Category: Hindu-Christian Discussions

Gaushal and Yogshala are symbol of fanatics?

From: Rabinder Koul <arrk00@ameritech.net>
To: Daniel Anson <ansondaniel@hotmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: (Desiyatra)– Re: Gaushal and Yogshala are symbol of fanatics?

Oh!, what a display of tantrum, It must be uncomfortable to see your image in the mirror, No one wants to know how ugly they are. It is your clan of Christians who have been building a long false tale of tails. And pass this as History. It is your Crusaders in arms from who Christian Churches in South India are spreading the hate, First your masters from the Europe created the North South Divide as they did among the Rawanda between the Tutsu-and Hutus (which ended up in Genocide between them).  Now your inadvertent mental leak, that your ancestors have been living longer than mine in India is again reflection of the same Divide that Aryans came from outside. And you are so alienated that you have fallen for that. As I said nothing in you has remained Indian. You think like a foreign Christian, your heroes are looters, opportunists, thieves from Foreign land (who you worship), you look down upon Indians native civilizations (again an initial Mental leak), your sacred places are outside of India. What Indian-ness has left in you, perhaps Indian color? If it were up to you, I am sure you would want to change it.

 

The fact is that this email chain started with the Scorn you were Pouring on Gao-Shaala and Yoga-Shaala only proved my bulleted points what happens to a converted. History you hardly know, you know the narration of India as created by these looters with obvious ulterior motives. No body may have put Gun to your head, but they did much worse than that to you. You have invited this communication, since you were the first one to cast a stone, on your Mothers Bharat as you said) native traditions of Gao-Shalla and Yoga-Shaalla. If you considered her your Mother you would not cast that Stone.  Christians have not and are not building this country you call India.

 

What you call ‘Bad” (a Christian category and not Indian category) things, is done by the Christians to India. Keep these rapists priests’ sermons to yourself.  We do not have even in our dictionary these meaningless categories. Go read B Russels, why I am not a Christian to learn something more serious and at least honest.  This non-sensical Christian superstition is yours to keep.  All Don’t even attempt to go on the church Pedestal and try to sermonize me. You will face inevitable loss of face since you won’t be able to defend what you sermonize. The book on Albanian Teresa is not written by a Hindu, but by a Christian from Germany. The book Breaking India is an exceptionally documented work.

 

The Religion is a Semitic construct; Hindus do not have such a stupid irrational category. But then you would not know it. Read Prof Balachandrans book Pagan in his Blindness if you have inclinations of honest understanding. The faith followers’ acts are reflection on the other followers of that faith. For they hold the same ideological fallacies in highest regard. Their Heroes arise from it, not a lot of admirable heroes. Their hate for people not-following their faith or ideology, forces them to convert others (we Indians do not do that… such extreme destruction of civilization is not our doing).  I am well aware of what is happening in North East and who is driving it. So your ignorance of the history will work with Gullible Indians or Christians not with me.

 

 

In the end I did not start this interaction; you denigrating comments on GaoShaala & YogShaala started it. Your Christians did same thing to Ghanikas calling them prostitutes, and reflecting on them what you do to Nuns among you, who are treated as Sex Slave in Church.  The papers are replete with such revelations.

 

Those whose houses are made of Glass, do not cast Stones on others Houses, they will be destroyed if they do. So refrain from showing your scorn on Indian traditions.

 

Ravindra Koul

अस्मद्रूपसमाविष्ठ: स्वात्मनात्मानिवारणे

शिव: करोतु निजया नम: शक्त्या ततात्मने

 

On Sep 10, 2011, at 2:57 AM, Daniel Anson wrote:
Don’t need you to teach me history being fabricated by you for your benefit and I don’t have the time to explain this to you cause I don’t think it’s worth the effort.
Appreciate your thoughts which will surely help build this country.
Your thoughts only create the people who get into doing bad because of your acceptance to them.
Conversion; go read more about it and see what’s actually happening around the world rather than just ranting away .I am a south Indian who chose to convert not by someone who put a gun on my head to tell me to. Get your facts right and see what is actually happening in the NE.
Lastly I don’t demean religion by pointing a finger and abusing religious disciples like you do.
Nice words on sabotage, subverting that Christians have done, still to see In our country, not by links which are half baked, do point one fourth of what people who made a difference for poor like Ambedkar, Teresa, Gandhi did for the country rather than sit and show your hate and build more unrest from your living room .Get the real picture. You surely will make a difference to this nation with your HIGH thoughts of how to change this country…appreciate your love towards me by judging me for my faith, very mature. Strange how a person’s faith makes him the History of what happened and get attached to it. Every religion has history which had its ups and downs and don’t choose for the benefit of making your point and link it to the present, cause I live in it and I don’t think you do. You are trying to make me feel that I don’t belong here .don’t try that with me. I probably have more ancestral history in this country than you…request you not to build on this conversation as I would not like to converse with you as we don’t have the same thought process.
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

—–Original Message—–
From: Rabinder Koul <arrk00@ameritech.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 05:48:28
To: <ansondaniel@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (Desiyatra)– Re: Gaushal and Yogshala are symbol of fanatics?

You should have listened to your advice, Because it is your community of converted Christians who bent upon dividing our Country. It is the Christians who are getting funded from Vatican, Methodist, Evangelicals, Baptists, and so many other churches to change the demography of this nation and bring it to list of another destroyed civilization.

1. What happens to a converted Christian? Don’t project the Christian hatred on us Hindus. It is Christianity that teaches intolerance for the Non-Christians. You may not have personally gone to Armenia or Turkey or Pagan Europe, but it is the same ideology that wiped them, that is trying to wipe Indian Civilization. If you want to know Check the “Project Joshua 10:40” to starters.  Next, if you love India, go and read “Breaking India” and see how your Christian brothers from India and outside are planning to finish India. Only places where there is Secessionist movements going on in India are in places where Majority of the population has converted, either to Islam (Kashmir) or to Christianity (North East). So what Love for India are you talking about. In Indian civilizational ethos we call Bharat as Bharat Mata. And Christians and Muslims are out to divide that Body of our Mother.

   I am sending you the links below on Real Teresa, and what she did.. not what you may want to believe….

   Please please do not bring in Parsis, and do not try to glorify Christianity by associating Parsis. They are real Jems of a community, have never created any problem and have always been honored.  They have always been for the country they lived in, Not Christians.

   If my relatives have settled abroad, they are not involved in secessionist activities, they are not subverting those countries with the intent of changing demography, by conversation process. They honor and respect those people and their way. That is not what you can say about Christians, who are bent upon sabotaging, denigrating and subverting the nation. Whole LTT movement in Sri-Lanka was Church and Christian countries supported. Whole North east of India secessionist movements are Christian organizations supported and supported by Christian converts from within India. Whole Dalit-Afro Movement is created by the Methodist Christian leadership from Colorado…. Whole Driavidistan Movement is initiated by Christians from within and the Christians from America, and Nordic and countries etc. Don’t think Hindus are stupid and they do not see…

   We Indians received Christians, Parsis, Jews and Chinese from outside, provided them all that they needed to make a life for themselves. Only place Jews did not get persecuted was in Hindu India, not in Christian Europe and certainly not in Muslim Arabia… So you are not in any position to teach love and tolerance.. In the South the problem with Christianity arose in particular after Portuguese Christians entered and created Havoc for Hindus and started aggressive conversion process.. Read Goa’s inquisition by that Moron St. Francis Xavier.. and others.. See how Christians subverted Indians language of Intellectual discourse to alienate Hindus from their own civilization…

   What happens when a person converts?
   What does conversion do?

 

1.   When a person gets converted, a Sitar gets replaced by Guitar.

1. The Hindu dresses get replaced by Islamic or western dress.
2. The Hindi or any local language gets replaced by Urdu/Arabic or English.
3. Praan Tyagnaa becomes meeting ones demise.
4. The sacred places within India get replaced by the sacred places outside of India.
5. Vegetables and lamb etc gets replaced by Beef
6. The historical Hindu heroes become Villains and the foreign Villains become heroes of the converted.
7. Baabar and the Akbar are sung as heroes and Prithvi Raaj, Chatrapati Shivaji, Maharaana Partap become villains and cruel.
8. Local traditions become superstition and Islamic and Christian tradition becomes advancement.
9. You change your ancestors from Manu to Adam. You become Aadmi (a descendent of Adam) and stop being Maanav (a descendent of Manu)
10. Your customs change to the customs of the Arabs and Christian Europe, and your ancestral customs become taboo.
11. You look down upon the customs and practices of the local Hindus and take pride in adopted Arab and European customs.
12. You see the in Quran or Bible as savior and the “TRUE LAWS FROM GOD” as opposed to the false hood of Dharma.
13. Every time a converted becomes a majority in a region, converted will start a secessionist movement of separating from India.
14. You use Christian and Islamic forums to attack, defame and denigrate people following Dharma tradition.

Given all these changes, I wonder what is left there for a converted to have allegiance love for India and Indian. If it was not the immediate need of survival he or she would not care for the survival of this cultural entity called Dharma. That is every effort is made to translate Dharma as religion and make an equivalence. And Hindus fall for it.

On your Mother Terrasa: Read this by a Non-Indian..
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.html
and read this
http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/MotherTeresa.html

and this
http://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/product-reviews/185984054X

and this
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice <http://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/dp/185984054X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/186-7230494-0773215>

Watch these  for what you St. Xaviers did to Hindus, I am sure you will like it ..

http://www.youtube.com/dharmaandethics

<http://www.youtube.com/dharmaandethics

http://www.youtube.com/dharmaandethics#p/c/5C36234C982635BD/0/GT9b8n_NKGk

Enjoy, I am sure either you are ignorant and naive about these issues or you are an apt liar beside everything else I have said…
Even after that if you have argument then we can talk …

Ravindra Koul

On Sep 10, 2011, at 12:30 AM, Daniel Anson wrote:

I thought of not replying to this mail but somehow thought I must. Your thought is definitely not on the progress of this country but on dividing it.
How many people are you going to remove from this country ?? You seem to be an educated person but your thoughts are more hatred .Christians never have hatred in India which is my country to.
It’s not the terms that” I” went to Armenia and Turkey etc like you say. I am a person of this generation that believes in change for the country for the better and not by the divide. So much on history then you must also know the history of mother Teresa as well. I guess by your logic she should also have been thrown out. So much hate like you say then Staine’s murder was good enough bloodshed for Christians to rebel but there was only peace. So much violence Christians and Parsis have created in this country according to you. I need you to point out one instance of that in India!!
Throw out all races and communities from other countries as well because they don’t belong there. Can you tell me that none of your relatives have settled abroad?? Why have they?? Who are you to throw me out my country?? This is my country and don’t divide that by religion. It’s this thought that pulls are progress in our country to the future which is small and petty.
On your words ” go back the same to your mother”. I don’t think you respected your mother to talk like that about elders and people, can’t change your mind.
As for the bigger picture, my mother is the same as yours – India, and I stay with her. I suggest you start respecting her and making a difference rather than dividing her…
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

—–Original Message—–
From: Rabinder Koul <arrk00@ameritech.net <mailto:arrk00@ameritech.net> >
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 01:53:18
To: <desiyatra@googlegroups.com <mailto:desiyatra@googlegroups.com> >
Subject: Re: (Desiyatra)– Re: Gaushal and Yogshala are symbol of fanatics?

The only fanatics in this world are Christians and Muslims. Their history is replete with the ethnic cleaning of other people other nations. The moron Christians founded Secularism on the foundational principles of Protestant theology. May be this Daniel Anson does not know that. All of European constitution is based on this soft push over of Protestantism, called Secularism. The way Indira Gandhi pushed this Secularism on a Hindu nation, it can and will eventually taken out of Bhaarat. It is only a matter of time.

This member of the Fanatic Christianity will not want the hold of Protestant theology to be removed from India. It will be removed rest assured as much of this as you are assured of finite life on this earth. India and Dharma are part of 500 years of History, and still surviving. We will see how long does your cult of hatefulness last. Look at your History.

1. First you kill all the Pagans who refused to convert and then you wrote history telling us that Pagans were evil, reflecting on them your real nature.
2. Then you can to Turkey, Armenia etc massacred people there, converted them to Christianity and then wrote their history as evil PAGANS.
3. Then you went o Africa, devastated that continent, so much so they will never recover. Then you septic of the earth tell rest of the world that the African are Barbarians.
4. Then you morons bought and sold People of Africa as Slaves, and now have gall to tell us about our Gowshaalas and Yoga Shaalas.
5. Then these idiotic Morons came to India and devastated it from the 35% of world production prior to their arrival to .005% of world production after they left.
6. Then more recently you committed genocide of the fellow Semitic religion followers, the Jews. Six Million of these Jews were burned by you Morons. And I am not counting the # of hopeless Gypsies you morons killed.
7. Your laws are part of your plans to commit Genocide.

So go back the same you came from your Mother.

Ravindra Koul

On Sep 9, 2011, at 4:48 PM, sri venkat wrote:

Daniel has spoken like a true Christian out to destroy the native
religion of the country.

Wherever Christianity has gone it has absolutely incinerated and
demolished local people, cultures, beliefs, gods and plundered and
rendered the people impoverished and decimated.  So please do not
trust any Christian.  Their ultimate aim is to destroy Hinduism.
Please read account of their work below

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
http://notachristian.org/christianatrocities.html

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:49 PM, Daniel Anson <ansondaniel@hotmail.com>
rather then create fanatics who make a party and then form a gov’t to run our country..laws need to change not by making gaushalas and yog shalas !
We are a secular country and not a country which is mentioned below of a
fanatic…

==

I have done spell-check and punctuation corrections in the above. – Skanda

 

Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

Rabinder Koul	show details 7:21 AM (4 hours ago)

 

Quite a revelation, here is a review of the book “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”. The bottom line is, its all about MONEY. Maximize revenues, cut expenses.

www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/product-reviews/185984054X/ref=cm_cr_pr_redirect?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0

One key witness is Susan Shields, who wrote about her experience in Free Inquiry Magazine (Vol. 18 no. 1, Winter 1997/1998). Shields was a sister in the Missionaries of Charity. She lived with them in the Bronx, Rome, and San Francisco. According to Shields, the philosophy that guided the Missionary Sisters both considered suffering a virtue and strongly discouraged attachments of any kind to the people served. The inevitable result of this combination was an indifference to human suffering. If suffering is good, and if feeling emotional responses toward the patients is bad, then any uncomfortable emotions that may arise from witnessing their suffering must be quickly switched off. This makes true compassion difficult if not impossible.

The Missionary Sisters were not bad people. Most of them meant well. They tried their best to be obedient, and did not know that the great bulk of donations their order received remained hidden unused in Mother’s bank accounts. Shields knows this because one of her assigned tasks was recording those donations. “We wrote receipts for checks of $50,000 and more on a regular basis,” she reports.

Since poverty was also considered a virtue, little of that money could be spent either on the order or on the patients. As Shields tells us: “Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty. Spending money would destroy that poverty. She seemed obsessed with using only the simplest of means for our work. Was this in the best interests of the people we were trying to help, or were we in fact using them as a tool to advance our own `sanctity?’ In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused.”

Hitchens quotes parts of Shields’ unpublished manuscript, but her article in Free Inquiry may easily be found online and is worth reading in full.

Another eyewitness Hitchens quotes is Dr. Robin Fox, who in 1994 was editor of The Lancet and who reported his findings in that journal in an article entitled “Mother Theresa’s Care for the Dying” (September 17, 1994). While noting that the residents of the home were at least well fed, Fox nevertheless observes that their medical care was inadequate. He calls it “haphazard,” refusing to permit normal diagnostic procedures like blood films because such practices “tend toward materialism.” He concludes:

“I was disturbed to learn that the formulary includes no strong analgesics. Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Theresa’s approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer.”

Hitchens points out that this state of affairs at the Home for the Dying cannot be excused by any plea of poverty. Mother Teresa had at her disposal “immense quantities of money and material.” The home was as it was because it reflected Mother Teresa’s philosophy of suffering and the poor.

Dr. Fox’s account is supplemented by the observations of Mary Loudon, a volunteer at the Home of the Dying whose testimony Hitchens obtained. In Loudon’s words,

“This is two rooms with fifty to sixty men in one, fifty to sixty women in another. They’re dying. They’re not being given a great deal of medical care. They’re not being given painkillers really beyond aspirin and maybe if you’re lucky some Brufen [ibuprofen] or something, for the sort of pain that goes with terminal cancer and the things they were dying of.”

I have years of experience working in hospice. Cancer pain can be unimaginable, and considerable intravenous morphine infusions are often scarcely enough to contain it. But if you have cancer in Mother Teresa’s home, you’ll get aspirin for your pain or maybe Advil if you’re lucky.

Loudon goes on to observe that needles were reused continually and not sterilized but only rinsed at the cold water tap – another false show of poverty at the expense of the residents’ well being.

Mother Teresa apparently considered pain sacred – as long as it happens to somebody else, and as long as that person is poor. Hitchens mentions (p. 41) a filmed interview in which Mother Teresa says with a smile what she told a patient suffering unbearable pain from terminal cancer: “You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.” The patient’s response: “Then please tell him to stop kissing me.”

It is supremely arrogant to tell someone in agony to be grateful for the blessing of pain while availing oneself of the best and most expensive hospitals in the West during one’s own illnesses, as Mother Teresa did. Did Mother Teresa not wish to be kissed by Jesus too?

Another witness Hitchens quotes is author and journalist Elgy Gillespie, who spent time at Mother Teresa’s San Francisco hostel for people with AIDS. She reports that the ones who were not too sick to care were extremely depressed because they were not permitted to watch TV or have friends come over, even when they were dying. She mentions one patient in particular who was able to escape the hostel for a while, because a caring friend of Gillespie’s offered to take him in. When his illness worsened and this friend could no longer care for him, he begged her not to send him back to the hostel. He was afraid that at the hostel he would be denied necessary medication, including morphine for his pain.

How can one possibly excuse the willful denial of pain medication to people who are terminally ill, regardless of the theology behind it? How does one call somebody who does this a saint? Those who try to discredit Hitchens’ book by attacking Hitchens personally are ethically irresponsible. They would also have to attack and discredit Susan Shields, Dr. Robin Fox, Mary Loudon, and Elgy Gillespie. So far to my knowledge, no one has.

Now why on earth would anyone withhold pain medication from people in intense pain, especially if one had millions to pay for such medication? Who can really discern another person’s motives? One can only observe the obvious: there is no credit for helping the poor if they are not poor, the suffering if they are not suffering, and the disabled if they are independent. Mother Teresa made a great show of helping only the poor. In an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge she stated: “We cannot work for the rich; neither can we accept any money for the work we do. Ours has to be a free service, and to the poor” (p. 60). Another quote from Mother: “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people” (p.11).

There you have it. Mother’s theology glorifies suffering. Suffering is good. It is the kiss of Christ. The suffering of the poor helps the world. So one can be a saint only by helping the suffering poor. There is no saintliness in helping the non-suffering non-poor. So collect millions in the name of the suffering poor; just don’t spend it on relieving their pain or restoring their dignity.

Nothing illustrates this attitude better than a bizarre incident that took place in New York in 1990. The city gave two buildings it had seized for back taxes to the Missionary Sisters for one dollar apiece. The sisters planned to convert them into a homeless shelter. But there was a wrinkle. The city required that the residence be accessible to people with disabilities, and so asked that the sisters install an elevator. Mother Teresa adamantly refused. She even rejected the city’s offer to pay for the elevator (never mind that she could easily have afforded to pay for it herself). So the nuns abandoned the project.

What’s so bad about an elevator? The nuns wanted the residents to experience the charity of people who would care for them in their poverty. “The sisters said that if anyone couldn’t walk up the stairs, they’d carry them, just like they do in Calcutta,” said Anne Emerman, director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, who opposed the nuns’ request for a waiver from the city’s handicapped access law.

Emerman was vilified in some quarters for her opposition to the great saint, but to the disabled community she was a hero. “We have different ideas here of personal dignity” she said. “Some people might not want to be carried.”

Indeed, some disabled people might actually prefer to be independent and to have their independence respected. But promoting independence just doesn’t have quite the same flash as service to the poor.

(Hitchens mentions this incident in a quote from Susan Shields on pp. 45-46, but full details can be found in these two articles: Associated Press, “Mother Teresa Group Gives Up NY Shelter Plan over Elevators” [Boston Globe, September 18, 1990], and Sam Roberts, “Fight City Hall? Nope, Not Even Mother Teresa” [New York Times, September 17, 1990].)

Now what if New York City had not offered to pay for an elevator? Could the Missionaries of Charity plead poverty as an excuse not to build it? Well they could, but it would hardly be credible. Mother Teresa ranked with the best in her ability to manipulate people’s guilt to elicit funding. By all accounts she could be very persistent. In an article entitled “Mother Teresa: Where Are Her Millions?” which appeared in German’s Stern magazine (September 10, 1998), Walter Wuellenweber notes several examples:

“For purchase or rent of property, the sisters do not need to touch their bank accounts. `Mother always said, we don’t spend for that,’ remembers Sunita Kumar, one the richest women in Calcutta and supposedly Mother T’s closest associate outside the order. `If Mother needed a house, she went straight to the owner, whether it was the State or a private person, and worked on him for so long that she eventually got it free.’…

“Mother Teresa saw it as her God given right never to have to pay anyone for anything. Once she bought food for her nuns in London for GB £500. When she was told she’d have to pay at the till, the diminutive seemingly harmless nun showed her Balkan temper and shouted, `This is for the work of God!’ She raged so loud and so long that eventually a businessman waiting in the queue paid up on her behalf.”

So the question remains: If Mother Teresa was so good at raising funds and did in fact raise millions, why is there no money for clean needles in hospices? Where does the money go? As one man said after asking Mother for help in building housing for 4,000 of Calcutta’s homeless and failing even to receive a response, “I don’t understand why you educated people in the West have made this woman into such a goddess! I went to her place three times. She did not even listen to what I had to say. Everyone on earth knows that the sisters have a lot of money. But no one knows what they do with it!”

It seems no one can answer that question completely. But Wuellenweber continues:

“The fortune of this famous charitable organisation is controlled from Rome, – from an account at the Vatican bank. And what happens with monies at the Vatican Bank is so secret that even God is not allowed to know about it. One thing is sure however – Mother’s outlets in poor countries do not benefit from largesse of the rich countries. The official biographer of Mother Teresa, Kathryn Spink, writes, `As soon as the sisters became established in a certain country, Mother normally withdrew all financial support.’ Branches in very needy countries therefore only receive start-up assistance. Most of the money remains in the Vatican Bank.”

Wherever the money did end up, most of it never went to the poor Mother Teresa was supposed to be serving. In her Free Inquiry article Susan Shields states: “The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had no effect on our ascetic lives and very little effect on the lives of the poor we were trying to help.” Reporter Donal MacIntyre, writing in the New Statesman (London; August 22, 2005), describes conditions in Mother Teresa’s orphanage that were not only squalid but sometimes even cruel:

“I worked undercover for a week in Mother Teresa’s flagship home for disabled boys and girls to record Mother Teresa’s Legacy, a special report for Five News broadcast earlier this month. I winced at the rough handling by some of the full-time staff and Missionary sisters. I saw children with their mouths gagged open to be given medicine, their hands flaying in distress, visible testimony to the pain they were in. Tiny babies were bound with cloths at feeding time. Rough hands wrenched heads into position for feeding. Some of the children retched and coughed as rushed staff crammed food into their mouths. Boys and girls were abandoned on open toilets for up to 20 minutes at a time. Slumped, untended, some dribbling, some sleeping, they were a pathetic sight. Their treatment was an affront to their dignity, and dangerously unhygienic.

“Volunteers (from Italy, Sweden, the United States and the UK) did their best to cradle and wash the children who had soiled themselves. But there were no nappies, and only cold water. Soap and disinfectant were in short supply. Workers washed down beds with dirty water and dirty cloths. Food was prepared on the floor in the corridor. A senior member of staff mixed medicine with her hands. Some did their best to give love and affection – at least some of the time. But, for the most part, the care the children received was inept, unprofessional and, in some cases, rough and dangerous. `They seem to be warehousing people rather than caring for them,’ commented the former operations director of Mencap Martin Gallagher, after viewing our undercover footage.”

This is the best care that millions of charity dollars could afford? No money even for soap and diapers?

Mother Teresa’s entire attitude towards money seems rather odd. Apparently it is virtuous to give, as long as the giving is to the Catholic Church (and never even reaches the poor) and regardless of how the funds given were obtained. Charles Keating, a sort of Bernie Madoff of the 80’s, donated 1.25 million dollars to Mother Teresa in return for the respectability of being associated with her. When Keating was tried in 1992 Mother Teresa wrote to the court asking clemency for him. Hitchens reproduces her letter to the judge on p. 67. It it she says that Keating “has always been kind and generous to God’s poor” and asks the judge “to do what Jesus would do.”

One of the prosecutors wrote back to Mother Teresa explaining (just in case she did not know) that among those whom Keating defrauded may also be counted some of “the least of these” whom Mother claims to serve, including “a poor carpenter who did not speak English and had his life savings stolen by Mr. Keating’s fraud” (p. 69). He continued: “No church, no charity, no organization should allow itself to be used as salve for the conscience of the criminal.” He urged Mother Teresa to do the right thing: “Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the `indulgence’ he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.”

Mother Teresa never replied.

So what can we make of all this? It is a shame that whatever good Mother Teresa may have done has been tainted by her exploitation of the very same people she made a show of helping. Perhaps we need to choose our saints a little more carefully.

It is easy to find superficial fault with Hitchens’ book. Its title, “The Missionary Position,” is juvenile. Its citations are sloppy. And Hitchens is no expert in the Bible or theology, so sometimes he gets things wrong, as when he says (p. 29) that Jesus broke the box of costly ointment on his own feet. But Hitchens’ antipathy towards religion in no way mitigates the testimony he presents from several eyewitnesses. The cynical use of the poor to promote either oneself or one’s church only gives ammunition to those who already find religion loathsome.

“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward” (Matthew 6:2).

Ravindra Koul
अस्मद्रूपसमाविष्ठ: स्वात्मनात्मानिवारणे
शिव: करोतु निजया नम: शक्त्या ततात्मने

 

Excerpt from: No Longer A Slumdog by K. P. Yohannan

Below terms and concepts give to the world by Christian missionaries are wrong and far from the truth. I have inserted my comments in red italics font telling the truth. – Skanda987@gmail.com

Terms and Concepts

Aryan

The Aryan race (Aryan is not a race according the Vedic scriptures. Anyone who accepts the authority of the Vedas and strives to live accordingly is an Aryan), a group of people with fair skin, invaded India from Eurasia more than 3,000 years ago. (The Aryan invasion theory is a pure fabrication of 19^th century European Indologists. It is now scientifically proven a lie, far from truth. Aryan culture or the Vedic culture has originated in Bhaarat (that is the original name of India at least ten thousand years ago and it was spread almost all over the world till 3000 years ago.) The name Aryan means “royal” or “noble.” Because these people believed themselves to be better than the indigenous peoples (The indeglious people were Aryans), the caste system was devised to prevent them from becoming “contaminated” by the darker-skinned natives. (The current caste system, which is going away, was the malpractice of the division of human society into four groups according their qualities and karma (actions- way of living). This division of society into four classes – brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya, and shudra – was such that the whole society could progress spiritually. A brahmana is one who studies the Vedic scriptures, lives per the vedic teachings, and guides the society how to advance spiritually. A kshatriya is protector of the society against unrighteous forces who try to take away one’s freedom and property. They are the fighters and rules but act under the guidance of spiritual master. A vaishya is one who does business, protects cows, and does farming. He is a trader, and earhs profit without being greedy. A shudra is one how has only ability to provide labor to the society. each class respects any other class.It was a malpractice of dharma when people began identifying their class based on their birth and not on qualification and actions, and began looking down or oppressing the shudras.)  , Aryans, of course, established themselves as the highest caste. (Not correct. The Vedic society could be compared to a healthy body where brahmana class is like head, kshatriya class is like arms for protection, vaishya class is like belly four nourishment, and shudra class is like legs for service. Of course the head is most important in the body, but no body part can live happily without the other healthy body parts. Thus there is mutual respect and care.)

Brahmin

Brahmins comprise the highest caste of the Hindu religion. Although they only make up approximately 5 percent of the total population, they hold the lion’s share of the power in India’s political, educational and corporate spheres. (Those who qualify for power or in other areas should be accepted for respective responsibilities.)

Caste/Caste System

According to Hinduism, people have an intrinsic value and are sorted into different groups called “castes.” This insidious system that has served to segregate the population and turn people against each other is based purely on their genetics. (The Vedic scriptures do nto define a caste based on birth. And do not say one caste is higher than the other, or that one caste has to oppress the other or look down at other. So, what is needed is to stop the malpractice.)

Dalit / Untouchable (This was a malpractice and is going away, and is against the law now.)

 The word Dalit literally means “broken,” “crushed” or “oppressed.” In Hindu society, Dalits are at the lowest rung of the ladder. The vast majority of them are impoverished, exploited and powerless to change their fate. Considered to be polluted or unclean, they are called “Untouchables.” If they were to touch someone of higher caste, the upper-caste person would supposedly become contaminated. This is why many Dalits are not allowed to drink from community wells and are discouraged from attending schools with other students.

GFA Bridge of Hope

 GFA Bridge of Hope is the children’s outreach ministry of Gospel for Asia International. This ministry brings the prospect of a brighter future to Asia’s poorest children through education, physical assistance and the Good News of Jesus. Our desire is to minister to at least 500,000 children in the near future. (The Vedic dharma is universal for mankind. So, understand it and encourage the Hindus to practice it correctly.)

Hindu

 Hinduism is the main religion in India and is the basis for the continued existence of the caste system. (The religion Hindu is universanl and needs to be understood and  practices correctly.)

Other Backward Castes (OBCs)

 The term OBC applies to those from the lowest castes, also known as Sudras. The OBCs are higher than Dalits but are still oppressed and impoverished. Sudras are thought of as the slave caste. (Not correct.)

 

Slum

 With great numbers of people moving to cities in hope of a better life, the population inevitably grows faster than what the government can sustain. The result is millions of people living in destitute conditions. “Slum” is the name given to the areas where such poor people dwell. These people have no homes, no land, no plumbing or infrastructure and often no education. Most slums are filled with Dalits and OBCs. (All countries have slums. It does nto need conversion to solve slum problem.)

Triba l

 The tribals are the original people of India. Today they are still found throughout the country, often in the jungles, mountains and forests of the land. Like the Dalits, tribal people are exploited by the upper-castes. (All have freedom to excel according to their qualities. Th Vedic dharma discourages exploitation. All countries have more or less exploiters in one form or other. The missionaries need to fix the problem in their own country first.)

 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now the irritating Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as a result of one of the milestones in the scheme by the late Pope John Paul II to fast-track her to sainthood,  beatification, is destined to become one of the most popular saints in the Catholic Church.  It has emerged that she had to be exorcised of demons on her deathbed.

Thanks to the work of Christopher Hitchens it is possible to see the truth about Mother Teresa who nobody dares criticise.

She aided the evil Duvalier family of Haiti and buttered them up.  She got a million dollars from Charles Keating and kept it ignoring requests to her to return it after she knew he had stolen the money.  She has opposed the human right to divorce, contraception and abortion and the rights of secular people.  She thought she knew it all.  It was okay for her to campaign against these things for she never needed them.  She was an epitome of the reprehensible selfishness that exists in the worst fundamentalist Christians.  She even said that poverty was a gift from God.  She accepted the vicious idea that the purpose of suffering is for the betterment of character.  The atheist refuses to condone suffering this way and so the atheist should have a greater hatred of the  suffering in the world than the religionist.  She refused to use anything in her clinics to relieve pain for she accepted the Catholic doctrine that suffering is a good thing.  She checked into the best hospitals in the world when she was sick herself and anything was good enough for the poor she used to create her grand and glorious image.

Mother stated that dogs were fed on human foetuses.  No evidence for this claim has ever been uncovered.  She approved of a film about her, Mother Teresa and her world, which claimed that there were a quarter of a million lepers in Calcutta while another film she collaborated in said it was 40,000.  She has exaggerated the number of lepers and has helped them in preference to the even more serious plague of malaria.

She lied as well that she knew no poor woman in Calcutta who had had an abortion though Calcuttans regarded abortion as no big deal and all classes used it.

Mother had 50 million dollars in the New York bank alone and yet the order greedily solicited for money.  This was the order that used the same syringe on many sick patients under the pretext of hard times.  The money shouldn’t have been lying in accounts.  Every penny should have been used.

Mother Teresa spoke against Vatican II making any doctrinal or practical changes in the Roman Catholic Church in the sixties.  She supported the old horrific triumphalist and sectarian Church system that existed before Vatican II.  She did not want the Church to become more human.  She has frequently presented Calcutta as being a worse city than it really was to pull in the donations.

Please look up the sites by Christopher Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee on the Internet and do a search in Google.  Free Inquiry Winter 97-98 Volume 18 and Issue 1 ran an article by a former member of the Order Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity.  She left the Order and exposed the evil and predominant side of Mother Teresa in the article.  The article can be found on page 31.  She testified that |Mother believed that obedience to the Order and to the Church is God’s will and that it is good to choose to suffer for it makes God give more graces out to the Church.  Attachment to people and friendship was forbidden.  This is so that Christ’s command that God alone be loved and other things loved for his sake meaning not for themselves but for him and not for yourself but for him may be observed.  The effect of all this was the nuns telling lies and refusing to commit the sin of thinking independently.  Mother Teresa caused a lot of destruction among the nuns.  Mother Teresa amassed huge donations for the order and made no effort to make sure that the nuns used clean needles when they injected. She wouldn’t supply them.  The Order she ran is so much like an extreme religious cult.

It was reported in the Sunday Tribune of October 20^th, 2002, (Vol 22) that Monica Besra, a West Bengali lady, who alleged that she was cured by Mother Teresa was not the recipient of a miracle though the Vatican formally recognised that she was.  She said she was cured of a incurable cancerous tumour of the abdomen in 1998 on the anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death.  She claimed that she was ill and that two nuns prayed with her to Mother Teresa when she felt strangely elated and discovered that she was healed.  Doctors have testified that it was not cancer but a tubercular lump that died away thanks to prescribed drugs.  She went for an ultrasound despite saying that her symptoms had gone and this was in May 1999!  Were they gone at all?  Parts of her story do not add up so her version cannot be trusted and it does seem that she had many of the same symptoms for she was admitted to hospital a year after the miracle with severe pain in the abdomen.  According to a story that broke on 19^th of October 2002, Dr Murshed claimed that representatives of the Roman Church and Mother Teresa’s order had come to him and applied pressure for him to declare the cure to be a miracle that can only be explained supernaturally.  Many doctors were claiming that they treated Ms Besra for her illness even after the alleged healing.

In The Freethinker October 2007 it was revealed that doctors claimed that Besra’s recovery was not down to a miracle but down to conventional medical treatment.  Besra was stricken with poverty and the Missionaries of Charity nuns promised her financial help.  It continued only as long as the nuns needed Besra involved in the plot to attribute a miracle to Mother Teresa that never really happened.  They used her and then they dumped her.

According to Hope Endures by a former nun from Mother Teresa’s order, The Missionaries of Charity, Collete Livermore, the order though it had sufficient money donated to it for the purpose of buying books to help with the medical work this was not done (page 115).  As a result, the health of the sisters was at risk.  The book explains how the nuns were not provided with medical advice, the use of mosquito repellents, information about malaria and vaccinations (page 115).  It attributes this to the idea that God would look after the nuns.

The book recounts how Colette, then called Sister Tobit, got into trouble with the order for helping a man with dysentery who was in danger of dying (page 163).  The order cared more about obedience than doing the right thing.  Mother Teresa declared according to page 168, that she recognised 1 Peter 2:18-23 as being correct.  This text ordered slaves to obey their masters even if they were abusive and difficult.  It said that it is great to be beaten for doing wrong when one is innocent and that such patience pleases God.  Peter also says that this has to be the right attitude for Jesus gave us an example to follow.  Mother Teresa used this text to urge her nuns to obey superiors without question (page 168).  Sister Tobit decided to leave the order.  She didn’t like the way she was expected to let the poor suffer rather than disobey orders and she made that clear to Mother Teresa (page 172).   Mother Teresa was “not sympathetic” and told Tobit that her feelings were sourced in temptation and pride (page 172).  In other words, Tobit was bad for seeing sense.  Mother was judging her despite forbidding Tobit to judge those who acted as dictators in the order over her (page 224).

Later Colette recounted the tale of what happened in Manila when she tried to help a sick boy called Alex.  Sister Valerie who was in charge of her forbade her to help him though Colette told her there was no reason why they couldn’t.

Mother Teresa wouldn’t let the nuns have a washing machine (page 194).  This forced the nuns to wash the underwear of the incontinent with brushes.  The order was more concerned about inflicting hardship on the nuns than on helping the sick.  A washing machine would have freed up their time to help people.  Mother was definitely misusing the funds so kindly donated to her from all over the world.  It was the struggle to help not the helping that mattered in her Christian philosophy.

Sister Tobit applied for a dispensation from her vows (page 224) because she was expected to do things like sending dying children away when commanded to do so and because she was not allowed to have a mind of her own.  She wrote that she felt that “the order whose raison detre was to show compassion, chronically failed to do so, both to its own members and to the poor.”  “The Society demanded that I have no mind of my own and censored everything I read, a form of brainwashing that almost turned me into an automaton”.  These quotes can be read on page 224.  On page 213 we read that Mother Teresa held that if an event happened, it was either willed by God or allowed by him to happen.  We read that it led her to conclude that what the religious superior commands is either willed by God or at least allowed by him to be made meaning the commands no matter how silly or harsh they are are from God’s authority.  To disobey them is to disobey God.

When Tobit came Colette again she began to suspect that the gospel commands given by Christ to give to all who ask and thought that attempts to love unconditionally and forgive unconditionally really made one a doormat (page 287).

The book proves that Mother Teresa cannot be called a good woman.  It proves that living the gospels properly is bad for you.  The Missionaries of Charity experienced the damaging power of the gospels and yet they lived their lives as an example to those who they helped and those who knew them – ultimately to see them take on the same torments.  Some charity!

An interview with Christopher Hitchens on Mother Teresa

Defending Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa’s House Of Illusions

The Illusory Vs. The Real Mother Teresa

The Mother of All Myths

THE WWW

The following two sites show just what a liar Mother Teresa was and her callous heart is laid bare.  They show the deceit of Pope John Paul II who was eager to make a saint of her.

OPEN LETTER TO MOTHER TERESA, Aroup Chaterjee

http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/chatlet.htm

MOTHER TERESA THE FINAL VERDICT Aroup Chaterjee

http://www.meteorbooks.com/index.html

This fascinating book reveals shockers such as that the pope has beatified Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb who stood idly by as Jews and Communists were hounded to their deaths and the notorious fascist Cardinal Schuster of Milan.

Hope Endures, Colette Livermore, William Heinemann, North Sydney, Australia, 2008

Source: http://www.miraclesceptic.com/motherteresa.html

 

Hindu-Christian Point-Counterpoint

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/basics/point/

Hinduism:

1. Hindus believe in a one, all-pervasive Supreme Being who is both immanent and transcendent, both Creator and Unmanifest Reality.
2. Hindus believe in the divinity of the four Vedas, the world’s most ancient scripture, and venerate the Agamas as equally revealed. These primordial hymns are God’s word and the bedrock of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal religion.
3. Hindus believe that the universe undergoes endless cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution.
4. Hindus believe in karma, the law of cause and effect by which each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds.
5. Hindus believe that the soul reincarnates, evolving through many births until all karmas have been resolved, and moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth, is attained. Not a single soul will be deprived of this destiny.
6. Hindus believe that divine beings exist in unseen worlds and that temple worship, rituals, sacraments and personal devotionals create a communion with these devas and Gods.
7. Hindus believe that an enlightened master, or satguru, is essential to know the Transcendent Absolute, as are personal discipline, good conduct, purification, pilgrimage, self-inquiry, meditation and surrender in God.
8. Hindus believe that all life is sacred, to be loved and revered, and therefore practice ahimsa, noninjury, in thought, word and deed.
9. Hindus believe that no religion teaches the only way to salvation above all others, but that all genuine paths are facets of God’s Light, deserving tolerance and understanding.

Christianity:

1. Christians believe that the bible is the uniquely inspired and fully trustworthy word of God. It is the final authority for Christians in matters of belief and practice, and though it was written long ago, it continues to speak to believers today.
2. Christians believe in one God in three persons. He is distinct from his creation, yet intimately involved with it as its sustainer and redeemer.
3. Christians believe that the world was created once by the divine will, was corrupted by sin, yet under God’s providence moves toward final perfection.
4. Christians believe that, through God’s grace and favor, lost sinners are rescued from the guilt, power and eternal consequences of their evil thoughts, words and deeds.
5. Christians believe that it is appointed for human beings to die once and after that face judgment. In Adam’s sin, the human race was spiritually alienated from God, and that those who are called by God and respond to his grace will have eternal life. Those who persist in rebellion will be lost eternally.
6. Christians believe that spirit beings inhabit the universe, some good and some evil, but worship is due to God alone.
7. Christians believe that God has given us a clear revelation of Himself in Jesus and the sacred Scriptures. He has empowered by his Spirit prophets, apostles, evangelists, and pastors who are teachers charged to guide us into faith and holiness in accordance with his Word.
8. Christians believe that life is to be highly esteemed but that it must be subordinated in the service of Biblical love and justice.
9. Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and, therefore, the only sure path to salvation. Many religions may offer ethical and spiritual insights, but only Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

===

What the above does not tell is that the Christians cannot feel comfortable if there is one non-Christian living. (same for Islaam.) They must convert him/her. In contrast, the Hindus never force their religion upon another. They even do not tell about the religon to one who has no friendly interest to know it.

It does not tell that the Christians have brutally forced Hindus of Goa to convert, and those who refused, they killed them, tortured them. In contras,t in the millenniums long history of the Hindus, no Hindu king has forced Hinduism on any one. Hinduism was spread almost all over the world a few millenniums ago.

 

 

 

 

 

David Frawley’s Speech,

in Debate with Christian Missionaries

 

Forwarded message from Pastor <unitedchurch@ eml.cc>

 

David Frawley’s Speech, in Debate with Christian Missionaries in India

 

Delivered at a public discussion organised by Prajna Bharati A.P., on “The Ethics of Religious Conversions” at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Hyderabad.

 

I was raised as a Catholic and went to Catholic school. My uncle was, and still is, a missionary. We were told that he was going to South America to save the souls of the Native Americans, people we were told were non-Christian and without conversion would suffer eternal damnation. This is the background that I came from.

 

Today, throughout the world, and in the United States, with very little exception, there is no “Sarvadharma Samabhava” taught in religion. It is something I never encountered in my Christian education in the West.

 

We were taught that Hinduism was a religion of idolatry; it was a religion of polytheism and superstition and that there was no place for Hindus in heaven. Even a great Hindu like Mahatma Gandhi might be revered on a certain level, but he was not given the type of religious credit that he would have been given had he been a Christian.

 

These attitudes still exist throughout the world and India does not exist in isolation. And Hindus in India are, and India as a whole is, still being targeted for conversion. Why is this so? If all the religions teach the same thing, why is it that certain religions are seeking to convert the members of other religions to their beliefs?

 

These attitudes still exist throughout the world and India does not exist in isolation. And Hindus in India are, and India as a whole is, still being targeted for conversion. Why is this so? If all the religions teach the same thing, why is it that certain religions are seeking to convert the members of other religions to their beliefs?

 

Hinduism is a pluralistic tradition. It teaches that there are many paths, many scriptures, many sages, many ways to come to the Divine to gain self-realization and it should be free for the individual to find and follow whatever way he or she thinks or feels works best.

 

But not all religions are pluralistic. In fact, most religions are exclusive in their mentality and in their beliefs. The two largest religions in the world, with a few notable exceptions, teach that theirs is the only true faith. The average Christian throughout the world has been taught to believe that only Christians gain salvation. The idea has been projected as an eternal heaven for the Christians and an eternal hell for the non-Christians, particularly for idol-worshipping Hindus. And so far, we do not have major Christian leaders in the world contradicting that statement.

 

To date, there is no major Christian leader, or Moslem leader, in the world, who is saying that Hinduism is as good as Christianity or Islam. I do not know of any Christian leaders in the West who would say that a Rama or a Krishna is equal to a Jesus. I do not know of any of them who would honor a Ramana Maharshi, a Sri Aurobindo or a Mahatma Gandhi as a God-realized or self-realized sage. I realize there may be some exceptions to this, in the Indian context. But this is not the case with, and it is also not the official policy of the Vatican. It is not the policy of the Pope at all!

 

I want to read a statement, from “The Coming of the Third Millennium”, which was issued very recently by the Pope, in relation to the situation in Asia:

 

“The Asia Synod will deal with the challenge for evangelization posed by the encounter with ancient religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. While expressing esteem for the elements of truth in these religions, the Church must make it clear that Christ is the one mediator between God and man and the sole Redeemer of humanity.”

 

This is a direct quote. Now, what is it saying about religious tolerance? Christ is the only way. The pope is saying that we accept what is true in these religions, but we do not accept them if they do not follow Jesus as the only way. We still have to convert them. That is the message. This is not a message of tolerance and live and let live. It is not a message of let Hindus have their way and we have our and both are good. It is not a statement that Buddha or Krishna is equal to Jesus.

 

It is a statement of exclusivism and my contention is that such exclusivism must breed intolerance. If I think that mine is the only way, how can I be really tolerant and accepting of you, if you follow another way? And such intolerance is going to end up causing conflict, division, disharmony and poor communication.

 

It is going to divide communities and cause problems. So, please bear in mind that, in the Indian context, as Hindus, you have to deal with these religions as the majority of the people in the world are practicing and believing in them, and this conversion process is continuing.

 

I also think that we should have a free, open, friendly dialogue and discussion on all religious matters, both in terms of social interaction and relative to doctrinal matters. There should be complete freedom of discussion, freedom of criticism and freedom of debate just as we have in science.

 

What generally happens in the field of conversion is that certain groups are targeted for conversion activity. I would like to discriminate between two different things. One is the change of religion, which people may opt for, based upon open and friendly discussion, debate, dialogue and studies. Nothing is wrong with that. But I would discriminate that from what I would call the “global missionary business”.

 

The global missionary business is one of the largest, perhaps even the largest business in the world. Not only the Catholic Church, but also various Protestant organizations have set aside billions of dollars to convert non-Christians to Christianity. They have trained thousands of workers, have formed various plans of evangelization and conversion and have targeted certain communities for that particular purpose. This multi-national conversion business is like any multi-national economic business. It is not something that is simply fair and open. It is not simply a dialogue or a discussion.

 

So what we see with this missionary business is a definite strategy for one religion to convert the members of other religions. This conversion business is not about religious freedom. It is about one religion triumphing over all the other religions. It is about making all the members of humanity follow one religion, giving up and, generally, denigrating the religion they had previously been following.

 

Why is this conversion business so big in India? Because India is the largest non-Christian country in the world where missionaries have the freedom to act and to propagate. Islamic countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh — do not allow this missionary activity at all. In Saudi Arabia, you cannot even bring a Bible or a picture of Jesus into the country. China, also, does not allow such wide-scale missionary conversion activities.

 

So India, because of its very openness to and tolerance of these missionaries, has become the target. You know from recent newspapers that one missionary was killed in India, which is unfortunate. But in that same week, fifty Christians were massacred in Indonesia by the Moslems there. The religious violence is going on all over the world and Christians are not always the victims.

 

In India, for centuries, Hindus have been routinely killed for their religion. Even recently in Kashmir, a number of Hindus were massacred, but you will notice that, in the Western media, the death of Hindus for their religion will never count and will never constitute a story. However, if one missionary — one white man — is killed in India, then these Western countries will retaliate with sanctions, criticize, and take some moral high ground.

 

Missionary activity has a bloody history of genocide on every continent of the world. I am not going to go into all the details here. The Inquisition was in operation in Goa in India. The British used their influence, though less overtly, to force conversions, and certainly the missionaries had an advantage under colonial rule all over the world. In a number of countries, colonial interests used force and persuasion to bring about conversion.

 

We are told today that we should forget all about that, even though it has only been a generation or two since the colonial era. I say that we cannot forget so easily because the very religious groups that performed these atrocious acts have not yet apologized. If they recognize that this missionary aggression and violence that was done before 1947; that was done in the 19th century; that was done in Goa; that was done in the Americas was wrong, then why don’t we get an apology for it?

 

You will notice that the Christians in America have made some apologies for what they did to the Native Americans. We have yet to see any apology relative to Hindus. If the missionaries want us to believe that they have changed their ways and are now purely non-violent and charitable, then why do they not at least apologize for what they did in the past?

 

And why should there be conversions at all? What is the motivation behind most seeking of conversions that is coming out of the Christian background? It is their belief that Christianity is the only true religion, Christ is the only saviour of humanity, Christians gain salvation or heaven and non-Christians gain damnation or hell. That is not a policy of harmony and tolerance but a blueprint for disharmony and conflict.

 

What ultimately happens when someone who has that attitude comes into a community and converts people? People are taught to reject their ancestors and their traditions. Families are broken up. Division and conflict almost inevitably occur wherever this missionary business goes on. There are actually many forms of Christianity and several different kinds of Christian missionary activity going on.

 

And there are Christian groups that are not missionary at all, for example, the old Greek Orthodox and the Syrian Christians, but which represent old and tolerant traditions. Then there is the Catholic tradition which is promoting its missionary activity all over the world but which is doing it in a more subtle way today. They are no longer using the force that they once used in the colonial era, but they are still aiming at global conversion. There are also the old Protestants, the Anglicans and the Lutherans, who are still promoting various types of missionary activity. That has gotten reduced to some degree as well.

 

However, there is a new evangelical force in the world today, particularly that coming out of the United States. What are the fundamentalist Christian groups of America? The World Vision, the Christian coalition, groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Baptists and so on.

 

They are very actively asking for donations in America in order to convert Hindus in India. We see this routinely in the various television channels that they have. Pat Robertson, one of their main leaders, has said that Hinduism is a demonic religion.

 

They show Hindu gods with animal heads and say, “Oh! Look at how primitive these people are.” They look at the political and social problems of India and say; “These are all owing to Hinduism. Please donate money to our cause so we can go to India and convert these people from this horrible religion that they have.”

 

These same evangelical missionaries are going all over the world and also targeting Catholics. Recently, in Brazil, the Pope called these evangelical missionaries “wolves” because of what they were doing to, what he termed, “his flock of Christians”, which was converting them to their form of Christianity.

 

So this missionary threat continues and some missionaries are going back to the old hell-fire, damnation, condemnation of Hinduism such as the Catholics used to do in the Middle Ages and in the colonial era. So do not believe that there is religious harmony all over the world and that the other religions respect Hinduism and are willing to live together quietly with Hindus.

 

In fact, in textbooks in America, it is taught that Hinduism is not a religion because Hinduism does not have only one God, one book and is not a missionary religion seeking to convert or conquer the world. So it is this missionary business which needs to be questioned and not simply conversion. And do not be naive about it!

 

There is a consistent use of social upliftment and charity to promote conversion. While social upliftment and charity are very good things, they should be separated from religious conversion. If you want to raise up a country and help them economically, please do so, but do not bring religion into it. When you put the picture of Jesus everywhere obviously religion and conversion are part of your motivation.

 

You will note that no country in the world has been raised up economically by religious conversion. What has made Japan a great country economically and what made the United States a great country economically are economic means, not a change of religion. Christian countries include some of the poorest countries in the world. The Philippines is the most Catholic and the oldest Christian country in Asia. It remains one of the poorest countries in Asia and has one of the greatest gaps between the rich and the poor.

 

The most devout Catholics in the world are in Central and South America. They are certainly not found in North America and in Europe, where Christians are more nominal than strong believers. Central and South America also have tremendous social inequality and a tremendous gap between the rich and the poor. But the Catholics there are not telling the poor people that they should convert to another religion in order to raise themselves economically.

 

So this whole attack on Hindu society by stating that we will raise the poor on religious grounds is based upon the motivation of conversion. Then there is the whole issue of hospitals, orphanages and schools. It is all very wonderful to selflessly help other people. But why do you have to put a religious form there? As long as the picture of Jesus is there, particularly when you have a two thousand year history of aggressive conversion activities, how can you expect people to believe that there is no seeking of conversion? That it is purely selfless service and love of God?

 

If we love God, if we love our fellow human beings, we will love them regardless of what their religious belief is. We will love their religion as well. We will honor and respect their religion whether they are aboriginal people, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Moslems or Christians. We will not see any need to convert them. In fact, we should not even be conscious of their religion at all. True love of God does not seek converts. It is not based upon names, forms or identity. It is based upon recognizing the Divine presence in all.

 

One of the great swamis of India, Swami Rama Tirtha, when he came to America, was asked about religion. He said, “You do not belong to any religion. All religions belong to you.” The human being is not a property of any Church. You are not some thing which is owned by anyone or anything. The soul does not need to be saved. It is the eternal and immortal part of our nature. We need only understand the Divine within us.

 

You cannot change the nature of any human being. Hinduism is based upon respecting each individual and the Swadharma of each individual. We should have many paths and many religions. The idea of only one religious faith for all humanity is like having only one set of clothing for all humanity. It is like people having to eat only one type of food, or people having only one type of job. There should be diversity, abundance and freedom in the religious realm as well.

 

Unfortunately, all religions do not have the same goal. Religions have various goals. Religions are various paths. We should note that all religions are not theistic. There are non-theistic religions like Buddhism and Jainism where there is no creator God. There are religions with a multiplicity of deities. Monotheism is not the only form of religion in the world and it is not the best form either.

 

All forms of religious worship have their validity and Hinduism recognizes them whether they are, polytheism, monotheism or monism. Even atheists have their place in Hinduism. People should have complete freedom to reject religion if that is what they want to do. Hindu tradition is a sadhana tradition that aims at spiritual practice for self-realization. Most Christian traditions, for example the Protestant tradition, claim that faith alone is enough to save you.

 

This means that a person may be a mass murderer, but if on his deathbed he converts to Christianity, he will go to heaven. Another person may live the life of a saint, but if he does not convert to Christianity, there will be no heaven for him. Recently, in the United States, a woman who had been convicted of murder was converted to Christianity on death-row and the Christian leaders — particularly the fundamentalist Christians — asked for the death sentence to be removed because since that woman had converted to Christianity therefore the sin no longer counted.

 

The same people would not have made the statement had the woman converted to Hinduism or any other non-Christian faith. We do need religious harmony and dialogue throughout the world. One of the most unfortunate things is that there is so much misinformation and even disinformation about Hinduism in the world. For example, in the New York Times, only last year, there was a story about the Amarnath pilgrimage in India. And what did the New York Times call it?

 

“Hindus going to worship the sex organs of Shiva, the God of Destruction. ” What kind of tolerance is that? What kind of point of view is being projected by it? But I have to tell you that the fault for this is not really all with these western people. The fault lies with Hindus themselves. They have been very poor at expressing what their religion is and in countering disinformation and propaganda against them. They do not study their religion properly and so, they cannot explain what it is. They are also misinformed about other religions and think that other religions are just Hinduism in another form.

 

But you will not find these rich traditions of yoga, meditation, Vedas and Vedanta, in other traditions. Particularly in the Protestant tradition in the West they are rejected almost altogether and, to these Evangelical Christians, they are considered to be the work of the devil. Some people say that all religions teach the same thing. Well, Hinduism teaches the Law of Karma and Rebirth.

 

Christianity and Islam do not accept that. Some people say all religions teach the same things and they only differ in inessentials. Is the Law of Karma and the process of Rebirth something inessential?

 

Now, certainly there should be a respect for universal, ethical values such as truthfulness, non-violence, peace and harmony. These should be accepted for all human beings regardless of their religion. In fact, they should be projected for all of nature. One of the problems that I see in Christianity, as most Christians believe it, is that animals are considered to be devoid of a soul and only human beings can gain salvation.

 

One of the reasons that we are exploiting and destroying this planet is because we do not see the presence of a soul and consciousness in nature, the animals and the rest of the Universe. We must move beyond all our narrow, human-centric creeds. True religion is not a matter of name, form or identity. It is a matter of that which is eternal, that which is universal, that which no one owns and is a matter of consciousness, awareness and Truth.

 

The highest goal of the Hindu religion is self-realisation, not simply knowing God, but understanding who we are and the Divine presence within us. One of the main problems of humanity is that we do not understand ourselves and our motivations. Instead, based upon some dogma or belief, we are trying to get others to think and act like we do before we understand ourselves and understand them.

 

So let there be a dialogue. Let there be open, friendly and also critical communication in religion just as in science. But please let us expose and put an end to this missionary business and let us not think that the missionary business is tolerant. The missionary business is not about freedom of religion. It is about the triumph of one religion. It is not about secularism. The missionary business accepts that only one religion is true. It is a religious war aimed at religious control.

 

The way to challenge this is not through violence or through intolerance, but through being properly informed. It is through being open, friendly, dialoguing and talking to people, so they understand what the Hindu point of view is, so that any distortions about Hinduism are removed. We are all the same Divine being. We all share the same human nature and we must recognise that in all human beings for harmony to exist.

 

At the same time, we should not be naive about the forces of the world and the forces that are trying to disintegrate this society and this culture. I think it would be a tremendous loss if India gave up Hinduism and became another Christian or Islamic country. We have enough of these already. India has a wealth of its own spiritual traditions that the rest of the world needs. Why do Westerners come here? They come here for this wealth of spiritual knowledge. In fact, you should be exporting your religion. That is one thing you have enough of. There are other more important things that you need to import.

 

– DAVID FRAWLEY

Hindu-Christian Discussion-17

P,

 

Your below lines have conflicting points:

<Your statement above indicates that that this Abdul, a Muslim, would go to heaven and I would state that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to heaven, it could be a person related to any religion could go to heaven as long as they repented of their sin and believed that Jesus died for their sins on the cross. >

 

A person of any religion, many not know anything about Jesus or bible. So, the above says no haven for him/her.

 

If a person of or other religion believe in Jesus and his message, then he/she is a Christian. Without it he is not accepted as a Christian. Therefore, the above says that only the Christians go to haven. That monopoly does not exist in the spiritual world. No one has monopoly to haven.

 

May all learn to live-sin-free.

That is sure way to haven.

 

Jai Sri Krishna!

-S

 

—

From: P
To: S

 

In a previous email you said, “…while the Vedics will say that Abdul Sattar Edhi, will go to heaven, a Christian will say he will go to hell simply because he is not a Christian.”  I would disagree with the last part of that statement because a person does not go to heaven simply because he is a Christian but because he has repented of his sin and he has acknowledged the sacrifice of Jesus death on the cross as full payment for his sins.  A lot of people use the label “Christian” but have never repented of their sins.  Others say they are Christian because they were born in America or because their parents or spouse were Christians and in both of those instances they do not have any clear understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  Your statement above indicates that that this Abdul, a Muslim, would go to heaven and I would state that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to heaven, it could be a person related to any religion could go to heaven as long as they repented of their sin and believed that Jesus died for their sins on the cross.  His death for our sins on the cross was authenticated by his resurrection from the dead.
-P