Organized/forced Conversion As Sedition

04-20-2007, 08:51 AM

I am cross posting some thoughts I had in the conflicting narratives thread to start a new topic. I leave it to forum leaders to decide its fate.

As part of a discussion I was having there - it seems to me that organized and forced conversions basically amount to sedition.

Sedition is defined (in an online dictionary) as
QUOTE The raising of commotion in a state, not amounting to
Â Â Â insurrection; conduct tending to treason, but without an
Â Â Â overt act; excitement of discontent against the
Â Â Â government, or of resistance to lawful authority.

The reason I say this is based on the discussion cross posted
QUOTE(saik @ Apr 19 2007, 09:33 PM)What Hinduism says, is correct about the concept of following "any thing/person" as God, as long on realizes that it does not make difference.. but inclusion of Allah and Jesus means, the concept fails in its premise.

These western religion (xitian, muslim etc) followers does not accept Hindu ways.. hence, the acceptance of Hindu concepts is a problem for these folks. If that is the case, then it is required to make EJ proof, that we should not include Allah and Jesus from the texts of making all these Gods are okay to be followed.

I say, NO. If you are following Hinduism, then its NOT OK to follow Jesus or Allah, as they don't subscribe to Hindu way of living.

Hence, lets get out of this mentality of making the "hindu concept for all" theories, and rather stick to SD purely. The moment Jesus and Allah-ism enters, SDism is trashed.. they are totally opposite to understandings and realizations. Why include Jesus and Allah.


OK these are interesting observations, but to me your observations raise more prickly questions.

If the universal philosophy of the Hindu dharma cannot accommodate two more "Gods" Allah and Jehovah, how is the philosophy "universal" as claimed. It is just another viewpoint like the viewpoint held by Allah/Yahweh followers?

If we were to argue that Allah/Jehovah are not Gods at all, then how is the Hindu viewpoint any different from Allah saying "There is no God but me" and all other "Gods" are false.

With respect SaiK - I think you are misinterpreting the Hindu concept of "God" (as being the same as oneness/unity) to serve a particular narrow need to reject Allah and Yahweh. I believe that is wrong.

As long as a person accepts that it is OK to worship Allah or Shiva, and both are the same - he subscribes to the Hindu scheme of things.

If, however, he says that Shiva is out, only Allah/Yahweh are in, then that is a closing of the mind that goes against the tenets of Hinduism. Similarly saying that Shiva is in, Allah is out could be a closing of one's mind.

But this "closing of the mind" also raises some questions. Hindu thought has always accepted that minds could be closed and Hindu literature is rife with examples and guidelines of how one can open one's mind. It requires an opening of one's mind to put ALL Gods on an equal footing. More importantly there is a Hindu acceptance that different people can have different Gods, which means that different people can see or feel God of different human descriptions, but the important rider the Hindu dharma puts on all these Gods is that they refer to the same ultimate reality. There is no traditional Hindu reference to giving ranks to God as far as I know and would accept being corrected in this regard.

But when I speak of "traditional Hindu references" we have to see what references and knowledge exists in Hindu thought after Hindus became aware of the existence of closed mind concepts like Allah and Yahweh. In terms of "Yet another God" Allah and Yahweh offer nothing new to Hindu thought. But in terms of social and destructive military organization built around Allah and Yahweh, Hindus thinkers have hardly had a chance to cope with the consequences.

How many Hindu thinkers would have survived and continued their thinking in the middle of a tornado. That is what Alllah's followers did to Hindus and that is what Yahweh's followers are doing in a different way. How much locigal Hindu thought has gone into accepting or rejecting what Allah and Yahweh bring us? Vivekananda again is one of the few people we can rely on as a basis for coping with the flood of questions.

The point I am trying to make, is a I believe a very important one in terms of understanding just what SORT of threat is posed by Islamism and malignant evangelism.

The presence of an Allah or a Yahweh is no threat. Hinduism can shake off any Gods that exist or that are yet to come.

But the real threat is in the forcible closing of minds that is required by the active spread of Islam and Christianity by conversion. Those who seek to close minds by forcing belief in a particular direction are a threat to freedom.

The argument that is used for allowing conversions is that one is allowed freedom of belief. Fine, but does belief in Jehovah or Allah give you freedom to believe in Shiva too? If not, then conversions have nothing to do with freedom. Using the word freedom is basically deceit. Freedom of religion does not amount to freedom of deceit.

I believe that it is important to have very clearly in our minds, the reason why conversion is a threat. Conversion to a thought process that accepts no other God is an assault on the identity of India. Indians have always accepted other faiths as equals. The survival of India as a secular state as per the Indian constitution demands that no thought process or religion should undermine the equality of all religions and Gods. This is perfectly compatible with Hindu thought as expressed in the post by Acharya above:

QUOTE Hinduism never state it has monopoly on truth or God.Â According to Hinduism, God & truth are universal.

Rig Veda states:Â 'ekam sat viprah bahudaa vadanti'Â â¦meaning Truth or God is one but learnt men describe it in many ways.

Anyone who attempts to upset that equality by preaching the supremacy of one God over the other is anti-national and must be opposed as an assault on the constitution. Organized or forced Conversion (or conversion by its Islamic name "reversion") is sedition.

I do not want to derail this thread, so I wil start a new thread using this post - and will leave it to the froum leaders to decide whether it should survive or not.

04-20-2007, 03:26 PM

I agree!! And so would most people here, however whats the point? In the sense, how do we take this discourse and turn it to positive action outside of the internet?

Those are the ideas we should discuss.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-22-2007, 01:46 PM by Husky.)

You make two points, I will discuss why both stem from fundamental misunderstandings:
(1) "People praying to Allah/Jehovah should be considered Hindus too"
QUOTEIf we were to argue that Allah/Jehovah are not Gods at all, then how is the Hindu viewpoint any different from Allah saying "There is no God but me" and all other "Gods" are false.

With respect SaiK - I think you are misinterpreting the Hindu concept of "God" (as being the same as oneness/unity) to serve a particular narrow need to reject Allah and Yahweh. I believe that is wrong.

As long as a person accepts that it is OK to worship Allah or Shiva, and both are the same - he subscribes to the Hindu scheme of things.

If, however, he says that Shiva is out, only Allah/Yahweh are in, then that is a closing of the mind that goes against the tenets of Hinduism. Similarly saying that Shiva is in, Allah is out could be a closing of one's mind.(Point 2 is for the next post).

(1) "People praying to Allah/Jehovah should be considered Hindus too"
Here we're talking about Hindus praying to islamic allah and christian jehovah.
First preliminaries:

(a) I've written about this elsewhere, but to summarise:
Christian jehovah is not same as Judaic Yahweh.
Hear me out: reason is because Yahweh is the God of the Jewish tribe who has a specific covenant with them. (The covenant contract is made via the practise of circumcision.)
The Jews are the ones who know Yahweh, it's their scriptures that describe and mention him. He is their God.
Now, the scribes of christianity needed a religion, a background to attach their jesus to and give him legitimacy. They copied the Pentateuch and muddled up even the copying process and called it the OT.
Jesus then supposedly created a new covenant: his NT. No circumcision is required, christianity is no longer the local religion of Jewish people, but a universal (=meaning of word 'catholic') religion. This is because christians didn't know the actual meaning of the Jewish concept of 'messiah' and got it wrong by confounding it with the Zoroastrian Saoshyant (World Saviour). Instead of the messiah being the one of David's line to deliver the Jews from the Romans, the messiah became the 'world saviour', making christianism into a 'catholic' religion: for all mankind.
- All christians of today say that jesus is the same as the god of the OT.
- The Jewish people do not recognise that their God (Yahweh) is jesus. They do not accept that their God would be born as a human.
Therefore, these are fundamentally opposing claims. Who to believe? Easy: the Jews, because they are the ones who had the original scriptures that the christians copied badly to make the OT. And the Jews were the ones with a valid deity that the christians misunderstood and turned into a pagan-style dying-and-resurrecting deity, the fictive godman jesus.

Yahweh being the local God of Jewish people, he was never originally meant to be a universal deity as jehovah was fashioned into by christians. If you read Deuteronomy (I think it was), you will find out how there are numerous references to many Gods, of which Yahweh is the one who made a covenant with the Jewish people. This is how Jewish people are defined: those who have made that covenant with their God Yahweh.

I had explained this elsewhere in IF but can't find it. Some related bits are also here and here

(b) Now, when the man-made character of jehovah insists 'thou shalt have no other gods before me' you are talking about the 'universal christian god'. He's the same as the 'universal' islamic allah (not same as Pagan Arabian deity Allah, one of several Arabian Gods). Islamic allah's character is the same as christian jehovah's character and only his name has anything to do with the Old Arabian deity's.

This bit is very important to understand: no Hindu can honour the fictional christoislamic deities allah-jehova without honouring these gods' Number 1 commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
If some Hindu ignorant of this shows his 'respects' to either of these gods, then he fails to show proper respect because he has not yet denounced his own Hindu Gods or the Gods of the Japanese, Greeks, Africans, etcetera.

See the mutual exclusion here? This is exactly why
you cannot be both a Hindu and a follower of the christoislamic god.
This is a logic error that only Hindus ignorant of the fundamentals of christoislamism can make, and it is one of the reasons no christoislamic will ever accept you.
More importantly, such a Hindu is not truly showing any respect for the actual characters of these non-existent deities as described by their inventors the early christians and muslims. Instead, such a Hindu, when he thinks he is praying to the christoislamic god(s), is praying to his own mental idea of what this deity is like. And his mental idea of these gods is wrong - as I said, the christoislamic scriptures determine what their gods are like - so he is not praying to the christoislamic gods at all, but to an idea he made up.

(c ) The christoislamic gods' characters are the very opposite of what Hindu and others' Natural Gods are like. The 'all-loving' jehovah in the NT, where he is called jesus, threatens with eternal hellfire for those who are not saved (non-christians) or those who are christians but haven't kept to his laws. (Salvation is a tricky business in christianity, not a single sect has ever agreed on how it is achieved, so let's not discuss this here.)
Islamic hell of the al-rehman allah the 'all-merciful' is also eternal for the kafirs and many muslims too. (Mohammed tells how he's seen hell and most of it is populated with women - and that while women are 50% of the average human population).
All people who ever lived who were not christian went to christian hell and all those who ever lived after the 'seal of the prophets' (mohammed) and weren't muslim are in islamic hell (jekinnah/jahannah - Arabian version of Hebrew 'Gehenna', the garbage dump just outside Jerusalem where the corpses ended up in).
Neither can co-exist, because which hell does the non-christian non-muslim go to? You get more funny questions like: do all christians end up in islamic hell and all muslims in christian hell?

Anyway, the point was: excruciating punishment for all of infinity for finite sins (such as not believing) by a supposed 'all-loving, all-merciful' god is contrary to Dharmic Religions and most other Natural Religions. It is certainly not what Hindus have in mind when they think of Gods.
So as I said before, the Hindu is severely mistaken when in his ignorance he chooses to honour these christoislamic gods (who if they had existed, would be considered the very definition of utter evil) as if they were similar to our own or to the Kamis or Le Grand Esprit.

Also, to show respect for the christoislamic gods requires that Hindus not only denounce their Hindu Gods and Other Gods, but also other Hindus as well (because they still follow the Hindu Gods).

In conclusion: A Hindu who imagines himself being both Hindu and as praying/showing respect to the christoislamic god is not in fact praying to a christoislamic god, but to a being of his own imagination. It is our own Gods to whom such a prayer is offered in the end, because the unwitting Hindus tend to imagine the fictive christoislamic god as having the same characteristics as our own and our own Gods are the ones who end up listening and accepting the salutations therefore.
That's why when a Hindu says 'All Gods are the same', it is in this sense that he really thinks they all are the same.
The Hindu is only deluding himself if he thinks he is praying to the christoislamic deity, when he is in fact thoroughly ignorant about any and all aspects of that same fictive deity. And if the christoislamic gods existed, they would in fact be thoroughly offended by any Hindus who bowed down both to them and to other Gods, because it flies against the primary law they stipulated: 'one god, me, me, me! or eternal hell'

Any Hindu who wishes to honour the christoislamic god: conversion to christoislamism is the only way. Else you are still insulting christoislamics by pretending to show their deities respect by doing exactly that which offends their deities the most.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 08:16 PM by Husky.)

Continued from last post.

The next misunderstanding can be found reflected in this:
(2) "Indians who are not inclusive of other Gods must be considered anti-national":
QUOTE<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE Hinduism never state it has monopoly on truth or God.Â According to Hinduism, God & truth are universal.

Rig Veda states:Â 'ekam sat viprah bahudaa vadanti'Â â¦meaning Truth or God is one but learnt men describe it in many ways.Anyone who attempts to upset that equality by preaching the supremacy of one God over the other is anti-national and must be opposed as an assault on the constitution. Organized or forced Conversion (or conversion by its Islamic name "reversion") is sedition.</div>See what I've coloured blue in your excerpt. This is what I'll be discussing.

You're saying nothing new, nor anything that can ever be (barring wholesale change of christoislamism which would result in the religions themselves ceasing to exist as such in all essentials).
This is what the recent generations of Hindus and most Hindus today, including the BJP have been saying forever w.r.t. christoislamism. They all insist that 'All Gods are the same' and extend this to include the christoislamic deities. In their ignorance of christoislamism, these same Hindus then expect the christoislamics to reciprocate and are then surprised to find that most christians and muslims in India (with the exception of those who'd be considered heretical by their own kind) do not. The Hindu considers the non-reciprocation as anti-national.

It is not anti-national. It is merely anti-Hindu. It is anti-anything that is not christoislamic.

Christoislamics claim it as their fundamental right to follow their gods: their gods as they are defined and characterised by their scriptures. It is in these scriptures, where we find their deities declaring the imperative, the fundamental commandment, 'Thou shalt have no other Gods before me'. If they go against that, they become heathens, kafirs, worthy not only of being persecuted by their own for heresy and apostasy, but also of eternal punishment by their deity for forsaking his most primary injunction.

So when you, as other Hindus have done, expect christoislamics to not "upset that equality (of all Gods) by preaching the supremacy of one God over the other" you are in effect saying that the christoislamics must renounce their god, by relinquishing adherence to the most basic beliefs pertaining to their deity. You are asking them to commit the Number One Sin against their gods (by tolerating/recognising other Gods as equals), for which there is no absolution in their religion.

And when you declare that if they do not accept all Gods as equal "it is anti-national and must be opposed", you are in effect opposing their 'freedom of religion' and basically declaring war on them. You give them no choice but to oppose you.

They insist on the 'right' of proclaiming one god (and one son or one prophet) and that all others are false - it is the foundation of their religion, after all. They insist on the right to proclaim that all those who do not see the matter in the same way are in fact opposing their god, are heathens, are kafirs - that they must be converted (a fundamental duty in christianity which christians in India claim as a religious right), that all the dar-ul-harbs must be made dar-ul-islams (fundamental duty in islam).

If you do not understand what I am saying, then you do not understand christianity/islam. Note that this is not a matter on which one can agree or disagree (not an opinion), but a factual matter: it's either right or wrong. In this case, what I've written happens to be right.
Only heretic christians and muslims would side with us. (And some do, but only because such people are governed by their conscience; and not by their religion as is expected of them. They are unsaved kafirs already and their religion accords them the same fate as it does us: eternal hell.)

This misunderstanding of the most basic functionings of christoislamism is something I find most Hindus have. Due to lack of exposure to the basic ideas of christoislamism, Hindus have a mindset that simply does not understand christoislamism and why it results in the phenomena we see, why it expects the 'rights' it does ('right' to evangelise, 'right' to proclaim Only allah, and death to idolators), why its followers behave the way they do (all throughout history).
This is why BJP and Hindus can talk of anti-national 'EJs' and 'IJs' all they want, but it will accomplish nothing. Because in the end it is the christoislamic religion itself that is the brick wall. The buck stops there. What is required is an understanding of that religion, rather than the blind assumption by Hindus that it works the way our religion does.
Hindus should stop presuming and start learning, or else we'll forever be talking about things we don't understand because we never bothered to. Making assumptions about such grave matters is dangerous: will lead to waste of time, misidentifying problems, not seeing the actual problem, non-applicable 'solutions', misconceptions all around. Continued ignorance is often what leads to further conversions.

ramana · 04-20-2007, 07:43 PM

Husky, you have a good grasp of the fundamentals. However you lose your audience when you use 'pejoratives'- jeebus, gawd, jehovah etc. I suggest you call things by their right name and then your arguements can be used far and wide to clear up misunderstandings.
Thanks, ramana

04-20-2007, 07:47 PM

Will do, but check your PM.

ramana · 04-20-2007, 08:13 PM

Thanks, I appreciate it.
ramana

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 10:07 PM by Husky.)

Ramana is it good enough?
- changed: god, jesus, christians

But:
- Left in 'jehovah', because until recently christians used this name for the biblical god. (When they were allowed to use it, that is. It was long considered blasphemous even to say 'god' or 'jesus' - in England one got locked up in the Tower or even executed for "using god's name in vain". That's when many of those near-hit phrases were invented: example, 'Egads', 'by Jove' - which ends up referring to Zeus instead of jehovah.)
The long use of 'jehovah' instead of 'Yahweh' is yet another indication that christians had no clue of what they had copied from Judaic scriptures. For a long time Jewish people were forbidden to pronounce the name of YHWH, and so christians never figured out such a basic fact about their plagiarised deity until recent times. (The very name "jehovah's witnesses" is a good example.)
Also I refuse to confound the legitimate God of the Jews with the poor christian copy. YHWH is the God of his chosen people the Jews, and christians believe in the biblical god who took shape as jesus.

- Left in 'christoislamic(s)',
since western people use 'judeo-christian' all the time - a very horrible thing to do: dragging down the respectability of Judaism to give it to christianism.

- Have still not capitalised first letter of words: christians, muslims, allah, jehovah

04-20-2007, 09:00 PM

Husky I understand what you are saying. But I believe you don't understand Hinduism.

You can understand Christianity and Islam till you are green in the face, but unless you look at things like a Hindu you cannot get the whole picture.

It IS possible for a Hindu to follow allah and shiva and he does not give a damn whether fundoo Christians agree with him or not. He is being a Hindu by doing that. If you reject him as not being a proper Hindu you are pushing yourself into a corner. You have to work with this moron Hindu, not against him.

That is not Christianity's problem. It is Hinduism's problem. And if you are Hindu - yours too.

Christianity and Islam are like a brick wall but hey - whose asking anyone to change the religion. That is a mistake. All we need to do is change people.

The big mistake you and many others make is to talk about attacking brick walls that need to be left alone. You need to use available windows and doors and crevices. Attacking brick walls is pointless - so don't try and change any religions. Understanding Hindus and Hinduism is a good idea before getting mad at them.

ramana · 04-20-2007, 09:14 PM

Ah, Rivers and Streams strategy!

04-20-2007, 09:24 PM

The point I was trying to make is to explore if there are any legal cases that can be made against conversions.

I have seen a great deal of anger at conversions but no clear explanation as to why Hindus should be against conversions - other than that they are angry.

Nobody is able to explain why he is angry or even what is being threatened by conversions. To me there seems to be deep lack of knowledge of Hinduism itself among some of the the most angry protestors who are prone to dub Hindus as less than Hindu for reasons that seem untenable from a Hindu viewpoint.

So the sensitivity to conversions remains a mystery to me other than the sedition bit I have written about. I may be stupid, dumb and lack knowledge - but those descriptions do not help make the worry about conversions any clearer.

It is possible to take the laid back attitude that Hinduism will take care of itself. Unless Hindus can understand how evanjihadism is a threat nobody is going to see it as a threat. Knowledge of Christianity and Islam will not help creating awareness of a threat to a person who does not see any threat from any faith. That is what a Hindu is.

Is Evangelism really a threat then? How?

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-22-2007, 02:11 PM by Husky.)

QUOTEIt IS possible for a Hindu to follow allah and shiva and he does not give a damn whether fundoo Christians agree with him or not. He is beong a Hindu by doing that. If you reject him as not being a proper Hindu you are pushing yourself into a corner. You have to work with this moron Hindu, not against him. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' />
You have a surprising tendency to misunderstand much of what I write. I never said I rejected the person as a Hindu. I'd like you to show me where exactly you believe I said that.

What I did say, was:
This person is a Hindu who does not know that he's not in fact following allah/jehovah. It is neither allah nor jehovah that he is praying too. It just isn't. Instead, they're praying to a deity that the Hindu gives the name of allah and jehovah to, merely because said Hindu has not studied the christoislamic deities to know what their characteristics actually are (which don't match with those of the imaginary deity the Hindu has in mind). When the same Hindu finds out about the true character of the christoislamic deity, he no longer follows him.

And he's not a 'moron Hindu' - don't call them that. There are many like that around. They're just Hindus ignorant about christoislamism.
He's also a Hindu who is offending the idea of the christoislamic god.

QUOTEIt IS possible for a Hindu to follow allah and shiva and he does not give a damn whether fundoo Christians agree with him or not.It has nothing to do with a christian agreeing or not (although to be fair, they are the ones that know better what their god is like because they might have read the bible. So they do know what deity they are talking about!)

As I said, the very definition according to the bible and koran do not agree with the imaginary deities in the Hindu's mind that the Hindu has dubbed allah and jehovah!

The Hindu is simply mistaken. The bible and koran (and by extension, the christoislamics) are not mistaken in their rather clear description of the deities in question. Any deviations from this, and the deities are not the same.
For example, you can say the Hindu has the right to imagine allah is female. Indeed, but it's not the islamic allah the Hindu is following. Do you see what I am trying to explain?

So rephrasing your statement: it is not possible for a Hindu to follow the authentic allah or jehovah as described in the koran/bible and Shiva. It is only possibly for a Hindu to follow Shiva as well as Shiva's clone (or the Kamisama's clone) which he then proceeds to call allah/jehova.

If you do not see the distinction between these two, then you still do not understand what it is I am saying. Christianity and islam are very clearly defined religions, their gods are very clearly defined. A Hindu who hears only the name 'allah' and 'jehovah' and then starts praying to them is only praying to either (a) Air or (b) their own Gods who assume the name of allah/jehovah for the sake of the Hindu devotee.

Why did you lowercase Shiva, by the way. Yeah, I'm rather pedantic about these things.

QUOTEAttacking brick walls is pointless - so don't try and change any religions. Understanding Hindus and Hinduism is a good idea before getting mad at them.Mad at whom? Christianity and islam? I am mad at them for their own sakes. Why else would anyone be mad at them?
I do understand Hindus, and Hinduism.

04-20-2007, 09:39 PM

Another thing:
QUOTEKnowledge of Christianity and Islam will not help creating awareness of a threat to a person who does not see any threat from any faith. That is what a Hindu is. Fascism is also a 'faith' (faith in its ideology). So too communism. I hope at least that the threat they pose is clear.
People can be converted to fascism, communism just like they can to christoislamism. The threat comes from these being utterly destructive ideologies. And yes, you do need to know about the ideologies to know that they are utterly destructive. Knowledge of them will create awareness of the threat they pose.

Dangerous memes pose a great danger (threat) to all of humanity. We are all susceptible. The only things that can make us immune is to know why certain memes are dangerous to thus avoid being 'infected' by those memes.

There is a difference between being (1) fearless because you know what it is you are up against and are still not afraid; and (2) fearless because you are ignorant of what it is you face.
Your definition of "That is what a Hindu is" does seem to fall into (2) rather. No need to be foolhardy, raise our hands to the sky and say 'everything will be alright once we get to Tir Asleen'. It doesn't work that way.

04-20-2007, 09:47 PM

QUOTE(sengotuvel @ Apr 20 2007, 09:24 PM)I have seen a great deal of anger at conversions but no clear explanation as to why Hindus should be against conversions - other than that they are angry.

Nobody is able to explain why he is angry or even what is being threatened byÂ conversions.


I have made attempts to read some good arguments, but have found none that convinces me enough. The one argument I have heard is the state of affairs in NE India and their anti-nationalism. Are the NE Indians culturally so different from the rest of the India? I don't see Christians in Kerala or Tamil Nadu asking to be separated from India. So even for sedition, is there another motive than just religion?

From âtheirâ perspective in a free society they are touting how they are better than âusâ. They list their strengths and our weaknesses. So if our neighbor buys into their thoughts, on what grounds do we cry âfoulâ as long as the neighbor does not threaten our way of life?

It is like the sales man selling some services or commodity - even if it means by buying his product or services we have to stop the current service or product. If âtheirâ salesman peddles the well polished gleaming diamond hiding the fact that it was a âblood diamondâ, it just means he is doing a good job of it. Also the people buying those diamonds are not bothered about how it was mined in the first place. It is moot to discuss the âoriginsâ as long as the finished product â right in front of the prospective buyerâs eyes â is appealing and serves a need.

We can get angry at the fact that people using our brand are buying into the salesmenâs tactics and switching, but then it means we ought to strive harder for customer retention and gain new customers. We can go to courts whining they are not following the rules and are not playing fair.

I would love to see a precise articulation on how, in a free society, conversion attempts are bad. I am not talking about forced conversions.

Husky: A great write-up on ChristoIslamism.

Added
Ramana: What is rivers and streams stategy?

04-20-2007, 10:03 PM

I have noticed elsewhere and to a small extent on here that there is a tendency to credit Allah and Jehovah with more power than they have and to discredit Hindus by assuming that they are somehow not knowledgeable enough.

The assumption is that any Christian and any Muslims is a rigid adherent of his faith. There is a deep flaw in this argument because if all Christians and Muslims are rigid adherents, that means that the faith is indeed very good and very attractive.

In fact both faiths have deep flaws and those flaws are recognised by their followers. Christianity of course is not followed rigidly at all over most of the Christian world. Islam is followed better because it is the same as living in a concentration camp. Escape is punished.

The rigidest followers are mostly the Priests (the Church) and Mullahs and supporting Sultans whose power depends on it.

Hindus are the most subversive people for these faiths and they are not as dumb as imagined. A lot of Hindus follow multiple Gods because they feel that they get extra points for that. Many converts are only half -converts who do whatever is convenient. These "half converts" are not victories for rigid faiths - they are doomed to be failures in the long term.

Most Germans followed Hitler during WW2 , but most were not Nazis. People do what is expedient and conversion and reversion are part of that game.

I would love to see the day when the RSS holds a bhajan and hymn singing session in a Church on the basis that all Gods are one. That is a far better pro-active "attacking move" than the reversion of converted Hindus.

I have prayed in a Church - but unfortunately I don't have the solid credentials of the RSS to score a publicity coup.

But I don't think we Hindus have figured out how to play this game well.

04-20-2007, 10:11 PM

QUOTE(Husky @ Apr 20 2007, 09:39 PM)
There is a difference between being (1) fearless because you know what it is you are up against and are still not afraid; and (2) fearless because you are ignorant of what it is you face.
Your definition of "That is what a Hindu is" does seem to fall into (2) rather.


Whether the Hindu gets screwed with our without his consent is immaterial when he is getting screwed both ways. But the question is - is the Hindu getting screwed at all by conversion, or is he screwing the faith?

04-20-2007, 10:22 PM

QUOTE(SwamyG @ Apr 20 2007, 09:47 PM)I have made attempts to read some good arguments, but have found none that convinces me enough. The one argument I have heard is the state of affairs in NE India and their anti-nationalism. Are the NE Indians culturally so different from the rest of the India? I don't see Christians in Kerala or Tamil Nadu asking to be separated from India. So even for sedition, is there another motive than just religion?

From âtheirâ perspective in a free society they are touting how they are better than âusâ. They list their strengths and our weaknesses. So if our neighbor buys into their thoughts, on what grounds do we cry âfoulâ as long as the neighbor does not threaten our way of life?

< snip >

I would love to see a precise articulation on how, in a free society, conversion attempts are bad. I am not talking about forced conversions.

[right][snapback]67529[/snapback][/right]


Great post.

Whatever the motivation of the people in the North east - a rigid paranoia of Christianity is not in our interest. While we Hindus are so good at "understanding" how rigid Christianity is, we fail in seeing that the rigidity is equally a put off for Christians. We end up seeing failures in converts when we could actually be finding victories in "half-converts" and diluters and benders of rigid faiths - which is an Indic trait.

is it possible that some Hindus have a more rigid view and mindset about what consititutes "indic" even as we believe ourselves to be flexible and wholly indic?

Ultimately rigidity and flexibility are human traits and not traits of inanimate objects like books. Hindus can show more rigidity of attitude than followers of rigid faiths. That is ironic because they then behave less like Hindus and more like followers of rigid faiths. And they lose the support of Hindus that they should be gaining.

04-20-2007, 10:45 PM

Let me make a provocative post.

Caste barriers are being removed in India. Nevertheless, each individual who is a child descended from a family of a particular caste carries with him the unique memories and narrative that his caste alone carried till date.

Is there any evidence to suggest that the people who oppose conversions today consist of a group of Hindus who are descended from every caste equi-proportionally. Or is it possible that descendants of some particular caste groups are more vehemently against conversion than descendants from other caste groups.

This statistic is a politically explosive one and it is worth answering the question with an honest poll/census. If we don't do it, sooner or later Church/NGO funded sociologists will do it.

If it can be shown,for example that conversions are opposed predominantly by the descendants of relatively forward caste people it would be a victory for the people who curse Hindus. However, even if that were true it should serve as a lesson for everyone in trying to understand what it is in the narratives of some Hindus that make them opposed to conversion, and what it is in the history/narrative of descendants of other caste groups to make them see things differently.

Whatever the truth, there are lessons to be learned. Are we going to learn them by ourselves, or are we going to wait for a church group to do it first, slap us on the face with some egregious info and whine reactively?

ramana · (This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 11:08 PM by ramana.)

Just as rivers and streams bypass the rocks that stand between them so does this going around the brickwall.

Need to read your Mao!

Shiv, Everyone is rigid about the core issues and flexible about the peripheral issues. The key to remember is that what is flexible now is core sometime before and those who are rigid now have not moved on yet. And some people rigid now were flexible before.
Case in point AB.

In the mid 90s he refused to light Diwali lamp at a public functionaas a sign of his accpetance of all faiths. However in case of his son's wedding, a private event with public awareness, he is quite orthodox and a stickler to protocol and tradition.

04-20-2007, 10:59 PM

Interesting post ramana.

But "core" in Christianity and islam are rigidly defined. But Hindus have NOT defined or defended their "core"

Or have they..?

Secularism is consistent with Hindu thought but not islam.

However, secularism was defined by Christian societies who ensured that core Christianity would be bypassed by secularism by defining religion as "private".
I mean if everyone has sex in public - is it "private"? Then how is a religion, followed by everyone, with huge buildings made for it, public displays at some time of year and public holidays based on religion a "private" affair? It is merely a trick that is putting evangelical danda up Hindu backsides.

So Hindus can hold the constitutional secularism sword at Islam's throat, but not at the throat of evangelists.

Login




Remember me Lost Password?