Church Lures Gujarat Tribals to Christ

Dost ji, I am reading your discussion with urstruly with interest. I find it very informative as my knowledge about Hinduism is very limited.

to my question: whether Ramayan and Mahabharat are fictional or real is inconsequent to my question...suppose they are real stories ..but still the books were written long after the events. The authors Balmik and Ved Vyas never met any of the characters, so how fair is it to attribute any statement word by word to any of the charaters? So how sure are we then that Krishna did claim himself to be God or was it author`s own interpretation or how he heard about? This is not even first or second hand narratives like Hadith...it is even weaker than hadith. Don`t I have a point?

#165 by poolani on November 17, 2005 11:00pm PT
“People like tahmed32 are a scum of this world. I really do not know why Chowkies should tolerate him.”

The first thing should be for you to stop posting articles here. If you can’t take the heat stay away from the gas stoves in Gujarat…or you call them stopes too!

“Suryavanshi is optimistic: “My men are lured by cash, kind and help. But I’m sure they will reconvert to Hinduism if some Hindu group offers the same benefits. Also, the government should chalk out some measures to curb this practice.”

I am not going to flatter you here with you prowess in writing or quoting different people but at least a theme has emerged, perhaps unintentional, that all conversions are for some worldly benefits and people would reconvert once the benefits of conversion disappear.

Now as I understand it there is no re-conversion in Hinduism…in that case, people are just changing names from Nathoo ram to Michael ram and then changing it back to Nathoo ram again. So why is conversion such a big issue?

The other question I have for you that nobody seems to be paying attention to out of reverence for your worthy effort in bringing the plight of the converted hindus home, that why Hindu faith is so weak that people convert for a few medicine or crumbs that churches throw their way. Have you had a chance to look into this issue or it is all about churches are luring people into conversions.

Obviously, the poverty and helplessness of the poor Hindus is so stark that a few quid would make them change their religion.

Let me try and pick your brain even further…The Muslims/Sikhs/any other religion, in India or in Gujarat are as poor as the Hindus are, then why is that the Hindus are an easy prey for the evil priests than the Muslims or Sikhs or anyone else with a different religion. Poverty in India is not specific to the Hindus alone.

If I sound a little sarcastic then accept that as a part of posting articles on chowk and taking a little heat and sarcasm from people like tahmed and me.

Re: # 180

HP:

``that why Hindu faith is so weak that people convert for a few medicine or crumbs that churches throw their way. ``

its because the hindus are taught that all religions are true. they are different paths to the same god. whereas muslims and chirstians are taught that we you forsake allah/chirst you are going to burn in hell.

hindus should emulate muslims/chirstians. they should throw this garbage of ``all religions equal`` and be as aggressive as them: my way or the highway.

Sattar:

There are two reasons I did not respond to your post:

1. We have discussed these issues ad infinitum earlier.

2. You are not a very pleasant person to have conversation with. You used to be pretty reasonable and tolerant person but then you turned into abusive and insulting. When things or arguments don`t go your way you use these two attributes as your defense mecahnism.

If you can maintain a modicum of decency in this exchange of views you are quite welcome to join the debate.

Dost

As I said, more I learn about other religions more I am convinced that the origin of all religions is One Supreme God and He had only one message to mankind, i.e. of Monotheism.

As far as concept of re-incarnation and karma is concerned, although it contradicts the concept of final judgement and then Heaven or Hell in Islam; but on examination I found out that the concept of Karma as a matter of fact is a derivative (or deformation) of the concept of original concept of Heaven and Hell that was once inherent in the ancient vedic Hinduism.

In ancient vedic hinduism there was a concept of Heaven (sawarg) and Hell (narkh) and this concept was associeted with the good and bad deed of the human beings - which is the basic beleif in Islamic belief system as well. What may have caused this concept to distort or get corrupted must be a philosophical dilemma that man might have come across in those times. Someone in that time might have raised the question (to the high priest or to the messenger of God of that time) ``Any particualr sin that I committ in this world is a one time deal, or may be if I committ it repeatedly, even then its occurance is of finite time and with a finite duration, so why when I`d go to hell for my sins, I`d have to burn and suffer till eternity i.e. for infinite number of times for infinite duration``. The same argument might have been made for good deeds as well. So at that time the people with weak faith, who couldn`t comprehend the mercy and bounty of their Creator might have rebelled. But since the concept of Cause-n-effect is so hardwired into our genes they could not (or a large majority of them) could not deny the Divinity entirely niether they could deny the concept of action and their consequences so they invented the concept of Karma and re-incarnation. The core idea is that you are re-born with the finite baggage of your previous deeds and their consequences. You do your time for a finite time of a lifetime bear the consequences and move onto the next re-incarnation untill all your finite good deeds and finite bad deeds cancel out each other and you become a clean slate.

Ironically, in Baghvad Gita, which in my opinion was written quite late after vedic times, mentions that Lord Krishna promises Heaven & Hell in excahnge for the worship man does for Divinity(Allah), Bhootas (Evil) and Krishna (Diety). If you recall our previous conversation, Didn`t I say that even the dieties in Hinduism refer to One Supreme God.


Here I found the vedic description of Heaven (Sawarga) at an internet website. The description of Heaven is almost identical to Islamic description which we have thru Qura`n and Hadith. Read and learn:

``…The heaven is well provided with excellent paths…The Siddhas, the Vaiswas, the Gandharvas, the Apsaras, the Yamas and the Dhamas dwell there. There are many celestial gardens. Here sport persons of meritorious acts. Neither hunger nor thirst, nor heat, nor cold, neither grief nor fatigue, neither labour nor repentance, nor fear, nor anything that is disgusting and inauspicious; none of these is to be found in heaven. There is no old age either…Delightful fragrance is found everywhere. The breeze is gentle and pleasant. The inhabitants have resplendent bodies. Delightful sounds captivate both the ear and the mind. These worlds are obtained by meritorious acts and not by birth nor by the merits of fathers and mothers…There is neither sweat nor stench, nor excretion nor urine. The dust does not soil one`s clothes. There is no uncleanliness of any kind. Garlands (made from flowers) do not fade. Excellent garments full of celestial fragrance never fade. There are countless celestial cars that move in the air. The dwellers are free from envy, grief, ignorance and malice. They live very happily…`` Savami Shivnanda 1885.

Urstruly,

No response from you regarding #94 and #124?
What gives?

Getting philosophical is easy. But it is merely an attempt from you to sound somewhat intelligent as you recycle worn out arguments that don`t cut it.


Romair,

This is what happens when I take on our internet scholar on his own turf. As I’ve said before, he ducks the issue. And as you see, he`s done it again here.

#165 poolani,

like behramji, tahmed represents a viewpoint which should be addressed. its a viewpoint perhaps representative of a large number of folks. so its a good thing to know whats going on in that mind.

#156 tahemed

{What you are clearly implying is that you know better than those who convert what is best for the latter - clearly you are in possession of a superior mind where, without even being in their shoes, you know what is best for those who convert to christianity. }

there you go again. where did i clearly imply what you ascribe to me? you CLEARLY seem to be bent on maligning my character for some reason. you may apologize to your god to ease the sour bile taste in your mouth.

do you remember personally, with FREE WILL, denigrating ahmedia beliefs when you got that passport?

correction#172:

In my post to Urstruly, I mistyped Iliad instead of Homer. Iliad, of course, is the name of the odyssey.

Urstruly#144:

“However, later as the time passed, in each and every society man started thinking how could God who is so benevolent and who sustains me, how could He take my beloved child away from me. How could a God who is so merciful kill so many people in flood or earthquake. How does he allow bad things happen to me.”

The subcontinental thought process dealt with this issue by taking God out of this equation and ascribing such happenings to karma or one’s own deeds. In other words, they suggested that there was, indeed, justice in this world but it sometimes takes place beyond Keynesian long-run. In other words, the innocent child who is killed by the earthquake may not have done anything wrong in this life but probably is paying back for some dastardly deed in a previous life. This is why, there is no concept of shaitan in the subcontinental mythology.

“That is the reason that there are identical attributes of gods and godesses in Hindu, Greek, Norsk, and Roman mythologies and almost all pagan religions.”

You are on more solid grounds here. Yes, the commonality is striking. One can see similarities also in Iliad’s classics and Mahabharata and Ramayana. For someone like me, it suggests interactions among our ancestors, either through trade routes or migration from a common stock in historical antiquity.

The differences in your and my explanations are because your worldview is shaped by your faith. My explanation, however, does not arise out of any faith. I believe religions to be man-made. To me, it makes sense that religions that developed in West Asia would build on the existing faiths and philosophies in West Asia, whereas those that developed on the subcontinent would build on philosophies that pre-existed in that area. One can see that when Islam came to India and people became aware of it, religions that developed after that, e.g., Sikhism or Kabir Panth, borrowed concepts from that religion into the new faiths.


Dullabhatti:

You made a valid distinction between “one’s right to convert” and “one’s right to convert others”. There may be distinction in ethics but my understanding of Indian laws is that both of them are allowed; at least this is what I understand from the freedom not only to practice but also to propagate one’s religion.

“Did Krishna write Bhagwat Gita or Mahabharat? My understanding was these scriptures were written later. Since Krishna was not the author himself, how can he claim in Bhagwat Gita that he is God? Please iss te thoRha chaan`ana pao te meharbani.”

One can take Ramayan and Mahabharat as historical facts narrated by later day writers (just as Bible was written by others) or as fiction created by people around some real and imaginary events. If you accept the former, then Krishna indeed claimed to be God while explaining the universe to Arjun, as the authors claimed. If you take the second approach, then it’s all fiction anyway and the answer is self-evident.

BTW in one of your interacts, you raised the political consequences of conversion. This is quite important and I, for one, have never underplayed its importance. However, this is perhaps valid only for conversion to Islam. I am not aware if any Christian convert claimed to be part of a Christian umma or brought trade and commerce to a halt in support of the oppressed Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, East Timor or even Nagaland. As for Islam, I cannot be certain that my own son or grandson wouldn’t become a jihadi or demand a separate Islamic state if I converted to Islam.

SN#147:
“They may very well not be a part of the religion at all. But for a majority of followers it is an integral part, in the way they perceive and practice their religion. So, any talk of understanding/reforming a religion without correcting these is just not gonna work.”

No disagreement there. One cannot cure a problem by being in denial. I am more optimistic about Hindus; the caste problem in the Hindu society is more serious than perhaps anything in Islam. But the elite have at least openly acknowledged it and have been trying to do something about it for the last two generations. Maybe, it will take another generations and two but the problem will finally be resolved. But I am less optimistic about Islam. Here, the elite’s response is to deny the source of the problem and attribute it to a distortion of Islam by claiming that sharia is not an integral part of Islam. Some of them may genuinely believe this to be the case and others are just plain hypocrites who want to put a spin on their faith without having to undertake difficult reforms.

Tahmed32:

“Pakistan on paper discourages religous freedom, but that is not reflected in the minds of the vast majority of Pakistanis”

This assertion needs to be examined. As you said, actions are more important than what’s on paper. I had in an earlier post asked how many Muslims have converted to another religion in Pakistan and lived to tell the tale? Could you please give one or two cases which were well publicised in the Pakistani media? It certainly couldn’t be because Islam is universally admired and being Muslim is a badge of honour which people wear with pride these days in the world? If you cannot give any such example, then facts support Urstruly and please be honest enough to admit that there is no freedom for a Muslim to convert to another religion and Pakistan is a living proof of that.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Hindus in India who have changed their religion; some of them have taken place in mass conversion. Ambedkar did it along with thousands of his followers in a public ceremony. There have been several high profile cases where men have changed their religion just to legally have more than one wife. There have been no riots against them. Even these days, there is a high profile case of Monica Bedi who converted to Islam to marry a suspected bomber of Bombay, Abu Salem. The only time someone reacted violently against such conversion, that I am aware of, was the killing of Australian missionary Stains, which you have of course pointed upteen times in your posts at chowk as an example of Hindu bigotry as exemplified at chowk, without telling which Hindu chowkie or prominent Hindu or organization supported his killer (even VHP condemned it!).

dullabhatti: suppression of an individual`s rights to think for himself makes a country weak, not strong. diversity of religion does not make a country weak unless it is accompanied by religious intolerance - the US has perhaps the world`s greatest diversity of religions and conversions from one faith to another is not an issue.

poolani: coming from someone who decries not poverty and widespread misery of the poor in india, but the fact that ``poverty is forcing the tribal community to embrace Christianity``, i consider it an honor to be considered the scum of the earth. i would be really insulted if you said i was like one of your heroes.

#166 ``Teresa and Missionaries of Charity are any day a more potent cancer than the church ever will be. ``

They certainly are - for hindu men like poolani arguing to keep hindus from opting out of hinduism. Mother Teresa is the worst nightmare of the rss thugs.

harishhyd #164 That convoluted definition of free will, tampered by ifs and buts, is obviously your definition of free will. it is not the english dictionary meaning of free will. look it up in an english dictionary, then come talk to me.

People like tahmed32 are a scum of this world. I really do not know why Chowkies should tolerate him. I know even if he is blocked, he will reappear in a new attire. And that`s cowardice. And, dude, I do not owe you an explanation. To know about me you only have to do a Google search, but that is not the case with you. And this will be the last time I will be answering your mail. Do you think if any sane person will reply to the mails sent by bin Laden or Narendra Modi? And I am not a Hindu but a citizen of the world: this is to the other pals who thought I was touchy and a VHP guy. I am not going to rest my case.

Re: # 165 poolani
[....I really do not know why Chowkies should tolerate him[tahmed32]....]

Precisely because he is the way he is.... We need to have all kinds of people here in chowk - that`s the whole idea....

Go easy on Mr Tauheed Ahmed, also known as Closet-Mullah32..... Being a Mullah-in-the-Closet, Mr Ahmed has an ``interesting``[read, half-baked] perspective on many things.... So let him say his piece, half-baked [and down-right stupid, sometimes] as they may be....