It wasn't, actually. He determinedly missed every point I made and answered it with refutations of things I did not say or mean. If I get round to it, I'll do the point by point thing on it, but I doubt it will be worth it because he has closed his mind.
The fact that he sees no paradoxes whatsoever in Indian culture is plain blindness. Paradox is one of its chief characteristics, and that's not a negative. Anyone who pits the wonderful liberalism of Vedantic thought against the most socially intolerant system in the world (caste), and sees no paradox, has no capacity for independent thought. I understand perfectly how well caste has served to keep Indians in order socially for thousands of years, but its social ruthlessness is utterly paradoxical and totally at odds with the wisdom of Vedanta, if we say they are all part of Hinduism. He can't have it both ways - but he's trying to.
As to his 'science', I spent more time than I should on it and on the debates on his postulations by his peers. I can understand he's bitter, because at every turn his arguments are shown to be very very silly. Most telling of all were the Indian scientists, not the western ones, some of whom went so far as to declare their embarrbuttment at graduating from the same insbreastution as he did. I was hoping to find some substance in his arguments, but there was none. Ironically, *he* was the one doing the name calling in these debates he was having with them. Clearly he has no capacity for accepting criticism at all. He should have had enough practice at it by now.
If anyone's interested, then go to google and see what he's saying and how real scientists, both eastern and western, react to it. Normally I would be very tolerant of new and ambitious ideas, but this stuff is arrant nonsense.
America at its best 3882whatever the history of caste intolerance, may be we can spare ourselves debating the history of it here, the modern india...
Rifty -- Academic and Computing Help
