh added his bit by saying,"Teams playing against Australia fail to understand that banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call it is just the way Australian kids joust and play in the schoolyard and backyards."
It is intriguing the way these guys keep throwing out this crumb about their hard and fair attitude. One can easily see that their approach is hard, but where does the fairness come. It takes some time to realise it is just a smoke-screen which masks the reality. It is the CA chief Sutherland who lets the cat out of the bag when he says, "The Australian cricket team plays the game tough, tough and uncompromising." It is there for all to see that they play hard with a Win At Any Cost, Fairness Be Damned outlook. Obviously they have realised that cricket playing technique alone won't carry them far with any consistency. They will just be one among all the other countries, more or less sharing the win-loss statistics on an equitable basis with them. To achieve their goal of Winning At Any Cost they must resort to extra-constitutional methods. This is where sledging comes into play. As Steve Waugh says above, "banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call it is just the way Australian kids joust and play in the schoolyard and backyards." Every Aussie kid is initiated into this technique from the play-school level itself and trained to perfection by the time they come out of school. As Steve Waugh or somebody else explained, these are mind-games designed to cause mental disintegration or disorientation of the victim. When opposing teams are pelted with abusive language which the ICC for some strange reason has not found fit to ban, they don't know how to counter that and they go mad with helpless anger, and lose the match. What a simple technique!!
The problem with such methods is that such Frankensteins have an ugly habit of turning back on the creators. The Aussies happily enjoy their wins as long as the other teams meekly surrender to them. For example, they just loved the way India capitulated at Melbourne. But in Sydney when India matched them in cricketing performance (in spite of a strong pro-Australia show by umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson) as well as in sledging performance with public accusations of their misdeeds, they are unable to take it. It is not only Ponting and his team but the CA Chief Sutherland as well as Allan Border and Steve Waugh seem to be suffering from severe mental derangement. When the whole world has come down on them for their bad behaviour, these worthies are deluding themselves that the poor Aussies have done nothing wrong, and it is only the bad, bad wolf that is the world which is pouncing on the sweet innocent Little Red Riding Hood. How pathetic!
Luckily for Australia they still seem to have some sane people who realise that the Aussie cricket team as well as the cricket establishment need some talking to. One report says: "Ponting has been backed by Cricket Australia and his team-mates, but there has been severe criticism from former cricketing and sporting greats about the team's attitude." John Bertrand, a sailor who won the America's Cup in 1983, is the chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and he wants a meeting with Cricket Australia to let it know its sides should be showing more respect to opponents. "We have a lot of clout in the sporting community and we will be saying to Cricket Australia that people need to step back and reassess what is happening here with a cool head," Bertrand said in the Herald Sun. "The pressure to win out on the field has become too hot, and that pressure is all about winning at all costs.... That is not what sport is about ... The fallout that we are seeing at the moment is not acceptable. It's clearly damaging international relations and clearly a lot of people are upset." Bertrand has joined the respected athletes Herb Elliott and Robert de Castella in believing the players are too arrogant. "Sport is only sport," he said, "it's not war."
Neil Harvey, an Invincible from 1948, disagreed with Hussey and said Ponting "needs to look at himself". "Certainly the captain needs to be stronger and keep his guys in line," Harvey said. Harvey was also concerned by Australia's failure to shake Anil Kumble's hand at the end of the Test. "I don't think they are very sporting." So there still seems to be some hope for Australia as long as such sane heads are around.
All that the Aussie team and establishment, including retired players and captains, need may be some psychiatric evaluation.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Ricky Ponting's Integrity
During the post-match press conference at the end of the second Test match in Sydney (Jan 2008), Ricky Ponting lost his cool when he was questioned by an Indian reporter about his questionable appeals for catches, and said, "If you are actually questioning my integrity in the game, you should not even be standing....". (The full report may be seen in the blog of G.Rajaraman, the Delhi based reporter. http://rajreflects.blogspot.com/2008/01/losing-respect-and-getting-under.html)
Well, His Royal Highness Ricky Ponting, sitting in regal splendour in his royal Durbar has decreed that only sycophantic Aussie media reporters, who will swallow gleefully whatever juicy tidbits he will hand them, are welcome in his press conferences and any pesky outsiders who put him in a spot have no business to be there. The supreme arrogance for which the Aussies have earned some notoriety is very much on view in this simple statement. And considering the fact that it was aimed at a reporter from India, a certain colonial racist mind-set may also be seen in this behaviour.
At the outset Ponting should understand that a person's honesty and integrity are not recognised by others based on one's own assertion or command. These traits are recognised when a person displays them regularly in his behaviour over a period of time. For example Adam Gilchrist has earned a reputation for walking when he snicks a catch behind even when the umpire is somewhat unsighted and is not so sure about it. In his case, if he is not so sure himself about whether he has snicked or not, and so waits for the umpire to adjudicate, nobody will find a flaw in it or accuse him of lack of integrity. But in this one single match itself, Ponting as well as Symonds and Clarke have compromised themselves on their honesty and integrity scale by not walking, and capitalising on the incompetence of the umpire who spared them, or waited for the umpire's decision even though he knew he was out, as in the case of Clarke.
One is reminded of a very juicy story in this context. A multi-millionaire was dancing with a stunning blonde and he whispered in her ears whether she would agree to sleep with him for one night for one million dollars. She gleefully accepted the proposition. A minute later he said, how about a hundred thousand dollars. She frowned a bit and said, ok, if you are so hard up. Then he scaled it down to one thousand dollars. She flared up and asked, "Do you think I am a whore?" He coolly replied, "Is there any doubt about it. I am only trying to fix the price." Ponting and his men have compromised their honesty and integrity in public in front of a stadium full of people and millions of fans around the world watching TV. What is the worth of fretting and fuming and saying, how dare you question my integrity?
Some scribes, including Indians, have tried to be too smart by half in saying that Sachin and Laxman also have escaped some doubtful lbw calls and then gone on to their centuries. What a comparison!! It is like chalk and cheese. In the case of lbw the batsman cannot judge whether the ball would have hit the stumps from where it hit his leg, except when he has played back so much to be very close to rhe stumps. Whereas in the case of snicking behind, the batsman knows he has touched the ball and it has been taken cleanly, and still dishonestly stands there for the umpire to decide.
Ponting's and his team-mates' honesty and integrity are in tatters indeed.
Well, His Royal Highness Ricky Ponting, sitting in regal splendour in his royal Durbar has decreed that only sycophantic Aussie media reporters, who will swallow gleefully whatever juicy tidbits he will hand them, are welcome in his press conferences and any pesky outsiders who put him in a spot have no business to be there. The supreme arrogance for which the Aussies have earned some notoriety is very much on view in this simple statement. And considering the fact that it was aimed at a reporter from India, a certain colonial racist mind-set may also be seen in this behaviour.
At the outset Ponting should understand that a person's honesty and integrity are not recognised by others based on one's own assertion or command. These traits are recognised when a person displays them regularly in his behaviour over a period of time. For example Adam Gilchrist has earned a reputation for walking when he snicks a catch behind even when the umpire is somewhat unsighted and is not so sure about it. In his case, if he is not so sure himself about whether he has snicked or not, and so waits for the umpire to adjudicate, nobody will find a flaw in it or accuse him of lack of integrity. But in this one single match itself, Ponting as well as Symonds and Clarke have compromised themselves on their honesty and integrity scale by not walking, and capitalising on the incompetence of the umpire who spared them, or waited for the umpire's decision even though he knew he was out, as in the case of Clarke.
One is reminded of a very juicy story in this context. A multi-millionaire was dancing with a stunning blonde and he whispered in her ears whether she would agree to sleep with him for one night for one million dollars. She gleefully accepted the proposition. A minute later he said, how about a hundred thousand dollars. She frowned a bit and said, ok, if you are so hard up. Then he scaled it down to one thousand dollars. She flared up and asked, "Do you think I am a whore?" He coolly replied, "Is there any doubt about it. I am only trying to fix the price." Ponting and his men have compromised their honesty and integrity in public in front of a stadium full of people and millions of fans around the world watching TV. What is the worth of fretting and fuming and saying, how dare you question my integrity?
Some scribes, including Indians, have tried to be too smart by half in saying that Sachin and Laxman also have escaped some doubtful lbw calls and then gone on to their centuries. What a comparison!! It is like chalk and cheese. In the case of lbw the batsman cannot judge whether the ball would have hit the stumps from where it hit his leg, except when he has played back so much to be very close to rhe stumps. Whereas in the case of snicking behind, the batsman knows he has touched the ball and it has been taken cleanly, and still dishonestly stands there for the umpire to decide.
Ponting's and his team-mates' honesty and integrity are in tatters indeed.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Solution For Poor Umpiring Decisions.
As Sunil Gavaskar points out again and again in his commentaries and writings, in spite of the induction of 'neutral' umpires, the umpiring decisions seem to go more against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka than against the other cricket playing nations. Gavaskar is surely the most qualified to talk on this subject as it was his act in trying to walk out of a Test match in Australia, dragging Chetan Chauhan with him, which shook up the cricketing world to the fact that the colonial 'white skin' umpires were just as bad as the 'brown skins' of the Indian subcontinent. Till then they used to point a finger at the poor umpiring standards in India and Pakistan while conveniently being blind to their own failures.
Now after the first day's play in Sydney with umpteen wrong decisions by 'neutral' umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson, more against India than Australia, Steve Waugh wants to scrap the neutral umpire system and have only umpires from host countries, so that they can go back to their own cosy habit of favouring the host team. (Indian umpires unfortunately seem to have imbibed the Hindu dharma of 'Athithi Devo Bhava' and tend to be generous to visiting teams.)
However, it looks like the umpires, whether neutral or local, will continue to make mistakes, often quite unfair and costly to one team or the other. So there has to be some other way of countering this problem. I propose the following solution.
The only factor which governs the match is the number of runs. So the solution also should be in terms of runs. When a wrong decision is given in favour of the batsman, 50 runs should be debited from his side's total. And if a wrong decision is given against a batsman, 50 runs should be credited to his side's total. For example, in the current India vs Australia match in Sydney, so far Ponting was wrongly given 'Not Out' twice and was then given 'Out' also wrongly. So the Australain score should be reduced by 100 runs for the two wrong 'Not outs' and increased by 50 for the one wrong 'Out'. Then Symonds was given two 'Not outs' wrongly. So they should be penalised by 100 runs. That means Australia's first innings score should be reduced by 150 runs. That will make it 463 - 150 = 313. Looks like that will make the game fair for all.
Thanks very much for your applause for this solution.
Now after the first day's play in Sydney with umpteen wrong decisions by 'neutral' umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson, more against India than Australia, Steve Waugh wants to scrap the neutral umpire system and have only umpires from host countries, so that they can go back to their own cosy habit of favouring the host team. (Indian umpires unfortunately seem to have imbibed the Hindu dharma of 'Athithi Devo Bhava' and tend to be generous to visiting teams.)
However, it looks like the umpires, whether neutral or local, will continue to make mistakes, often quite unfair and costly to one team or the other. So there has to be some other way of countering this problem. I propose the following solution.
The only factor which governs the match is the number of runs. So the solution also should be in terms of runs. When a wrong decision is given in favour of the batsman, 50 runs should be debited from his side's total. And if a wrong decision is given against a batsman, 50 runs should be credited to his side's total. For example, in the current India vs Australia match in Sydney, so far Ponting was wrongly given 'Not Out' twice and was then given 'Out' also wrongly. So the Australain score should be reduced by 100 runs for the two wrong 'Not outs' and increased by 50 for the one wrong 'Out'. Then Symonds was given two 'Not outs' wrongly. So they should be penalised by 100 runs. That means Australia's first innings score should be reduced by 150 runs. That will make it 463 - 150 = 313. Looks like that will make the game fair for all.
Thanks very much for your applause for this solution.
Can Team India Win Against Cricket Umpires.
In the second cricket Test at Sydney which started on 02JAN2008, after rocking the mighty Australians to 134 for 6, India allowed them to score 463 runs with a huge 162 not out to Symonds. But the following report from the portal Cricinfo says it all. I quote:
"Ishant Sharma, just 19, made an early impression and could have easily had his first wicket when Symonds was on 30. A whole stadium might have heard the edge but that's not what matters. Some teams think Steve Bucknor needs a hearing-aid; India might be more intent on a hearing.
"It's rumoured (wrongly) that the 555-run stand between Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes prompted a businessman to start the cigarette company. Someone here would be tempted to start Benson and Edges. Ponting edged twice but Mark Benson heard neither. Where is the technology, screamed a billion people. But that also didn't make a difference for the third umpire, with all the assistance he receives, managed to get one wrong again. Symonds was on 48. The rest, as they say, was savagery.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is an assistant editor at Cricinfo
© Cricinfo"
The entire Australian media will make a big fuss about Ponting being given out lbw to Harbhajan off a thick edge, but will quietly bury the fact that he had already enjoyed the generosity of umpire Mark Benson twice.
Then, "A whole stadium might have heard the edge but that's not what matters. Some teams think Steve Bucknor needs a hearing-aid; India might be more intent on a hearing," followed by "Where is the technology, screamed a billion people. But that also didn't make a difference for the third umpire, with all the assistance he receives, managed to get one wrong again. Symonds was on 48." So at 30 Symonds gets a "life" from Steve Bucknor, and then at 48 he gets another "life" courtesy the Australian 3rd umpire against a stumping appeal. Symonds goes on to make 162 not out and takes Australia to 463.
Are we playing Australia or the Umpires?
"Ishant Sharma, just 19, made an early impression and could have easily had his first wicket when Symonds was on 30. A whole stadium might have heard the edge but that's not what matters. Some teams think Steve Bucknor needs a hearing-aid; India might be more intent on a hearing.
"It's rumoured (wrongly) that the 555-run stand between Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes prompted a businessman to start the cigarette company. Someone here would be tempted to start Benson and Edges. Ponting edged twice but Mark Benson heard neither. Where is the technology, screamed a billion people. But that also didn't make a difference for the third umpire, with all the assistance he receives, managed to get one wrong again. Symonds was on 48. The rest, as they say, was savagery.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is an assistant editor at Cricinfo
© Cricinfo"
The entire Australian media will make a big fuss about Ponting being given out lbw to Harbhajan off a thick edge, but will quietly bury the fact that he had already enjoyed the generosity of umpire Mark Benson twice.
Then, "A whole stadium might have heard the edge but that's not what matters. Some teams think Steve Bucknor needs a hearing-aid; India might be more intent on a hearing," followed by "Where is the technology, screamed a billion people. But that also didn't make a difference for the third umpire, with all the assistance he receives, managed to get one wrong again. Symonds was on 48." So at 30 Symonds gets a "life" from Steve Bucknor, and then at 48 he gets another "life" courtesy the Australian 3rd umpire against a stumping appeal. Symonds goes on to make 162 not out and takes Australia to 463.
Are we playing Australia or the Umpires?
Monday, December 31, 2007
Something To Think About - 11
Somethings We Abhor
After Narendra Modi and the BJP thrashed the Congress Party in the Gujarat State elections in December 2007, senior Congress leader and Minister in the UPA government at the centre, Kapil Sibal, gave a statement, "The truth has to be told. We have to fight it up front. Democracy is not about winning or losing a state election. Modi is something that the Congress abhors." (The bold italics mine)
We, the people of India who adopted, enacted and gave to ourselves the constitution of India, have reason to abhor somethings listed below.
We Abhor -- Jawaharlal Nehru. For what?
For creating the Kashmir problem. If only he had left it to Sardar Patel, it would have been resolved right at the beginning. Instead Nehru intervened and the problem has been with us ever since and promises to victimise us to eternity.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For creating a genie called Bhindranwale who caused so much problem in Punjab and finally consumed her.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For condoning the Anti-Sikh Riots in Delhi in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi (in which about 3000 Sikhs were massacred by mobs of Congress workers) through very sage(!!) remarks that the ground around it will shake when a huge tree falls; and then compounding the sacrilege by inducting into his cabinet of ministers the very same Congress leaders who were accused of leading the mobs.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
On the one hand she and her Congress Party screamed their heads off, in India and shamelessly all around the world, against Narendra Modi for the post-Godhra riots in which less than 1500 people died (a quarter of them Hindus and policemen even though it is called anti-Muslim riots), thereby tarnishing the image of Modi and Gujarat AND India and causing George W. Bush to deny Modi a visa to visit the USA; on the other hand, she and her Congress Party and their UPA government at the centre are falling at the feet of and licking the boots of the same George W. Bush who (in retaliation for the 3000 or so killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack) is responsible for the deaths of '5000 plus' American soldiers (bulk of whom are blacks and Hispanics) AND about a million Iraqis, in his Iraq misadventure, and dismisses it contemptuously as collateral damage.
We abhor -- Jawaharlal Nehru. For what?
For spawning a breed of 'Left Intellectuals' (Intellectuals?? One has to wonder) and Pseudo-Secularists who have made it their mission in life to distort Indian history by suppressing all the gory atrocities committed by marauding outsiders (Mughal invaders as well as Christian missionary/conversion brigades), and propagating the view that India became civilised only after their advent; and doing their damndest to negate and destroy everything Indian (Hindu culture, Hindu heritage, Hindu traditions, Hindu values), and in fact doing their best to eliminate Hinduism and the Hindus from the face of the earth.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For introducing fascist tendencies in independent India with her emergency rule in 1975, which has been avidly taken up by her able daughter-in-law Sonia who already had genuine fascist Italian blood in her.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For carrying the Congress Party's divisive minority (read Muslim) appeasement policy to greater heights by negating the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case (upholding her right to maintenance by her husband who had divorced her) and passing legislation to please the Muslim fundamentalists.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian fascist politician who assisted Hitler's Nazi Germany to conquer his own country. and the term Quisling is used to denote traitors. Now "our own"(?) Italian fascist Sonia Gandhi, who reluctantly became an Indian citizen after her husband Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister of India, is a Quisling acting as an agent of the Vatican to destroy Hinduism and make India a "Christian" country. Latest evidence: getting her Congress (UPA) government to issue one-rupee and two-rupee coins carrying Christian images instead of Indian (Hindu) images.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For releasing 93000 Pakistani prisoners of war after the 1971 war without getting anything in return for it, or solving the Kashmir problem once for all.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For allowing his Law Minister, Bharadwaj if one remembers right, to attack and pass vitriolic comments about the Supreme Court judges (after the Shah Bano judgement) from within the sacred and safe precincts of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha. If he dared to make such comments from outside the Lok Sabha, he would have been hauled up for contempt of court. What a great display of the 'courageous' bully behaviour of the Congressmen!!
We abhor -- Sonia, Manmohan and their followers. For what?
For calling Narendra Modi a 'liar' when they are the liars who do not have the honesty, integrity and grace to admit and acknowledge the development work that has gone into Gujarat and the progress they have achieved. When Manmohan says that whatever Gujarat achieved was only due to funds provided by the central government, does he mean that the centre did not provide similar funds to the other States, or does it mean that the other Chief Ministers did not have the commitment and ability to achieve anything on par with what Modi has achieved?
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For giving rise to the "committed executive" and "committed judiciary", wherein they were all "committed" to protect her interests and NOT national interests.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia and their clique. For what?
For doing their damndest to stall the Bofors investigation in every way, including enabling Quattrochi to flee the country.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi, her Congress Party, the Commies, the "left intellectuals", the Pseudo-Secularists, the "Rationalists", the West-oriented anti-national English-language Media etc. For what?
For their non-stop divisive political game, with their endless minority appeasement policies. For example: when everyone pitches in to commemmorate Babri Masjid Demolition Day every year, but protest vehemently when the Godhra Train Massacre incident is brought up; when they make loud noises about so-called ethnic cleansing in Gujarat, but do not have the eyes and ears and minds and brains to act against the ethnic cleansing suffered by the Kashmiri Pundits; and many more such things.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
This Fascist intruder from Italy dares to insult our patriotic nationalist leaders with abusive language, like calling Atal Behari Vajpayee as 'Nikamma' and traitor, and calling Modi as a 'liar' and 'merchant of death' when she herself is much much worse.
Well, the list goes on and on.
If "Modi is something that the Congress abhors", as Kapil Sibal says, then Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and the whole lot of their Party stalwarts are all THINGS which we have reason to abhor because of their many acts of commission and omission.
After Narendra Modi and the BJP thrashed the Congress Party in the Gujarat State elections in December 2007, senior Congress leader and Minister in the UPA government at the centre, Kapil Sibal, gave a statement, "The truth has to be told. We have to fight it up front. Democracy is not about winning or losing a state election. Modi is something that the Congress abhors." (The bold italics mine)
We, the people of India who adopted, enacted and gave to ourselves the constitution of India, have reason to abhor somethings listed below.
We Abhor -- Jawaharlal Nehru. For what?
For creating the Kashmir problem. If only he had left it to Sardar Patel, it would have been resolved right at the beginning. Instead Nehru intervened and the problem has been with us ever since and promises to victimise us to eternity.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For creating a genie called Bhindranwale who caused so much problem in Punjab and finally consumed her.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For condoning the Anti-Sikh Riots in Delhi in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi (in which about 3000 Sikhs were massacred by mobs of Congress workers) through very sage(!!) remarks that the ground around it will shake when a huge tree falls; and then compounding the sacrilege by inducting into his cabinet of ministers the very same Congress leaders who were accused of leading the mobs.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
On the one hand she and her Congress Party screamed their heads off, in India and shamelessly all around the world, against Narendra Modi for the post-Godhra riots in which less than 1500 people died (a quarter of them Hindus and policemen even though it is called anti-Muslim riots), thereby tarnishing the image of Modi and Gujarat AND India and causing George W. Bush to deny Modi a visa to visit the USA; on the other hand, she and her Congress Party and their UPA government at the centre are falling at the feet of and licking the boots of the same George W. Bush who (in retaliation for the 3000 or so killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack) is responsible for the deaths of '5000 plus' American soldiers (bulk of whom are blacks and Hispanics) AND about a million Iraqis, in his Iraq misadventure, and dismisses it contemptuously as collateral damage.
We abhor -- Jawaharlal Nehru. For what?
For spawning a breed of 'Left Intellectuals' (Intellectuals?? One has to wonder) and Pseudo-Secularists who have made it their mission in life to distort Indian history by suppressing all the gory atrocities committed by marauding outsiders (Mughal invaders as well as Christian missionary/conversion brigades), and propagating the view that India became civilised only after their advent; and doing their damndest to negate and destroy everything Indian (Hindu culture, Hindu heritage, Hindu traditions, Hindu values), and in fact doing their best to eliminate Hinduism and the Hindus from the face of the earth.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For introducing fascist tendencies in independent India with her emergency rule in 1975, which has been avidly taken up by her able daughter-in-law Sonia who already had genuine fascist Italian blood in her.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For carrying the Congress Party's divisive minority (read Muslim) appeasement policy to greater heights by negating the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case (upholding her right to maintenance by her husband who had divorced her) and passing legislation to please the Muslim fundamentalists.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian fascist politician who assisted Hitler's Nazi Germany to conquer his own country. and the term Quisling is used to denote traitors. Now "our own"(?) Italian fascist Sonia Gandhi, who reluctantly became an Indian citizen after her husband Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister of India, is a Quisling acting as an agent of the Vatican to destroy Hinduism and make India a "Christian" country. Latest evidence: getting her Congress (UPA) government to issue one-rupee and two-rupee coins carrying Christian images instead of Indian (Hindu) images.
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For releasing 93000 Pakistani prisoners of war after the 1971 war without getting anything in return for it, or solving the Kashmir problem once for all.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi. For what?
For allowing his Law Minister, Bharadwaj if one remembers right, to attack and pass vitriolic comments about the Supreme Court judges (after the Shah Bano judgement) from within the sacred and safe precincts of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha. If he dared to make such comments from outside the Lok Sabha, he would have been hauled up for contempt of court. What a great display of the 'courageous' bully behaviour of the Congressmen!!
We abhor -- Sonia, Manmohan and their followers. For what?
For calling Narendra Modi a 'liar' when they are the liars who do not have the honesty, integrity and grace to admit and acknowledge the development work that has gone into Gujarat and the progress they have achieved. When Manmohan says that whatever Gujarat achieved was only due to funds provided by the central government, does he mean that the centre did not provide similar funds to the other States, or does it mean that the other Chief Ministers did not have the commitment and ability to achieve anything on par with what Modi has achieved?
We abhor -- Indira Gandhi. For what?
For giving rise to the "committed executive" and "committed judiciary", wherein they were all "committed" to protect her interests and NOT national interests.
We abhor -- Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia and their clique. For what?
For doing their damndest to stall the Bofors investigation in every way, including enabling Quattrochi to flee the country.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi, her Congress Party, the Commies, the "left intellectuals", the Pseudo-Secularists, the "Rationalists", the West-oriented anti-national English-language Media etc. For what?
For their non-stop divisive political game, with their endless minority appeasement policies. For example: when everyone pitches in to commemmorate Babri Masjid Demolition Day every year, but protest vehemently when the Godhra Train Massacre incident is brought up; when they make loud noises about so-called ethnic cleansing in Gujarat, but do not have the eyes and ears and minds and brains to act against the ethnic cleansing suffered by the Kashmiri Pundits; and many more such things.
We abhor -- Sonia Gandhi. For what?
This Fascist intruder from Italy dares to insult our patriotic nationalist leaders with abusive language, like calling Atal Behari Vajpayee as 'Nikamma' and traitor, and calling Modi as a 'liar' and 'merchant of death' when she herself is much much worse.
Well, the list goes on and on.
If "Modi is something that the Congress abhors", as Kapil Sibal says, then Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and the whole lot of their Party stalwarts are all THINGS which we have reason to abhor because of their many acts of commission and omission.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Something To Think About - 10
The Ten Commandments and Religious Conversion - Part 5
It seems to be not a bad idea to conclude a serious discussion with a few comments on a rather lighter note. The Fourth and Fifth Commandments of Moses conveniently help us along in that direction.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
This is how the Fourth Commandment reads.
And the Fifth Commandment says: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
In his highly illuminating, entertaining and thought-provoking book “Don’t Know Much About the Bible” (Avon Books, Inc., New York), Kenneth C. Davis points out, “While the sacredness of the Ten Commandments has always been held up as central to American law and virtue, people through the centuries have done a pretty poor job when it comes to obeying them. Even Israel’s greatest national hero, King David, didn’t fare too well when it came to following the commandments. He broke the Sabbath rule at least once – as Jesus also later does – and he murdered, committed adultery, and coveted………… With that in mind, take a closer look at the Ten Commandments and see just how well modern society does in observing this basic, presumably immutable, set of rules.”
It would appear, then, that the Fourth and Fifth Commandments too need to be taken with an appropriate pinch of salt, just as it happens with any other commandment.
In this book Kenneth C. Davis makes a few tongue-in-cheek comments about the Fourth Commandment. Here are a few gems.
** First of all, note it does not say the Lord “hallowed it for NFL football”. Does watching six to eight hours of sports on Sunday count as keeping the Sabbath holy?
** In New York city – long famed as “Sin City” – you still cannot buy a bottle of wine or vodka from a liqour store on Sunday, even though you can buy beer in a grocery store after noon and order a drink in a restaurant. Go figure.
** Of course, Christians have no monopoly on circumventing Sabbath holiness rules. Many observant Jews have long found ways to get around the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Before the days of modern electrical timers that could turn televisions and other appliances on or off, Jews commonly employed Christians – “sabbath goys” – to perform certain predetermined services, such as turning on their lights.
These light-hearted comments by Kenneth C. Davis certainly show up the considerable amount of hypocrisy involved in the way the commandments are obeyed/disobeyed and followed/violated in practice. However he follows this up by pointing out how Jesus Christ himself openly disobeyed this particular commandment. “He and his disciples were accused by the priests and rabbis of Jerusalem of violating the commandment by ‘laboring’ on the Sabbath. Jesus responded to his Sabbath-day critics in two ways. First, he said the things he was doing on the Sabbath, such as healing the sick, were too important to put off. And Jesus also professed a belief that internal holiness, an inner sense of spirituality, was more important than the ‘show-off’ piety, typified by the Sabbath templegoers who outwardly kept God’s commandments but then behaved badly the rest of the week.”
This is a very telling comment on the ‘Book-ishness’ of the two religions who claim their going by their Books as their major strong point, the Christians with their Bible and the Muslims with their Koran. And they claim that Hinduism does not have “A” Book of that type. How amateurish and how ignorant! As Kenneth C. Davis has brought into sharp focus above, most often people toy with the commandments to suit their personal convenience and commercial interests, while hypocritically accusing others of violating rules even if they do it in a just and righteous cause. And Jesus Christ has only too clearly demonstrated how the spirit of the rule has to be understood, using one’s brain, intelligence, education, knowledge, discretion etc which are God-given assets, and put to good use in rendering service to one’s fellow beings.
“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee,” is what the Fifth Commandment says. Does it mean that just by ‘honour-ing’ one’s father and mother one will live to a ripe old age of 100 or 150 or 200 years? Does one want it anyway? Does it mean caring for them by providing them with shelter, food and other necessities to keep them comfortable, or catering to their every wish and doing their bidding lifelong? As Kenneth C. Davis points out: “This commandment was aimed at protecting the elderly and sick from being abandoned to the elements once they were no longer productive members of the tribe.” Even though he makes these remarks with reference to the semi-nomadic desert tribes of the Biblical age, isn’t it true of the very materialistic, very commercial, very selfish Western society as it obtains today?
Davis also adds, “Many people doubt that such a commandment demands unqualified acceptance. Does the physically or emotionally abused child have to ‘honor’ an abusive parent? Sadly, an observer of the modern world might conclude that, in an era of increasingly commonplace physical and sexual abuse of children, perhaps a better commandment would be Honor thy children.”
God might have said, “Honour thy father and thy mother”. It is understandable. But the second part of the Commandment seems to be the result of some sort of poetic licence employed by whoever wrote this down, to give free scope for his imagination. Any commandment or injunction or “God’s Word”, as it is called, throws up this query as to what exactly is the wheat portion given out by God and what is the chaff added by various people while handing it down by oral tradition initially and transcribing it into writing later.
This idea of questioning the rationale of a concept and understanding it properly may be novel to the “Book-ish” religions whose leaders demand unquestioning obedience to the Books by the laity while reserving to themselves the right to interpret the rules according to their own convenience. The Vedic religion, on the other hand, has always encouraged people to use their discretion, ask questions and arrive at their own conclusions according to their own understanding. This aspect is brought out clearly in many of the Upanishads wherein spiritual concepts are expounded in the form of discussions between the preceptor and the disciples who are encouraged to think for themselves to get at the truth. Nowhere is it brought out more pointedly than in the Bhagawat Gita, a lesson in the philosophical, spiritual as well as practical aspects of leading one’s day-to-day life, given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna. Almost at the end of a long discourse running into about 700 verses, Krishna tells Arjuna that He has given him all the knowledge He possibly can and it is upto Arjuna now to think over it, reflect on all that has been said and arrive at his own decision and act according to that.
It is in this context that Kenneth C. Davis makes this very sensible and realistic remark, “They should remind modern readers that the Bible was composed a long time ago for a very different group of people. This is where people have to determine what is law appropriate to desert nomads four thousand years ago, and which are universal laws that transcend time and setting”. One may add that even in the case of universal laws which transcend time and setting, the way it is used, the exact scope of its application, may vary with time and the nature of the setting as well as the context of the situation.
In any civilisation, in any type of community, at any era, principles do get distorted as time goes by, vested interests twist the scriptural messages to suit their convenience, and corrupt practices get injected in the society. Many civilisations and many faiths have fallen by the wayside as time goes on. Even though Hinduism, taking off from the ancient Vedic religion, has also stumbled quite often, divine personages, as well as social reformers not considered to be divine personalities, have appeared on the scene from time to time to reinterpret and revalidate the rules appropriate to the prevailing social environment, and give a fresh direction to it and resurrect it.
Isn’t it significant that in Christianity people are referred to as “flock of sheep” and their God is called the Shepherd? Sheep are singularly known for their brainlessness. And that is precisely what the Popes, the Archbishops, the Bishops and the entire church hierarchy want their “flock” to be. From their flock they want brainless, unthinking, unquestioning faith and acceptance of whatever they claim as God’s Word as given in the Bible. In Hinduism too, distortions have occurred over a period of time whereby elders with vested interests, including religious leaders, have appropriated for themselves the right to interpret the scriptures and impose some rigid practices for people to follow. However, the Vedic scriptures encourage people to use their God-given gift called the brain and think for themselves. Take for example just one verse from Rig veda which says: Aa no bhadraah kratavo yantu viswathah. This means: let noble, auspicious, propitious thoughts, intelligence, talents come to us from all directions from all over the universe. In simple, plain language, what it says is: Do not blindly follow any thoughts or practices just because you have been instructed to do so by somebody. Keep your mind open always to receive good ideas from anywhere and use them to improve your own understanding of things, and fashion your life accordingly. What a huge difference between the “flock of sheep” concept of Christianity and the intelligent, thinking, human being, the homo sapiens concept of the Vedic religion!
Without knowing the ABC of Hinduism, or even of their own religion for that matter, the Popes are giving a call for the evangelisation of India and of Far Eastern Asia for the Harvest of Faith Programme for the third millennium. What a pity!
* * * * *
It seems to be not a bad idea to conclude a serious discussion with a few comments on a rather lighter note. The Fourth and Fifth Commandments of Moses conveniently help us along in that direction.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
This is how the Fourth Commandment reads.
And the Fifth Commandment says: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
In his highly illuminating, entertaining and thought-provoking book “Don’t Know Much About the Bible” (Avon Books, Inc., New York), Kenneth C. Davis points out, “While the sacredness of the Ten Commandments has always been held up as central to American law and virtue, people through the centuries have done a pretty poor job when it comes to obeying them. Even Israel’s greatest national hero, King David, didn’t fare too well when it came to following the commandments. He broke the Sabbath rule at least once – as Jesus also later does – and he murdered, committed adultery, and coveted………… With that in mind, take a closer look at the Ten Commandments and see just how well modern society does in observing this basic, presumably immutable, set of rules.”
It would appear, then, that the Fourth and Fifth Commandments too need to be taken with an appropriate pinch of salt, just as it happens with any other commandment.
In this book Kenneth C. Davis makes a few tongue-in-cheek comments about the Fourth Commandment. Here are a few gems.
** First of all, note it does not say the Lord “hallowed it for NFL football”. Does watching six to eight hours of sports on Sunday count as keeping the Sabbath holy?
** In New York city – long famed as “Sin City” – you still cannot buy a bottle of wine or vodka from a liqour store on Sunday, even though you can buy beer in a grocery store after noon and order a drink in a restaurant. Go figure.
** Of course, Christians have no monopoly on circumventing Sabbath holiness rules. Many observant Jews have long found ways to get around the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Before the days of modern electrical timers that could turn televisions and other appliances on or off, Jews commonly employed Christians – “sabbath goys” – to perform certain predetermined services, such as turning on their lights.
These light-hearted comments by Kenneth C. Davis certainly show up the considerable amount of hypocrisy involved in the way the commandments are obeyed/disobeyed and followed/violated in practice. However he follows this up by pointing out how Jesus Christ himself openly disobeyed this particular commandment. “He and his disciples were accused by the priests and rabbis of Jerusalem of violating the commandment by ‘laboring’ on the Sabbath. Jesus responded to his Sabbath-day critics in two ways. First, he said the things he was doing on the Sabbath, such as healing the sick, were too important to put off. And Jesus also professed a belief that internal holiness, an inner sense of spirituality, was more important than the ‘show-off’ piety, typified by the Sabbath templegoers who outwardly kept God’s commandments but then behaved badly the rest of the week.”
This is a very telling comment on the ‘Book-ishness’ of the two religions who claim their going by their Books as their major strong point, the Christians with their Bible and the Muslims with their Koran. And they claim that Hinduism does not have “A” Book of that type. How amateurish and how ignorant! As Kenneth C. Davis has brought into sharp focus above, most often people toy with the commandments to suit their personal convenience and commercial interests, while hypocritically accusing others of violating rules even if they do it in a just and righteous cause. And Jesus Christ has only too clearly demonstrated how the spirit of the rule has to be understood, using one’s brain, intelligence, education, knowledge, discretion etc which are God-given assets, and put to good use in rendering service to one’s fellow beings.
“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee,” is what the Fifth Commandment says. Does it mean that just by ‘honour-ing’ one’s father and mother one will live to a ripe old age of 100 or 150 or 200 years? Does one want it anyway? Does it mean caring for them by providing them with shelter, food and other necessities to keep them comfortable, or catering to their every wish and doing their bidding lifelong? As Kenneth C. Davis points out: “This commandment was aimed at protecting the elderly and sick from being abandoned to the elements once they were no longer productive members of the tribe.” Even though he makes these remarks with reference to the semi-nomadic desert tribes of the Biblical age, isn’t it true of the very materialistic, very commercial, very selfish Western society as it obtains today?
Davis also adds, “Many people doubt that such a commandment demands unqualified acceptance. Does the physically or emotionally abused child have to ‘honor’ an abusive parent? Sadly, an observer of the modern world might conclude that, in an era of increasingly commonplace physical and sexual abuse of children, perhaps a better commandment would be Honor thy children.”
God might have said, “Honour thy father and thy mother”. It is understandable. But the second part of the Commandment seems to be the result of some sort of poetic licence employed by whoever wrote this down, to give free scope for his imagination. Any commandment or injunction or “God’s Word”, as it is called, throws up this query as to what exactly is the wheat portion given out by God and what is the chaff added by various people while handing it down by oral tradition initially and transcribing it into writing later.
This idea of questioning the rationale of a concept and understanding it properly may be novel to the “Book-ish” religions whose leaders demand unquestioning obedience to the Books by the laity while reserving to themselves the right to interpret the rules according to their own convenience. The Vedic religion, on the other hand, has always encouraged people to use their discretion, ask questions and arrive at their own conclusions according to their own understanding. This aspect is brought out clearly in many of the Upanishads wherein spiritual concepts are expounded in the form of discussions between the preceptor and the disciples who are encouraged to think for themselves to get at the truth. Nowhere is it brought out more pointedly than in the Bhagawat Gita, a lesson in the philosophical, spiritual as well as practical aspects of leading one’s day-to-day life, given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna. Almost at the end of a long discourse running into about 700 verses, Krishna tells Arjuna that He has given him all the knowledge He possibly can and it is upto Arjuna now to think over it, reflect on all that has been said and arrive at his own decision and act according to that.
It is in this context that Kenneth C. Davis makes this very sensible and realistic remark, “They should remind modern readers that the Bible was composed a long time ago for a very different group of people. This is where people have to determine what is law appropriate to desert nomads four thousand years ago, and which are universal laws that transcend time and setting”. One may add that even in the case of universal laws which transcend time and setting, the way it is used, the exact scope of its application, may vary with time and the nature of the setting as well as the context of the situation.
In any civilisation, in any type of community, at any era, principles do get distorted as time goes by, vested interests twist the scriptural messages to suit their convenience, and corrupt practices get injected in the society. Many civilisations and many faiths have fallen by the wayside as time goes on. Even though Hinduism, taking off from the ancient Vedic religion, has also stumbled quite often, divine personages, as well as social reformers not considered to be divine personalities, have appeared on the scene from time to time to reinterpret and revalidate the rules appropriate to the prevailing social environment, and give a fresh direction to it and resurrect it.
Isn’t it significant that in Christianity people are referred to as “flock of sheep” and their God is called the Shepherd? Sheep are singularly known for their brainlessness. And that is precisely what the Popes, the Archbishops, the Bishops and the entire church hierarchy want their “flock” to be. From their flock they want brainless, unthinking, unquestioning faith and acceptance of whatever they claim as God’s Word as given in the Bible. In Hinduism too, distortions have occurred over a period of time whereby elders with vested interests, including religious leaders, have appropriated for themselves the right to interpret the scriptures and impose some rigid practices for people to follow. However, the Vedic scriptures encourage people to use their God-given gift called the brain and think for themselves. Take for example just one verse from Rig veda which says: Aa no bhadraah kratavo yantu viswathah. This means: let noble, auspicious, propitious thoughts, intelligence, talents come to us from all directions from all over the universe. In simple, plain language, what it says is: Do not blindly follow any thoughts or practices just because you have been instructed to do so by somebody. Keep your mind open always to receive good ideas from anywhere and use them to improve your own understanding of things, and fashion your life accordingly. What a huge difference between the “flock of sheep” concept of Christianity and the intelligent, thinking, human being, the homo sapiens concept of the Vedic religion!
Without knowing the ABC of Hinduism, or even of their own religion for that matter, the Popes are giving a call for the evangelisation of India and of Far Eastern Asia for the Harvest of Faith Programme for the third millennium. What a pity!
* * * * *
Monday, November 26, 2007
Something To Think About - 09
The Ten Commandments and Religious Conversion - Part 4
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” This is the third of the Ten Commandments.
The sixth among the Ten Commandments says, “Thou shalt not kill”. This is the King James Version translation. Some other versions such as New Revised Standard Version and Jewish Publication Society give it as, “You shall not murder”. May be there is some validity to this since killing animals for food should not become a problem because of this commandment.
These two commandments should be of some special import to the Christian community since Papacy has been often involved with murder and mayhem, in the name of “the Lord thy God”, throughout history. In fact the last Pope, the one just before (the late) Pope John Paul II, died under mysterious circumstances hardly one month after he took office, and it is widely believed that it was a politically motivated murder caused by palace intrigue. It doesn’t create a very inviting environment for other religionists to convert to your religion, does it, Mr. Pope?
The Crusades, a series of wars over a period of two centuries, between Christians and Muslims, for control over Jerusalem in the name of “the Lord thy God”, resulted in the loss of millions of lives. In more recent times we have the spectacle of the Roman Catholics of Ireland and the Protestants of Britain fighting for northern Ireland, again with a considerable loss of lives, in the name of “the Lord thy God”. In between, there have been countless other wars, between the Christians and the Muslims, for the Christian God versus the Muslim God, as well as between different factions of Christians, like the Protestants against Roman Catholics involving the Protestant God and Roman Catholic God. Where is the one and only “the Lord thy God” of the First Commandment? And Mr. Pope and other Christians want to impose this War-prone God, or is it these War-prone Gods, on the Hindus and other Asians through conversion.
Isn't it the Catholics from Portugal who showed their "Christ-ian" love by going on a rampage to convert Hindus to Christianity on a mass scale, and murdering thousands of Hindus who resisted this conversion madness? What a tribute to the 3rd and 6th Commandments?
It was the Roman Catholic Irish Republican Army, and not Islamic terrorists, who assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten. And, of course, Hitler and his loyal Nazi officers and foot-soldiers, as well as Mussolini and his Fascist forces, were all Christians -- Catholics to boot whom the Pope heads -- and they did their best to lighten the load on Mother Earth by eliminating about six million, or is it eight or ten million, Jews from the face of the earth. The Pope of those days, Pius XII, is said to have given a tacit nod of approval, or at best kept his gaze trained in an opposite direction, as some people would like us to believe, when this holocaust was going on in full swing.
Isn’t it the Christian countries of Europe and America, belonging to a thousand different Christian denominations, which inflicted World War I and World War II, in the late-lamented 20th century, on the world, leading to enormous loss of life and property? The then-President Harry Truman of the USA showed his “Christian love” by dropping two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan towards the fag end of WW-II. It is being debated even today whether it was necessary at all to drop those two bombs. The casualities were only a little less than half a million people, which is of course insignificant compared to the millions of Jews that Hitler disposed of.
Of course the Super-Christian, highly ethical and moral, Presidents of the USA (including JFK and Bill Clinton of sexual-escapades fame, and Richard Nixon of Watergate fame. and currently George W. Bush of Iraq-gate fame) have mastered the art of telling the world that “the Lord thy God” appears in their dreams regularly and tells them that only they are authorised by Him to have nuclear weapons and no one else in the world should possess one, unless specifically permitted by the Americans.
Then we have seen the Americans throw tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of chemical weapons all over Vietnam which destroyed all their forests and vegetation as well as caused severe burn injuries to the people, just because the Vietnamese were going the Communist way and the “Christian” Americans did not agree with the God-less ideology of the Russians. After all the severe destruction caused to the Vietnamese people and property, the "Christ-ian" Americans were bothered only about a piddling few American soldiers who were Missing In Action (MIA) as a result of their own criminal action in Vietnam, and never about the wholesale damage done to the Vietnamese people, their country, and their economy by the American military action. “The Lord thy God” must have been extremely pleased with this supreme display of love and compassion towards their fellow human beings. Obviously the Popes plan to sell this idea of neighbourly love to the Hindus and other Asians and induce them to convert to Christianity. What a Unique Selling Point!
Well, how can one forget the Born-Again Christian George W. Bush and his Iraq-gate. When a few terrorists from the Middle East Islamic nations managed to hoodwink his own security forces and hijacked some airplanes from his own American airports, and pulverised the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, and killed about 3000 people in that process, up rose GWB and declared, "What the terrorists can do, I can do better", and has now killed not only about 5000 of his own US Army personnel but nearly a million more Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians. One has to wonder whether Jesus Christ is proud of this Born-Again Christian and his brand of conservatives, the Southern Baptists, who are also active in India with their conversion business.
Again going back to Kenneth C. Davis (“Don’t Know Much About the Bible”, Avon Books Inc, New York), this commandment, as Rabbi Joseph Telushkin comments, is also aimed at those who commit sins in “the name of God”. Telushkin writes: “If they ‘carry’ God’s name in promotion of a cause that is evil (e.g., the medieval crusaders who murdered innocent people in the name of God, or members of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan that claim what they do is God’s will), then they violate the Third Commandment”.(Biblical Literacy)
My, My! Isn’t this again a severe indictment of the Catholic Church and its head, the Pope! This Pope and his loyal fellow idolaters, who don’t seem to know anything about God’s commandments, and violate them left, right and centre, are busy planning to spread their form of ungodly religion to India and the rest of Asia, which is only bound to result in conflict and bloodshed. What an appetising prospect!
* * * * *
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” This is the third of the Ten Commandments.
The sixth among the Ten Commandments says, “Thou shalt not kill”. This is the King James Version translation. Some other versions such as New Revised Standard Version and Jewish Publication Society give it as, “You shall not murder”. May be there is some validity to this since killing animals for food should not become a problem because of this commandment.
These two commandments should be of some special import to the Christian community since Papacy has been often involved with murder and mayhem, in the name of “the Lord thy God”, throughout history. In fact the last Pope, the one just before (the late) Pope John Paul II, died under mysterious circumstances hardly one month after he took office, and it is widely believed that it was a politically motivated murder caused by palace intrigue. It doesn’t create a very inviting environment for other religionists to convert to your religion, does it, Mr. Pope?
The Crusades, a series of wars over a period of two centuries, between Christians and Muslims, for control over Jerusalem in the name of “the Lord thy God”, resulted in the loss of millions of lives. In more recent times we have the spectacle of the Roman Catholics of Ireland and the Protestants of Britain fighting for northern Ireland, again with a considerable loss of lives, in the name of “the Lord thy God”. In between, there have been countless other wars, between the Christians and the Muslims, for the Christian God versus the Muslim God, as well as between different factions of Christians, like the Protestants against Roman Catholics involving the Protestant God and Roman Catholic God. Where is the one and only “the Lord thy God” of the First Commandment? And Mr. Pope and other Christians want to impose this War-prone God, or is it these War-prone Gods, on the Hindus and other Asians through conversion.
Isn't it the Catholics from Portugal who showed their "Christ-ian" love by going on a rampage to convert Hindus to Christianity on a mass scale, and murdering thousands of Hindus who resisted this conversion madness? What a tribute to the 3rd and 6th Commandments?
It was the Roman Catholic Irish Republican Army, and not Islamic terrorists, who assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten. And, of course, Hitler and his loyal Nazi officers and foot-soldiers, as well as Mussolini and his Fascist forces, were all Christians -- Catholics to boot whom the Pope heads -- and they did their best to lighten the load on Mother Earth by eliminating about six million, or is it eight or ten million, Jews from the face of the earth. The Pope of those days, Pius XII, is said to have given a tacit nod of approval, or at best kept his gaze trained in an opposite direction, as some people would like us to believe, when this holocaust was going on in full swing.
Isn’t it the Christian countries of Europe and America, belonging to a thousand different Christian denominations, which inflicted World War I and World War II, in the late-lamented 20th century, on the world, leading to enormous loss of life and property? The then-President Harry Truman of the USA showed his “Christian love” by dropping two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan towards the fag end of WW-II. It is being debated even today whether it was necessary at all to drop those two bombs. The casualities were only a little less than half a million people, which is of course insignificant compared to the millions of Jews that Hitler disposed of.
Of course the Super-Christian, highly ethical and moral, Presidents of the USA (including JFK and Bill Clinton of sexual-escapades fame, and Richard Nixon of Watergate fame. and currently George W. Bush of Iraq-gate fame) have mastered the art of telling the world that “the Lord thy God” appears in their dreams regularly and tells them that only they are authorised by Him to have nuclear weapons and no one else in the world should possess one, unless specifically permitted by the Americans.
Then we have seen the Americans throw tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of chemical weapons all over Vietnam which destroyed all their forests and vegetation as well as caused severe burn injuries to the people, just because the Vietnamese were going the Communist way and the “Christian” Americans did not agree with the God-less ideology of the Russians. After all the severe destruction caused to the Vietnamese people and property, the "Christ-ian" Americans were bothered only about a piddling few American soldiers who were Missing In Action (MIA) as a result of their own criminal action in Vietnam, and never about the wholesale damage done to the Vietnamese people, their country, and their economy by the American military action. “The Lord thy God” must have been extremely pleased with this supreme display of love and compassion towards their fellow human beings. Obviously the Popes plan to sell this idea of neighbourly love to the Hindus and other Asians and induce them to convert to Christianity. What a Unique Selling Point!
Well, how can one forget the Born-Again Christian George W. Bush and his Iraq-gate. When a few terrorists from the Middle East Islamic nations managed to hoodwink his own security forces and hijacked some airplanes from his own American airports, and pulverised the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, and killed about 3000 people in that process, up rose GWB and declared, "What the terrorists can do, I can do better", and has now killed not only about 5000 of his own US Army personnel but nearly a million more Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians. One has to wonder whether Jesus Christ is proud of this Born-Again Christian and his brand of conservatives, the Southern Baptists, who are also active in India with their conversion business.
Again going back to Kenneth C. Davis (“Don’t Know Much About the Bible”, Avon Books Inc, New York), this commandment, as Rabbi Joseph Telushkin comments, is also aimed at those who commit sins in “the name of God”. Telushkin writes: “If they ‘carry’ God’s name in promotion of a cause that is evil (e.g., the medieval crusaders who murdered innocent people in the name of God, or members of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan that claim what they do is God’s will), then they violate the Third Commandment”.(Biblical Literacy)
My, My! Isn’t this again a severe indictment of the Catholic Church and its head, the Pope! This Pope and his loyal fellow idolaters, who don’t seem to know anything about God’s commandments, and violate them left, right and centre, are busy planning to spread their form of ungodly religion to India and the rest of Asia, which is only bound to result in conflict and bloodshed. What an appetising prospect!
* * * * *
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