1. HINDU-PAGAN RELATIONS
THE WAY FORWARD

2. Monotheism taken as norm
Saturates all areas of life
Manichean division between Good and Evil e.g. state versus private control
Artificial Construct
Secular and ‘Religious’
DEMONOTHEISING HUMAN MIND

3. CULTURE AND RELIGION
• Sacred Text
• Written Word
• Codification
• Reformation
• Enlightenment
• Divine Or Natural Construct
• Tradition and Custom
• Oral Tradition
• Flexible
• Human Construct

4. TEXT OR TRADITION?
Sacred Text codifies ideas at certain point in time
Divine Word is Cultural Hyperbole
Without Text does Religion exist separate from Culture?
Who decides what is Religion, Superstition, Supernatural, Faith?

5. SECULARISM AS RELIGION
Artificial Division
Same Narrative/Discourse
Behaviour over Theory
Secularism employs Religious Language

6. BEYOND THE
SCIENCE/ATHEIST/RELIGION
/HUMANISM NARRATIVE
Secularism, Humanism, Atheism and
Economic Ideas are offspring of
Monotheism
Secular Faith
Scientific Faith

7. ORIGINS OF MONOTHEISM
Where did it arise?
Why?
How?
What are the Causal Factors?

8. COMMON ORIGINS?
Xenophanes claimed by Secular Humanists
But Ancient Greek Philosophers were in Pagan environment
No state founded on their ideas
Greek ideas later adopted by the Church
Aristotle spoke of Prime Mover
Galileo attacked Aristotlean Geocentrism
Confucius part of wider Chinese culture including Taoism
Charvak was defeated in India

10. MENTAL DETOX
As I understand them, religions aren’t composed of beliefs but of practices.
Secular rationalists think of religions in creedal terms as sets of propositions,
or else as primitive versions of scientific theories, then attack religion on this
basis. This is a fundamental error, but quite understandable since under the
influence of Greek philosophy sections of western religion have in fact been
creedal in form. In this as in many other respects, secular rationalism is a
mirror image of the least interesting strands in western monotheism.

11. DEFINING RELIGION
In Latin ‘religio’ originally meant an obligation to the gods,
something expected by them from human beings or a matter of
particular care or concern as related to the gods
Cicero uses cultus deorum, "the proper performance of rites in
veneration of the gods.“
Not Faith but Correct Practice
Mos Maiorum: "ancestral custom"[or "way of the elders," plural
mores, was the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans
derived their social norms
Neglecting the religiones owed to the traditional gods was Atheism
Religion synonomous with custom and therefore culture

12. BASIS OF TOTALITARIANISM
Sparta ritually killed off Helots
Pre-Modern Societies were Slave Owning and Hierarchical
Roman Amphitheatre enforced ideas of Order and Chaos
Totalitarian secular ideologies owe much to Plato, Atlantis, Caesar
Athenians warned that Democracy could become Mobocracy and Tyranny

13. BASIS OF MONOTHEISM
Reaction to conditions of Roman Empire
Emperor as Divine Embodiment of State
Monotheist trends in Paganism e.g. Sol Invictus, Mithras, Apollo,
Isis
Constantine reconstructed basis of Roman Empire
Council of Nicaea codified what became Christianity
Gnosticism deemed Heretic
Julian the Apostate tried to create Pagan Church
Monotheism result of trying to keep Pax Romana

14. ‘WESTERN’ CIVILISATION
Roman Empire became Monotheist Theocracy
Religious Affiliation tied to State Loyalty
Pagan beliefs suppressed or absorbed: Prime Mover of Aristotle
Pagan beliefs survived in Saints
Paganism denounced as Satanic
Monotheism effective Dualism
Gnosticism crushed by Literalists
Gnostic Christianity went East

15. DUALIST PRECURSOR
Iranian Religion split from Vedic
Role of Demons and Gods reversed
Cosmic Battle between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman
Achaemenids followed Zarathustra but wide latitude
Influence on Judaism?
Sassanids promoted aggressive intolerant state Zurvanism

16. ORIENTAL DIMENSIONS
Arab Empire built upon Hellenic, Gnostic, Christian,
Zarathustrian, Hindu, Buddhist and assorted Pagan precedents
Sufism absorbed Pagan practices
New Religion formulated on Monotheist template as
Foundation of imperial conquests
Result not Reason behind Arab Conquests

17. PROGRESS?
Reformation resulted in suppression of Pagan Vestiges
Modern Europe heralded by Witch Burnings, Pogroms,
Genocide, Warfare
Secularism was compromise between Catholics and Protestants
in Thirty Years War

18. MONOTHEISM MODERNISED
Enlightenment built upon Protestant Reformation
Natural Philosophers moved from Christianity to Deism
Science took up the Monotheist Mantle
Outside Science it was Superstition
Science brought Results in Industrial Revolution
God became Irrelevant Hypothesis in favour of The THEORY
Social Change through Urbanisation, Finance, Technology
Emergence of Mass Politics

19. SMOKE AND MIRRORS AND POLLUTION
Idealisation of Pre-Industrial Past
Gothic, Romanticist, Classicist, Slavophile Trends
Reconstructing the Pagan Past through Monotheistic Paradigm
Imperialist expansion used Classical Civilisation as Template

20. ECONOMONOTHEISM
THEORY is euphemism for GOD
Adam Smith believed God controlled the Free Market
Economic Theories are based on Faith
Neoconservatism and Neoliberalism are Utopian Myths
Duality of Secular Functions: Capitalism/Communism,
State/Corporate, Keynes/Hayek, Religion/Laicism, Left/Right
Developed and Developing World
Faith of Mass Consumption

21. FAILED UTOPIA
Atheists, Secularists, Humanists blame Religion for human rights
abuses and oppression
French Revolution descended into Terror
Twentieth centuries witnessed worst crimes against humanity
Nazi Germany and USSR were ‘Scientific’
Class and Race replaced any god in human centred ideologies
Loyalty to Proletariat/Nation/Volk/Race/Class
Non–existent or ambiguous morality
Idealism and Sincerity severely warped
Communism and National Socialism secular and anti-religious in
creating the “New Man”
No god to restrain excesses
Disillusionment with heaven on earth revolution meant retreat into
lowest common denominator, that of race, ethnicity, and volk

22. DYSTOPIAN VISIONS
Human Sacrifice as Demographic Control
Climatic Impact on Civilisation: Mayans, Indus-Saraswati, Mini Ice
Age
Black Death, Plague, Ebola
Materialist Roman rapaciousness
Science Fiction warns that Progress can become Nightmare
Social Breakdown will Reform the Tribe
Dharma and Rta are ‘Religious’ tools of making sense of Chaos and
Complexity

23. MONOTHEIST INFECTION
Hindus felt inferior under British Rule
Orientalists used modernist paradigm to create ‘Hinduism’
Internalisation of Modernist Discourse led to Abberrations
Neat Categories of ‘isms’ which did not reflect reality
Monotheism held to be superior narrative

24. WHICH IS THE VALID PATH?

26. SURVIVAL AGAINST ALL THE ODDS
• Why did Ancient Indian Civilisation survive?
• Hinduism exists while parallels are Museum Exhibits
• Marginalised, Threatened and Maligned
• Muzzled, Gagged, Censored
• Misunderstood and Crushed under Monotheistic Boot

27. BACKWARD? SUPERSTITIOUS/?
IGNORANT?
Origin of Zero
Basis of Western Science is Zero
Irrational Concept
Zero spiritual concept
Decimal Numbers
Technological and Scientific Advances

28. SRINIVAS RAMANUJAN (1887-1920)
"While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red
screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it.
Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all
attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They
stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to
writing.“
Goddess Namagiri whispered equations into his ear
.

29. ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER (1187-1961)
1933 Nobel Prize for Quantum Mechanics
“Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge… It has nothing to
do with the individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion.
Indeed in a certain sense two “I”‘s are identical namely when one
disregards all special contents — their Karma. The goal of man is
to preserve his Karma and to develop it further… when man dies
his Karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.”
““There is no kind of framework within which we can find
consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct
because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false
construction… The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is
available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.”

30. JULIUS ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (1904-
1967)
Supervising Scientist for the Manhattan Project
Learnt Sanskrit
Quoted Bhagavad Gita
“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

31. BASIS OF CIVILISATION
Hinduism is largest surviving Pagan Body
Paganism formed basis of Modern Civilisation
Deconstructing Monotheism to unlock Pagan Past
Death of Utopia