Gilbert Keith Chesterton Rebukes The Pedantic Humbuggery of Mahatma Gandhi Quoting again from experience, a new birth, a change of heart is perfectly possible in everyone of the great faiths. I know I am now treading on thin ice. But I do not apologize for saying that the frightful outrage that is just going on in Europe, perhaps shows that the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Peace, has been little understood in Europe, and that light upon it may have to be thrown from the East — Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, *Speeches & Writings of M. Gandhi*, February 14, 1916. And just as this one Church cannot err in faith or morals, since it is guided by the Holy Ghost; so, on the contrary, all other societies arrogating to themselves the name of church, must necessarily, because guided by the spirit of the devil, be sunk in the most pernicious errors, both doctrinal and moral — Catechism of the Council of Trent For long I have combated the Gandhian Cult, which is opposed to orthodox Christianity. Some of my principal pages on Gandhi are: http://geocities.com/orthopapism/gandhi.html | http://www.geocities.com/orthopapism/hcc2.html | http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/gandhi.antichrist.html | http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/sophaster.html | http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/kapskom.html Gandhi went on record to allege that Christianity in the West was a failure. In this he was merely being a hypocrite, a pedantic humbug. He was always teaching that Christianity is a failure, that it is inferior to his own Hinduism, etc., although he was clever and subtle about it, not openly saying it, but rather insinuating it. He categorically rejected Jesus Christ as the Only Begotten Son of God, falling under the condemnation of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans (chapter 1). Moreover, Gandhi did not acknowledge the fundamental truth that Christendom and the West were antitheses, that the West was constructed by a violent overthrow of Christianity and that it is founded on a militant, terrorist suppression of Christianity. That is what the Deformation, the French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars, the secularization of church lands, and Vatican II was all about. Gandhi used the two World Wars as proof of the alleged depravity and failure of the Christian West. That is very ironical, because Gandhi swallowed uncritically the lies of Hinduism, extolling the greatness of the Bhagavad-Gita, and as something that is even superior to the Gospel. Yet, according to the Hindu _script_ures, of which the Bhagavad-Gita forms a part, an excerpt as it were, the number of people involved in the Mahabharata War far exceeded the total forces arraigned during World War I and II, and indeed, when we add the number of unruly descendants that Krishna, one of the Mahabharata War's protagonist killed, it far exceeds the total toll of both the World Wars and of the Communist Pogroms of Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, etc. put together. And yet, Gandhi could not have enough of the Bhagavad-Gita and of Krishna, its chief protagonist. I have always believed that Gandhi was, for this reason, besides others, nothing but a shameless, pedantic humbug. I am now delighted to find that Gilbert Keith Chesterton, whom I believe to be probably the greatest intellect of the last century after Pope St. Pius X, had addressed the same issue. It is true that Chesterton did not write against Gandhi, but he wrote against Buddhists who put forward the same humbug argument against Christianity; *substitute Hindu for Buddhist in Chesterton's article, and you are precise refutation of Gandhi's pedantic humbuggery*! And so, without any further ado, I present Chesterton's brilliant demolition of this idiotic argument: Buddhism & Christianity By G.K. Chesterton March 2, 1929 http://workstation3.blogspot.com/2009/06/buddhism-and-christianity-by... Hand's BlogA distinguished military gentleman recently wrote to the newspaper to announce that a Chinese Buddhist is shortly to visit England, with the firm intention of finally abolishing war. He - I mean the military gentleman - explained that Buddhism is a word that means Enlightenment and that only Enlightenment can abolish War. This seems in itself a simple process of reason and reform. But I should not be moved to criticize anything so excellent in intention, if the writer had not dragged in the dreary old trick of comparing the enlightened condition of Buddhists with the benighted condition of Christians. It is true that, like most men in this modern confusion of mind, he needlessly muddles himself by using the same word in two senses and on both sides, and setting Christianity against itself. Buddhism is Christianity, and Buddhism is better than Christianity, and Christianity will never be itself until it is enlightened enough to become something different. But this mere logomachy does not alter the essentials of the opinion, which most of us have seen in one form or another for a great many years past. The key of the situation is that the military critic says that Christians have failed to abolish War; and that this is due to the lamentable fact that Christians are not enlightened; or, in other words, to the curious fact that Christians are not Buddhists.  Now, to begin with, a normal European need hardly have any narrow contempt for Asiatics in order to feel mildly resentful and even rebellious under this sort of thing. If the Chinese gentleman is coming with an infallible talisman to stop all fighting in England, might it not be suggested to him that he should stay where he is, and stop all fighting in China? Fighting has never been a habit strictly confined to Christians; nor have wars been entirely unknown outside Christendom. It may be that certain hermits or holy men, both eastern and western, have individually abandoned war. But we are not talking about abandoning war, but about abolishing war. In what sense have Christians failed, in which Buddhists have not equally failed? In what respect is Buddhism, which has looked on at all the Asiatic fighting for four thousand years, any more successful than Christianity, that has barely looked on for two thousand? I do not think the thing is any real discredit either to Buddhism or Christianity, for anybody who is really enlightened about history and human nature. But if we are to be told about ten times a week by every newspaper and noisy talker that Christianity has failed to do anything because it has failed to stop fighting, what are we to say of the chances of the Chinese gentleman of stopping it in Europe with a new religion, when he could not stop it in Asia with an old one? At a guess, I should say that a Christian appeal for peace would often have been much nearer to practical politics than the _meta_physical enlightenment of the Buddhist. Without putting very much money on the chances of either, I should say there would have been something rather more remotely resembling a chance for a Franciscan saint influencing the policy of Richard Coeur de Lion than of a Buddhist monk (with his mind full of Nirvana) stopping the march of Genghis Khan. But that is a minor guess, and does not matter. The obvious point is that, if Christianity is to be called a failure because it has not abolished war, Buddhism can hardly be a certain and solid guarantee that we shall abolish war. The truth is, of course, that all such talk of abolishing this and that, among the recurrent misunderstandings and temptations of mankind, shows an essential ignorance of the very nature of mankind. It does not allow for the hundred inconsistencies, dilemmas, desperate remedies, and divided allegiances of men. A man may be in every way a good man and a true believer, and yet be in a false position. Indeed, the military gentleman who wrote the letter about Buddhism and War need not look far for such an example. By his own standards, he is himself inconsistent in being a Christian soldier; and even more inconsistent since he seems to be a Buddhist soldier. I have taken this one text from the daily paper before me because we all know that the religion of our fathers is being perpetually pelted with such texts. And even apart from any loyalty to my faith, I have enough loyalty to my fathers, and to the general record and reputation of English and European men to feel that it is time that such taunts should be treated as they deserve. It is no disgrace to Christianity, it is no disgrace to any great religion, that its counsels of perfection have not made every single person perfect. If after centuries a disparity is still found between its ideal and its followers, it only means that the religion still maintains the ideal, and the followers still need it. But it is not a thing at which a philosopher in his five wits has any reason to be surprised. As a matter of fact, it would be much more reasonable to use this taunt against the irreligious who use it than against the religious against whom it is used. It is the very people who use it most, the secularists and humanitarians who really do go in for promising millenniums of peace and plenty. It is the novelists and essayists of the sceptical school who announce at intervals the War That Will End War, or the World State that will impose universal peace. Christianity never promised that it would impose universal peace. It had a great deal too much respect for personal liberty. The skeptical theorist is allowed to throw off Utopia after Utopia, and is never reproached when they are contradicted by the facts, or contradicted by each other. The unfortunate believer is alone always made responsible, and held to account for breaking a promise that he never made. Undoubtedly, this sort of sneer would be quite as unjust to Buddhism as to Christianity. The ideal of Buddha might still be the best for men, even if millions of men continued to prefer what is lower than the best. As to whether the ideal of Buddha is the best for men, that is a much larger question which cannot be at all suitably developed here. Indeed, there is a great deal of difference of opinion about what the ideal of Buddha really was, especially among Buddhists. That also is a taunt vulgarly thrown against the followers of Christ, which might just as well be thrown against the followers of Buddha. The mysterious Chinese gentleman may impose on all the nations of the earth the same definition of peace, and still have a more delicate task, when he has to impose on all the Theosophists the same definition of Theosophy. But some at least of the disciples of the great Gautama interpret his ideal, so far as I can understand them, as one of absolute liberation from all desire or effort or anything that human beings commonly call hope. In that sense, the philosophy would only mean the abandonment of arms because it would mean the abandonment of almost everything. It would not discourage war any more than it would discourage work. It would not discourage work any more than it would discourage pleasure. It would certainly tell the warrior that disappointment awaited him when he became the conqueror, and that his war was not worth winning. But it would also presumably tell the lover that his love was not worth winning; and that the rose would wither like the laurel. It would presumably tell the poet that his poem was not worth writing; which may (in certain cases needless to name) be indeed the case. But it can hardly be called an inspiring philosophy for the production of good poems any more than bad. It may be that these persons are wrong about what is threatened by Buddhism. It may also be that the other persons are wrong about what was promised by Christianity. But I hope we have heard the last of the muddled discontent of worldly people, who curse the Church for not saving the world that did not want to be saved, and are ready to call in any other theory against it — even the wild theory by which the world would be destroyed. Some Interesting Quotes By Or On Mahatma Gandhi *Demonstrating Gandhi's shameless and blatant hypocrisy, double standards, fake pacificism and opportunism!* My meaning of brahmacharya is this: 'One who never has any lustful intention, who... has become capable of lying naked with naked women... without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited' – Mahatma Gandhi I can hurt colleagues and the entire world for the sake of truth – Mahatma Gandhi, Letter to Shila Nayar Mahatma Gandhi... can think only in extremes — either extreme eroticism or asceticism - Jawaharlal Nehru We know that Gandhi borrowed his three great political ideas from the West. He got non-violence from Tolstoy, civil disobedience from Thoreau and Sarvoday (the rise of all) from Ruskin - Aakar Patel, in the *Dawn*, Karachi, Sunday, March 22, 2009 We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents - Mahatma Gandhi, Letter to Adolph Hitler If India wants a bloodbath, she shall have it - Mahatma Gandhi to Lord Wavell on August 27, 1946 * If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British * – Mahatma Gandhi, Prayer Speech of June 16, 1947, *The Last Phase*, Vol II, p. 326 This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man.... You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings… If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child to be slaughtered… I am telling His Excellency the Viceroy that my services are at the disposal of His Majesty’s government, should they consider them of any practical use in enhancing my appeal - Mahatma Gandhi, Open Letter to the British, 1940, quoted in G.D. Birla’s *In the Shadow of the Mahatma*, p. 276 I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman and child to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them - Mahatma Gandhi, Open Letter to Europeans A Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber in his response of February 24, 1939, reminded Gandhi of his own comments of 1922 on the matter of Indian rights, how Gandhi had 'repeatedly said that I would have India become free even by violence rather than that she should remain in bondage' - Moin Ansari, http://mohandasgandhi.wordpress.com The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the 'rebellion' did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live in the midst of them, was a trial.... I bore no grudge against the Zulus, they had harmed no Indian. I had doubts about the 'rebellion' itself, but I then believed that the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. A genuine sense of loyalty prevented me from even wishing ill to the Empire. The rightness or otherwise of the 'rebellion' was therefore not likely to affect my decision - Mahatma Gandhi, *Autobiography*, pp. 231, 233 A controversy is going on in England about what the Natal Army did during the Kaffir Rebellion (Bambatha Rebellion). The people here believe that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on the Kaffirs. In reply to such critics, the *Star* has pointed to the doings of the Imperial Army in Egypt. Those among the Egyptian rebels who had been captured were ordered to be flogged. The flogging was continued to the limits of the victim’s endurance; it took place in public and was watched by thousands of people. Those sentenced to death were also hanged at the same time. While those sentenced to death were hanging, the flogging of others was taken up. While the sentences were being executed, the relatives of the victims cried and wept until many of them swooned. If this is true, there is no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against Natal outrages - Mahatma Gandhi, *Indian Opinion*, August 4, 1906 Regards, Lúcio Mascarenhas, Catholic Internet Apologist & Catechist *Authorized by the Holy Father,* Baçaim (Vasai), South Asia - Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -