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Preposterous
Exclusive Claims of Christianity
Fundamentalist Christians alone are the holders of valid visas
to heaven and paradise?
Richard
Dawkins (1941 - ) Is
the eminent British ethologist evolutionary theorist, and
popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in
the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
He
is the author of The
God Delusion.
He
has called the
New
Testament
"St
Paul's nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for
original sin."
He has
observed:
“The
God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, petty,
vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic-cleanser
urging his people on to acts of genocide.”
(source:
The
Root of All Evil - wikipedia.org and worldnetdaily.com).
***
India
will
continue to remain hospitable to all religions only if the
Muslim fanatics and the Christian fundamentalists accept the
pluralistic tradition of Hindus which is to consider all
religions as equal. Pluralistic Christians and liberated Muslims
of
India
have done that. The overwhelming majority of Hindus practice it.
Fundamentalist
Christians (Islamic terrorists) assert that they alone are the
holders of valid visas to heaven and paradise!
The
Hindu fundamentalism is a reaction to the provocation of
Christian proselytisers.
The
fanatics among the Christian faith will soon realise that theirs
is a losing battle even if they derive their financial and other
means of support from the wealthy nations overseas.
The real
source of danger to the Indian Christian community is not the
handful of Hindu extremists. Most of the violent incidents have
been due to aggressive evangelising.
A senior RSS leader
once told me: “The incidents of violence against Christians
are a reaction to the aggressive propaganda and mindless
evangelism, abusing Hindu Gods and indulging in similar
activities. The incidents are blown out of proportion. We have
decided not to tolerate intolerance of other faiths. Let the
Church declare that there can be salvation outside the Church
also. The whole atmosphere will undergo a radical change…”
Many of the Indian
Christians were born into Christianity and some others freely
chose to embrace it. They also believe that the Great Commission
in the Gospel, according to Matthew, unequivocally calls us to
witness Christ in a pluralistic setting without violating the
right of others to preach, practice and profess his/her faith.
Witnessing Jesus cannot in any case be done by questionable
means, whether by exploiting people’s socio-psychological
vulnerabilities or by running down other religions.
Will the Christians listen to
the words of sanity of Dr Ken Gnanakan, well-known Christian
scholar who told this writer the other day: “Preach Christ,
but do not condemn others.” Even Jesus said in John 3.17:
“God did not send his Son to condemn the world...”
(source:
End
Aggressive Faith Marketing
- By P N Benjamin - deccan herald September 23,
2008)..
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of Page
Kandhmal:
anti-conversion law imperative
 Count
Lev Nikolaevich
Tolstoy (1828-1910)
the renowned Russian writer and thinker,
the
mystic literary voice of
Russia, was also a herald of Indian thought. He was a champion
of nonviolent protest; he was "an influential factor in the
social restlessness that swept Russia before the
revolution." He was a
mystic who started Russia's first vegetarian society.
After the Bolshevik revolution in 1971, his followers were
persecuted and all vegetarian communities were closed. Tolstoy,
a late-comer, was also deeply influenced by Indian religious
thought. Like Wagner, his introduction to it was through Burnoff
and Schopenhauer.
He
was greatly influenced by the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the
Tamil Tirukkural and the modern Indian spiritual literature of
his time. He
opines
unambiguously:
“The very foundations
of this religion (Christianity) admitted by all and formulated
in the Nicene creed, are so absurd and immoral, and run so
counter to right feeling and to commonsense, that men cannot
believe in them.”
Refer to Things
they don't tell about Christianity
and Harvesting
Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims
- By Arun Shourie.
***
Murder
most Foul: 80-year-old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati
In
a virtual replay of the post-Godhra riots of 2002, the secular
and foreign media has worked overtime to delink the ugly,
provocative murder of 80-year-old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati
and four disciples on Krishna Janmastami day with the violence
that subsequently rocked some districts in Orissa. This is
simply not on.
Swami Laxmanananda was actively involved in the
protection of tribal dharma from aggressive Christian
evangelists in the state’s tribal belt since 1966. He was
killed in his crowded ashram at Jalespata, Kandhmal district,
while performing Janmastami prayers. The murder came close on
the heels of a letter warning he would suffer for preventing
Hindus from converting to Christianity; in fact, his efforts had
caused thousands of tribals to return to the Hindu fold, to the
chagrin of the missionaries.
Conversion
is terrorism.
How
to destroy people's culture? Just get people to stop reading
their Holy scriptures.
The secular
and foreign media has worked overtime to delink the ugly,
provocative murder of 80-year-old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati
and four disciples to aggressive Christian evangelicals.
Refer
to
Partial
History of Christian Missionary Atrocities -
burningcross.net
***
As the Swami had been previously attacked on 25
December 2007 for the same reason, he personally lodged a
complaint with the police and enclosed the threatening letter
along with the FIR. He sought police protection, but fell to the
determination of his assailants before it could arrive. A gang
of 20 to 25 goons barged into his ashram around 9.35 pm, lobbed
a hand-grenade at the gathering of devotees, and fired
indiscriminately with sophisticated weapons, killing Swami
Laxmanananda and four ashram inmates, including
Mata
Bhaktimayee,
on the spot.
Initially, the administration suggested that
the killers could be Maoists, identifying a group known as the
People’s Liberation Revolutionary Group. But Hindu leaders
vigorously refuted this, accusing Christian groups of sponsoring
the attack, especially as the district witnessed fierce Christian
violence against Hindus last Christmas. A BJP state leader
Suresh Pujari said Swami Laxmanananda had no enmity with the Red
rebels, and was only opposed to religious conversion taking
place in various parts of Orissa. He alleged that those opposed
to the saint’s anti-conversion activities had killed him.
Madurai
temple.
It is those working
overtime – with foreign funds and foreign missionaries – to
annihilate the native faith of this country who are aggressors
and cultural iconoclasts; this point needs to be understood by
all concerned.
'Institutional
Christianity', which came to India
with the marauding Portuguese in the 16th century. It is this
Christianity that has been causing trouble in India
in recent times. The argument adduced by Institutional
Christianity is that it is God's command that his good word be
spread all over the world.
They
insist on their 'right' to convert people because God ordained
that people must be converted. Such an attitude is insulting to
non-Christians.
***
However, it may be pertinent to note that most
Maoist activists in the district are also recent converts to
Christianity. Security forces are said to have seized 20 guns
from 47 Maoists arrested in connection with the burning of
villages inhabited by Hindus. In this respect, the murder of
Swami Laxmanananda may be said to closely resemble the murder of
Swami Shanti Kali ji Maharaj in Tripura
in August 2000; he too
was shot in his own ashram by gun-wielding goons after several
dire warnings for anti-conversion activities in the state’s
tribal belt. Subsequently,
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar
admitted the involvement of the Baptist church with the
insurgency in the state.
The truth is otherwise. It is those working
overtime – with foreign funds and foreign missionaries – to
annihilate the native faith of this country who are aggressors
and cultural iconoclasts; this point needs to be understood by
all concerned.
In the specific context of Orissa, there is need
to revisit the sensational murder of Australian missionary
Graham Staines in January 1999, and honestly assess the tribal
anguish that led to that sad denouement. One of the reasons why
there has been no sober voice on the Staines murder is the
tragic fact that his two minor sons died with him; but now that
we are nearly a decade away from that event, we need to give the
tribal agony due respect. A blanket ban on missionaries
operating in tribal areas could go far to assuage tribal
feelings. Indeed, the recognition that missionaries may have
gone too far in provoking the increasingly affirmative Hindu
community forced some Christian groups to condemn the murder of
Swami Laxmanananda by evangelist religious fanatics.
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati took this simmering discontent head-on,
calling for an open debate on conversions, which were at the
root of the unrest in tribal-dominated areas. He asserted: “I
have told the National Human Rights team that conversion and
foreign funding to NGOs were the reasons behind communal riots
in Kandhamal.”
Now
that this valiant warrior for Hindu civilisation and
India
’s foundational ethos has been struck down, the State and
Central Government owe it to the nation to scrutinize the flow
of foreign funds to Christian missionaries and make public the
manner of their utilization. There must also be a complete ban
on the foreign funding of faiths not indigenous to this
soil.
(source:
Kandhmal:
anti-conversion law imperative - By Sandhya Jain -
crusadewatch.org). Refer
to Why
was Swami Laxmanananda killed? - organiser.org. Refer
to The
Prophecy of John Dayal: Revelation No: 999 - Compreligion.sulekha.com
and NGO-Naxal-Christian
nexus behind Murder of Swami Lakshmananda and
Missionary
or spy? Did someone help Haywood flee?
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Vatican
banking on sari-clad Virgin Mary in Indian Bible to draw in
converts
How
to Lure poor gullible Hindus as congregations
decline in Europe and North America.
Stealing
Holy Scriptures from the Heathen/Pagan Hindus of India: The Mantra of Egotists
For
thousands of years, egotists have stolen from the Hindus.
Unfortunately, many Hindus have allowed this to happen through
complacency and even compliance. For millennia, western folks
have stolen religious ideas, phrases, mantras, discoveries
(science & otherwise), inventions from
India
without giving Hindus credit in most phases.
List
includes - Aryan,
Swastika, Yoga.
***
Vatican
hopes Indian
Bible will translate into surge of converts
"Under
Christianity, Europe learned to reject its ancestors, its past,
which cannot be good for its future also. Europe became sick
because it tore apart from its own heritage, it had to deny its
very roots."
- Henry Hughes
 Arun
Shourie (1941- ) is a Rajya Sabha member and among
India's best known commentators on current and political
affairs. His writings are backed by rigorous analysis and
meticulous research.
Shourie
has been an economist with the World
Bank, a consultant in the
planning commission and the editor of Indian Express. Among the
many honors and awards, he has received the Magsaysay Award, the
International Editor of the Year, the Dadabhai Naoroji and the
Astor Award. Author of several books, including Secular
Agenda, Eminent
Historians, Harvesting
Our Souls, Religions
in Politics. Shourie writes:
"Ever
since Christian missionaries began their efforts to harvest our
souls here, they have had four USPs, so to say: that their Lord,
Jesus Christ, has been a historical figure, while our gods have
been figment of imagination; that their Lord has been the more
powerful Lord as he performed miracles which the others did not
- walking on water, raising the dead, healing the sick,
controlling the sea...; that all this testified to in something
they have and we do not, the Book - the Bible, to recall the
declaration of The First Vatican Council, " have God as
their author; and that, while our gods are mired in sin, their
Lord is immaculate."
(source:
Harvesting
Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims
- By Arun Shourie p. 81).
***
London, July 26: With the
picture of a sari-clad Virgin Mary and a loincloth and
turban-clad Joseph in the first 'Indianised'
Bible, the Vatican is hoping to attract more people into
turning to the Catholic church in India - as congregations
decline in Europe and North America.
“The
calculation is that this (India) is the last great missionary
front on Earth,”
-
John
L. Allen Jr, a Vatican expert based in
Rome.
 
Sadguru Yesu
(Jesus in Yoga posture), a turbaned Joseph and the illustration of the holy family
flight from Egypt.
Hindus
say that they amount to blatant proselytising so stop killing the
civilizations of the world and brainwashing people. Conservative
Christians say that such devices corrupt the Bible's original
meaning. The
Vatican is desperately trying to get rid of the the
Colonial
baggage of being understood to be foreigners or
European lackeys.
***
And the news comes straight
from the mouth of Oswald Gracias, the Archbishop of Mumbai, who
released The New Community Bible during a recent ceremony. "I am sure this Bible,
made in India and for Indians, will bring the word of God closer
to millions of our people, not only Christians," Times
Online quoted him, as saying.
Christian
Deception and desperation? Dilution of the Christian faith with
the help of stolen Hindu scriptures?
An 'Indianised'
Bible with references to the Upanishads,
Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti and drawings of a turbaned
Joseph and sari-clad Mary
with baby Jesus in her arms, is making waves in
Kerala.
It even quotes
Hindu scriptures, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, to help explain
Christianity to prospective converts.
Now
the Sermon on the Mount is called Giri Gita.
***
An 'Indianised'
Bible with references to the Upanishads,
Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti and drawings of a turbaned
Joseph and sari-clad Mary
with baby Jesus in her arms, is making waves in
Kerala.
It even quotes
Hindu scriptures, such as the Ramayana and
Mahabharata, to help explain
Christianity to prospective converts.
 “The
calculation is that this (India) is the last great missionary
front on Earth”
- John
L. Allen Jr,
a Vatican
expert based in Rome, said.
This is an
unprecedented venture as Indian scriptures Upanishads, Bhagavad
Gita and Mausmriti have been used in a Bible by way of
interpretations to biblical passages for the first time, says
Catholic church spokesperson Father
Paul Thelekat. This is an attempt to make contextual
reading and understanding.
The
Mumbai-based publishing house, St Pauls, which brings out
religious books, has come out with the new Indian Bible, which
also has references to Meerabai,
Mahatma Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore in the
interpretations of biblical passages.
The text
of the Bible is the accepted Catholic version, whose
interpretations are made with an Indian cultural perspective.
(source: Bible
with reference to Hindu scriptures making waves - rediff.com).
Refer
to Harvesting
Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims
- By Arun Shourie. Refer to chapter on European
Imperialism. Refer to Christianity
and Islam: Which is the Worst? - By Charles Sabillon -
americanchronicle.com
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Harvesting
Hindu Souls - A look at the Bible - By Arun Shourie
Peddling
Dubious theological wares to Hindus
They
have God as their author
Ever
since missionaries began to harvest our souls here, they have
had four USPs, so to say: that their Lord Jesus
Christ, has been a historical figure,
while our gods have been figment of imagination; that their Lord
has been the more powerful
Lord as he performed miracles which others did not – walking
on water, raising the dead, healing the sick, controlling the
sea, …that all this is testified in the Old and New
Testaments, and these, to recall the declaration of the First
Vatican Council, “have God as their author”; and that, while
our gods are mired in sin, their Lord
is immaculate.
The
claim that the Gospels have God as
their author, and also that they set out historical
facts, literally and unerringly true, is reiterated time and
again by the Church till today. Vatican II did so with full
gravity and authority.
What
is one to make of this divinely authored mix up? “Both
texts have to be eliminated as historical sources, says the New
Encyclopaedia Britannica. They are nevertheless
important for the development of Christology because they reveal
the difficulty of reconciling the genealogical proof of
Jesus.” The comment of The Oxford
Companion to the Bible is just as telling: “Davidic
descent, conception through the Holy Spirit while his mother
remained a virgin, homage at birth,” it says, all “are
clearly theological.”
Gods
adorning Lord Vishnu
Missionary
literature is full of such statements as
are the writings of missionary-scholars
like Max Muller.
“The
Hindus are mired in superstition and primitive beliefs. They
live in terror of their 330 million gods, cajoling and satiating
them. The country is veritable den of Satan, a perfect example
of what Satan does to a people...”
The
God of the Bible commands his people to break down all idols of
others. He commands them to pulverize all altars of other gods.
And he commands, Every first-born son and first-born male
domestic animal belongs to Me, but you are to buy back every
first-born donkey by offering a lamb in its place. If you do not
buy it back, break its neck. But buy back every first-born son.
No one is to appear before Me without an offering…”
The
Broad minded and tolerant spirit is evident in the Hindu
Scriptures: The Vedas teach us to pray for
the well being of everyone and everything – inanimate as well
as animate without distinction.
Lord
Krishna said: "In whatever way men love Me, in
the same way they find My love; various are the ways of men, but
in the end they all come to Me." "I am the Self seated
in the heart of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle
and the very end of all beings". He declared
that "I am in every religion as the thread through a string
of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and
extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou
that I am there."
***
Jesus’
virgin birth: The belief that is fostered that the
child was conceived between the betrothal and marriage of Joseph
and Mary, by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. This is one of
the most advertised marks of Jesus’ divinity, and so it is
surprising that neither the Gospel according to Mark , nor that
according to John so much as mentions it. Matthew and Luke
mention it, but with embarrassing differences.
The
primitive, the superstitious becomes the divine, the sublime –
when they do it!
Bowing
to an idol of some god other than the one Lord is heinous.
Making any offering, sacrificing anything in honor of any other
deity is terrible. Even burning incense before representations
of those others, is a capital crime. But when it comes to
Himself, the Lord God is both – very
possessive, as well as very,
very punctilious.
He
commands his people to break down all idols of others. He
commands them to pulverize all altars of other gods. And he
commands, Every first-born son and first-born male domestic
animal belongs to Me, but you are to buy back every first-born
donkey by offering a lamb in its place. If you do not
buy it back, break its neck. But buy back every first-born son.
No one is to appear before Me without an offering…”
The
Temple
of
Jerusalem
is at last nearing completion. The Lord God is giving
instructions to Ezekiel about how it is to be consecrated to
Him. “Mortal man, listen to what I tell you,” he says,
“When the altar is built, you are to dedicate it by burning
sacrifices on it and by sprinkling on it the blood of animals
that were sacrificed ..You will give them (the priests) a
young bull to offer as a sacrifice for sin.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls found in, among other places, Qumran
– is a particularly telling source. The scrolls
are said to have been written between 100 BC and AD 70. Much
before the birth of Jesus they talk of a “teacher of
Righteousness”, those who wrote them lived in the expectation
that such a person would perform miracles like healing the sick
and resurrecting the dead, that he shall bring good tidings to
the meek, that he will shepherd them that the opponents “shall
slay the prince of the congregation by piercing.” The very
notions, indeed the very phrases predate Jesus and the Gospels
by as much as a hundred years has created a
predictable consternation in the Church since 1947
when the Scrolls were discovered. For
the question has naturally risen: can it be that such legends
and messianic expectations were in common currency in the
Middle East
at the time, and were projected on to Jesus?
Refer
to The
Dead Sea
Scroll and the Crisis of Christianity
- By N S Rajaram - burningcross.net.
“I,
the Sovereign Lord, Almighty”
“The
Hindus are mired in superstition and primitive beliefs. They
live in terror of their 330 million gods, cajoling and satiating
them. The country is veritable den of Satan, a perfect example
of what Satan does to a people..”
Missionary
literature is full of such statements. As are the
writings of missionary-scholars like
Max Muller. Apart from asserting that the worship of
numerous gods is symptom of primitive beliefs, of retarded
spiritual evolution, for five hundred years missionaries and
committed scholars have heaped calumny
on those Gods – they are sinful, they are given to
licentious conduct, anyone worshipping such gods cannot but
imbibe their predisposition to sin, sex, liquor, and the rest.
By
contrast, they have presented their
belief in one God – monotheism – as the theological
breakthrough sans peer. He is One. He is powerful
while your gods are powerless. He is pure while your gods are
given to drink, deceit, sexual immorality – these were the
staples of missionary publications till the mid-fifties. Since
then the calumny is put our surreptitiously – to tribals, to
the illiterate.
 What
is the God we find in the Bible? What is so great
about His being conceived to be One? What does he want of his
devotees? How does He want them to look upon those of other
faiths? Does He display the virtues in which missionaries dress
Christianity – humility, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion,
equanimity?
Large
hearted?
- Moses, God’s chosen prophet, warns his
fellow-Israelites, “If you do worship other gods, the Lord’s
anger will come against you like fire and will destroy you
completely, because the Lord your God, who is present with you,
tolerates no rival.
The
ascent of Jesus
- All His devices having failed to get the
people to worship Him and Him alone, god contrives a peculiar
stratagem. He sends down His only son. To suffer and be killed.
God
- Except for having thought up a new device,
God in the New Testament remains what He has been in the Old. He
remains the Jealous God.
Jesus warns the Pharisees.
He that is not with me is against me; and he that
gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
God’s singular concern
remains the same – that is, to ensure that He, and He alone is
worshipped.
Broadminded?
Ecumenical? Tolerant?
The
Vedas teach us to pray for the well being of everyone and
everything – inanimate as well as animate without distinction.
(source:
Harvesting
Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims
- By Arun Shourie p.
223 -370).
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