Excerpt From An Exchange

"A student from India had a question. What if, he said, one lives in a
society in which the religion says that a person's lot in life is
dictated by God, and thus it would be sin to change it in any way. The
poor, in this view, are supposed to be poor, and to help them would
violate God's will. In fact, a charitable person is committing a crime
against God.

"The speaker stood there in stunned silence.

Comment:

I love these contrived problems... a Christian from Seattle Washington could make that exact same claim about Christianity. St. Paul gave express instructions for slaves, assuming there would always be slaves, it is so ordered. Jesus himself said we would always have the poor with us (of course He obviously assumed change and redemption was possible... ) ... I've heard such "you are stuck in your position and it is a sin to change" arguments in Christianity all my life. The King of England cautioned Lloyd George how "one must be satisfied with one's station in life." What was the medieval guild system except a means to lock out and lock down? What does he think the AMA is? Dedicated to quality control? ha! His question is a slam on Hinduism. If this fellow had the slightest grasp of Hinduism or very recent Indian history, he would have recalled one fellow named Mohandes Gandhi. Ahimsa is a term that does not exist in any of the European languages that grew out of the the Indic roots, but it is still extant today in India. The problem isn't that a Hindu stood up and asked a goofy question, the problem was the "speaker stood there in stunned silence." The speaker should have pointed out, charitably of course, how every culture has such challenges, countless Christians argued the same thing as we progressed, and still do, but the good the true and beautiful are inherent in every human culture.

We are facing the same thing today, wherein the people we have allowed to arrogate power are busy assuring the pecking order does not change. Most of the congressmen who voted for the "no banker left behind act" are well aware that this is the path to economic disaster, and inevitably, war. Who of them cares? Our children may die from a scratch due to lack of penicillin in 5 years, but the powers that be will still have private jets, caviar, all sensual desires met immediately... the people we put in charge no longer believe in America, not the general officers in the military the congress has confirmed... not the professors, not the clergy, not the lawyers...not labor... they will be in their places no matter what happens... they even carefully outlawed shortselling, the only way to protect your assets, and will strike no more gold coins as this stock of blanks runs out. it is the rest of us that are locked into our castes now.

Radical comes from the word root, extreme means the far out edges. Radical good, extreme bad. Starting your own business is a profoundly radical act. Every religion encourages profoundly radical action. Every religion has charlatans who advise otherwise. Why concede religious practice and position to the charlatans?

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