Mistaken Identity

[Guest guest]

Dear Prabhus,

 

 

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

 

 

I wish to clear up a case of mistaken identity made by the wife of Hector

prabhu in her recent mail, in which she claims to summarise the debate

between her husband and myself.

 

 

 

She states:

 

 

 

"Before I give the conclusion of the debate, I will like to share with you

Srila Prabhupada's words with respect to the use of logic in establishing

religious truth. We thank Ramakanta Prabhu for making this quote available

to us.

 

"It has been described in the Bhagavata that tarko 'pratisthah. If you want

to establish religious truth, you cannot establish it by your logic and

argument. It is not possible because I may be a very perfect religious man,

but I may not be a very good arguer; another strong man who can argue very

strongly, who knows logic very nicely, he can defeat me. He can make my all

conclusion null and void. So therefore, simply by argument or logical

conclusion one cannot reach to the truth, to the religious truth. It is not

possible. Tarko 'pratisthah srutayo vibhinnah." (Bg. 3.21-25 Lecture, New

York, May 30, 1966)

 

If the gentleman from IRM would simply humbly meditate upon these

transcendental words of Pramahamsa Prabhupada, a perfect personality by his

own admission, then his devotional life could develop. Unfortunately, he has

disregarded Srila Prabhupada's instructions and become 'asara' or useless.

Worse than that, he has become a disturbance to devotional service."

 

 

 

However, as the following will show, she has confused her husband with

myself:

 

 

 

1) 30/4/2006 - Hector challenges me to a debate, in which he decides to

"challenge to some of your principal arguments, based solely on deductive

reasoning flaws", and he goes onto boast that he is able to do this because

his "mathematical brain handles deductive reasoning fairly well"

 

 

2) 4/5/2006 - Then Hector continues , stating he "will rephrase your

argument keeping the essentials, as mathematicians and logicians do."

 

 

 

3) 4/5/2006 - He continues to argue, using only logic, stating "the

logical flaws of your argument still hold." He also describes the arguments

he is presenting by boasting that "This is what logicians and mathematicians

do precisely to avoid hiding behind words."

 

 

 

4) 6/5/2006 - Hector again trumpets his use of logic to establish the

truth: "I realized I had overlooked a much simpler logical flaw that would

have avoided much time and words in establishing the truth of point 1, that

is, to establish the logical invalidity of your purported Proof 4", and he

summarises his argument thus: "The accepted rules of inference of logic show

that A and B are different; so much so that the greatest joy in mathematics

and logic is to find statements with this property."

 

..

 

5) 10/5/2006 - Hector summarises his arguments presented by stating "If

you want a verification of the pristine logic of the arguments hereby

presented, look for the kind assistance of a mathematician or a logician."

 

 

 

6) 16/5/2006 - He continues to present a new argument as follows: "I

will summarize the arguments showing some of the logical flaws in IRM's "The

Final Order" once again", admitting that "Only when Krishna impelled me to

purge your arguments and use symbolic logic was I able to see the fallacy."

And indeed his whole argument is full of such 'symbolic logic', which speaks

of the 'logical equivalence' of statements, and their 'contrapostitive', and

what can be 'logically inferred' etc.

 

 

 

7) 18/5/2006 - Hector presents a logical proof for statement B of

my proof, in which he states "Notice the simplicity of this

 

argument, just consider the contrapositive of a quote you

apparently ignored in your Special Issue", and refers to his proof

 

he stating that "even though Srila Prabhupada did something

logically equivalent to what you claim in B,".

 

 

 

8) 24/5/2006 - Hector again trumpets the supremacy of logic by stating

"I am willing to concede defeat if you provide unequivocal evidence or

logical arguments."

 

 

 

So right from the beginning to the end of this debate, Hector has championed

the use of logic to establish religious truth. I however have made no such

statements. Therefore, according to the word's of his own wife, Hector has:

 

 

 

"disregarded Srila Prabhupada's instructions and become 'asara' or useless.

Worse than that, he has become a disturbance to devotional service."

 

 

 

I do not think I could have put it better myself. Hector should listen to

his wife on this point.

 

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Your servant,

 

Krishnakant