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From: kstewart@td2cad.intel.com (Kent Stewart )
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: talk.religion.eastern (was soc...)
Message-ID: <2857@td2cad.intel.com>
Date: 25 Jan 90 21:14:34 GMT
References: <4412@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> <355@dbase.UUCP> <4458@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: kstewart@td2cad.UUCP (Kent Stewart )
Organization: Intel TD, Santa Clara CA
Lines: 46

In article <4458@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Dinesh K. Prabhu) writes:
>In article <355@dbase.UUCP> dveditz@dbase.A-T.com (Dan Veditz) writes:
>>>In article <4412@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Dinesh K. Prabhu) writes:
>>>>
>>>>    1) The word eastern in the title of the newsgroup signifies religions
>>>>       with origins in south/south-east/far-east asia. For example,
>>>>       Hinduism, Buddhism (all forms), Jainism, Sikhism, and Shintoism.
>>>>
>>>How much interest do you expect to get on these topics?  Have you tried
>>>using t.religion.misc or t.r.newage?  (I've seen some discussions on these
>>>topics in both places.) 

Well, I have participated in some of these discussions, and my feeling
is that the inherent bias of the respective groups does not lend itself
to productive, open discussion.

What I mean by this is that talk.religion.misc has a largely Christian
bias, with a minority element of atheists and skeptics, and .newage 
leans towards magic, Paganism, demonology, etc.

There are a lot of folks interested in each bias, and the two groups 
provide forums for these folks to pursue their interests with each
other. But a subject such as Advaita Vedanta or Mahayana Buddhism is
rarely a good fit in either group.

In the .misc group, almost any topic brought up will be responded to
and (often politely) argued with from a variety of Christian viewpoints,
some very thoughtful and insightful, some dogmatic, some pretty
stubborn. Sometimes a conversation is maintained for a while, such as
an interchange between Christians and Buddhists a few months back. But
even then it starts to break down over charges of "condescension" and
intolerance imagined on either side.

I monitored soc.culture.indian for a few months to see if discussion
might be happening there, but that was not a very good fit either.
Though many folks on s.c.i. might support the new group and participate
in it, extended spiritual discussions don't really seem to be the
group's charter.

I wholely support the new group, either unmoderated as currently
proposed, or moderated if the majority of those interested wish it
to be so.

Kent Stewart
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