Marbaniang, Domenic

If I hesitate to ink this page, silence is as good as the grave, Where people lay calm, undisturbed, cold and warm; And, this one chance do we all have as men: To express, to confess, to leave a sparkling trail for others, though all must end.

The Characters Clark – Pastor Madeleine – His daughter It was a wintry evening, around 9 O’clock, and Rev. Clark was busy in his Study preparing for the Sunday Service, when Madeleine, his daughter of age 13, came to him and broke in “Dad, I wanted to ask something.” Clark [turning around at her]: What is it, my dear? Madeleine : Doesn’t God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit make three gods? [Then, pointing to a picture on the wall] God is that old Father, Jesus is the Son, and that dove is the Holy Spirit. They also look so different from each other. Clark : This picture is just a painting. Somebody imagined it that way. There are not three gods. Only one God, and… Madeleine : But, you said that Jesus is God, and also the Holy Spirit? Clark : Yes, that’s right. Madeleine : Then, there are three gods. Clark : No, there is only one God. It’s not very easy to understand how, but there’s only one God. Madeleine : How can that be, dad? Clark : Well, it’s difficult to understand...

© Domenic Marbaniang, Secularism in India, Google Books, 2005. The Indian school of materialism, Charvaka, perhaps developed as a reaction against the excesses of Brahmin priests and an exploitative society. It dismissed ‘necessarily all belief in everything that constitutes the specific subject-matter of religion and philosophy.’ It had place for neither God who controls the universe nor conscience that guides man. The absence of the transcendent in Charvaka might be reason for its also being called as Lokayata-darsana, meaning philosophical school ‘restricted to the experienced world,’ or ‘secular.’ The Charvaka had no regard for the Shabda Pramana (Verbal Testimony, i.e., the Vedas). It had a purely empirical and rational concept of reality. However, the Charvaka could not gain political approval and so gradually declined – although its hedonism vented out through popular polytheism. Charvaka philosophy could not continue also because of the powerful dominance of Brahmanism over...

© Domenic Marbaniang, Indian Secularism (2005) To an atheist, religion represents superstition, primitive fear, and suppression. Such blind faith is antithetical to the rational and scientific character of secularism. While religion looks beyond the world, secularism looks within the world for answers. Nehru who represented this atheistic form of secularism wrote: ‘India is supposed to be a religious country above everything else.. The spectacle of what is called religion or at any rate organised religion in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and preservation and exploitation of vested interests.’   Nehru’s aversion towards religion is well known. He is said to have ‘always grimaced painfully whenever he had to go through even the most perfunctory religious observance.’ He once even a...

© Domenic Marbaniang, Indian Secularism (2005) Most Hindus can see no problem in worshipping two deities at the same time. This polytheistic nature of popular Hinduism helps Hindus to be pluralist and open to other religions as well. Gandhi viewed secularism from a religious perspective. He believed that religion and the State are inseparable, that irreligiosity encouraged by the State leads to demoralization of the people and that, therefore, the State’s religious policy should be pluralistic with equal respect to all religions. Mahatma Gandhi believed that all deities were manifestations of the One and all religions led to the same goal. It was this kind of a pluralistic approach to religion that made him to oppose religious conversions. Though claiming to be liberal, Gandhi opposed religious conversions, especially of the Untouchables, on arguments based on religious pluralism. This, however, caused a lot of agitation among the leaders of the Untouchable community. Dr. B.R. Ambedk...

One dream of two segments, One prophecy on two courts, Unconfused, unmixed, in concord. The first part seems, obviously, fulfilled, I wait for the next to come, One of the dream, another of a prophecy; One ends something; the other fulfills one.

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE POWER OF JUST ASKING. IT HAS A CLEAN HISTORY -- NEVER FAILED. "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." (1John 5:14-15) THE PROMISES OF CHRIST: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN AN UNANSWERED PRAYER  THAT APPROACHES GOD IN THE CHILD-LIKE CONFIDENCE OF FAITH IN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND LOVE And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  (John 14:13) If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.  (John 14:14) You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.  (John 15:16) Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.  (John 16:23) Until now you have asked...