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Thieving monkeys
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Religious beliefs have consequences, and Hindus have not only sacred cows who slow traffic but revered monkeys who create mischief and mayhem with impunity.
Agence France Press reports that “Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India’s northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators.”
Our troupe of presidential candidates shines in comparison – but few of us see Fred Thompson as a god. It’s different in India, where some see the thieving monkeys as incarnations of the beloved monkey god Hanuman, a faithful but playful aide to Rama in the Ramayana, which is one of the two great Indian epics.
One Indian lawmaker, Hiren Das, described the problem: “Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators.” He said the monkeys were “even slapping women who try to chase them.”
Another legislator, Goneswar Das, said that more than 1,000 monkeys are “turning aggressive by the day.” In November, according to Agence France Presse, two dozen people were hurt when monkeys rampaged through New Delhi – and during the previous month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony during a monkey attack.
Hindu religious beliefs make it unlikely that a Bollywood studio will do a monkey-substituting remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but the raw material is there. (By the way, readers interested in the latest monkey news may want to go to monkeywire.org, “the premier source of monkey and ape news.”)
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Less is more
These Hindu beliefs sure lok silly. I wonder just what Christian beliefs look silly to those of other faiths.
lok-look
Lots of them, Bob. For starters, the notion that the racist God of the Bible, who regularly ordered mass homicides, genocide, infanticide, who freed his favorite race from slavery only to turn around and tell them that they could own slaves from his less favored races and beat them within an inch of their life, and who has sent billions of people, and will send billions more, to burn in the lake of fire for all eternity, is “a loving God.”
Another one is the idea that when Man once ran around naked and didn’t know the difference between right and wrong, and, that this existence as mere brute beasts was “Paradise”. And when we gained moral understanding and put on clothes, that this was the “Fall of Man.”
I dunno Bob, seems to me that it’s more likely that some folks pet scientific theories literally make monkies out of them… And sadly, may permanently do so when all the chips are down.
Oh, Night Train, you make it sound so bad. You completely left out SIN. No selfishness, no lying, no murder. Our world now has all of theses things. Every problem that has ever entered our world is due to sin. Without sin, our world would be paradise.
Before the Fall, man did not know what was right or wrong, because there was only right. How could they know the difference between right and wrong if they had no idea what wrong looked like? They had only ever seen right, and so knew no different. In C.S. Lewis’ words: “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
You say God regularly ordered mass homicides, genocide, infanticide,etc. This is not true. The problem lies in the word “regularly”. God did order his people to kill their enemies (you can use the fancy words if you want), but only because those enemies continually rejected Him. And He only did this on a few occasions. God is a loving God, but He is also a just God who cannot tolerate sin. He does give us second chances, but if we continue to reject Him, punishment will come, either in this world or throughout eternity.
He is loving in that He gives us a second chance and will forgive any sin we commit without requiring payment. Think of it this way.
God created us and loved us. Then we rebelled against Him and separated ourselves from Him. We became so proud and thought that we were better than Him and could live without Him. But He still loves us and wants us to come back to him. That is how we know He is a loving God. But if we still rebel against Him and continue to reject Him, He will punish us.
Oip! Putting on clothes was clearly part of your Fall! Oip! Oip! But until you replace those blandly bald bodies with something more glorified! OIIP VAY! Pleae keep your pants on!
Certainly believing that God appears as a “dove” is no worse than some Hindu beliefs.
If God was so “big”, why only a very few people in the middle east ever heard about that particular diety? Why didn’t Jesus go to Europe and Asia to “convert”?
Christians don’t really ask the “big” questions anymore than other religions. All religions actually frown on curiosity. That is where the real tension comes from. Man’s curious nature opposed to the blind faith of religion.
I knew a guy from India who is a Hindu and he was telling me a half dozen Bible stories he swears were stolen from his religion. Since the Hindu’s have text that supposedly go back 6,000 years, he might have a case. But I don’t know.
This story reminds me (of course) of John Adams’ wisdom (or lack thereof) about Hindus. Adams believed Hindus worshipped the same God Christians did. And he believed that all religions, especially Christianity, were corrupted. Perhaps if we strip away all of the “corruptions” of all religions, we’ll find out they all lead to the same God. Perhaps not. But that is what America’s principle Founders believed:
Before the Fall, man did not know what was right or wrong, because there was only right. How could they know the difference between right and wrong if they had no idea what wrong looked like?
Uh-huh. Nice try. You’d better ask God, since he’s the one you claim wrote that they didn’t know good from evil. He didn’t say evil didn’t exist.
You say God regularly ordered mass homicides, genocide, infanticide,etc. This is not true. The problem lies in the word “regularly”. God did order his people to kill their enemies (you can use the fancy words if you want), but only because those enemies continually rejected Him.
You mean like the newborn and suckling infants he ordered slaughtered right along with the adults? How did they “reject” God?
Also, Jesus telling Moses to go to Egypt and let his people, then, as Moses is journeying to Egypt to do that very thing, Jesus jumps him in a tavern and tried to murder him is pretty silly.
What does monkey taste like anyway?
RDean writes: “Why didn’t Jesus go to Europe and Asia to “convert”?”
Because he ascended to his Father.
Because he had disciples who became his apostles to do that.
You really have been around here long enough to know this.
Actually, there are many ancient legends that Jesus DID spend time in the East. There are also the DaVinci Code type legends that, after his “resurrection”, he and Mary went to France and/or Glastonbury, England.
“Thieving Monkeys” sounds like a cool name for a band.
Also, Jesus telling Moses to go to Egypt and let his people, then, as Moses is journeying to Egypt to do that very thing, Jesus jumps him in a tavern and tried to murder him is pretty silly.
Don’t forget the part about how Pharoah had had enough and was ready to let the Israelites go, but God “hardened his heart” in order to give God the needed pretext to inflict several more plagues, culminating in the murder of all the firstborn sons.
Nice fellow, Yahweh.
Anlir (16): Excellent!
What is it that Hinduism teaches about Monkeys that keeps people from at least defending themselves?
And, are the monkeys preferentially stealing cell phones and soft drinks, or are those just the things that get the people’s dander up the most?
I’m thinking they should get dummy cell phones with electrical contacts, put some beer in the fridge to slow the little buggers down, and sit on the porch with a paintball gun.
Welcome back, Monkey’s Brudda.
I visited Delhi once, and one thing that nobody seems to comment on is the camels. Dromedaries are common beasts of burden there and the looked really out of place to me since I imagine them as inhabiting the Sahara. But they are EVERYWHERE. The pickup truck of India.
#14: Because he ascended to his Father.
How very magical. This is exactly what other religions would roll their eyes at. Jesus was over thirty. He could have had ten good years to travel around. Why not get nailed at twenty or forty? The whole “He died for our sins” is so, well, so martyr. Did he die for the sins of the Japanese? Or the Eskimos? How is a burning bush any different than the great Corn God touching an ear of corn and popping off the first people? If you tell this over and over to a two year old, by the time they are 15, they will take it as “gospel”.
I’m thinking they should get dummy cell phones with electrical contacts, put some beer in the fridge to slow the little buggers down, and sit on the porch with a paintball gun.
The most sensible thing I’ve read all day.
The monkeys just need a Fagin to get them going on the right path.
Can you just imagine Charlton Heston in India enduring an assault by those monkeys? What would he say??
Charlton Heston? Didn’t he play Moses in The Ten Commandments? I wonder why they left the scene out where Jesus jumped Moses and tried to kill him?
One must love how good Night Train is at mischaracterizing Bible stories and pulling them out of context.
When I was on Active Duty, my ship made a port call in Singapore. This city-state, has many Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and a very small percentage of Christians. Every year in Singapore there is this day set aside so that all the Hindu’s can pray to have their “Holy men” possessed by different animal spirits. One of those is the “monkey god”. I could not help but remember this event when I 1st read this story.
I’ve read and reread this story several times and, for the life of me, cannot figure out what the third paragraph has to do with anything. Or am I just not awake enough yet?
One must love how good Night Train is at mischaracterizing Bible stories and pulling them out of context.
Night Train’s arguments never really leave the station.
theiving monkeys? That does sound like the name of a band!