Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
Responding to this:
Great to hear someone is publishing spot on this issue. Quick response: both McCarthy’s thesis and what he represents as the elite’s (including President Bush therewith) are accurate as far as they go. If they seem to clash, which they do, the fault is in our perspective, our coup d’oeil: it is still incomplete.
And at one point in his review McCarthy calls for a completion of perspective by saying he hopes someone is working on this problem.
In fact someone is, and the completion, the full perspective, requires an accurate taking or grasp of sacred scriptures specifically with regard to their literary status or nature.
On this question nearly everyone misunderstands scriptures and the result — as always — is religion war.
Scriptures — all of them! — have the nature of expressing revelatory experience, which is experience of the self-manifestation of being itself, or as we say, of God.
Since all experience is dialectical, including revelatory experience, nothing about it can be described positively, directly, for calculation and control, excepting to say that it occurred. Especially the meaning of experience cannot be described positively, and for several reasons which I will not enumerate.
Germane from this phenomenon to the understanding of sacred scripture is the implication that scripture, while it sounds like mundane legal language referencing daily life and thus easily is taken for application in the civil realm, is in fact symbolic legal language referencing essential reality — which is the initiator of revelatory experience — and not existential reality. Therefore, religious law has no civil application, which is the realm of existence.
In theology there is the distinction between religious law and civil law which helps to understand this situation. Religious law — what St. Paul calls this body of death (and UBL and Co. daily prove him an accurate observer on that point) — describes in symbolic terms man’s essential nature and, by implication, responsibility. All sacred scriptures are bodies of religious laws. That there are so many of them demonstrates, BTW, the richness of the depth and height and breadth of literary, emotional, intellectual and moral creativity and substance in man. Man’s essential nature is truly divine!
Religious law cannot be obeyed or fulfilled. It is not meant to be. It is meant as an indicator (only) of the greatness, dignity and holiness of man, and indeed of all life.
Then we come to civil law. Civil law is man’s changing effort to stabilize, preserve and expand his existence, his daily life. Civil law is necessary, achievable and evolvable over time to deal with the constant of novelty that is a condition of existence. There are, of course, far more bodies of civil law than there are of religious law, and rightly so.
Only evil results — as we see daily — when religious law is taken as civil law. Religious law is not meant as civil law and it cannot be implemented as civil law. The moment religious law — which as Jesus says comes to one word, Love — is taken for civil law, violence is required to make that happen and that, ipso facto, violates the essential nature of man and the intent and meaning of religious law. Paul pointed this out, so did Luther, so have countless people through the ages, including Sufi Muslims!
Yet, delusion, like ego, is never old and never fades away and so men always must beat down lunatics who take sacred scriptures for civil law and spread havoc as if in the name of God, who is Love. There will never be a time when this work is finished or unnecessary because delusion — a constellation of mis-perception, self-elevation, concupiscence, freedom and destiny — is a condition of existence, which is borne by time.
It is the responsibility of scholars and theologians of all religions to make this point ceaselessly in the orbits where they circulate.
Conclusion: if the tail of bad boy is pinned on Mohammed or Islam or the Koran, this war cannot be won because the enemy is not being faced and therefore cannot be defeated. A faux enemy would be being addressed and UBL and Co would be delighted that that is so, calculating, accurately, that they are free to carry on as the bullets whiz elsewhere, or, to change the metaphor, as the stupid Crusaders swing at the air.
Alternatively, (1) launch historical criticism on the Koran (see also here) — as Reimarus and then flocks of others did so successfully on the Bible — and make the results of that pressingly public — and upbraid in public Muslim scholars who do not lead the effort — and simultaneously (2) beat down what are rescuscitated assassin cults on the field of battle and (3) build up democratic political structures in Arab/African areas — a difficult job since common Arabic and African languages are nearly bereft of words capable of expressing democratic concepts and processes, but doable, and necessarily so … do those three things and the evil bastards will be in withering crossfire.
Right now, the attack is three-pronged — diplomatic, financial and military. To succeed it must be four-pronged — diplomatic, financial, military and historio-theological.
Modernly, there are Nine seminal investigators in textual criticism of the Koran and one in comparative theology of Koran and Bible:
David Samuel Margoliouth (1858 – 1940)
John Wansbrough (1928 – 2002)
Michael Cook (1940 – )
Christoph Luxenberg (pseudonym)
Ibn Warraq (pseudonym)
Gerd R. Puin (1940 – )
Keith Small (Great Britain)
Update 1: Here is a good result: carbon dating of Koran fragments in England put its origin at or before Mohammed’s birth.
Update 2: An American Evangelical Pastor, Jeff Sanders, writing at PJMedia has made an excellent start comparing Bible and Koran:
Startling Similarities (and Contrasts) Between the Bible and the Quran
Six Startling Contrasts Between the Bible and the Quran
I commented twice:
Jeff, with this work you tread the specific path blazed by Reimarus in his posthumously published Fragments. Parallel and even wider paths — in text criticism of sacred literature — were trod by Jesus, Paul, Jerome, Augustine, Francis, Luther and Tillich.
As you must know, Muslim scholars disallow text criticism of the Koran on pain of death. Always have, especially after they rewrote Mohammed (mostly the second part of the Koran). In this way they made idols of both the book and the man. Thus their intemperance with respect to the same.
However, by pushing into civilization and countries developed by the Latin Church, said Muslim scholars have driven into the world’s most efficient and successful idol shredder. Did they but know it. Part of their angry posture now is conjured by their frustration at having realized their mistake … of walking into their nemesis thinking they were spreading the glory of Allah.
and:
Excellent, thanks!!! For even more extensive examinations in the same direction, by an Anglican Vicar, Linguist and Theologian, see The Rev. Dr. Mark Durie.
My own contributions to the subject is here.
Update 3: The biggest roll up of them all, if true, and I suspect it is: MBS has ordered text criticism of the Haditha. I learned of this from a commenter, James Dill, at a post by Steven Hayward at Power Line. Hayward has been following the Saudi internal cleansing for Team PL. Here are comments others made and to which I responded chasing this subject at Steven’s post:
James Dill:
Exegesis in Sunni Islam?
According to the Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Awwad Bin Saleh al-Awwad, a council of senior scholars will be established for the complex and will consist of prominent Hadith scholars in the world. They will, the UAE’s National tells us: … look to “eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts.”
Why is this potentially such a big deal? Because the texts that they’re talking about potentially assessing as fake and eliminating are among the Ahadith (hadith).
David R, Graham:
Thank you, I had not seen this. And yes, this IS a VERY BIG deal. (Sorry, heuristic considerations drove me to the caps.)
For years I have mentioned that text criticism (of the several standard types) of Islamic literature, including Koran — and if they do Hadith, they will get to Koran, as Zafar implies, because of the logic of the effort — is the only sure way to defeat the Salafi and Shia Jihads (hegemonic puritanisms, which all puritanisms are, e.g., SJWs/Progressives/Lefties here today). So, some Sauds grasp that fact as well. This is indeed good news.
Luther’s 95 Theses rested on and invited text criticism of key Christian literature, to include the Bible. Text criticism was their engine and the engine of the Reformation. So yeah, Hayward is right, the Arabs had their Enlightenment before they had its precursor, Reformation. An irony there is that Wahhab commenced the Salafi Jihad specifically to counter the several (by country) Enlightenments in the orbit of the Latin Church.
The Bush/Obama/Brennan/Clinton/McCain/Deep State/Globalist New World Order delenda est, thanks to text criticism.
Alan Saunders:
If only the British stood by their WWI allies the Hashemites.
David R. Graham:
Alan Saunders Indeed. Both Lawrence and Allenby argued for the Hashemites. The British FO (i.e., The East India Co., who needed coaling stations along the east and west coasts of Arabia), their suspected (and actual) traitor St. John Philby (Kim’s father) and the puritan stoner Woodrow Wilson flipped British/US policy to favor sheep stealer Ibn Saud, who had sat out the war, unlike Faisal the Hashemite, who fought the war and whom Lawrence and the British Army (Allenby) supported doing so.
It was a geo-political betrayal of the first water by Wilson and the British FO. Later, the American Charles Crane, representing Standard Oil, standardized US-Saudi relations by setting up ARAMCO after oil was discovered in eastern Arabia, al Saud lands and some not, but soon to be.
Hashemites left western Arabia, moved to Iraq and Jordan, but left in western Arabia the congeniality (Mutazilite Islam) with modernity MBS is now exploiting to draw tourism there. Basically, al Saud has decided to make an effort — historically, they shun labor, prefer theft and slaves — to become self-reliant.
Amit Rege:
I hope the new Saudi rulers stop their funding of mosques and charities across the world. This will defund the radicals all over the world.
Steve Hayward:
Precisely. I’ll be looking for information about that in the coming months. It’s very high risk for the crown prince: it was the Shah’s modernizations in Iran in the 1970s that helped fuel the fundamentalist revolutions against him.
David R. Graham:
Steve Hayward modernizations were land ownership changes, deep ones, forced. White Revolution. Impacted ayatollahs, who led the counter-attack. Difference now, I think, is Saudi clergy-police also want modern world (facts), having been convinced (battlefield, al-Sisi, Trump) Salafism is a losing bet.
So, yes, key indicator will be whether or not Saudi funding of Salafi mosques/clerics around the world scales down or not. I am very glad you are on this one, probably, IMO, the single most important generative engine currently functioning. And POTUS Trump approves it.
Stuff is going on to which we, or at least I, have no access. I get the feeling things officially talked about as in the future are things about which decisions are already made and executions in train.
The world is sated with analysts.
It is desperate for craftsmen.
And by world I do not mean voters.
I mean the dimension of spirit, geist, pneuma.
If you lie, cheat or steal,
you have no prestige in this world or the next.
If you tolerate those who lie, cheat or steal,
you are condemned in this world and the next.
Update 4: The Rev. Dr. Mark Durie: Ishmael Is Not The Father Of The Arabs
Update 5: Robert Spencer: Muslim leader calls for removal of parts of Qur’an that ‘promote terrorism,’ Muslim cleric calls for his beheading
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
