What Beer Do Gods Drink?
Outrage may be starting to ensue….
Upset Hindus have urged Asheville (North Carolina) based Asheville Brewing Co. to apologize and withdraw its Indian Pale Ale beer carrying image of Lord Shiva, calling it highly inappropriate.
This beer, named as “Shiva”, displays the image of Hindu Lord Shiva in Nataraja form.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, stressed that Lord Shiva was highly revered in Hinduism and he was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be used in selling beer for mercantile greed.
Some of the other names for the Hindu god Shiva include: “The Transformer,” “The Destroyer,” “The Auspicious One,” “The Supreme God,” and “The Great God.”
Uh oh.
There’s going to be a lot of offended people out there if we can’t use these names, either.
Shiva is the patron saint of the arts and yoga, too, so we might need to start policing a lot more galleries and studios for offending references.
Offended by proxy
One of the characteristics of authroitarians is their immediate attainment of full-blown offended status. Usually, this is not because they suffer any personal feelings of offense, but rather they believe someone else will be offended. So, they will join in that offended-ness. They are offended by proxy.
This is the charitable view.
The cynical view is that they are not offended at all and only use the faux outrage in order to dictate the way someone may speak or act.
Indeed, you can see this exhibited by Asheville activist Barry Summers’ comment on the Mountain Xpress story:
Seriously?
Summers basically says he has refrained from ever trying Shiva IPA because he thought it might be offensive to Hindus?
I hate IPAs and even I’ve tried this beer.
He states he’s not Hindu, so the offense he is taking is not based on any personal slight against him. Rather, he refuses to drink a beer because the can in which it sits might be offensive to someone else.
Does Summers have a similar perspective about beers and products that utilize Christian themes and figures?
Jesus Beer
In case you’re wondering if there are any beers that use Jesus….
Yup.
I am so offended!
Are progressives be calling for this beer to be renamed?
Do progressives become offended (by proxy) whenever Christianity or Jesus is insulted?
Hardly.
They are often the ones doing it.
So, what makes the Hindu Shiva special? Why are progressives offended-by-proxy for a religion they don’t follow?
Perhaps it’s because most of the adherents of this religions are not white, and progressives feel the need to rise to their defense, regardless of the merits of the issue.
If you’re not offended by the Jesus beer, you shouldn’t be offended by the Shiva beer.
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