Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 3

[acharya]

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Home > 2007 Issues > September 16, 2007

London Post

Church frenzy on yoga
By Prasun Sonwalkar

LONDON: At a time when Indian yoga expert Swami Ramdev’s yoga camps are spreading far and wide in the UK, two churches here have banned a group from conducting yoga classes because the ancient practice is allegedly ‘un-Christian’.

The yoga group for children was being run by Louise Woodstock at the Silver Street Baptist Church and St James’s Church of England Church in Taunton, Somerset. But church ministers this week banned it and branded yoga as a ‘sham’ and ‘un-Christian’.

Woodstock, who was turned away from the churches on Thursday, said that the allegations against yoga were ‘ridiculous’ because her classes simply involve music and movement. She was told that yoga ‘impinges’ on the spiritual agenda of the churches.

Ramdev’s camps have been held in several places in the UK, the most recent in Scotland. The camps have attracted a large number of people, mostly Asians but also non-Asians, who have benefited from his advice and exercises.

Woodstock said: “I couldn’t believe it when they suddenly said I couldn’t have the hall any more because yoga is against their Christian ethos. It’s crazy because we’re talking about kids pretending to be animals and doing exercise routines to rhymes—it’s really sweet.

“There is nothing that could damage their minds in any shape or form. The church has completely misunderstood it and I think they are being narrow-minded. I explained to the church that my yoga is a completely non-religious activity. There is no dogma involved.”

Reports from Taunton say that Woodstock was originally given permission to use the Baptist Church hall for a children’s activity group, but the minister, the Reverend Simon Farrar, withdrew his consent after discovering it was for yoga. Days later, St James’s Church also barred her for the same reason.

Defending his decision to ban the yoga group, Rev Farrar said: “We are a Christian organisation and when we let rooms to people we want them to understand that they must be fully in line with our Christian ethos.

“Clearly yoga impinges on the spiritual life of people in a way which we as Christians don’t believe is the same as our ethos. If it was just a group of children singing nursery rhymes, there wouldn’t be a problem.

“But, she’s called it yoga and therefore there is a dividing line we’re not prepared to cross.”

Rev Tim Jones, the vicar of St James’ Church, told The Telegraph: “Any alternative philosophies or beliefs are offering a sham—and at St James’s Church we want people to have the real thing.

“Yoga has its roots in Hinduism, and attempts to use exercises and relaxation techniques to put a person into a calm frame of mind—in touch with some kind of impersonal spiritual reality.

“The philosophy of yoga cannot be separated from the practice of it, and any teacher of yoga (even to toddlers) must subscribe to the philosophy. As Christians we believe that this philosophy is false and not something we wish to encourage.

“Yoga is encouraging people to think that there is a way to wholeness of body and mind through human techniques— whereas the only true way to wholeness is by faith in God through Jesus Christ.”

The reports added that Woodcock had moved her classes to a nearby village hall.

Woodstock is among the many non-Asians who practice and teach yoga in the UK. Many of them learn yoga techniques during visits to India, and continue their practice and begin teaching after returning to the UK.

[Shambhu]

I was reading Yoga+ magazine (founded by Swami Rama) in B&N. They have an article about how Jewish and Xtian people are encouraged by some club to do Yoga and fill the mind with Christ or "God" ... Well, I say, lets do it. Dharma grows in a person slowly, and the process is a conversion of the whole being..not just a little signed agreement somewhere. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[acharya]

Can somebody translate it


I have attached the detailed write-up in English on what has been happening in Thenkashi. This news must spread everywhere. The father of the slain (He has lost 4 of his sons now) is just a tea-shop owner but his determination, courage and commitment even at this time of heartrending sorrow is awe-inspiring shows how Hinduism remains strong even after centuries of repeated onslaughts.

I have also attached the related Tamil links below for the rest of us who can read in Tamil.

http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/2007/...-post_6082.html
http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/2007/...og-post_05.html
http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/2007/09/1925.html
http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/2006/...og-post_31.html
http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/2007/...-post_3683.html
http://puduvaisaravanan.blogspot.com/200...-post.html
http://arvindneela.blogspot.com/2007/08/...st_14.html

Thanks,

Sundaresh.

[acharya]

http://www.karmayog.com/lists/christianngos1.htm

Lot of Hindu names

[acharya]

See www.jesusneverexisted.com

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity </b>

By Jason Leopold

      A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.
 
The complaint, filed in US District Court in Kansas City, by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist currently on active duty in Speicher, Iraq, alleges that Hall's First Amendment rights were violated beginning last Thanksgiving when, because of his atheist beliefs, he declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday.

    "Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist," says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to Truthout. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."

    Moreover, the complaint alleges that on August 7, when Hall received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Paul Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to block Hall's reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the Constitution. Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

    "During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff Hall's and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their interests," the lawsuit alleges.

    The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas, has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution...

   
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?opti...&id=857&Itemid=<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Shambhu]

Bit Tangential but relevant:

NPR late night has 1/2 hr for German Deutche Welle radio

DW said that in Greece, the Church is getting upset over greeks who have gone back to their roots (Zeus worship etc). Pantheon follower Greek woman said "We do not harm anyone. Anyone can see what we are doing. We do not proselytize. Why is Church afraid of us?"
Some Greek orthodox father said: "If they wanna worship their gods, they should not do it in the old temples, because these are now tourist attractions"

(Why is father upset? Temples are *rightful* places of worship for Pantheon followers!!)
(Also: Xtians have the jeebus-given right to proselytize, but when others do it, its tauba mere jeejjus onleee!)

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Teresa used me to get sainthood: Monica Bestra</b>
September 21, 2007
Dangram (Bengal): Monica Bestra has openly made a serious allegation against ‘Missionaries of Charity’ that she was lured and cheated and poverty was forced on her by missionaries of Mother Teresa. (Hindus, falling prey to missionaries’ bait, must realize the truth – Editor). The allegation was made by Bestra at her native place South Dinapur in Bengal in the presence of media persons. News related to this incident has been published in a Kannada daily ‘Hosdigant’.
         
Bestra said, “I had made a statement that I was cured of cancer when I was just touched by Mother Teresa but I had fallen prey to the bait. I was assured that they would take the responsibility of my children’s education and was promised financial aid.” She said that she was taken to Vatican City on 19th October 2003 and was presented before Pope John Paul just to show that she was cured of cancer by Teresa with mere touch. Till Mother Teresa was conferred with sainthood, ladies from Missionaries of Charity used to visit her house frequently; but once the purpose was over, they have conveniently forgotten her. Now they do not come and she was facing lot of hardships and leading life that was full of adversities. 
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Sep 19 2007, 07:38 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Sep 19 2007, 07:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->See www.jesusneverexisted.com
[right][snapback]73361[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


The Christianizing of the Americas


Shadowy Mr Big behind worldwide criminal organisation. Known variously as 'Jesus', 'Christ', 'Lord', and 'Saviour'. Persistent rumours of a brief appearance in Palestine though unknown in official records. Cult members convince themselves JC is alive today. Intelligence suggests never actually existed.
email the author –
Kenneth Humphreys

Site Search: search tips site map

27.09.06



















Catastrophe

"The conquest of the New World set off two vast demographic catastrophes, unparalled in history: the virtual destruction of the indigenous population of the Western hemisphere, and the devastation of Africa as the slave trade rapidly expanded to serve the needs of the conquerors, and the continent itself was subjugated."

– Noam Chomsky (Year 501, p5)



Loving enemies, Christian-style.

1500-1700 Europe Ablaze for Christ!
Reformation, Counter-Reformation, murder upon murder, war upon war. Gangster popes, intolerant reformers, roasted Jews, tortured heretics and burned witches – what a jolly time was had by all.

Land clearance, in the name of Jesus.

1500-1600 New Spain – Old Horrors
Christian knights brought savagery and racism to a whole new world. Miniscule in number, the Spanish adventurers, equipped with superior firepower and infected with deadly European diseases, descended on an unsuspecting native world. Every genocidal step was sanctioned and blessed by Holy Mother Church.

Locked and loaded.



1600-1700 Christ in the Colonies
Buccaneers, Bigots, Slavers and Traders
Gentle Jesus arrived in England's North American colonies with a well-armed military escort. Clinging to the edge of a vast continent a motley crew of venture capitalists, criminals and self-righteous fanatics established a precarious existence in the new world.

Stiffed-collared Brits couldn't hold back those avaricious Yankees. Hallelujah!

1700-1850 Birth of a Nation
A stolen land, worked by an enslaved labour force, cultivating drug crops, could not fail to enrich the colonial elite.
Breaking free politically from Old World monarchies the New Republic beckoned Europe's huddled masses, yearning for liberty – and a quick buck.




De Camptown ladies sing this song, Doo-da, Doo-da De

In Human Bondage – Did Jesus Keep Slaves?
Christianity – in fact all three monotheistic religions – have a history steeped in condoning, justifying and practicing slavery. The British primed the pump of the Industrial Revolution with the slave trade. The American Republic built the foundations of its economy on the institution of slavery. Jesus was with them all the way.

Family values – drudgery and faith.

1850-1950 The Americanising of Christianity
God-fearing folk, driven by a dream of vast personal wealth, with an unrestrained willingness to eradicate anything and anyone standing in the way, required an entrepreneurial recasting of the Palestinian pageant.
Jesus had to become All-American. The slicksters saw their opportunity, fabricating a convenience Christianity, packaged in multifarious varieties.




Are you rapture ready?

1950-2005 Jesus loves a winner! – Shaking Down the Sheep
In choreographed extravaganzas rationality and judgement fall victim to mass hysteria. Whipping up the Jesus frenzy are a bunch of crooks and hucksters, womanising egotists and dangerous megalomaniacs.

21st century Jesus drives an SUV. Warming the Earth up a little? Man, it's ALL gonna burn!

End Time – Jesus Jihad
Grown into a world power, without precedent either for its wealth or military prowess, the US of A, strives to remake the world in its own likeness. The Bush Dynasty, encouraged by the Christian Right – Israel alliance, is on a Mission. God help us.

[acharya]

List of Christian 'love' from all over the world

Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
Ancient Pagans

* As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
* Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
* Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
* Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
* Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
* Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
* In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
* In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
* The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]

Mission

* Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
* Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
* Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
* 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
* 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".

Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]
Crusades (1095-1291)

* First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
* Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
* 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
* Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
* after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
* Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
* Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
* The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
* Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
* Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
* Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
* Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]

Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.
Heretics

* Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
* Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
* Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
* Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
* subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
* After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
* Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
* Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
* Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
* John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
* University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
* Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

* from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
* in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
* incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

* 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
* 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
* 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
* 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
* 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
* 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
* 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

* Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
* In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
* 17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
* The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
* First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
* Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
* Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
* Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
* 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
* 1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
* 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
* 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
* 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
* 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
* 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
* 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
* 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.
Native Peoples

* Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
* Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
* On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

* Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
* In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
* On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
* The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
* As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
* The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
* What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
* The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
* "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
* Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
* "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

* Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
* In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
* On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
* When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
* So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
* Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
* Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
* Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
* The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
* Other tribes were to follow the same path.
* Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
* Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
* In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
* In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
* To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
* All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
* A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
* In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

* Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
* Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
More gory details.
* By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

* Catholic extermination camps
Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!
In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
* Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.
The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
o "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. ( Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life.

* Christianity kills the cat
On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers college in Germany, died: she starved herself to death. For months she had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop of Wrzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital - her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having called for medical help. None of the priests was punished: on the contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the seventeenth century Wrzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]
* Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:
o "Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.
According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]
* As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end.

If today Christians talk to me about morality, this is why they make me sick.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sexual abuse: Pastor arrested</b>
9/23/2007 9:36:35 AM  www.newindpress.com

THRISSUR: Peechi police on Saturday arrested pastor K J Sebastian, 45, following a complaint by a 40- year-old widow hailing from Nadathara, alleging sexual harassment.

Police said that the pastor had enticed the women by offering his help to secure a loan from a bank at Alathur in Palakkad district. <b>When the woman met the pastor at Alathur on December 23, 2006, he took her in his car to a lodge and subjected her to sexual harassment. The woman in her complaint stated that she was subjected to sexual harassment on many occasions later.</b>

Police said that he would be produced before the First Class Judicial Magistrate.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

http://www.gfa.org/aboutkp

About K.P. Yohannan
K.P. Yohannan
K. P. Yohannan

K.P. Yohannan is the founder and president of Gospel for Asia, a mission organization involved in evangelism and church planting in the unreached regions of Asia. Currently Gospel for Asia supports over 16,500 church planters in the heart of the 10/40 Window.

Born in a remote village of South India, K.P. Yohannan's personal journey toward spiritual reality began at the age of eight when he gave his heart to Christ. While he was still a young boy, his mother began fasting each week, praying God would call one of her six sons into full-time Gospel ministry. Her prayers were answered in 1966 when 16 year-old K.P., her youngest, volunteered to serve in North India with Operation Mobilization.

From 1974 to 1979 K.P. attended Criswell Bible College in Dallas, Texas, where he earned his B.A. in Biblical Studies. He was also awarded an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Hindustan Bible College in Madras, India.

During the time he attended Criswell, he pastored a local church in Dallas. However, he was unable to forget the millions still lost without Christ in his homeland of India, and knew God was calling him to reach his own people. In 1978 K.P. resigned his pastorate and he and his wife, Gisela, organized what is now Gospel for Asia.

GFA has grown rapidly and has quickly become one of the most effective mission forces in Asia today. The ministry has expanded beyond India to support native missions in Nepal, Myanmar, and many other Asian nations. At the 54 Gospel for Asia missionary Bible colleges, over 8,000 church planters are being trained to reach the unreached.
K.P. Yohannan
Yohannan Family

In addition to traveling and speaking in North America, K.P. spends half of his time in Asia, consulting with Christian leaders and speaking at missionary gatherings. He's also heard throughout India by millions of people on a daily Christian radio program.

K.P. has authored more than 200 books published in India and five in the United States, Revolution in World Missions (ISBN 0-88419-195-8), The Road to Reality (ISBN 0-88419-250-4), Why the World Waits (ISBN 0-88419-303-9), Living in the Light of Eternity (ISBN 0-9632190-6-5), and Reflecting His Image (ISBN 1-56599-999-1).

He lives near Dallas with his wife Gisela. They have two grown children, Daniel and Sarah, who are serving the Lord.

http://www.gfa.org/about

<img src='http://www.gfamedia.org/images/gen_about_kp1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />


Why Native Missions?
Learn more about why native missions is the new revolution in world missions.

Today the reality is ...
Today the reality is that 97 percent of the world's unreached lives in the 10/40 Window, a rectangular shaped area on our globe extending from West Africa to East Asia, from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north of the equator. In this part of the world, millions live with little or no chance of ever hearing the Gospel. The Window also encompasses the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists.

The darkest of all areas within the 10/40 Window is Asia. Over 80,000 die every day in Asian countries without knowing about the love of Jesus Christ. 500,000 villages in India alone have never heard the Gospel.

Although 97 percent of the world's unreached lives in the 10/40 Window, less than .05 percent of our total resources as the Church in the West are being sent to help share the Good News. Truly there is a staggering amount of work to do.

However, with native missionaries we can reach them!

top | reality | barriers | workers | churches | your part | sponsor


With few or no cultural barriers to overcome, native missionaries can ...

With few or no cultural barriers to overcome, native missionaries can readily preach the Gospel to those who, unlike their western counterparts, have never heard. Although native missionaries do face many difficult obstacles as they take the message from village to village, they still have an enormous advantage over their coworkers from North America and other non-Asian lands.

Today, over 85 percent of Asian countries do not allow western missionaries to come and freely preach the Gospel and plant churches.

In the eyes of the people, native missionaries do not represent a foreign country or a strange religion. They already know the language or can easily learn a local dialect.

A native missionary can be sent out at a fraction of the cost of a Western missionary. In fact, the average cost is only $1,100 to $1,800 per year compared to over $75,000 per year for a foreign missionary.

The possibility of reaching Asia's multitudes through native missionaries in our generation is very real as thousands are being trained to plant churches across Asia!

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Thousands of native workers ...
Thousands of native workers are being trained and sent to the mission fields of Asia every year through Gospel for Asia. But many more are needed if the millions in these countries are to hear the Gospel in our lifetime.

To date 54 Bible colleges have been established in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and at the Bhutan border. Currently, nearly 9,000 young men and women are currently receiving training.

The quality of GFA students is incredible. Over 98 percent of our graduates minister in places where the Gospel has never before been preached. Frequently, our graduates will establish a new fellowship within their first year on the field.

This incredible fruit from native missions work is being reproduced across Asia!

top | reality | barriers | workers | churches | your part | sponsor


On average, our missionaries establish approximately 10 fellowships every day
On average, our missionaries establish approximately 10 fellowships every day in Asia among unreached villages and people groups. But none of this has come easily. Our native missionaries are paying a high price of suffering, hardship and intense persecution to see churches established.

The churches planted in each culture are truly indigenous in character, self-governing, self-propagating and, as soon as possible, self-supporting.

Thousands of native brothers and sisters are waiting to be sent. They just need your help!

top | reality | barriers | workers | churches | your part | sponsor


Your part in winning Asia ...
Your part in winning Asia is just as important as that of the workers on the field. Although they are willing and eager to go, they are limited by the resources given to provide a small room to rent, food to eat, and Bibles and tracts to distribute.

Without support from Christians around the world, our brothers and sisters in Asia simply would not be able to complete the task of sharing Christ with every village and people group.<b>

It takes only between $90 and $150 per month to support a native missionary through Gospel for Asia. You can help support one worker with a monthly donation of $30. As a sponsor, you are asked to pray regularly for your missionary. Click here to sponsor a missionary. When you become a sponsor, your missionary's picture and testimony will be sent to you promptly.</b>

There are numerous other ways to impact the lost world through Gospel for Asia. Click here to learn more about how you can be involved in reaching the most unreached.


http://www.gfa.org/whynativemissions

[acharya]

http://www.christianaggression.org/features_sikhism.php
Holding fierce pride in their identity, Sikhs have for decades been seen as “off-limits” by the missionary machine but not anymore. In a alarming trend, evangelism has begun to tread on the Sikh faith as well.

Every aspect of Punjabi society is being overwhelmed with this new wave of assertive Christianity. Besides nationwide programs in Hindi, Punjabi television channels have been deluged by Christian programs even though the Christian population of Punjab is less than 1%. Taking aim at Sikh youth, animated films and children’s books on Christianity are freely distributed by missionaries.

Because of the strong adherence to tradition by Sikhs, missionaries have attempted to repackage Christianity. Jesus is called “Satguru”, church is referred to as “Satsang” and choir singing is called “Kirtan”. Choir boys in Punjabi churches wear turbans to attempt to minimize the variation between Sikhism and Christianity. However, despite these attempts to disguise Christianity as a version of Sikhism, missionaries still cannot hide their intent: to destroy the Sikh faith.

An advertisement placed in a Punjabi newspaper, featuring a converted couple. Note that the male is portrayed wearing a traditional Sikh turban to woo Sikh converts.

While there have been some cases of genuine conversions, economically disadvantaged and illiterate Sikhs often complain that missionaries are using extortive practices such as bribing them with material possessions to change their religion. A young boy whose friends had converted to Christianity explained, "When I asked the boys as to why they have converted to Christianity, they said they had been given cash and free education. In our village alone, 5 to 6 people have converted and, of course, their generations to come would also be Christians."

Gurbachan Singh Bachan, former Secretary of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee and a proud Sikh, says "People who are converting from Hinduism and Sikhism to Christianity are those who have lost understanding of their own religion… Khalsa [Sikh] institutions and the Government need to educate the people about the values of a religion, and tell them that all religions are equal and no religion teaches us to fight with each other."

Such provocative evangelism in Punjab does not always go unnoticed by the local community. The Open Door Church run by Pastor Harbhajan Singh, a landlord who converted to Christianity from Sikhism, has aggressively converted over 2,800 members of the Khojewala village community. In February of 2004, Singh made derogatory remarks against several Sikh gurus including Guru Granth Sahib. This led to several protests by Sikh youths in front Singh’s church in the. The conflict was ultimately resolved by police intervention and an unconditional apology by Harbhajan Singh. Meanwhile, Christian media painted this incident as an example of “Christian persecution.”

A recent study showed that at least 800,000 are converted to Christianity every year throughout India. In the coming years, this number can significantly increase with attacks on the Sikh faith.

Below is a translation of a book published, by the missionary organization, Operation Mobilization (disguised as a Hindu group with the acronym OM) – the same group that purchased a cruise ship to convert upper class Indians. The passages below are a story of a man who is portrayed as a hero for rejecting his Sikh faith, cutting his hair and ultimately converting to Christianity.

[Guest]

Bits from stuff just posted elsewhere - thought it relevant here. Some extra comments added (again, purple stuff within quoteblocks are mine).

<i>On 'myth' and how they use it:</i>

http://sarasvati95.googlepages.com/aryanmythology.pdf
<b>Aryan Mythology as Science and Ideology</b> by Stefan Arvidsson

From section "HISTORY OF RELIGION: AN ANTI-LIBERAL RIPOSTE"
(Mueller wanted philology to be the science that lead to religion: p. 7-10)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The science of religion that Mueller dreamt of never materialized. Instead, <b>the discipline called history of religions was created with the aim to study all religions excluding Christianity</b>. This division of labor between academic subjects gave rise to two diverse concepts (Christianity shares some concepts with its "Semitic" cousins, Judaism and Islam): Christian theology/pagan cosmology, Christian liturgy/pagan rituals, Christian angels/pagan spirits, Christian religion/pagan mythology. <b>Even today the concepts of myth and mythology - the focus of this article - are seldom used when it comes to Christian or "Semitic" (Abrahamic) stories: the man who was swallowed by a giant fish or the carpenter's son who could walk on water are not "myths".7 The collections of myths that today are sold in large editions follow the same model, as do scientific surveys of the world's mythologies.8</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->If christianity hadn't copied its OT content from Judaism, you can be sure they'd have dismissed Judaism as myth too. (And as a consequence islamism would have been only too easily tossed aside.) But they can't do that to Judaism because christianism is so inextricably linked to it.

From section "THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTH"
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the world of Christian scholars non-biblical, "pagan" (i.e., mainly Greek and Roman) myths were used as educational and artistic aids (de Vries:18-32). With the help of the allegoric and euhemeristic modes of interpretation taken over from antiquity, the religious content of these myths could be disregarded, thus preventing the myths from forming a truly religious, "heathen" alternative. Aside from the allegorical and euhemeristic ways of interpretation <b>the church also developed what could be called a <i>hermeneutic of mission</i>. This mode of interpretation unveiled the pagan myths as mere plagiarism of the Holy Writ or, even more crudely, as the work of the devil. In contrast to the earlier, classical modes of interpretation the hermeneutic of mission efficiently excludes the possibility of finding anything rational in the mythologies.</b>
(Christianity does the same today to every non-christoislamic religion. Hence psecular Indians with their christo-conditioned mindsets blindly accept the historicity of a jeebus and his 'resurrection' from death as a fact, whilst immediately assuming Dharmic or other countries' religious characters and recorded/handed-down traditions are all myths.)
<b>In fact, four modes of hermeneutics have continued into our own day, although in a modified form: myths are speculation about nature (the nature-allegoric school of the nineteenth century), myths are disciplinary or moral stories (the sociological approach), myths are distorted history (historicism), myths are lies (Marxism).</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The above shows that marxism, historicism, the sociological approach and the nature-allegoric school are all following on only from the christian approach to denouncing Greek traditions.
So when the marxists in India do the same, they are merely employing the christian methods they have learnt by-heart: methods that denounce only non-christoislamic religions as 'myths' while shielding christianism from any and all examination. Psecularism, in other words.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Myth</b>, however, was for the first time thought of as a life-affirming genre in the romantic vogue in fashion around the beginning of the nineteenth century and contradicted the everyday sense of the word (which it retains despite protests from today's spiritual camps) as a <b>false story</b>.
<b>The word "myth" (mythos) became a synonym of "lie" already in its etymological country of birth, the Greece of antiquity</b> (see Graf; Lincoln 1996; Vernant: 203-260).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So when they use the word 'myth' for our stuff, we ought to know that they're calling it a lie. When we accept their use of it for our stuff, we must know that we are assenting to them calling our stuff lies. And if <i>we</i> ever unthinkingly call our stuff myth ("Indian mythology"), it means we are accepting that our stuff is lies.

I've made lots of mistakes using the word - I've actually said "Greek mythology" before now... It pays to understand the language they use and what their words actually mean, instead of me continuing to believe these things mean what I think they mean and then using them wrongly...

[acharya]

up

[Guest]

G.Subramaniam:
Can you shed light on the work you are doing. You said the following at BR.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India-Forum is a better place to discuss the Evanjehadi phenom
And I do run a peaceful and very successful anti-Evanjehadi campaign in south India. Those interested can contact me on India-forum<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Christianity(!), thou art Very amusing!


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Are Mega-Preachers Scandal-Prone? </b>


By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Juanita Bynum's story may read like soap opera, but her travails are a reminder of the longtime magnetism between celebrity Pentecostal preachers and scandal. The 48-year-old regular on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) made her reputation with a sermon renouncing pre-marital sex to search for a holy partner. She appeared to find one in a minister named Thomas Weeks III, wed him in a $1 million on-air ceremony, and together they went out to preach and teach the perfect Christian marriage. Then, in August she accused him of badly beating her in a parking lot (he has been charged, but claims he "walked away" from the confrontation), and said she planned to seek a divorce - and to become the "new face of domestic violence." A dramatic reversal of fortunes, certainly, but hardly the first in her particular corner of Christianity.

Bynum's misfortune coincided with the divorce by an even more popular Pentecostal figure, Paula White, and her co-pastor husband Randy, of the Without Walls International megachurch in Tampa, Fla. Divorce, once a taboo in evangelical culture, is now a fact of life. But the Whites' apparently no-fault parting appeared so matter-of-fact - few details were offered, and neither partner seemed to take a time out from preaching - that some grumbled about the unchristian notion of marriage as a convenience. Then there was the drugs-and-call-boy-abetted exit of marquee-name Pentecostal pastor Ted Haggard from his leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals. Clearly, Pentecostalism is facing testing times.

Some suggest that the risk of high-profile meltdowns may be in the very nature of Pentecostal leadership roles. "There's a lot of soul searching in our movement right now," says J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, because of the spectacle of highly successful preachers losing their way. "There's a saying, 'Your anointing can take you to a place where your character cannot sustain you.' I'm hearing that a lot more often these days."

"Anointing" refers to the Pentecostal belief not only in the conversion experience, but in a "second anointing in the Holy Spirit" that bestows such gifts such as speaking in tongues, healing and prophesying. From its emergence in Los Angeles exactly a century ago, it has tended to be exuberant, physical and generally more theologically adventurous than its evangelical cousins. And despite thousands of pastors and churches that pursue their joyous vision without taint, scandal has dogged some of its most prominent figures. Among the best-known were the late 1980s downfalls of televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart: Bakker, who was undone by charges of fraud, and Swaggart who was caught with a prostitute, had preached a "theology of prosperity" suggesting that there would be divine rewards in this world for those who donated to the ministry.

Some critics, such as Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Southern Theological Seminary, see the movement as hardwired for scandal. "The Charismatic movement is so driven by emotion and by passion that it sometimes lacks both theological and moral accountability," he says. Others, such as Tim Morgan, an editor at Christianity Today, see it as a more organizational problem - the absence of the kind of internal oversight common in mainline Protestantism and more recently in non-Pentecostal Evangelicalism. "Quite a few of these independent churches feel they are beholden to God alone," says Morgan.

But Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Rochester in New York believes Pentecostals are no more trouble-prone than other Protestants. "The same sort of thing is happening to Baptists and Presbyterians," she says. "Except for one big thing. They are not media figures." Notes Charisma's Grady: "There's something about someone who is excited about the things of the Holy Spirit that makes them want to get up and proclaim it" - often on TV. "But you'd better have character, or there's going to be a national scandal."

Many supporters and critics of the Pentecostal movement agree that a troubling factor is the recent resurgence of the prosperity theology (known, among other terms, as Word of Faith or neo-Pentecostalism), which introduces a material aspect to worship that could be an inducement to sin.

Practitioners of prosperity philosophies of varying intensity include some of the biggest names in Pentecostalism, including the Whites, Joyce Meyer and Creflo Dollar. None of these has had trouble with the law, although in 2006, after years of fencing, Joyce Meyer Ministries came to agreement with local authorities to pay 52% taxes on parts of its headquarters, which the county had maintained were a business. Nonetheless, Hank Hanegraaff, a non-Pentecostal evangelical broadcaster who calls himself the Bible Answer Man, expresses concern "about people out there emptying out their bank accounts so their daughter with leukemia can be healed." He recently read on the air a editorial by Grady denouncing "Celebrity Christianity," which described the case of an unnamed female evangelist whose appearance contract included a five-figure honorarium, a $10,000 fuel deposit for a private plane, a five-star hotel, room-temperature Perrier and two bodyguards. The column ended, "May God help us root out the false apostles ... who are making the American church sick with their.... money-focused heresies."

But Pentecostals tend to be forgiving of their preachers' lapses - both Bakker and Swaggart are back in the ministry, for example - because of a theological distinction between Pentecostalism and more austere forms of conservative Christianity. Says the University of Rochester's Butler: "Calvinism is [God's] grace, one time. This is grace after grace after grace. You can mess up a thousand times."

So, will this forgiving trait help Bynum keep her flock? Yes, say Butler and others. "Where else can you say that you were the church Jezebel," marvels Butler, "and then recast yourself as a pure, holy single woman living a godly life, then all of a sudden you get married in a big elaborate wedding to a bishop, with 40 bridesmaids and then go off and have a ministry with that husband and tell other church couples, 'This is how to love your husband because we got it right'? - and then your husband beats you up in the parking lot, and now you're an advocate for domestic violence?"

Yet Harvard African-American studies and religion scholar Marla Frederick says many of the women with whom Bynum's preaching resonates have seen just as many reversals as in their own lives, and they yearn for a God who will ride the roller coaster with them. "Pentecostal faith is really about the power of the Holy Spirit to instantaneously transform life," she says. But she admits she personally is troubled that "taking a personal story and turning it into a narrative of triumph also becomes something that can be marketed for profit."

Indeed, beyond the scandal of the moment, Pentecostalism has produced a culture of superstar preachers whose lives are always at risk of being turned into something close to secular entertainment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070929/us_t...ersscandalprone
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[Guest]

Some of you may remember these secularites taking off some temples couple months ago. Now the shoes on the other foot, and predicatbly...
Are you ‘secular’ Mr. P.C. George?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->P.C. George, leader of Kerala Congress (Secular) claims himself as a real secular & social activist in Kerala politics but no  securalism for his own family. When it comes to his son’s future, <b>he has changed his mindset and made condition with Parvathi, daughter of well known actor Jagathi Sreekumar to convert Christianity before the marriage with his son Shoon George. </b>There were suggestions from various sources to leave this issue with Parvathi and let her take her own decision. But P.C George was not in a position to listen and stand his decision that she must convert to Christianity openly before the marriage.

Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishan, Minister N.K. Premachandran, M.A Baby, Mathew T. Thomas and Opposition leader Umman Chandi, KPCC President Ramesh Chnnithala were among the prominent ‘secular’ leaders attended the function.
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[Shambhu]

Comes under christian subversion:
How jesuits stole Hindu knowledge

http://hindurenaissance.com/index.php?opti...&Itemid=29&ed=1

[Shambhu]

<b>Christianity in a different light</b>

Compilation about Xtain lies and deceit..very well written/referenced..big font, PDF..must read
Mentions easy ways to make missionaries go red in the face (Matthew 10:35, Luke 12:52)..

(From Bodhi's post a few days ago..)