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| Dear veerji Preet Mohan S. Ahluwalia Sat Sri Akal Thank you for taking the trouble of posting the extract from the late S. Daljeet Singh's book ESSENTIALS OF SIKHISM, which is probably one of the best on Sikh Ideology. I have the greatest respect for Daljeet Singh and the many books that he has written. I just wish to make a few observations. 1. When he compares guru Nanak with St. Augustine, he is comparing apples & oranges. Unlike guru Nanak, St. Augustine was not the founder of a religion. Furthermore he was born 354 AD, over 3 centuries after Christianity, the religion he adopted, had started.. 1. The state of "Christianity" that the philosopher Bertrand Russell describes is the "Christianity" of the Roman Empire, which had adopted Christianity as the state religion around 330AD when the emperor Constantine had a vision and saw the cross. There is a clear difference between Biblical Christianity as exemplified by the life of Christ and what it degenerated into after the mandated mass conversions of millions of people in the empire when it was declared that everyone in the empire had to embrace Christianity, the new state religion. This was the beginning of 10 centuries of dark ages until the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance. 3. It needs to be realized that Bertrand Russell was no friend of any religion. In the preface to his famous book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, he writes, "There has been a rumor in recent years to the effect that I have become less opposed to religious orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumor is totally without foundation, I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism - both untrue and harmful." He does not even include Sikhism as one of the great world religions! Bhul chak maaf karni. Regards Jass Singh. |
