Kamalhassan's Ideology in his films

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Originally Posted by equanimus

>> Total Digression continues.

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Originally Posted by P_R

btw these labels are what we give ourselves. So they cannot preceed consciousness. So by default setting you mean a label that preceeds consciousness itself, then you are probably right but that is not as interesting, is it?

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Exactly my point. When one has not gone through the motions of experiencing the idea of god and such, one is technically an atheist.

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I am not sure that technicality is interesting equa.
Without the question of belief about something coming up how can you be assumed to be a disbeliever (which btw is what atheist would translate to in makkaL mozhi)

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Originally Posted by equanimus

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Originally Posted by P_R

I am not concerned about the laws of Republic of Botswana. They do not affect me. I am concerned about the laws of gravity because if I don't pay heed to it, I am likely to break my neck.

I can be indifferent only if I believe that, regardless of whether a God exists or not he is not going to have any impact on my life.

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Oh but you can also be indifferent by believing that there's no such law i.e. there's no god! As far as you're quite sure you're not missing out on anything.

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Of course.

Atheists who 'believe there is no God' are by definition indifferent.

The interesting people (here I obviously include me) are those who say: 'probably there is a God. But 'for all practicial purposes He is a moot point.

This relieves them from having to answer every possible question. Biggies like origin of the Universe etc. They can happily subscribe to some colorful myth or the other and not lose sleep over it.

Quite frankly most people would be sorely disappointed if they are told something like: 'God doesn't break the laws of physics he IS the laws of physics'. What 'use' would most people (here obviously I mean others) have for such a God.

I do get the point about the technical default (!) not being interesting, but clearly it's impossible to hold that the existence of something is unknowable (say, "I have no idea about it") without knowing what it is.

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Originally Posted by P_R

This relieves them from having to answer every possible question. Biggies like origin of the Universe etc. They can happily subscribe to some colorful myth or the other and not lose sleep over it.

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Yes, and this is why I like to call myself an agnostic. Whatever it means!

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Originally Posted by P_R

Quite frankly most people would be sorely disappointed if they are told something like: 'God doesn't break the laws of physics he IS the laws of physics'.

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True. Jeyamohan incidentally made a similar point about aRpudhangaL recently (in the wake of the Nithyananda scandal).

:headspinning:

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Originally Posted by equanimus

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Originally Posted by kid-glove

[Continued digression]
>>This is like saying 'agnostic' is the default setting and it gets updated to either 'theist' or 'atheist.' But considering that it's a fairly esoteric term, is it meant to be the default? <<
Huxley would disagree. It's meant to be antithetical of 'esoteric' or in particular, esoteric spirituality of the times, the 'gnostic' of the church to be more precise. Hence the term a'gnostic'.
[End digression]

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I was not talking about the meaning of the word, but about its usage in day-to-day life; i.e. how many people call themselves (a) theists? (b) atheists? (c) agnostics?

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All this is fine. But in tracing back its origin, one could understand there are different strokes of abusing the word. There are handful in this very thread. Practically speaking, it fails to register in a singular sense. But one could safely conclude Huxley coined it to clearly demarcate from 'gnostic' of theists AND also the 'gnostic' of Atheists, and 'gnostic' of other ugly -ists. And that it's useful to associate 'indifference' (both conscious and unconscious?!) of such 'gnostic' as Agnostic. Atheist aren't indifferent, but 'differ' (that such a state could only be 'conscious' - they may not show or care about it deeply, but that's not the point here) from theists, that this difference is pigeon-holed to be a 'systematic ideology' and a form of 'evangelism' in itself.

There's complete 'ignorance' of 'God' by birth, the pristine state. Without the equation of "God", all three terms cease to exist. So we got to define 'unconsciousness' by state of mind and acquired knowledge. Atheists could be tired of the predictable pattern such debates take and refrain from expressing their difference, still there's no question of 'indifference' as such..

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Originally Posted by kid-glove

But one could safely conclude Huxley coined it to clearly demarcate from 'gnostic' of theists AND also the 'gnostic' of Atheists, and 'gnostic' of other ugly -ists. And that it's useful to associate 'indifference' (both conscious and unconscious?!) of such 'gnostic' as Agnostic.

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I think I made this point before. The association of a sense of indifference is indeed useful, but this indifference is towards “knowing,” different from the indifference we're talking about with respect to god. From your last post, it seems you actually subscribe to the dual classification (i.e. agnostics are also either atheists or theists), in which case we don't even have to talk about agnostics as a third group. So, Mani's films are either theistic or atheistic. (Along the same lines, PR said "IMO, all we can say is MR is indifferent.") Let's leave it at that. :)

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Originally Posted by equanimus

I do get the point about the technical default (!) not being interesting, but clearly it's impossible to hold that the existence of something is unknowable (say, "I have no idea about it") without knowing what it is.

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Originally Posted by P_R

This relieves them from having to answer every possible question. Biggies like origin of the Universe etc. They can happily subscribe to some colorful myth or the other and not lose sleep over it.

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Yes, and this is why I like to call myself an agnostic. Whatever it means!

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Originally Posted by P_R

Quite frankly most people would be sorely disappointed if they are told something like: 'God doesn't break the laws of physics he IS the laws of physics'.

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True. Jeyamohan incidentally made a similar point about aRpudhangaL recently (in the wake of the Nithyananda scandal).

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It is quite logical aint it?
I make the law and who will respect it if I myself break it?
I wrote the above line seriously and for some reason I started to laugh at the corny silliness in it.

First we need to understand completely the laws of universe to even argue on that plane (It was highly silly of Jeyamohan to have made that point - about laws of physics being empirical and static). Since we dont have data yet...
I can only take the approach of Isaac Asimov as alluded to in this story -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
....

purinjukkonga naanun phlaasaphy dhaan.

Equa and co,
Oru request. Idhellam total digression nu neengale stop pannapdaadhu. "Pesanum, neraya pesanum", naanga enga paatula vandhu sendhu poduvom

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Originally Posted by equanimus

The metaphysical terrain of myths like Ramayana and Mahabharatha are touched upon at the drop of a hat in his films.

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More on this and the RGV reference please...

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Originally Posted by Anban

Kalyan and Anbu_Kathir are here .. Its time for me to shut up :)

but may be i shud say something.. in Dasa, Balram does mock at Nagesh for having sooo many children.. and he mocks at alagiya singar also.. Kamal is almost unbiased IMHO.. since he has seen hindu-brahminism in his very close circles, he must hate it the most.. and that does reflect in his movies... nothing bad really...

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Anban, on the contrary, it was me who was trying to shut my mouth, but couldnt resist replying :D

you remember KH telling about 'SamaNargaLai Sivan pErAl kazhuvetriyathu' in the Virumaandi video, right? (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5uHxcSga5U) that incident actually followed the nayanmArs and Samanars having a religious debate under the condition that whoever loses the debate should commit suicide by kazhuvEtruthal. in short, the nayanmars would have committed suicide if they had lost the debate. But KH is making it look like hindu fanatics killed jains out of pure hatred, in the name of shiva, which is anything but the documented truth.

but there has been a systemtic hindu genocide in the last 1000 years in india, and the historians estimate that roughly 60 crores (yes, hundred times the no. of jews kiled in holocaust) of hindus were killed over the last millennium for resisting conversion. why doesnt KH open his mouth over these atrocities?

Bala,
The digression alert was for the rather unrelated discussion about agnosticism. :) I think there's more to be discussed about the original point about the spiritual character of Kamal's films. Enough hasn't been written on this subject. Most fans are often too enthused to align his films with the most acceptable, liberal viewpoints. For instance, consider how his films are sometimes described as Gandhian as well as Periyarist! In general, I think people greatly overstate/exaggerate some points about Kamal's ideological inclinations.