Enter, for here the Gods also dwell!
Reply #89 - August 05, 2014, 05:54 PM
Indo-European religion is a very interesting subject, but like I said in the other thread, when people start talking in vague generalities about what the 'true' Indo-European religion is and distinguishing it from "Semitic" religions, you start getting into the realm of really strange ideologies.
The funny thing is that the kind of Hindutva/anti-Semitic ideologies that are closely associated with these arguments always go on about "Western prejudice," without ever giving a cogent explanation about why scholars all across the world are so determined to see all religions as an evolving historical process of interrelationship between a vast number of different groups. Why would that make any sense whatsoever, if you were racist? Why would you be breaking down barriers between groups, and arguing that the distinctions are less clear or straightforward than people claim, if you were racist?
This is akin to what Muslims often complain about non-Muslim scholars of Islam .... it's racist Orientalism to assert that Islam's emergence reflects a vast range of different influences and groups that worked together over time (just like every other major religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism), rather than a Pure Arabic Religion delivered in the pagan Hijaz to a holy Prophet, free of any extrinsic influence. The obvious response: THAT'S racism? To assert that Muslim history is similar to non-Muslim history, and that Muslim religion developed like the religions of other peoples, in close dialogue with other religions and peoples? That's racism? Racism is generally associated with arguments about racial/ideological/cultural purity, and the greatness of this 'race' relative to others -- not arguments about how human culture is all interrelated, purity is a historical myth, and human culture reflects a continuum that evolves over time.
Prejudice, yes, there's an academic prejudice against religious and racial chauvinism, because it rarely reflects reality. This is not a racist prejudice, it's an anti-racist prejudice built on historical analysis.