A US Supreme Court ruling recently overturned abortion as a fundamental right and it has brought the issue of abortion to the forefront. In this article, I will discuss the problems with rights and freedoms, why they can never form a coherent legal doctrine, and how society is lost in strife when a legal system …
In the last article, we briefly discussed the personhood of God and soul, and this one elaborates on that discussion. In modern societies, a person is defined as something that has rights. For example, forests, rivers, mountains, animals, and oceans are not considered persons and hence not given rights. Conversely, corporations have rights, therefore, they …
Modern society is constructed on the idea of contracts. This idea can be traced back to Judaism which instituted a “covenant” with God in which God will do certain things for Abraham if Abraham did some things for God. The first covenant of Judaism for instance says: “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of …
The debate between individualism and collectivism lies at the heart of all modern political debates, but it is obvious that we could not live without both. If everyone acted individualistically, society—which hinges on cooperation—could not exist; there could be no common agreement on social laws that aim for the greater collective good over (sometimes) individual …
The word ‘dharma’ means duty. In the Śrimad Bhāgavatam, dharma is described as a ‘bull’ who stands on four ‘legs’—austerity, cleanliness, truthfulness, and kindness. These principles are common to all aspects of human life, including that which is not directly associated with a ‘religion’. Indeed, ‘religion’ in the Vedic context is simply one’s duties associated …
The term guna indicates what we desire, and the term karma indicates what we deserve; both exist as possibilities, but their combination in time produces the cycle of birth and death. This is the essence of the Vedic science discussed in an earlier post where guna, karma, and kāla were described as three laws of nature. …
