Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 4

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Aussie girls selling themselves for beer: Study</b>

Melbourne: Alcoholism is so rampant among Australian youngsters that girls as young as 11 get into prostitution just for a couple of cans of beer, a report by Sydney's Odyssey House revealed.

The annual report said children as young as 10 were being admitted to Odyssey's treatment program for alcohol abuse.

According to Sydney youth campaigner and head of Youth Off the Streets, Father Chris Riley, it was not surprising that the report showed that kids as young as 10 were abusing alcohol. Father Riley said that his personal experiences helping troubled kids were echoed in the report.

"In some of the communities we're working in at 9.30 in the morning, 12- (and) 13-year-olds have bottles of Jack Daniels in their hands, and it is just shocking the way these things are available to kids," news.com.au quoted Father Riley, as saying.

He added: "In one of our communities we work in, a group of girls aged between 11 and 16 go down to the bars and clubs at 1am, because that is when they will close, and will prostitute themselves simply for a can or two of beer. This is common throughout the communities we're working in."

"We're opening more and more liquor outlets, more and more access to alcohol... and we just don't get it, we just keep making it more available," said Father Riley.

"These kids can get access to alcohol whenever they want, and that is just not good enough," he added.

He supported product labelling that warn kids about the dangers of drinking and called for alco-pops to be banned.

"I keep saying: 'Let's put labels on alcohol products saying that alcohol does brain damage to adolescents'," he said.

He added, "Let's take away those alco-pops which are targeting teens. Kids don't like the taste of alcohol, they like the effects that alcohol has on them, but they can get an alcoholic drink that tastes like a soft drink."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

How the Japanese defeated Christianity:

Japan: Strenuous economy
By Marvin Olasky

Shosan Suzuki, author of anti-Christian attack pieces in the 17th century, is cited by economic historian Shichihei Yamamoto as "the founder of Japanese capitalism." That's more than coincidence: Shosan hated Christianity and knew that an increasingly corrupt Buddhist priesthood could not become the centerpiece of a Japanese culture able to turn back foreign ideas. Shosan proposed an alternative: "All occupations are Buddhist practice. Through work we are able to attain Buddhahood."

He gave spirited advice to merchants: "Throw yourself headlong into worldly activity.... Your activity is an ascetic exercise that will cleanse you of all impurities. Challenge your mind and body by crossing mountain ranges. Purify your heart by fording rivers.... If you understand that this life is but a trip through an evanescent world, and if you cast aside all attachments and desires and work hard, Heaven will protect you, the gods will bestow their favor, and your profits will be exceptional."

Jodo Shinshu especially grew through its development of a "nonmonastic priesthood." Jodo Shinshu priests did not shave their heads. They dressed in ordinary clothes most of the time, with religious robes reserved for services. Priests emphasized that they were part of a "community of fellow seekers" and were not gurus. They debunked "self-power" (jiriki), the attempt to move toward nirvana through meditation and immersion in freezing water or hours of mantra-chanting.

Such time would better be used, they said, in "self-effort," doing works that aided in economic advancement for a family or a society. Jodo Shinshu believers were to help others out of a sense of gratitude to Amida Buddha. One Jodo Shinshu teacher praised the altruism of merchants: "They go out early in the morning and return late at night. They do not avoid the elements nor do they dislike hardship and misery. They cover their bodies with cotton clothing and fill their mouths with vegetable food. They do not dare to throw away a piece of thread or a scrap of paper."

Jodo Shinshu priests also taught that the kugyo (hard ascetic practice) of ordinary life is at least as important as anything that goes on at monasteries. To people who worried about going astray by not meditating and chanting mantras, they emphasized the beauty of everyday labor performed with right intentions. Bodhisattvas were said to be impressed by the diligence of one merchant, Takata Zenemon, because "carrying lampwicks and bamboo hats, he went out into the mountain districts.... He diligently for over 50 years exerted himself practicing strenuous economy. But with honesty as a basis, he worked without minding labor that was hard to endure, and was answered with heavenly considerations."

This thinking spread beyond Jodo Shinshu circles, but the crucial breakthrough was Shinran's insistence that the bodhisattvas did not care if their names were never mentioned. One 17th-century book, Shimin Nichiyo, answered questions such as this one from an artisan: "I am busy every minute of the day in an effort to earn my livelihood. How can I become a Buddha?" Jodo Shinshu tracts responded, Don't worry, stay busy: "Cheerfully do not neglect diligent activity morning and evening. Work hard at the family occupation. Do not gamble. Rather than take a lot, take a little."

At first such teaching was seen as useful for those without a priestly vocation, but as corruption within Buddhism increased, secular activities started to be seen as equally worthy to religious ones, and eventually as superior. Ishida Baigan in the early 18th century argued that merchants should not be low in social status but high, for they followed "the way of the townsman" that was more socially useful than the way of the priest or the samurai. Hosoi Heishu late in the 18th century lectured throughout Japan on the way that people in everyday tasks could display the good karma-creating virtues of modesty, diligence, and frugality.

Jodo Shinshu believers and others, in short, provided for Japan a Buddhist version of the "Protestant ethic." First, they said that tasks outside the religious sphere were worthwhile contributions to the creation of wa (harmony). Business was religion, a Jodo Shinshu tract proclaimed. "The business of merchants and of artisans is the profiting of others. By profiting others they receive the right to profit themselves.... The spirit of profiting others is the bodhisattva spirit. Having a bodhisattva spirit and saving all beings, this is called bodhisattva deeds.... The secret of merchants and artisans' business lies in obtaining confidence through bodhisattva deeds."

When the United States in 1853 forcibly opened Japan to Western commercial and cultural influences, Japan was ready to compete. Nakamura Masanao translated an ordinary English self-help book, packaged it as Tales of Men Who Achieved Their Aims in Western Countries, and had a perennial bestseller in Japan, where warnings about idleness and exhortations to constant effort fit well with the desire for kugyo.


Many missionaries, mostly Protestant, came to reopened Japan in the late 19th century and lived in "foreign settlements" in Nagasaki and other cities. Today, Nagasaki's second-biggest tourist attraction, after the atom-bomb site and museum, is Glover Garden, location of some "exotic Western-style houses" built in the late 19th century. Tourists stare at the faded curtains and furniture as we look at videos of the Titanic's underwater wreckage: The display is cold and lifeless, and that's probably the way Christianity often appeared.

Probably the greatest 19th-century evangelistic success came through the efforts of Captain Leroy Janes, a Civil War officer who came to Japan at Tokyo's request to help Japan upgrade its army. By day he offered military instruction but in optional evening sessions he spoke of Christ to such effect that 35 of his best students, knowing they would face persecution, signed their names to a bold declaration. Their statement read, "In studying Christianity we have been deeply enlightened and awakened. The more we have studied it, the more filled with enthusiasm and joy we have become. Moreover, we strongly desire that this faith might be proclaimed over the whole Empire." The students agreed that their goal was, "with no concern for our lives, to make known the fairness and impartiality of this teaching."

The government quickly dismissed Janes, but his students became the leaders of Christianity in Japan and stood firm when anti-Christian Japanese demanded that officials "Destroy Heresy, Manifest Orthodoxy." One book, Tales of Nagasaki, called Christians insurrectionists because they saw God as "the Great Prince and the Great Father," which meant that emperors would have to be "little princes and little fathers." Christ, the book declared, "deceived the ignorant lower classes, making them follow himself until his evil design of murdering the sovereign of the country and seizing the country and people for himself being discovered, he was put to death by crucifixion. He was a most traitorous animal."

The book also charged Christians with saying that "the most unfilial and disloyal can go to the very top place in heaven if they only love the Lord of Heaven." That actually was true, and Buddhism used any footholds it could gain as it fought for its life in Japan against a dual threat: the Shinto nationalist emphasis that Japanese political leaders adopted in 1868, and the revival meetings (known in Japan as ribaibaru) that Christians regularly held. Japanese often make a strict delineation between uchi and soto (inside and outside, those who belong to the group and those who don't), and those who followed the Bible had to face the shunning reserved for those on the outs.

Christians such as missionary M.L. Gordon were in turn developing stronger critiques of Buddhism, and particularly "the most powerful, popular and progressive Buddhist sect," Jodo Shinshu. Gordon concluded that it differed hugely from early Buddhism. "Shakya [Buddha] taught also the doctrine of Nirvana, which is really annihilation," he wrote. "These Buddhists point the believer to the Peaceful Land in the West, with its myriads of pleasures, which appeal to the eye, ear, taste, and other senses. Is there not here an irreconcilable difference?"

Buddhists fought back high and low. A missionary in 1875 wrote that the biggest obstacle Christians faced was not Japanese criticism "but infidelity imported from Christian lands," as Buddhists circulated books by Charles Darwin and other scientists that "laid the Christian religion captive." Japan was emphasizing scientific and technological development, and Buddhists denounced the purported irrationality of Christianity. While carrying on intellectual battle, Buddhists also employed soshi, physical-force men (hired thugs) to disrupt Christian activities.

Other falloffs in Western biblical devotion hurt efforts in Japan. Missionaries who had been influenced by "higher criticism" to interpret the Bible in a liberal fashion often blew an uncertain trumpet. Some said that Amida Buddha and the Pure Land were figments of imagination, but so were Jesus and heaven. Such teachers certainly did not make Christian ideas worth dying for; if Christ did not live and die and gain resurrection, the Apostle Paul would be among those to tell Japanese that Christianity was not worth living and perhaps dying for. Rev. David Busk, vicar at Nagasaki Holy Trinity Church in Nagasaki, says his late 19th-century predecessors were "clergymen in black frock coats. They were very dignified. They were not martyrs."

The next half-century of Christianity in Japan proceeded on lines established by 1890. Perhaps 1 percent of the Japanese converted to Christ. Charles Eliot noted in his 1935 book on Japanese Buddhism that "the worshippers of Amida in Japan are numerous, prosperous and progressive, but should this worship be called Buddhism? It has grown out of Buddhism, no doubt: all the stages except the very earliest are perfectly clear, but has not the process of development resulted in such a complete transformation that one can no longer apply the same name to the teaching of Gotama and the teaching of Shinran? The phenomenon has, so far as I know, no precise parallel in the history of religions."

During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan step-by-step removed the religious liberties that had been granted in the 1860s, and liberalized Protestant churches rarely fought back. When authorities urged attendance at Shinto shrines as a "civil manifestation of loyalty," Christian school groups often complied. The Religious Organizations Law (Shukyo dantai ho ) of 1939 gave Japan's government the right to disband religious groups whose teachings conflicted with the "Imperial Way." When the Japanese government pressed for the formation of the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan (the United Church of Christ in Japan), a union of 34 Protestant denominations, a few churches would not go along, but most accepted the new order.

Many churches danced around questions posed by government officials: How could God, who you say is the Creator of all, have created the Emperor, who is a divine being himself? Will God's kingdom inevitably replace the Emperor's rule? Is the Emperor a sinner? In 1942 government officials arrested 42 Pentecostal pastors and charged them with teaching the sovereignty of Christ upon His return. After World War II many churches apologized for their complicity, but the opportunity to bear witness was gone. Some missionaries arrived with American occupation forces after the war, but Christianity is still the faith of perhaps only one in a hundred Japanese.

[Guest]

<b>Constantine' Follows Murderous Christian Soldiers (Update1) </b>

By Jeremy Gerard

Oren Jacoby's film ``Constantine's Sword'' begins and ends in Colorado Springs, Colorado, home of the U.S. Air Force Academy and several of the country's biggest evangelical Christian ministries.

These include the New Life Church, the 14,000-member Pentecostal congregation founded and run by Ted Haggard until November 2006, when he was removed following allegations that he had a relationship with a male prostitute and a fondness for methamphetamines.

Based on James P. Carroll's 2001 book of the same name, the film packs 2,000 years of violence perpetrated in Jesus' name into 95 minutes of visually mesmerizing history -- from the Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity, through the Crusades and the Inquisition and, inevitably, to the Holocaust and the modern era.

A native New Yorker whose previous documentary, ``Sister Rose's Passion,'' was nominated for an Oscar in 2004, Jacoby himself looks like he might have just walked out of the Air Force Academy. Slim and silver-haired, the director met with me earlier this week at Bloomberg's New York headquarters.

Jacoby, 52, said he began with the Air Force Academy after hearing that the fundamentalist churches were infiltrating the military school. When ``The Passion of the Christ'' was released, for example, cadets found fliers on their dining-room plates promoting local screenings of the film.

Second-Class Citizens

``They had so become a presence on the campus that students who were not members of these churches, or were not fundamentalist Christian evangelicals, were treated as second- class citizens,'' Jacoby said. ``They were being proselytized all the time, and they were being pressured -- often by people who were officers or faculty members.''

Carroll, a former priest and the son of a prominent Air Force general, argues that the cross-shaped sword symbolized Christianity's transformation into a brutal crusading force. It's an image chillingly invoked whenever President Bush refers to the war on terrorism as a ``crusade.'' In Colorado Springs, the line between the military and the church is unsettlingly blurred.

``This story fit in with the historical part of `Constantine's Sword,' which concerns proselytizing in order to convert,'' Jacoby said, ``and contempt for those `others' --Jews, Muslims and, at the Air Force Academy, it included Catholics, atheists -- who didn't fit the current mold.''

Youth in Germany

Carroll spent much of his youth in postwar Germany, where he and Jacoby returned with the film crew. The story took another unexpected turn when they toured the ancient Jewish cemetery in the Rhineland city of Mainz, not far from where Carroll had lived as a teenager. Many of the people buried there were butchered by rampaging Crusaders after the traditional Good Friday sermon, which blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus.

``At the cemetery there were several graves dating to the 12th century,'' Jacoby said. ``We were filming with a local historian and I noticed another guy following along behind us, by the grave of a Cohen, a Jewish priest.

``Jim asked him why he was there, and he said, `I'm here to show people around. I do it because I care about the people who died and their stories.' And he just burst into tears. It was the most upsetting thing I'd ever witnessed. We later found out that he was a survivor of Auschwitz and that his whole family had died there.''

Detective Story

While in Germany, Jacoby also retraced the wrenching story of Edith Stein. Born in 1891 to a Jewish family in Breslau, she converted to Catholicism, eventually becoming a Carmelite nun. In 1933, Stein wrote to Pope Pius XI, urging him to speak out against Hitler's growing persecution of Jews and Catholics. She got no response.

``It became kind of a detective story,'' Jacoby said. ``The trail took us to Auschwitz.''

Jacoby found Stein's copy of the impassioned letter at the convent in Cologne, Germany, where she had lived. In July 1942, she was deported along with other Jewish converts to Poland, where, a month later, she died in the Auschwitz gas chambers. Stein was canonized in 1998 by Pope John Paul II.

``Anybody who goes to Auschwitz, that's a deeply traumatic experience,'' Jacoby said. ``But I was also shocked when I got there because you expect this place to look horrific.

``Yet what struck me is that it was one of the most beautiful natural environments I'd ever seen. Within 50 or 60 years, this life had grown up in this place of death. It was kind of shocking.''

(``Constantine's Sword'' is running in Manhattan at the Quad Cinema, 34 W. 13th St., and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, Broadway at 62nd Street. Starting tomorrow, it will be showing in Los Angeles at Laemmle Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd.)


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...spwE&refer=muse

[acharya]

Translated from Dainik Jagaran of today.

Worry of the Catholic Church

By Renu Rajvanshi Gupta

The 80-year-old Pope Benedict was last week on a state visit to the US. The visit created many records. He became the first head of state to have been received personally by the US president George Bush, his wife and daughter at the air force base. He is only the third Pope to address the UN. Pope Benedict has followed Pope John Paul to occupy the Vatican throne. For him, it is a challenge as well as a necessity to establish his reputation and correct image in the world.

American Catholics are at the number three position in the Vatican’s universe. About 24 percent of the American population follows Catholicism and is a powerful force that affects the currents of the country’s politics. The Catholic churches of America hold a special significance for the Church.

According to Vatican statistics, the Catholics for the first time in history no longer constitute the largest religious sect of the world. Its position has been usurped by Islam. About 19.2 percent of the world’s population is Muslim while the Catholics now comprise only 17.4 percent. It is a different matter though that Christianity with all its sects combined still remains the largest religion in the world.

Today, the American Catholics are standing on the crossroads. On one side is their religious belief and on the other side is its abandonment. About one-third of people with a Catholic background in America no longer believes in Catholicism or goes to the church. These days there is a steady stream of messages on the American radio or on bill boards that constantly invite “Catholics brothers and sisters” back to their churches. In India in contrast, no temple has ever ran advertisement campaigns to attract devotees to its fold.

In the last two decades, many bad incidents have tarnished the image of the Catholic Church. One of these is the involvement of its priests in sex scandals. About six churches have gone bankrupt fighting law suits related to these. The Catholic church has till now spent about 2 billion dollars to reach a settlement in different cases. This has really hit hard the image of the Catholic sect in America. A proof of this is the constant decline in the number of churches as well as closure of several of them. Apart from this, the issue of abortions, changing values of the society and fundamentalism of the church are shaking the foundations of Catholicism in America.

The church is clearly going through an era of change. In this context, the Pope’s American visit will be very important in establishing new benchmarks as well as a ground for the future for the entire sect. The Pope during his American visit has given particular stress on two points. First, he expressed his sadness again and again on the sex scandals plaguing the church. He apologized for these and met the victims of sexual abuse. The repeated apologies of Pope for the scandals indicate that he really is worried about the falling reputation of the church.

The other issue on which the Pope stressed was regarding the entry of Latin Americans into America. He has special sympathy for these people and he raised this issue with President Bush. According to the Pope, all the Latinos living illegally in the US should be given a legal status. In America, out of the total Catholic population of 65 million, the Latinos account for about 18 million. If the latter are able to get legal citizenship in America, it will go a long way in strengthening the Catholic faith in the country. This demand of Pope has been labeled by some critics as a religion-led popularity campaign.

During his American visit, the Pope went to a mosque, synagogue, Ground Zero and an all-religion temple. He met Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim leaders. But he did not invite Dalai Lama to the Vatican. He talked about human rights, but avoided mentioning Afghanistan and Iraq. The status of women in the Catholic church is another issue that raises doubts about the church’s talk of human rights.

This year on Easter, the Pope baptized a very powerful Muslim individual Magadi Alam, who was born in Egypt and brought up in Italy. The baptism was done in front of the whole world at the Easter Mass. The Pope in his Easter message appealed for world peace and also praised conversions to Catholicism. Due to this act of Pope, there was unrest and anger among the world’s Muslims. Maybe the Pope does not know that one of the biggest threats to world peace is the competition for conversions among varoius religions.

[Shambhu]

Tamasoma vivekajyotirgamaya

Vivekajyoti Site on the Christo's mass delusion of jeebes:

http://news.hinduworld.com/click_frameset....-any-other.html

[Husky]

Rowan Atkinson ("Mr Bean") does a hysterical sketch. "The Amazing Jesus of Nazareth".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt4MSQQ8LPo

He presents the fraud of christianism in a funny way (even though in reality it is a horror), but it's brilliant. And unlike the babble, this is family-friendly stuff. Send it to your Indian friends.

(Note: "Paul Daniels" is a British tv magician, and his assistant/wife is called Sharon)

[Guest]

Bihar village alleges missionaries harassing people

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Buxar: Residents of Parmanpur village in Bihar’s Buxar district have alleged that <b>Christian missionaries lure them to convert and threaten them with violence if they don’t obey.</b>

Anjoriya Devi’s husband died death eight years ago and she alleges he was beaten to death by goons hired by missionaries. "They beat up my husband when he refused to convert to Christianity. They have threatened me too," alleges Anjoriya.

Mithilesh Kumar, another resident of the village, alleges the missionaries tried to lure him by offering him a job. <b>“They said if I remain a Hindu, I will remain unemployed and poor. They said I would have money and a job if I converted to Christianity,” he alleges.</b>

Police in the village say they have arrested two persons after investigating complaints. <b>“Investigations confirm there have been instances of conversion by intimidation</b>. We have arrested two persons,” said Koran Sahay, officer in charge of the local Kuran Sarai police station.

Missionaries in the village reject the allegations and claim they are being framed. “We have done no such thing. We are victims of a conspiracy,” said Shyamshun Dayal Ishai, a missionary accused of intimidation.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[shamu]

From Food Crisis thread

Did anybody analyze, how food crisis is affecting christian missionary organizations? Does it hurt them? Or does it become a new opportunity for them? Do any western governments compensate these organizations for lost money due to high food costs?

[dhu]

<b>The Final Solution</b>
<i>Rajeev Srinivasan on the all-out assault on Indic ideas</i>

The current violent oppression of Tibetans by the Communist Chinese is only the latest incident in the crime against humanity that has been going on there for fifty-seven years. According to Tibetan activists and human rights workers, at least two thousand Tibetans have been murdered in the incidents in March, with many of them cremated or buried in unmarked graves. The official Chinese numbers of those killed – in the few hundreds – is total eyewash.

The genocide and war crime in Tibet is aimed at completely extinguishing the Tibetan people and culture. It is intended as a Final Solution, much like what the Nazis envisaged for ‘inferior’ peoples like Jews and Gypsies: their total annihilation so that the ‘master race’ (in this case the Han Chinese) can take over their lands and property and culture.

There are also the fifth columnists of the Chinese spewing vitriol and mouthing Xinhua propaganda in the Indian media: the lunatic-fringe editor of a once-proud newspaper is the worst culprit.

This is typical Communist behavior. After all, it is not long since they brutalized and massacred many in Nandigram and Singur, virtually declaring open season on non-Communists. There too, eyewitness and aid worker accounts suggest, there were more than two thousand casualties, including many “disappeareds”, a standard part of the modus operandi of fascist regimes (also see my column “Communism as Fascism”). Independent estimates suggest that Communists have managed to murder 100 million people worldwide.

The Communists’ most recent dance of death in Malabar has caught the attention of the national media only because of a ruckus in Delhi. Normally, large-scale murder by them is treated as a routine, uninteresting matter by the media, as though the Communists have a prerogative to murder anybody they do not like, especially any apostate who has converted out of Communism. In Kannur alone, a thousand people – all Hindus – have been murdered by Communists in the last few decades, in a systematic terror campaign.

There were three other recent incidents in India that were somewhat milder forms of state-sanctioned terror and oppression: nobody was killed, but the message was loud and clear that fascism is the order of the day. Two came from Tamil Nadu. One was the incident at the great temple at Chidambaram, where a number of the temple priests were arrested on ridiculous charges. The second was the attack on history and freedom of speech, when the organizers of a perfectly legal and impeccably historically accurate exhibition on Aurangazeb were assaulted and jailed.

A third was the shameful incident in which author Taslima Nasrin, a woman and a refugee, was exiled from India after assaults by Communist and Mohammedan fundamentalists, and prodding by a government that obviously has no principles whatsoever. This, in an India which has for millennia been the refuge of last resort for the oppressed and the dissident – the original destination for the “huddled masses”.

All of these episodes point to one fact: a clash of civilizations. This is slightly different from what Samuel P. Huntington talked about. Here it is a clash between two different world views, one the “ideologies of the desert” and one the “ideologies of the forest”. Alternatively, they may be called Semitic and Indic, because the Semitic belief systems do have a lot in common, and they are indeed of the West Asian desert. Similarly the Indic belief systems are of tropical rainforest Asia, whence the “aranyakas”, for instance.

There is a fundamental difference imposed by geography: the desert is masculine, harsh, cruel and unforgiving, and you have to live by a few simple rules, which you violate at your peril. For instance: store water; carry food; do not stray from the beaten path; stick with the crowd; show no sympathy to the sick and weak who might slow down your march. Interestingly, in the lush forests of India and further east, none of these rules matters, because the forest is feminine, abundant, bountiful and forgiving; you can afford to take a few risks; you can bend the rules and still survive.

These differences are clearly reflected in the ideologies that arose in their respective areas: the Semitic ones are masculine, harsh, cruel and unforgiving; the Indic ones are feminine, abundant, bountiful and forgiving. Apparently geography is truly history.

All four incidents I have recounted above are reflections of conflicts between the Semitic and the Indic. The Semitic belief systems are more numerous, and can be classified into a taxonomy based on their antiquity:

* Paleo-Semitic: Zoroastrianism, Judaism
* Meso-Semitic: Christianism, Mohammedanism
* Neo-Semitic: Communism, ‘Dravidianism’, Dalitism, and innumerable other isms that are invented every day

There are a few characteristics all Semitic ideas have: one is a Manichean good-evil, ingroup-outgroup, dichotomy, and hence the necessity to have a hated Other. Another is that they demand unquestioning faith: no skepticism is allowed, you have to believe what you are told. A third is a tendency towards intolerance and bigotry. Another is usually a rigid hierarchy, where the unwashed masses are controlled by an establishment of insiders who claim direct hotlines to the objects of reverence.

What you see in all the incidents described above is a struggle between a Semitic ideology and an Indic, where the Indic has been demonized and Other-ized, all the better to effect its liquidation. After all, nobody weeps for the demonized. And demonizing the enemy is a standard tactic in warfare.

The very language used by the Communists against the Indic Buddhists of Tibet (and especially against the Dalai Lama) clearly indicates their intent to demonize: “Nazi”, “feudal”, “splittist”. In exactly the same way the Communists of Malabar denounce the Indic Hindus as “RSS”, “Gandhi-killers”, “bourgeois”, “capitalist”. (Shades of the Nazis demonizing Jews as “Jesus-killers”, of course.)

Similarly the ‘Dravidians’, whose ideology is the Machiavellian divide-and-rule invention of a Christian padre named Caldwell, have their own patented words that they spit out with venom: “Brahmin”, “oppressor”, “casteist”, the irony being that in fact it is the so-called ‘Dravidians’ – the middle-castes of Tamil Nadu – who are, have been, and will be, the main oppressors of the lowest castes.

An interesting news story in this context, which slays all sorts of holy cows, talks about the threat by large numbers of middle-caste-convert Christians to return to Hinduism because of conflicts with low-caste-convert Christians (“20,000 Christians threaten to revert to Hinduism”, New Indian Express, 28th March)
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?I...il+Nadu&Topic=0 Hello! Isn’t a big part of the propaganda for conversion the claim that there is no caste discrimination in Christianity? Aren’t the ‘Dravidian’ middle-castes the best friends of the Harijans? So much for that all that bull-hickey!

The simple fact is that the Semitic ideas have been for a couple of millennia on the march against the Indic ideas, and they fully intend to extinguish the latter by fire, sword, cultural expropriation, ethnic cleansing, and whatever other means available.

The old religions that held sway around the world three millennia ago – those which have been demonized as “pagan” and “heathen” – were feminine, in fact female-dominated, as, for farming communities the fertility of the earth, as symbolized by the feminine, was of paramount importance. Of these, only the Indic faiths remain, battered but still standing.

Even though it was Zoroastrianism that initially articulated the Manichean dichotomy and the concept of absolute good and absolute evil, it was Christianism that took this idea to heart, and which destroyed native ideas wherever it went. In fact, the padre was as important for propaganda, brainwashing, and thus ease of conquest as the soldier was. Later Semitic ideologies have continued with gusto down this path.

The objective of the Communists (and other neo-Semitic ideologies) is to destroy Buddhism, Hinduism and other Indic faiths. In this, they seek to ally themselves with the meso-Semitics. The irony is that this is not exactly a clever strategy. Even if the meso-Semites come to power with the help of Communists, they liquidate the latter ruthlessly, and this should be considered poetic justice. This is why there are no Communists in Bangladesh, or Afghanistan. This is why the Vatican collaborated with the Americans to wipe out Communism in Eastern Europe.

The problem is monoculture (as reflected in monotheism and other such mono-manias). Each of the Semitic belief systems considers itself the one and only answer to all the problems of mankind. Therefore their Final Solution is to wipe out all other possible answers. From the point of view of those being wiped out, who undergoing “cultural genocide”, as the Dalai Lama put it, this is understandably a life-and-death matter. From the point of view of humanity as a whole, monocultures (remember the potato blight) are susceptible to catastrophic failure, and diversity is necessity for the system to evolve and respond to unforeseen events. Thus monocultures are not good for homo sapiens or the environment.

This is why it is deeply disturbing that the UPA government is so obviously on the side of the Semitics. It has demonstrated utterly craven behavior, imposing restrictions on refugee Tibetans and exiling Nasrin, as well as turning a blind eye to Communist and ‘Dravidian’ violence and oppression of Indic beliefs. Indic tolerance has been turned into dhimmitude.

Let us contrast this with what Swami Vivekananda said on September 11th, 1893 (yes, exactly 108 years to the day prior to 9/11) at the Parliament of Religions: “I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation”. There is nothing to be proud of, only shame, in UPA-ruled India.

There is another point to ponder: consider all the divided nations that came into being a few decades ago: Germany, Vietnam, Korea, India. Germany and Vietnam have been re-united, and Korea will be, soon. But India will never be able to reunite the land masses of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why? Those have become subject to a clean Final Solution of Semiticization: the Indics have been extinguished.

Final Solutions have worked for Semitics in many other places too before: they wiped out the native civilizations of Latin America, North America, Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, the Philippines, Australia, and so on. They are in the process of doing so in Korea and in the Indian Northeast. Theirs is not an idle threat; those who are in the gunsights of the Semites need to realize this is possibly the end of the line for them. They need to resist: no point going like lambs to the gas chamber. Resistance, armed and violent if necessary, is the only answer. There is no point in chanting the Vedas to a raging bull. Pacifism leads to extinction.

Tibet’s torture is a continuation of an earlier attempt Final Solution: circa 1192 CE, Bakhtiar Khilji wiped out Nalanda, burned the great library, and beheaded all the monks he could find. The handful who escaped with their lives established Tibetan Buddhism. It is ironic but not surprising that the Han Chinese Communists, a millennium later, are attempting to wipe out Tibetan Buddhism. This fits into a broad Communist – Mohammedan axis.

The rest of us Indics cannot stand by idly and let this happen. For, it is Tibetans today, it is the rest of the Indics once Tibet has been completely taken over. We have to rage, rage against the fading of the light; we cannot go gentle into that good night.

[acharya]

CONVERGENCE NOT CONVERSION:
RELIGIOUS UNITY IN INDIA

By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho
(ngier@uidaho.edu), first published in
Moscow-Pullman Daily News, October 29, 1999
<b>
It appears that most of India's 24 million Christians do not want American Baptists to pray for the conversion of their Hindu compatriots. Christian leaders here in India are dismayed about the publication of a pamphlet by the Southern Baptist Convention calling on their members to pray that Hindus "realize the darkness of their souls."

Nimrod Christian, head of India's Methodists, declared that "the pamphlet's language is objectionable and unfair. One cannot preach by annoying others." Valson Thampu, chairman of the Christian Theological Institute, said: "I particularly object to the insensitive language of the pamphlet."</b>

The Southern Baptists have chosen the upcoming Indian festival of Diwali as the focus of their prayer campaign. Doubtless they were unaware of the fact that Indians of all faiths celebrate this "festival of lights," yet another symbol of the cultural unity of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains speaking 14 different major languages.

Christians have lived in India at least since the third century, with some claiming that their ancestors were converted by a wandering St. Thomas in A.D. 54. India's Jews came even earlier but probably not as early as the traditional date of 587 B.C. Hindus welcomed Jews and Christians with open arms, gave them trading rights, land to settle on, and recognized their kings.

The first major religious persecutions came with the Muslim invasions beginning in the 11th Century. When the Portuguese came to India 400 years later they brought the Inquisition with them. Indian Christian priests were forced to perform the Roman liturgy and had to divorce their wives. Those who resisted were put to the sword. Hindus and Jews fared much worse: their prosperous cities were burned and thousands were killed.

Most Hindus and Indian Christians have put all of this dark history far behind them, but some Hindu fundamentalists have used the Baptist pamphlet as yet another reason to stir up anti-Christian sentiment. Although no Hindu group has taken responsibility for it, the recent murder of the Australian missionary Graham Straines is a grisly reminder of the religious fanaticism on the other side of this religious equation.

The fact that Hindu fundamentalist parties are partners in Prime Minister Vajpayee's new center-right coalition government [soundly defeated in 2004] has put Vajpayee in a tight spot with regard to the Pope's visit in early November. His own Religious Right wants him to tell the Pope to stop the conversion of Hindus and also apologize for the atrocities of the Inquisition. Vajpayee has decided to ignore his right wing on this issue.

The fact is that very little conversion is taking place. The only really successful mission has been in the Northeast, where non-Hindu tribes have flocked to the Christian faith. On my 1992 sabbatical I met a young charismatic priest in Bangalore who claimed to have baptized over 10,000 in those distant provinces. His main complaint was about the American Pentecostals who came in behind him preaching that his baptisms were not valid.

In terms of numbers converted the Christian mission to Asia has been great failure. Only Korea and the Philippines have substantial Christian populations. My own experience in India, however, has led me to believe that the Christian mission here has been a great blessing. Millions of Hindu children get first-class educations in Catholic schools. (Hindu parents trust these Christian teachers because they never talk about "dark souls.") Many Hindus are also healed and cared for in Christian hospitals and orphanages. Graham Straines' widow is now raising funds to finish the 40-bed leprosy hospital that had been his dream.

The very idea of conversion is alien to most Hindus. Followers of Shiva or Vishnu do not convert to their "denominations." Their families have been Shaivites and Vaishnavas for centuries and they would not think of changing such a time-honored and meaningful tradition. Family, caste, and religion are inextricably linked in Hindu India.

Furthermore, both the Buddha and Christ are recognized as incarnations of Vishnu and millions of Hindus celebrate Christmas and Easter. In the Punjab in 1995 I had the privilege of joining thousands of Hindus and Sikhs at a birthday celebration of a great Sikh saint. Indian children are taught to respect all holy men and women.

It is convergence, not conversion, that we should learn from the Asians. Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Confucians, and Daoists have never had very few religious wars because most of them believe that their faiths meet in the same divine unity, and that all souls have sparks of the divine light in them--not Baptist darkness.

[acharya]

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/hindufund.htm

[Shambhu]

Re Post #70 above:

If I was a Southern Baptist who is up-to-date on things, I would ask my fellow bigots to stop this "praying for the Hindu sinner and trying to save him from damnation" game. Not because some morality had dawned on me (because it is not possible for any missionary to have an iota of morality in him).

No, it would be because I was afraid. Afraid that Hindus are way more intelligent than the normal sheep my fellow missionary predators thrive on; and Hindus are beginning to unravel my religion (Christianity). They are spreading the Good News of the non-existence of christ, nay, the non-existence of christ and the deviousness of the christ cult. Hindus are calling the world's attention to books, websites, presentations, and online video clips of the non-existence of Jeeeesus. And there does not seem to be any end to these damn things, this damn plague of locusts...I would think taht my best chance of saving my beloved christianity would be to stop insulting and instigating Hindus.

------
Right now many Hindus may be fooled into accepting Jeesus as an avatar of Vishnu, but that will not last long. The truth about Jeebus will be known. And it will return the idea of christianity to nothingness..the very nothingness from which it was born.

[dhu]

Iron is very hot in Amrika right now. Time to strike. just take the CM summary article and post away wherever Americans congregate. No need to ID yourself as Indian even.

posted on blackagendareport:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NATIVE
written by Indian , May 08, 2008

Brothers and Sisters,

I just want to notify you about the truth of Christianity which is behind the white man's colonialism and depredations against Asians, Africans, and Native Americans over the past 500 years. The truth is that Christianity was devised by the Romans to subjugate the Jews. Christianity is actually Roman Emperor Worship (Titus Flavius); that is, it is the explicit worship of the white man. Search Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah.

Anyone interested should watch the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCNJf83bqjs

Summary:

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

Lastly, let me just say that I do not wish to cause any pain to our African Brothers and Sisters. But we must shed the colonized portions of our minds if we are to regain our civilizations which have been destroyed by the white man and his religion/colonialism/(neo)colonialism.

Return to the authentic native traditions. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

on youtube:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If Huckabee aint a real christian, then there ain't a real christian in the entire world. It's funny how you define christian as everything good. This shows that christianty is an ad hoc entity and a ticket to berate people.

search joseph atwill on you tube to find out that christianty is roman war propagnada against jews. Christianity is a hoax.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+May 8 2008, 06:44 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ May 8 2008, 06:44 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->CONVERGENCE NOT CONVERSION:RELIGIOUS UNITY IN INDIA
By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho
(ngier@uidaho.edu), first published in
Moscow-Pullman Daily News, October 29, 1999

It appears that most of India's 24 million Christians do not want American Baptists to pray for the conversion of their Hindu compatriots.  Christian leaders here in India are dismayed about the publication of a pamphlet by the Southern Baptist Convention calling on their members to pray that Hindus "realize the darkness of their souls."

Nimrod Christian, head of India's Methodists, declared that "the pamphlet's language is objectionable and unfair.  One cannot preach by annoying others." <b>Valson Thampu</b>, chairman of the Christian Theological Institute, said: "I particularly object to the insensitive language of the pamphlet."[right][snapback]81346[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->It can't be. Is Nick Gier talking about <i>The</i> Valson Thampu, the infamous reverend, the one who has illegally occupied St Stephen's college? See www.ibnlive.com/news/st-stephens-college-row-thampus-appointment-illegal/57766-3.html "St Stephen's College row: Thampu's appointment illegal" (the same St Stephen's college which under Thampu's guidance had tried to put Christians First even though the college is funded by general Indian tax-payers' money...)


Because if it is the same dude then, Oh dear, who will break it to Nick Gier: He has made a major - as in HUGE - error in picking rev Valson Thampu as example of an "Indian christian who doesn't want Baptist christians to use objectionable language against others". By 'others', Hindus are particularly alluded to here, as is apparent in the above quoteblock itself.

Here is Francois Gautier on who the christoterrorist Valson Thampu of St Stephens is (thanks to K.Ram, Viren, Mudy and I think the captain for posting this on IF):
http://www.francoisgautier.com/Written%20M...tian-india.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One should add that the majority of politicians in Sonia Gandhi's closed circle are either Christians or Muslims. She seems to have no confidence in Hindus.Ambika Soni, a Christian, is General Secretary of the Congress and a very powerful person, with close access to Sonia Gandhi. Oscar Fernandes is Union Programme Implementation Minister. Margaret Alwa is the eminence grise of Maharasthra. Karnataka is virtually controlled by AK Anthony, whose secretaries are all from the Southern Christian association. <b>Valson Thampu, a Hindu hater</b>, is Chairman NCERT curriculum Review Committee, John Dayal, another known Hindu baiter, has been named by Sonia Gandhi in the National Integration Council ; and Kancha Ilaya, who hates Hindus, is being allowed by the Indian Government to lobby with the UN and US Congress so that caste discrimination in India is taken-up by these bodies.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->As Francois Gautier reveals elsewhere (copy at http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/270.htm ) The Valson Thampu wrote "Harvest of Hate: Gujarat Under Siege" - the christoislami take on "what happened in Gujarat". Gautier writes about its contents - which turn out to be very predictable:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->a deserving attempt at recording in exacting details the plight of Muslims at the hands of raging Hindus during the violence. 
However, it is not exactly balanced: The first mention of the burning of the Sabarmati Express, which after all triggered the whole thing, only comes on page 37, merely giving the Muslim version of the story: "The so-called kar-sevaks ordered tea from the Muslim vendors and forced them to shout 'Jai Shri Ram', before serving the tea; and those who refused to oblige would be roughed-up." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Of course the take on Gujarat, given by the christo Thampu, was co-authored with christoislam's great friend and helper on the inside, the famous openly-declared communist and anti-Hindu Swarmy Uglyface. (Though some may have heard of him under the beguiling name of 'Swami Agnivesh'.) The article http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/270.htm is mainly Francois Gautier expressing doubts about the hinduness of the anti-Hindu Uglyface, using his connections with notorious Hindu baiter Valson Thampu to make his case. Many Hindus already know about that communiterrorist Uglyface Agnivesh is no Hindu but a hyper-dubious character - it's apparently been in the open since 1994:
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/19...2-14.shtml
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Arya Samaj is warning members in India and abroad "to be careful against some disruptive forces in the organization." General Secretary Sachidanand Shastri says Shri Kailash Nath Singh, Swami Agnivesh and Indravesh were expelled "some years back on charges of corruption and indiscipline," adding that published reports of their election to the Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha are untrue. He calls it a "dirty game" aimed at grabbing Arya Samaj properties and destabilizing the Sarvadeshik Sabha. Legal action has been promised.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

But I digress, we were on <i>The</i> Valson Thampu, who regularly makes anti-Hindu speeches and writes similarly-themed tirades in order to provide extra literary/vocal support for the anti-Hindu christian media in India which operates on the christoislamicommunist principle that "a lie often repeated may convince people that it is the truth instead". (And Indian christoterrorists in the media regularly come out in support for their jihadi islamic brethren after terrorist attacks, just like Thampu did on the matter of the Godhra train burning by championing the perpetrators' exposed lies.)

Here we see Rajeev2004 describing The Valson Thampu:
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2008/03/the...-insult-to.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->i have been observing him attack hinduism for years<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So there you have it: his character is quite an open book it seems. Everyone knows The Valson Thampu, the guy known particularly for his anti-Hinduism.
Therefore I sure hope for the sake of Nick Gier's future-credibility that the Valson Thampu guy he's referring to isn't the same christoterrorist as the one famous for his Hindu-baiting. And if it was the same dude after all, it would not be anything special, not the first such event, but just another example of how no one can trust christianity's deluded followers: They often say one thing for the public (media) and do another when terrorising Hindus. After all, flowery words of protestation against Amerikkkan baptists coupled with the two-faced christo-inspired scheming against Hindus in affairs localised to India are not mutually exclusive occurrences in the life of a famous reverend/christopriest in India.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+May 8 2008, 06:45 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ May 8 2008, 06:45 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/hindufund.htm
[right][snapback]81347[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->We must have old Nick Gier (ngier) scared pretty bad for him to turn so vindictively to his christolying in that article that he comes off as foaming in the mouth in angry desperation. Must be afraid for his christoterrorism that he felt he ought to strike out soon any which way he could.
But we can know the Natural Traditions are winning when such profs at western unis leave their attempts at relaxed rationality (or pretences at it) behind and resort to outright christolying in their christohitlerian/goebbelsian way. Jeebus creepus - had he existed - would have been proud. Go nick.
No need for references in <i>his</i> article - above. He's a Professor Meritless in Ida<i>Who</i> University after all. His word is gawd's word. (Which anyone with half a brain would know is worthless.)


<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+May 8 2008, 06:44 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ May 8 2008, 06:44 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->CONVERGENCE NOT CONVERSION:RELIGIOUS UNITY IN INDIA By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho[right][snapback]81346[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

A quiet, yet powerful offensive attack launched by the bible pushers of India to christianize India - this time, by cloaking the "man on a cross" with a saffron robe and passing him off as a hindu god to innocent, unsuspecting Hindus.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Slokas On The Mount

Outlook India Magazine

May 12, 2008

Om Namah Jesu could well reverberate inside hundreds of Catholic churches in India very soon, if the changing physical face of these places of worship is anything to go by.

The Vatican-blessed process of ‘inculturation’ being implemented by the 168 Catholic dioceses in India has already seen Jesus acquiring the form of a Hindu sage, St John the Baptist with a ‘kamandalu’, grottos in the shape of conch shells, and a church in Bangalore that can easily be mistaken for a temple.

‘Inculturation’, broadly speaking, is the indigenisation of the Church through the process of assimilating local culture and symbols in construction, layout, interior design, furniture and religious fixtures like the tabernacles.

So far, around 45 churches across the country have been wholly or partially ‘inculturated’—many have adopted Indian architectural forms and motifs, and quite a few have been refurbished and their interiors redesigned to include murals, panels, furniture et al that have been inspired 
 
by Hindu religious symbols. The tabernacle at the recently inaugurated Our Lady of Mount Carmel church at Murugani near Dumka in Jharkhand, for example, has been rendered in the shape of a ‘kula’—used by local tribals and people in neighbouring states, including West Bengal, to thresh foodgrains, and regarded as an auspicious symbol.


This process began gradually in the early 1990s, but gathered momentum about five years ago. “Initially, there was a lot of opposition to this from conservative elements in the Church. For them, any dilution of the European element in church construction, or in the murals depicting scenes from the Bible where all the people look European, or in statues or church articles, was totally unacceptable. That has slowly changed with the growing realisation that the Church has to incarnate the Gospel in the culture in which it is being preached,” a senior priest from the Archdiocese of Calcutta told Outlook on condition of anonymity.

Explained Father Varghese Puthussery, the Jesuit Provincial of Dumka-Raiganj who inaugurated the Murugani church, “In many parts of Asia, especially in India, Christianity is inseparably linked with Western culture, which is looked upon as alien.


Many committed Christians in India feel a split between their Indian cultural experience and the still-Western character of what they experience in the Church. Inculturation, thus, is the Church’s attempt to bridge that divide.” The Murugani church is an eloquent example of ‘inculturation’. “The structure is not typical; we’ve incorporated elements of Islamic architecture since many old buildings in this region have a strong Islamic influence. The tribal influence too is very strong in this church.

The pulpit is a replica of a ‘morai’ used by local Santhal tribals to store grains, the altar rests on a tribal drum, the fibreglass statue of Jesus at the sanctuary looks as if it is carved out of wood, since tribals worship wood-carved deities, and the stained glass windows depicting parables from the Bible have persons with a distinctly tribal look,” Subrata Ganguly, the man helping the Catholic Church implement the ‘inculturation’ process, told Outlook.

Ganguly runs Church Art, a firm that designs new churches and renovates existing ones to give them a strong local flavour. “We have worked in all states of the country. In the case of new churches, we formalise a concept after intensive discussions with the local diocese and congregations, and then work with a local architect to give the concept a concrete shape on the drawing board. Next, we work with the contractor to ensure proper construction.


After that, we start working on the interiors and various other objects like the pulpit, the altar, murals, windows and various other objects. With old or existing churches, too, we follow a similar routine. All the moveable ‘inculturated’ objects, including murals and statues, are made at my workshop in Calcutta and transported to the respective sites. Big objects like statues are transported in knocked-down form and then reassembled at the site,” says Ganguly.


Remarkable specimens of the studio’s creations exist around the country. Like Jesus sitting cross-legged on a lotus (installed in a church in Hyderabad), or Jesus emerging after a purifying bath in the Ganges with temples on the riverbanks (in a mural in a Haridwar church), or rendered as a typical Bastar tribal priest surrounded by tribal women at a church at Bhopal. <b>At a church at Jhansi, scenes from Christ’s life in a set of 40 paintings has human and animal characters that leap straight out of Amar Chitra Katha and Panchatantra comics.</b> “We’ve installed similar panels in many churches and the feedback has been very good. We’re getting requests to make more such panels and murals, which show biblical characters in Indian forms, from various churches, seminaries and Catholic institutions all across the country,” says Ganguly.


“There is greatness and divinity is every culture and the Church draws from that to make itself more acceptable to local congregations. This is more so with tribals and in tribal areas,” says Dumka’s Bishop Rev Julius Marandi. ‘Inculturation’, say Catholic priests, is an evolving process specially tailored to different local traditions. “The requirements for an inculturated church or seminary in Northeast India are very different from those at Ambapara in Rajasthan’s Udaipur, where the next ‘inculturated’ church is coming up,” explains Ganguly.


<b>“At a seminary near Shillong, for instance, Jesus is shown in a mural standing under a pine tree with people in Khasi and Garo headgear around him. At Ambapara, we’ll show Jesus as a Bhil tribal.</b> We’ve studied and researched extensively on the Bhils; we always do this before every such project, to get an accurate idea of local customs, traditions and culture,” he adds. Already, typical Hindu rituals like ‘aarti’ are being performed inside churches.


<b>At a church in Nadia, the Good Shepherd looks like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 15th century Vaishnavite saint of Bengal, his arms raised in a beatific trance. </b>At this rate, can the cross taking the shape of a trishul be far behind?

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...h+%28F%29&sid=1 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[shamu]

^^^
What does it tell you? Jesus was a creation of some people. They just depicted him according to the people they targetted.

[Shambhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-ashyam+May 9 2008, 12:01 AM-->QUOTE(ashyam @ May 9 2008, 12:01 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->^^^
What does it tell you? Jesus was a creation of some people. They just depicted him according to the people they targetted.
[right][snapback]81375[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Bingo!
---------------------

Anyway, we shall see who "inculturates" who, dear Papa Vatica!! Look around and see the heathenness stalking your flock! The laws of nature cannot be bent..apples dont fly up, nor do mangoes..

[dhu]

<b>Vandals Torch Hindu Temple In Lautoka</b>
(Fiji Times)

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Vandals set fire and destroyed a major Hindu temple in the Fiji city of Lautoka, </b>the Fiji Times reports.

The 60-year-old Field 40 Gangaiyamman Kovil Temple, which serves 3,000 devotees, was apparently torched by vandals. Temple President Rajend Mani said this was the first time in 1987 that the temple has been desecrated.

Divisional Crime Officer Western, Superintendent Vijay Singh, said this was the second crime against a Hindu temple in Lautoka this week. <b>He said thieves stole statues and other items were stolen last Wednesday from the  Rifle Range Mariamman Temple.</b>

Police had yet to determine the financial cost of the Field 40 Gangaiyamman Kovil Temple fire.

--------------
HINDUS in the country's second city were in shock after one of their largest temples was looted and torched early yesterday morning.

Devotees of the Field 40 Gangaiyamman Kovil Temple, in Lautoka, could not hold back their tears as they went through the charred remains of the temple built more than 60 years ago.

Temple president Rajend Mani still could not come to terms with the act of sacrilege, saying it had shattered the local community.

Mr Mani said the break-in was the first time someone had desecrated the temple since 1987.

In 1987, he said, those who broke in stole offerings and damaged religious statues before leaving.

He said yesterday's incident was too much to comprehend because the vandals not only broke into the temple but destroyed it by setting it alight.

He said trying to replace all the religious statues that were damaged in the fire would be hard because each statue costs about $400.

Mr Mani, who lives 30 metres from the temple, said he was alerted by a neighbour at 5am.

He said by the time he reached the temple, flames had already engulfed the building.

The temple committee met yesterday morning where it was agreed members postpone their annual firewalking ceremony scheduled for June 9.

The temple hosts more than 3000 worshippers in Lautoka.

Mr Mani said the Hindu community in Lautoka would be affected by destruction.

While police and fire officers sifted through the ruins for clues, the cost of damage had yet to be determined.

Lautoka Mayor Rohit Kumar condemned the act, saying it was a cowardly act.

Mr Kumar said the vandals not only broke into a place of worship but showed total disrespect by setting it on fire.

Mr Kumar said no religion would condone such actions and those responsible had to reflect on their poor, disrespectful and selfish judgement.

Divisional Crime Officer Western, Superintendent Vijay Singh pleaded with members of the public for any information regarding the incident.

SP Singh said they were very concerned because this was the second act of sacrilege in Lautoka within a week.

On Wednesday morning, members of the Rifle Range Mariamman Temple opened it to find that several religious statues and other items were removed.

SP Singh said while they have arrested a suspect allegedly involved in the Rifle Range incident, they were still searching for those responsible for the recent case in Field 40.

SP Singh said they were very concerned and they needed the public's assistance to apprehend the suspects.

Attempts to contact the Methodist Church of Fiji's Secretary General Reverend Ame Tugaue yesterday were unsuccessful.

However, earlier in the week, Reverend Tugaue said that they believed that any act of sacrilege or desecration was not right.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

There are two perspectives on "inculturation". One can look at it as infiltration of Christianity. The other perspective is one could think it as absorption of Christianity into the native culture.