Analytic vs. Synthetic Mythologies Mythology means the science of lies. It can have two further flavors—Analytic and Synthetic. Analytic mythology is the scientific study of how rational arguments are used to justify lies. Since most people like rationality, they can be fooled into thinking that because it seems rational therefore it must be true. Synthetic …
Nearly all great civilizations have a flood story. It is almost always the precursor to a new age or a new civilization. Nearly all big civilizations talk about their advent after a flood. Some of these are stories about floods in rivers. Their cataclysmic effects are not anywhere close to those of global floods. There …
Troubles of the Bhaktivedānta Institute History of the Bhaktivedānta Institute The Bhaktivedānta Institute (BI) was created by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda to function as the intellectual arm of ISKCON. It had three primary goals—(a) refute the materialism of modern science, (b) refute the blind faith assumptions of other religions, and (c) …
I don’t like telling personal stories, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Almost by serendipity, or shall we say cosmic design, I came to study the deeper and broader history of Abrahamic religions, and what I found stunned me. This is the story of what sent me in that direction, what I learned …
I recently came across a book with the same title as this post, by a British historian Ian Morris, that tells an obscurantist history of the West, attributing its successes to geography. There have been similar books (e.g., Collapse by Jared Diamond) that attribute the rise and fall of empires to climate changes, and the …
The Varṇāśrama system is divided into four classes—Brahmana (priests), Kshatriya (rulers and warriors), Vaisya (farmers and businessmen), and Sudra (workers). If these classes follow their prescribed duties and are not misguided by greed, lust, and envy, then society is free of class clashes. If, however, people in these classes neglect their duties or are guided …
There is a popular narrative in India at present that Islamic Invaders and British Colonialists destroyed India’s traditional culture and civilization. That is not entirely false. But any serious student of history is led to ask: Why did these invaders succeed in conquering India when numerous such invasions were repelled previously? The Mauryan Empire in …
