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HAF Protests Newsweek Report on Hindu
View of Tsunami |
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HAF wrote a
letter to the editor in response to a piece in Newsweek, "Countless
Souls Cry Out to God" by Kenneth L. Woodward, which
explains how different faiths are dealing with the tsunami
disaster. In the piece, Woodward writes of Hindus in
poor fishing communities who are "untutored in refined
theological speculation" believing that "life is controlled
by the play of capricious deities". He uses only
lower-case "g" when referring to God in the context of
Hinduism while writing that "the ocean itself is a terrible
god who eats people and boats...". Our letter
addresses these issues among others.
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DATE: January 10, 2005
Dear Editor:
Kenneth Woodward’s
depiction of the Hindu view of suffering after the devastating
South Asian tsunamis was deeply flawed (“Countless
Souls Cry Out to God,” January 10, 2005). Mr. Woodward
dismissed Hindu victims as “untutored” animists who viewed the
disaster as the hapless consequence of “capricious deities” and
compounded the error by referring to Hindu perception of God by
the lower case “g.” In so doing, Mr. Woodward perpetuated the most
obsolete misconceptions of Hinduism. Followers of panentheistic
monotheism, Hindus believe that there is one God who is omnipotent
and omnipresent throughout the universe and worshipped by people
in different forms according to their individual perceptions.
Hardly capricious, Hindus perceive God’s grace as always flowing
and easily felt by those who open their minds to receive that
blessing.
Multiple millennia
before Buddhism, Hindu scripture defined the relationship between
reincarnation and karma. Recognizing an eternality of existence,
Hindus take comfort in the face of calamity knowing that while the
body may die and be shed as old clothes, the immortal soul
continues its journey in the next life along its path towards God.
Individuals are architects of their destiny, and just as every
action must have an equal reaction, Hindus believe and take
comfort that in suffering, a karmic account that may have
accumulated many lifetimes before has been cleared.
There is no cosmic
interplay of ambivalent, competing gods as the article implies,
and the Hindu view of suffering is much more nuanced and profound
then Mr. Woodward’s insulting depiction of an unpropitiated ocean
god unleashing fury. It was a disservice to your readers to
provide an erroneous depiction of a faith that inspires more than
a billion people and is a source of comfort to so many of the
tsunami victims.
Sincerely,
Aseem R. Shukla, M.D.
Member, Board of Directors
Hindu American Foundation
(www.hinduamericanfoundation.org) |
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HAF Explains Objections to Public
Display of Ten Commandments |
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HAF wrote a
letter to the editor in response to an Op-ed piece in the
San Francisco Chronicle,
"Legal bah humbug" by David Davenport on December
23, 2004. The author writes about an American Civil
Liberties Union Lawsuit objecting to a religious public
holiday display for Christmas in Rhode Island. In the
article, he mentions how the ACLU has also fought for the
removal of the Ten Commandments monuments. Our letter
explains our stance on why the Ten Commandments ought not to
be displayed in public places.
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DATE: December 28, 2004
In "Legal bah humbug",
December 23, 2004, David Davenport talks about the challenges
facing the expression of religious sentiments in public places.
However, we think he erred by also referring to the efforts by the
ACLU to ban the display of the Ten Commandments monument in public
places.
The Hindu American
Foundation (HAF) recently led nine other Hindu, Buddhist and Jain
groups in filing an amicus curiae brief (see
www.hinduamericanfoundation.org) with the US Supreme Court in the
Orden vs Perry case, asking for the removal of a Ten Commandments
monument from Texas State Capitol grounds. HAF and the
co-signatories regard the Ten Commandments with utmost respect.
But the overtly religious Monument is a blow to pluralism, and its
prominent presence on Texas Capitol grounds implies an
unconstitutional preference for those precepts etched on the
Monument and political and social exclusion of Hindus, Jains and
Buddhists alike.
Non-Judeo-Christian
beliefs regarding the nature of God and the relationship between
man and God differ greatly from those enshrined in the monument.
The Hindu concepts of panentheistic (not pantheistic) monotheism,
the omnipotence and omnipresence of God and the use of consecrated
images in worship directly conflict with specific Commandments.
Similarly the Jain and Buddhist concept that there is no
creator/controller God is shown to be irreconcilable with the
premise of the Commandments, "...that a separate divine entity has
handed down Commandments as a king might set rules for his
subjects."
A diverse society such
as ours requires that the government respect all religions equally
and not display undue preference for any one religion's beliefs
and practices.
Swaminathan Venkataraman
Member, Executive Council
Hindu American Foundation |
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