To: CarmenCozy/RE: Mr/Ms Misanthropicus: I would love to learn your detailed apologia that enables you to pillory the Dalai Lama or Mohatma Gandhi. Have you lived a life that exceeds theirs in virtue?
Misanthropicus: Yo! I mighty have ― my name is Woytjla dba John Paul II and was very busy with my job in Saint Peter’s.
CarmenCozy/RE Misanthropicus: “[…] unfortunately Said was a carrier of the Lummumba/ Gandhi/Dalai syndrome and the Manhattan liberals & NYT fell for it. Supporting terrorism, yeah, that is a bit too much yet his post-colonial, righteous posturing sure was ancouraging [sic!] for those needing just a push for blowing themselves (& others) to smithereens in cafes. And this comes from someone who for very long had harsh words for the Isreli policies in the West Bank & Gaza. […]”
Dear CarmenCozy, I suspect that your query has been caused by above statement in RE Said a few slots above in this thread, statement which I will support in the following.
1) I do not pillory the Dalai Lama or Mohatma Gandhi. Actually I regard both with much indifference, I couldn’t care less about the current Tibet brouhaha, neither am I transfixed by Hindu bumper-sticker wisdom. (Note: I am Christian, belong to one of the oldest and widest existing Christian denomination ― not a Catholic, though ― but I am not a practicing person).
2) All religions, sub-religions, sects, etc. are attempts at addressing humans’ existential anxieties vis-à-vis eternity and gnawing anguishes vis-à-vis the purpose-of-/ meaning-of-life, anxieties which seem to be hardwired in human’s psyche. (Note: here I do not address one of other religion’s answer’s validity).
3) My scoring system for one or other religion comes from rather pragmatic analysis, in which I rate the respective religion’s value as to (a very, very summary list):
3-a) its (respective religion’s) essential objective (answering in a meaningful manner to mentioned, major existential questions) and,
3-b) since major religions have always overlapped polities/geographical areas for significantly long historical/civilizational periods I rate their worthiness by the their contribution to the betterment of those societies, this ranging… gosh, from authentically enlightening education, laws, arts and, yes! inquiry! (a fleeting thought: Gibbon has good words about Romans).
I see not much of 3-a and 3-b in the societies historically covered by the religions whose figureheads you appear to revere, Gandhi (a post-colonial hero) and the Dalai Lama (a figure whose main traction in the Western world is provided strictly by affectation, appetite for exoticism and infantile anti-Christianity) ― and since here, I see Islam as a remarkably anachronistic/(self)destructive piece of software.
So, from this (admittedly pragmatic) position I find any comparison of these (and all other) religious belief system with Christianity a… Monty Python act. (Pre-emptive strike: Judaism: I know that some will be irked by this, but Judaism was/is in such a stubborn historical entwinnage with the Western World that for the purposes of this statement I willingly confound it with Christianity).
CarmenCozy, may Beethoven’s Misa Solemnis and Tolstoy’s Resurrection inspiringly hover your anxieties ― best regards, Misanthropicus.
