Re: The Flat Earth? - Conclusion

Jim Foley (jimf@vangelis.FtCollins.NCR.com)
18 Jul 1995 19:20:20 GMT

If I may butt into this conversation,

In article <3u7anj$n0e@franklin.cc.utas.edu.au>,
Madhudvisah dasa Swami <shelter@peg.apc.org> wrote:

>As for my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
>Prabhupada, he became a "master" by accepting the orders of his spiritual
>master, Srila Bhaktsiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, as his life and soul. One
>becomes a perfect authority in Krishna consciousness by becoming a perfect
>servant of his bona fide spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada was very
>humble.

I have read "Life comes from Life", by the above Swami. I found him to
be both astonishly arrogant and ignorant. Here is a short post I made
recently about this book to this group:

There are actually Hindu creationists (or anti-evolutionists, anyway;
they may not believe in anything resembling biblical creation).

I used to own a little paperback called "Life comes from Life", given
away free by the Krisna chanters. It was written by, or based on the
teachings of, Swami Prabhupada (something like that), and consisted of
rants by him, and conversations between him and his disciples.

It was cringingly, embarrassingly, mind-boggling bad. I guess, with
images of the Dalai Lama in mind, I expected someone with at least
common sense or wisdom, whatever knowledge of modern science they may
have lacked. The Swami had twice the arrogance and one tenth the
knowledge of the average ICR-type creationist. He not only didn't know
anything, he didn't even know that he didn't know anything, and he
didn't have the foggiest idea how science works. The commonest way of
refuting something he didn't like was to quote from the Vedic
scriptures.

The Swami is the only thing I've ever read which made Morris and Gish
look like Einstein. An amazing experience.

--
Jim (Chris) Foley, jim.foley@symbios.com
Assoc. Prof. of Omphalic Envy Research interest:
Department of Anthropology Primitive hominids
University of Ediacara (Australopithecus creationistii)