Life is not rational; reason is unknowable

The notion that life is rational is a myth propagated by materialistic Western philosophers. Life is not rational. Life is governed by the irrational. 

Love is not rational. Hatred is not rational. Hope is not rational. Greed is not rational. Happiness is not rational. Sorrow is not rational. Faith in the idea that the good always wins in the end is not rational. Man has no way of knowing how to make the right choices through reason. He has no way of knowing the rational course of action.

'Reason' and 'rational' are based on subjective principles and standards. What is rational for one man can be fundamentalism for another man. What is 'reason' for one man can be naivety and foolishness for another man.

Self praise is a sign of weakness

When a man praises himself, he is revealing his lack of wisdom and knowledge. When a nation praises itself as the best in the world, it is revealing its loss of culture and sense of history. When a religion is praising itself as the only true faith, it is revealing it has no spiritual values and is motivated solely by the political agenda of world domination.

Bill Gates: The World’s Worst Book Reviewer

Who is the world’s worst book reviewer? It is Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon. When I see a book being recommended by Gates, I know for sure that this book is trash. I will never waste my valuable time reading the books he recommends. 

The books he recommends are invariably by authors close to the powerful and crooked progressive establishment which rules the world. In the list of his recommendations, you will find books by wheeler-dealer lobbyists, vapid celebrities, power-hungry politicians, nihilistic film personalities, crooked journalists, corrupt oligarchs, pseudo-economists, money-laundering bankers, unhinged and fake scientists, naive anarchists, out of touch academics who harbor delusions of omniscience, and tyrannical leaders of taxpayer funded super-powerful institutions. 

The books in Gates’s list are full of pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and political propaganda—they are on politically correct themes such as extinction, climate change, extreme environmentalism, epidemics, saving the planet, sustainable development, sustainable energy, creating a global multicultural utopia. 

Does Gates read the books he recommends? I doubt it. I believe that he recommends books with the sole purpose of creating the impression of an erudite man. But a man who is really erudite will not read this kind of thrash. I peruse his book recommendations regularly to know which books I should avoid. If a book is being plugged by Gates, then it isn't for me.

Rereading Exodus by Leon Uris

“It was not a melting pot, it was a pressure cooker, for they came from every corner of the earth and had lived under every variety of circumstance,” Leon Uris in Exodus.

Exodus was published in 1958, ten years after Israel became independent (on 14 May 1948). Not much has changed since 1958; Leon Uris’s description of Israel holds till this day. The country is still a pressure cooker—this is one of the key reasons that it has survived and thrived for so long. 

Had Israel followed the melting pot (multiculturalist) model, it would have lost its Jewishness after being swamped by its cultural-religious enemies, and perished. With the pressure cooker model, Israel has created an intense civilizational identity which is worth fighting for. As long as Israel retains its civilizational identity, it cannot be overthrown. 

I read Exodus two decades ago. It is not a history book; full of myths and legends, it is a great work of propaganda for Israel. I liked the book then. I am planning to reread it.

On Catherine Nixey’s book ‘The Darkening Age’

I just finished reading Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. The book’s leitmotif is that the early Christians destroyed pagan religion, art and culture, and also obliterated a significant part of the knowledge developed by pagan societies of Ancient Greece and the Middle East. 

Catherine Nixey is a left-leaning atheist journalist. Ideologically, she is against all religions and traditions. There is a surfeit of exaggeration and half-truths in The Darkening Age. The book fails to acknowledge that the best pagan societies were located not in Europe but in the Middle East and they were destroyed by early Islam (not early Christians).

However, a part of what Nixey says in the book is correct. 

The conflict between the pagans and the early Christians began in the Roman age and went on till the 18th century when the last pagan communities were assimilated and digested by the European Christians. The conflict between Christianity and pagans was intense, though not as violent as the conflict between Christianity and Islam which goes on till this day. 

Nixey fails to inform her readers that the conflict between the pagans and Islamic movements was always very violent. Zoroastrianism, a very sophisticated pagan culture of the Middle East, was destroyed by the early Islamic forces, not by the early Christians.

Another important aspect of Christian-pagan history that Nixey does not cover in her book is the impact of pagan philosophy, literature and art on European culture and politics. She does not honestly cover the extensive efforts that the European Christian establishment made to collate, digest and reinterpret pagan knowledge.

European historians have tried to prove that the philosophy of Ancient Greece is the fountainhead of modern Western culture. This is a myth. Ancient Greece was polytheistic, skeptic and it followed a city-state model—it could not have served as an inspiration for the monotheistic, materialistic and world-empire model of European Christianity.

Teaching of Bhagavad Gita: Dharma is superior to morality, ethics, legality

During the times of great religious and civilizational wars, the tenets of morality, ethics and legality become less important for the warrior and political class. In the Mahabharata war, Krishna does not allow Arjuna to quit the battlefield over moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.  

In the Bhagavad Gita, the battlefield of “कुरुक्षेत्रे” (kuru-kṣhetre) is described as the “धर्मक्षेत्रे” (dharma-kṣhetre), or the sacred ground of supreme and timeless dharma. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to overlook the manmade tenets of morality, ethics and legality, and focus on fighting to win the great civilizational war. He reminds Arjuna that he is standing on religious ground and his primal duty is to wage war and annihilate the forces of evil that are threatening dharma and civilization.  

The tenets of morality, ethics and legality, being manmade social constructs, are not superior to dharma and civilization. These tenets apply only in times of peace. When dharma and civilization are under threat, then the warriors and politicians must overlook morality, ethics and legality, and fight to destroy the enemy by every possible means.

The important lesson of history

It takes thousands of years of religious thought, philosophizing, spiritual advancements, agriculture, political struggles, religious and political schisms and movements, scientific movements, trading activity, linguistics, wars, massacres, revolutions and industrial activity to create a major civilization. 

Ruins of Nalanda University in Bihar 

(Started in the Vedic Age, before 1200 BCE)

But the civilization created from such pain, struggle, sacrifice, science and intellectualism can be ruined in one generation—in less than 25 years. 

Every generation must exercise care, lest they become the “doomed generation” under whose watch the civilization gets wiped out. If people understood the history of their own civilization, they would, perhaps, do things differently.