Author: जयकृष्णः | ജയകൃഷ്ണൻ

Pope Benedict's Historical Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth

When it comes to understanding the life of Jesus, one has to rely on the Gospels which were composed decades later. Considering that the Gospels, both the canonical and the heretic like the Gospel of Judas were written with the aim of glorifying Jesus, the bias in it would not be, let us say, minuscule.

The Gospels were not first hand accounts, but oral tradition written down much later and from the Gospels it cannot be decided what is historical and what is not, for the authors of Gospels were evangelists, not historians. Students of Israel’s history and early Christianity are warned not to confuse the events described in the Old Testament and New Testament as actual events.

Pope Benedict in his new book on Jesus of Nazareth claims that the tale of Jesus is not myth, but then suggests that since the Gospels  are divinely inspired, faith is required for understanding the text. There is no problem with such a statement coming from a religious leader writing a book for liturgy, but it looks odd in a book which claims to be about the historical Jesus. This has upset the New Testament scholars because the Pope asks for inner openness to understand the spiritual insights and the divinity of Jesus.

Fourth, Jesus did not understand himself to be God. According to Mark 10:18, when someone addressed him as “good teacher,” Jesus responded by insisting, “No one is good except God alone.” Whether this reflects Jesus or Mark or both (scholarly opinion is divided), such a statement cannot be twisted by theological exegesis to support a claim for Jesus’ divinity. Therefore, the pope does not deal with such passages, since they clearly contradict his fundamental thesis.

Were its author not the pope, this book would garner no other academic attention than to be cited as an embarrassing gaffe that would soon gather dust even on church bookshelves. But because it comes from the pen of the pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and casts reason squarely before the juggernaut of faith, the intellectual scandal it represents must be denounced—if only on behalf of those Roman Catholics whose native honesty compels them to engage in historical-critical exegesis [AN EMBARRASSING MISREPRESENTATION via Forbidden Gospels]

Dependence on Globalization

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Define Irony: Malayalees opposing globalization.

The Kerala model of development, as an alternative to market economy has been touted by economists like Amartya Sen, but it turns out that the money order economy of Kerala is not practically applicable to any part of the world, including Kerala.

Plagued by chronic unemployment, more Keralites than ever work abroad, often at sun-scorched jobs in the Persian Gulf that pay about $1 an hour and keep them from their families for years. The cash flowing home now helps support nearly one Kerala resident in three. That has some local scholars rewriting the Kerala story: far from escaping capitalism, they say, this celebrated corner of the developing world is painfully dependent on it.

Without migrant earnings, critics say, the state’s luster could not be sustained. The $5 billion that Keralite migrants send home augment the state’s economic output by nearly 25 percent. Migrants’ families are three times as likely as those of nonmigrants to live in superior housing, and about twice as likely to have telephones, refrigerators and cars. Men seeking wives place newspaper ads, describing themselves as “handsome, teetotaler, foreign-employed” or “God-fearing and working in Dubai.” [Jobs Abroad Support ‘Model’ State in India (via email from Mohan)]

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

A new book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light contains some of the confession letters of Mother Teresa in which she doubts her faith. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu who was born in the Republic of Macedonia moved to India in 1929 to become a nun. It was on September 10, 1946 that she experienced “the call within the call”, a mystical union with Jesus, in which she reports hearing the words of Jesus and started her missionary work.

For people around the world, this Nobel peace prize winner was a  the selfless social worker who always was there to look after the poor and the dying. She herself did not see her work that way. While talking to Christopher Hitchens, she mentioned that she was not a social worker and  she was working to expand the number of Catholics and did all her work for Christ and the church.

The new letters, which she asked to be destroyed, reveal that she doubted the existence of God, heaven and the soul. This period of darkness started around the same time she started her missionary work in 1948 and lasted  her entire life. Her spiritual life was similar to that of St. Paul of the Cross, who went through “dark night”, but recovered after 45 years, but unlike St. Paul, she never found the light. Mother Teresa finally came to the conclusion that Jesus was not true. ( “What do I labour for? If there be no God — there can be no soul — if there is no Soul then Jesus — You also are not true“)

Even when she had this realization, she did not display it in public and she continued to save souls for the church till her very end. She expressed her doubts to her superiors and they convinced her that what she was experiencing was the same sense of abandonment that Christ experienced on the cross. Present day priests say that she is a role model since she did not waver from her path even during doubt and this humanizes Mother Teresa as a role model for all seekers.

Others think that she was involved in verbal deception, telling something to the public which she herself did not believe. Christopher Hitchens, who wrote a scathing book on her, thinks that she was like one of those Communists who could not believe that the ideology failed.

“There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance,” he says. “They thought, ‘Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I’m not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.’ They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired.” That, he says, was Teresa.[Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith]

See Also: On Point: Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith

Debunking third-world myths

Animation after animation clearly shows that the world has become a much better place since the 70s, in every aspects. Globalization has brought dramatic changes to the lives of billions of people across the world, for the better. The world has become much more equitable across and within countries.[The best video you will see today via barbarindians]

The Comedian from Idaho

One Congressman who got worked up about the Hindu prayer in the United States Senate was Rep. Bill Sali, who said , “When a Hindu prayer is offered [in the Senate], it creates problems for the longevity of this country.” Later this intellectual giant, who introduced a bill to reduce gravity by 10%, explained why he thinks Christianity is better than Hinduism.

“Christian principles work, and they show up in a lot of different areas,” Sali said. “Most of the hospitals in this country have Christian names. If you think Hindu prayer is great, where are the Hindu hospitals in this country? Go down the list. Where are the atheist hospitals in this country? They’re not equal.”[Bill Sali’s Half-Apology]

Though he did not personally apologize for such remarks, Wayne Hoffman, Sali’s press spokesman wrote that Congressman Sali bears no ill will toward Hindus. One of the editorial writers calls him an embarrassment and a Capital Hill sideshow. Then, for his excuse, he is from Idaho where elected officials do worse things.

Tags: Bill Sali

Notes from Kerala

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Kerala Letter writes that Kerala is now a middle class society (via kuffir)

The proletariat that is constantly mentioned in our political discourse has been steadily shrinking for quite some time. As its strength declines, that of the middle class grows. In fact, Kerala is now a middle class society. Many people discuss contemporary political and economic developments without understanding this.

Marx saw the middle class a section without a future. He expected it to disappear gradually. He thought that a section of it would improve its condition and join the bourgeois and the rest, unable to do so, would end up as working class. Marxists who have accepted this line of thinking claim that the middle class is on the decline. However, statistical data shows that in many countries, including India and China, the middle class is expanding fast.

John Cheeran asks some why Kerala MPs are against the new Salem Railway division

In a federal structure what happens if a new Railway Division has been created? Are these MPs are championing the cause of some of the bureaucrats in the existing Palakkad Division? There no job losses, no trouble to passengers, so what’s the big fuss about?
As far as I know not a single Kerala railway passenger will be adversely affected by the creation of the new Salem Division. All trains that come to Kerala will still come, observing the same schedule, carrying the same passengers. There are no changes at the boarding and alighting points.
The quality of the service will be the same. So why Kerala’s MPs, mainly belonging to the CPI (M) fold, were hopping mad at the Parliament Hall?

Dog’s own country cannot believe his eyes when he sees something unusual in Kerala

And another sight I observed today was even more shocking! Malayalis standing in a queue! God! That’s one of the rarest sights you will ever see. I havent seen them stand in a line in banks, or cinema halls, or shops or..anywhere there is supposed to be a queue. Even in church they have to do a stampede, as though God will run away if they dont rush. But today, I saw almost over 50 malayali men stand in one long line, disciplined, quiet and looking very earnest. No points for guessing where: Kerala State Beverages Corporation Limited – Indian Made Foreign Liquor outlet.

Tags: Kerala

Hosted Democracy

Word processors like Microsoft Office or Star Office chain you to a computer. Instead, if you opt for hosted services like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, your word processor is accessible from anywhere an Internet connection is available. Hosted services, like Google Apps, are powerful and requires no setup or maintenance. The software and hardware are updated without the user even having to know about it and whenever there is a problem in the service, the host will take care of it. Thanks to Bush administration, now a hosted democracy service is available for countries like Pakistan and Iraq.

Recently, after seeing that no one Pakistan was listening to him, the General in the labyrinth decided to impose emergency. He  had already signed the order declaring emergency when the phone rang. “Yes, Dick”, he probably answered, thinking it was the Lord Voldemort on the line, but it was Dr. Rice. A few minutes of conversation and Gen. Musharraf, who is seen a macho macho man only in India was shredding the document.

“Hey, isn’t the hosted service provider saving dictatorship here”, you may ask. Calm down, grasshopper. Sometimes to save democracy, you need to save dictatorship. Yes, it is one of those Zen things.

Since Gen. Musharraf is nearing his expiry date, the Bush administration has been looking for a Prime Minister. Sadly, the available ones cannot enter the country. So, there has been negotiations and re-negotiations between Benazir Bhutto and Bush administration officials about a possible deal. Maybe the Bhutto deal won’t work out and it maybe Nawaz Sharif. Either way, you will hear it on CNN before the Pakistani people know about it.

We all know Pakistan cannot handle democracy and such outsourcing helps them avoid wasteful expenditures in terms of elections, booth rigging and bullets fired into fellow Muslims. It is not just Pakistan which is having problems in democracy. The ratings of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been plummeting and his opponents in Iraq have decided to campaign against him, not in Iraq, but in Washington D.C. Ayad Allawi, who was the interim prime minister is  paying the GOP firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR) more than a quarter-million dollars to lobby on his behalf. 

Finally we are sure that a group of armchair quarterbacks in Washington D.C. will do what is right for Iraq. Isn’t this kind of democracy wonderful?

Sacrificed for "Secularism"

Lumbini was the place where Buddha was born, but Lumbini Park in Hyderabad is the place where 10 people were killed along with 32 others who died in another explosion near a popular eatery. Many others were saved, not because of any great work by Indian police, but due to the ineptness of the terrorists.

After the Mumbai terrorist attacks on the trains, Home Minister, Shivraj Patil told the media that he knew such an attack was going to happen, but since no one told him the time or place and so he could not prevent it. This time the intelligence agencies knew that explosives were delivered to terrorists in Hyderabad in March 2007.

The first page in an Indian passport has a request from the President of India to let the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him or her every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need. The Congress party seems to have requested such privileges for Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami terrorists carrying eight kilograms of military-grade explosives within the country as well.

We say this because some aggressive policing would have protected the city, but the Congress Governments, both at the center and the state, chose not do so so because it would not have gone well with people who worship Gen. Musharraf and Osama bin Laden. Thus when the Government possibly could have prevented this incident, it did not, for fear of upsetting the vote bank.

Then the Congress party big wigs have to ask themselves, what good is a dead vote bank?

(Cross posted at INI Signal)

Decline of the Khemer Kingdom

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(The Vishnu temple at Angkor Wat – Photograph by Srijith)

The Khemer kingdom of Cambodia,  known for the construction of magnificent temples like Angkor Wat, had a domain that extended from south Vietnam to Yunan China in the North and westward till the Bay of Bengal. The city’s economy was based on rice and a network of reservoirs, canals and bridges were  built to move people and goods.

The Khemer engineers  changed the direction of rivers for growing rice. The water system had canals in the North that funneled water into the city center and then from the city center a series of distributor canals sent water to the southern region.

The general reason mentioned for the demise of this kingdom is an attack by the Thais in 1431. But now scientists think that the demise happened much before, due to the evils of urban societies, like ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown. Now there are more discoveries on what happened to the Khemer kingdom.

A ground sensing radar provided by NASA has revealed new information about the Khemer kingdom. We now know that it was larger than present day Philadelphia and Phoenix, but with much less population. This radar has also identified new man-made ponds and long lost temples in this  preindustrial low-density complex centered around the Angkor Wat temple.

There is more evidence that the fall of this civilization might have been due to over exploitation of land.

“Our research shows that Angkor was certainly extensive enough, and that land-use was certainly intensive enough, to have impacted profoundly on the regional ecology,” Evans told LiveScience.

Angkor was surrounded by a vast expanse of rice fields that would have required extensive forest clearance. Over time, the intense farming could have led to serious ecological problems, including those associated with deforestation, overpopulation, topsoil degradation and erosion.

The consequence of overexploiting the environment isn’t the only lesson Angkor’s fate has for modern society, Evans said. Angkor required a massive infrastructural network of canals and roads to keep it running.

“This increasingly complex elaborate system would have been very difficult and expensive to maintain,” Evans said. “This is obviously something to bear in mind, considering that many cities in our contemporary world are expansive, low-density urban sprawls as Angkor appears to have been.” [Urban Sprawl May Have Doomed Cambodia’s Angkor Wat]