It's Tough Out There for an Avatar

Behold Lord Vishnu!

In Thelema we say "Deus Est Homo" meaning "God is Man." Or, if you will, "Every man and every woman is a star." We strive to see divinity in everyone - but one thing we don't generally do is use our own as an excuse to get out of work. Indian engineer Rameschandra Fefar has come up with a novel way of justifying time off from his job. He claims that since he is the tenth incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, he has more plenty of way more important things to do than show up at the office.

Rameschandra Fefar made the claim after being served with an official notice asking why he had only attended his office in Gujarat for 16 days over eight months. “I am Lord Vishnu’s 10th incarnation as Kalki,” he responded in writing. “I am doing penance at home by entering into the fifth dimension to change the global conscience. This work I cannot do in the office. Thus I don’t remain physically present in the office.”

The engineer repeated his claim that he is an avatar of the Hindu god, usually depicted as having four arms and blue skin, when questioned on Indian TV on Saturday. “Even if you don’t believe, I am indeed the tenth incarnation of Lord Vishnu and I will prove it in coming days,” he told reporters. “I realised that I am Kalki avatar when I was in my office in March 2010. Since then, I am having divine powers. Just like everybody laughed at me at the time of Mahabharata, you guys are doing the same because you’re unable to see God in me”.

He also claimed he was saving the country from drought, adding: “Just because I am Kalki avatar, India got good rains.” Fefar was appointed superintending engineer with the Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmadar river near Navagam in Gujarat in September 2017. This month his employers at the Sardar Sarovar Punah-Vasvat Agency sent him an official notice warning him he faced disciplinary action. “You have remained highly erratic ever since you joined duty on September 22, 2017,” the notice read.

I'm not sure if "the fifth dimension" is a term that exists in Hinduism. Does anybody here know? At any rate, as a Thelemite I'm not about to deny the divinity of anyone. At the same time, Fefar's contention that he and he alone is an incarnated god is probably not accurate either. You never know, maybe he just did the "Become a Living God" online course and things went very, very badly. Or, I suppose, very well if he really has the powers that he claims. But honestly, I doubt it.

If I were Fefar's boss, I would use much stronger language than "highly erratic." I would probably tell him that being a god is great and all, but he agreed to do his job full-time when he was hired instead of working a mere sixteen days over eight months because he had more important god stuff to take care of. Seeing as his magical powers should be capable of providing for his material needs, it seems pretty obvious that he neither needs nor wants the job. Or maybe he's just an older, more Hindu Ferris Bueller.

You know, "How could the great and powerful Lord Vishnu possibly be expected to handle work on a day like today?" Over and over again.

Air Force Fires "Hindu Witch"

One of the long-standing problems in the United States military is the undue influence exercised by Evangelical Christians in the Air Force. Members of other religions have reported aggressive proselytization for years, but this story still sounds so outlandish it's hard to believe.

Until recently, Deborah Schoenfeld worked as a dental technician at an Air Force base in Maryland. Schoenfeld follows the Hindu religion, and endured ongoing harassment by co-workers who considered her evil because she was not Christian. If anybody out there wonders why I post so many articles about things like Ten Commandments monuments and religious discrimination on the part of local governments, it's in part because giving Christians special privileges enables this sort of toxic culture.

Schoenfeld was eventually fired under suspicion of being a "Hindu witch." Personally, I had no idea such a thing even existed. Prior to her dismissal, here is some of what she encountered on the job trying to work with a pack of Evangelical bigots. These events were confirmed by multiple witnesses.

• In her time at Epes Dental Clinic she was actually and specifically accused of “witchcraft” and “bringing demons into the office.” She has been officially advised that she is not allowed to know who her accusers are.
• She has been openly disparaged for not having the same religious views as her superiors (Evangelical Christian) and being “uninterested in taking part” in Christian rituals or the rampant and rapacious, workplace-based, Evangelical Christian proselytizing which is outrageously and comprehensively supported by her former command.
• She has been admonished that practicing yoga is “Satanic” and will “cost (her) her soul”.
• She was advised by her chain of command to pray against the recent Supreme Court ruling against same sex marriage, as it is “an abomination to their religion”.

She was also given a "religious test," which she failed, after which she was fired. If a clearer case of religious discrimination is out there, I haven't heard of it. The Air Force claims to be "looking into" the allegations, which likely means that unless the case attracts a lot of negative publicity they will do their best to sweep the whole incident under the rug.

So share this article or the original story far and wide. A literal witch hunt has no place in our society, and should be called out at every opportunity.

Arkansas Hindus Propose Hanuman Statue

Demonstrating that you really can't fix stupid, Arkansas lawmakers recently voted to allow a statue of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capital. Yes, just like the one in Oklahoma that led to all the ridiculousness with The Satanic Temple and their crowdfunded Baphomet statue. You would think that lawmakers might consider all the bad publicity that the Oklahoma statue provoked, and prudently decide not to wade into the controversy themselves. But you would be wrong.

In a new twist, though, it's not the Satanists who are calling their bluff. This time it's a group of Hindus who proposed erecting a statue of the popular Hindu deity Lord Hanuman. Of course, they were not granted a permit to put up their statue, because predictably lawmakers were fine with a symbol of their religion but totally not okay with one with one from somebody else's. And so it begins. Again. I do appreciate, though, that this time around the folks challenging the status quo are not "spooky atheists" but rather members of one of the world's oldest established religions.

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, offered to give the state a statue of Lord Hanuman, a popular Hindu deity often described as a monkey god. The group would have covered all of the costs to create, transport and erect the statue. “If permitted, we planned to make it big and weatherproof,” Zed wrote in a statement explaining the project. “Besides honoring the Arkansas Hindus, this statue would raise awareness of Arkansans about Hinduism, oldest and third-largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought.”

But don’t look for Hanuman in Little Rock anytime soon. State officials were quick to deny the request. The Associated Press reported that earlier this month the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office told Zed to either ask the General Assembly for permission or apply to the Arkansas State Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission. Hmmm. I see a buck being furiously passed.

Although the Ten Commandments are found in the Old Testament, their public display at the seat of government is almost always championed these days by fundamentalist Christians. Their goal seems to be to imply that U.S. law has religious underpinnings. This is bad law and bad history. It also runs afoul of the First Amendment. Thus, Arkansas lawmakers could spare everyone a lot of time and money by removing the Ten Commandments monument right now. The law is not on their side here.

All religions or no religions, people. If you want to keep your Ten Commandments, the Hindus have to be allowed their Lord Hanuman. And as I've said before, I think the plurality option is great. It highlights the American approach to religious diversity, in which everyone is allowed space to express their beliefs. This works far better to my way of thinking than all religious expressions being seriously limited by the state, as is the case in some other countries that enact secularism through what is essentially religious repression.

I wish the Hindus the best of luck as they attempt to navigate the hurtles being put up by fundamentalists who would rather not share their place in the public square. I hope that their Lord Hanuman statue becomes a reality, and I look forward to reporting it here on Augoeides when it does.

Opposing Hinduism Because Reasons

Idaho State Senator Steve Vick outed himself this week as a Poor Oppressed Christian when he made a big deal of his opposition to opening a state legislative session with a Hindu prayer. While Vick admitted that non-Christians have a right to offer invocations under the First Amendment, he nevertheless treated the upcoming event as an occasion to whine to the media about how awful it was.

Poor Oppressed Christians are so obnoxious because the mere presence of other religions mortally offends them, even though it in no way inconveniences them. As a member of a minority religion I have no problem listening to Christian prayers. I actually find that many Thelemites know the Bible better than most Christians. But I do have a problem with those Christians who aren't even willing to exhibit basic politeness in the presence of religions other than their own.

State Sen. Steve Vick (R-Dalton Gardens) admitted that the First Amendment permits prayers by non-Christians, but he did not think Hindus, in particular, should be allowed to pray in the statehouse, reported The Spokesman-Review.

“They have a caste system,” Vick said. “They worship cows.” Hindus do revere cows as a symbol of life, but they do not worship them.

“To invite other religions in that aren’t represented in the legislature I don’t believe does anything to strengthen our state or our country,” Vick said.

He said the United States was “built on the Judeo-Christian not only religion but work ethic,” and Hindu prayers might “undermine” that.

Frankly, that last statement is complete bullshit. The United States was very deliberately not built on any one religion. The majority of the founding fathers were Christian, but their explicit goal was to create a nation in which people of all faiths could worship as they saw fit. Second of all, the idea that a "work ethic" is unique to Judaism and Christianity is so out there that it's even difficult to mock. I'll bet there are at least a few hundred million Hindus in the world who work a lot harder than Steve Vick does.

What amazes me about these people is how shortsighted they are. Don't they realize that members of minority religions feel excluded like Vick presumably does whenever one of the Poor Oppressed insists that Christians are the only "real Americans" and their religion alone should be represented in the public sphere? The whole point of religious freedom is that it has to apply to all religions equally, or it's not religious freedom.

In fact, I suspect in many cases like these what's going on is political gamesmanship rather than abject stupidity. But the power of stupidity being what it is, sometimes it's hard to tell.

Dueling Monuments

There's a reason that religious displays are not generally permitted on government property in the United States. Because the Constitution forbids the government from endorsing one religion over another, once you allow the symbols of one faith to be displayed on public property you open the door to those of everyone else's. Or at least, that's how it should work.

Naturally, Poor Oppressed Christians hate the idea of being inclusive towards other religions, because they believe that unless they are being treated like special snowflakes they clearly must be victims of discrimination. That is, they want Christian symbols allowed and those of other faiths prohibited, a clear violation of one of the basic principles of religious freedom - because, I suppose, the very existence of other religions hurts their feelings.

Recently this debate has surfaced again in Oklahoma, where a monument of the Ten Commandments was allowed to be placed at the state capitol. Last week, a New York-based Satanist group called the Satanic Temple proposed a monument to Satan to accompany that of the Ten Commandments, which was soundly rejected by Oklahoma lawmakers. Some treated it as a joke, but in fact the Temple is a legitimate 501C religious organization and should therefore be legally entitled to the same rights as any other church.

The Satanic Temple represents neither a venerable nor popular religious tradition, so at least in the popular culture it's easy to dismiss. However, the Temple has now been joined by Hindus in demanding equal representation. Hinduism is the world's third largest religion, behind Christianity and Islam, with more than a billion adherents. While it's most popular in India, it's also the fourth largest religion in the United States.

“If the Oklahoma State Capitol was open to different monuments, we would love to have a statue of Lord Hanuman, who was greatly revered and worshipped and known for incredible strength and was (a) perfect grammarian,” said Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism.