def Sparse(Matrix):

Well, that’s about it for us. Was nice while it lasted.

WASHINGTON: For the first time in its history, the 218-year US Senate opened its session today with recitation of Hindu prayers.

Hindu priest Rajan Zed, Director of Public Affairs and Interfaith Relations of Hindu Temple in Northern Nevada, recited the prayers.

This is the first time since the Senate’s inception in 1789 that a Hindu prayer was said in the House and showed recognition of the growing influence of the Indian-American community. All its sessions open with a prayer generally recited by its chaplain.

It’s actually somewhat profound, the level of contradiction in this event. On our money is “In God We Trust.” For 200+ years, the Senate has opened with prayer to Jehovah. Implicit to these expressions is the acceptance that God exists and that He is worthy of prayer and one on whom we can trust. By officially sanctioning the pagan Hindu religion as equally valid, we have effectively invalidated 200+ years of official piety. All in the name of… piety.

Piety to what exactly? Not to God, certainly, as such a prayer would certainly stink to Him at least as much as the prayers of Israel while they went “a whoring after strange gods.” Piety to the Hindu gods? No, given that the essence of Hindu “prayer” is antithetical to public expression. Piety to religion? Doubtful, since the prayer’s platform was given by a fully secular party whose members have spent decades of effort and millions of dollars trying to scour religion from public consciousness.

At this point, I’m leaning toward piety to Man and his autonomy to choose his own reality, religious or otherwise. Problem is, Man cannot choose his own reality with respect to God any more than he can choose his own reality with respect to an oncoming bus. That bus is coming, too, and it won’t be Hindu or Buddhist.

Equally contradictory is the reaction to a bit of Christian “civil disobedience” over the prayer at HotAir. AllahPundit, so keen on the protection of religious liberties, expresses his moral outrage over such impoliteness. A devout atheist, AllahPundit thinks it “unclassy” that someone would balk at something as trivial as a break from 200+ years of consistent tradition regarding something as foundational to a nation’s character as its religious association.

Well, AllahPundit, hate to tell you this, but we’ve traded the Rights of Man for the Rites of Man. Your atheism, and its natural reliance on secular humanism, will not be able to hold off the Muslim fanatics you so fear, not in the way that counts most. The vacuum left by the retreating God you so hate will be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the case of religions, it is usually the most violent, statist and repressive that fill it first. Your secular humanism merely provides the temporary scaffolding for its arrival, and like scaffolding, all those foundationless platitudes you hold dear will be taken apart, bit by bit, until you will one day doubt they ever existed.

~ by spmat on July 12, 2007.