Comment

Comment by Balder on January 15, 2015 at 10:42am

I'm not certain he would - or that he would value modern as necessarily better than pre-modern.  He has digested a lot from postmodern and postcolonial thought, but he seems to use that to forward something of a reactionary agenda (from what I've seen from some of his other talks).  I've mentioned elsewhere that he's also a critic of Wilber; he's working on a book right now which will call Wilber out for "plagiarizing" Hindu ideas.

Comment by andrew on January 15, 2015 at 1:23am

I enjoyed this too Bruce. Hey, do you know if Rajiv would say that those wily ole  vedic sages held modern cosmological views ( heliocentric , etc.) or would he concede that they held various notions of premodern cosmologies? I'm asking really about physics here. 

Comment by Ambo Suno on January 14, 2015 at 6:01pm

The "'he' presented..." Refers to the Christian.

Comment by Ambo Suno on January 14, 2015 at 5:58pm

It seemed similar to me, Bruce. To my sensibilities, the minister/theologian was sort of limited by the topics that were addressed, sort of outclassed - and, yes, affably. It could be said that christianity has some features that can be strong and helpful, again my biases, yet what was raised did point to weaker and ethically questionable areas.

It had a debatish tone to the proceedings and I'm sure Hinduism and surrounding culture could be criticized as well - but wasn't. It was a mild set-up, perhaps. Apparently the Hindu scholar has been in plenty of analogously disadvantaged positions.

I think that he presented his counterpoints graciously, modestly, steadily, and he comported himself well, within the circumstance. The last 1/3-1/4 of the presentation was q and a and not so interesting to me - didn't seem to add much so you might choose to save yourself the time :)

Comment by Balder on January 14, 2015 at 11:03am

I listened to half last night and will finish the rest soon.  Overally, I enjoyed it, too, though mostly only for Rajiv's part in it.  The Christian minister was affable and liberal-minded, to the degree that he could be within the limits of his religion and role, but did not seem have many substantive responses to offer.

Comment by Ambo Suno on January 14, 2015 at 10:02am

Bruce, I was glad I took the time to listen through this. Very good. Several good points in critique of Christianity and also western academics as an hermeneutic and socio-political process. Rich.