I refer to Mr. Justin de Freitas’ letter carried in GC 5/06 where he replies to Mr. Stanley Permaul’s letter published in KN. I have not seen Permaul’s letter but could comment on de Freitas’ offering.

Permaul seems to subscribe to the Hindu School of physiology known as Vedanta which eschews ceremonial and looks at everything from a logical stand point. Incidentally, “divinity” in the six schools of Hindu Physiology range from atheism, agnosticism, monotheism, pantheism, and polytheism and they don’t have any emotional conflict with each other or with what de Freitas calls “science”.

Indeed none of the ancient religions like Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism or Confucianism conflicts with de Freitas’ “science”; it is only the Semitic religions which have difficulty or conflict with “science” since these religions are dogmatic and they each claim for itself a monopoly of Truth.

Very often, religious people use the language of the natural sciences to try to explain their positions since many of their modern readers easier relate to the metaphor of natural sciences than the usual language of religion. In an analogous way, we have the religion known as “Christian science” or some 19th century socialist calling themselves “scientific socialist” or a whole branch of studies like sociology being called “the social sciences” many of these social sciences revolve on a great deal of subjectivity and are quite different from the methodology and assumptions of de Freitas’ “Science”.

Mr. de Freitas who strikes me as being an erudite person from his letter admits he is ignorant of the Hindu religion and Hindu philosophies. This hiatus in his knowledge needs to be closed as Hinduism and its companion religion like Buddhism, Taoism; Sikhism etc. have influenced and still influence a very sizeable proportion of humanity and could provide many deeper insights into the human conditions.

Mr. de Freitas’ comment on Lord Krishna’s blue colour shows that he needs to be exposed to the study of iconography. Every religion has its icons. For example, in the Christian religion, there are certain standard ways of depicting the cross or the crucified Jesus on the Madonna and Child and they do carry messages. It is similar with Hindu icons which are made to certain prescribed proportions differing from the human body and which have certain specific colours. For Mr. de Freitas to talk of melatonin in respect of the Krishna icon shows a simplistic literalness uncharacteristic of so informed a writer as de Freitas.

I hope Mr. de Freitas keeps on writing, especially on Christian Fundamentalism, since his offering on this subject has been very educative and indeed, revolutionary, to many.

Also, I, like many readers, would appeal to Mr. de Freitas to relent from his decision of not educating and correcting Pastor Daniel Singh any further; the reading public also gained from his corrections of the misinformation and gaucheries.
HAROLD K. JAMESSON