Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 6

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He is back <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Andhra-preacher-is-Terry-Jones-adviser/H1-Article1-599052.aspx"]Andhra preacher is Terry Jones' adviser[/url]

An evangelical preacher from India, [color="#FF0000"]Kilari A. Paul,[/color] has emerged as the principal advisor to pastor Terry Jones, the man who created headlines worldwide by threatening to burn copies of the Quran. And Paul threatened that Jones had not taken the option of burning Qurans off the table. Jones called off his proposed misadventure after claiming that he had received an assurance that the Park51 project, popularly called the Ground Zero Mosque, was to be relocated.

K.A. Paul is a biggest fraud. Enjoy it.

FYI



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._A._Paul

[Bharatvarsh2]

The Cuncolim Revolt (also termed the Cuncolim Martyrdom by the Roman Catholic Church [1]) was a massacre of Christian priests and civilians by members of the Hindu Gaoncar clan in Cuncolim, Goa on Monday, 25 July 1583, as a protest against attempts by the colonial Portuguese administration to demolish Hindu temples in the locality and forcibly convert the local population to Christianity.[2] Five Jesuit priests along with one European and 14 Indian Christians were killed in the incident. [3] The Portuguese government retaliated by summarily executing most of the leaders of the Gaoncar clan without trial, and destroying the economic infrastructure of Cuncolim. [4] The incident was the first show of defiance against the Portuguese by the local population since the conquest of Goa in 1510.[5]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuncolim_Revolt

Read more at the link including how the Church declared the massacred criminals as "saints".



I salute the Dharmayodha's who killed these mofo's.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2010...faces.html



The Protestant Church has secondary growth concerns: The number of students for Evangelical Theology is in decline since the beginning of the nineties.



[Die Zeit: Online] 10-15 years it will still go well, then however, Germany will be threatened by a shortage of ministers, fear the Union of Evangelical Pastors and Pastoresses. The number of young men, who want to be Pastor, has been declining for years: 1992 still had 8500 young people studying for the ministry, at the present there are only 2300, said Union President Klaus Weber. From 2020 on the Pastor-boom will fall into silence.



Not only is the number of candidates sinking, but simultaneously the number of members of the Evangelical church as well. These were estimated by 2030 to be a quarter of what they are today, said Weber. For this reason Pastor's positions are being closed. Already is a Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Pastor responsible for a dozen communities. The all-important personal contact is broken down. The church relies more on volunteers to hold its divine services.

[G.Subramaniam]

"They convert our people and sent to Kashmir to fight the Indian army" - Christian Body

22/09/2010 08:54:26 http://expressbuzz.com/states/kerala/ker...08560.html





Kerala churches unite over 'existential threat'

M P Prashanth - www.expressbuzz.com







KOZHIKODE: Confronted by ‘increasing threats to the existence of the community’, believers of the major Christian Churches in Kerala have formed a common platform to face the challenges unitedly.



The first meeting of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was held here on Sunday which was attended by representatives of the CMI, CSI, Syrian Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Fr. Dr. Antony Kozhuvanal, national general secretary of the Infam, inaugurated the meeting.



The CDU came into being against the backdrop of the incidents after the attack on T J Joseph, lecturer at the Newman College, Thodupuzha. Sources said the CDU feels that unorganised Christians are facing stiff challenges from other ‘organised forces’.



"They convert our people after giving many promises. These persons were sent to Kashmir to fight the Indian army," says the notice distributed before the meeting of the CDU.



Indirectly referring to the attack on Joseph, the notice says "nobody reacts when the hands and legs of Christians are being chopped off."



It went on to add "political parties and the ruling class are hunting the Christians and their institutions. They need vote banks. They want the support of the communities whose population graph shows an upward trend."



The CDU is also concerned about the decline in the population of the Christians in the state. It says the population of the Christians came down from 30 percent in 1950 to less than 20 percent in 2010.



"This is because educationally forward Christian community imbibed the spirit of the family planning programme."



The fledgling organisation is dejected by the let-down by the political parties which traditionally enjoyed the support of the Christians. Sources said initially the organisation will concentrate in the northern districts before spreading to other areas. Advocate Babu Benedict has been elected the president and Advocate Joy Abraham general secretary. T M Abraham is the treasurer.

[Bharatvarsh2]

Indirectly referring to the attack on Joseph, the notice says "nobody reacts when the hands and legs of Christians are being chopped off."



It went on to add "political parties and the ruling class are hunting the Christians and their institutions. They need vote banks. They want the support of the communities whose population graph shows an upward trend."



The CDU is also concerned about the decline in the population of the Christians in the state. It says the population of the Christians came down from 30 percent in 1950 to less than 20 percent in 2010.



"This is because educationally forward Christian community imbibed the spirit of the family planning programme."

Scum are worried that their Muslim allies are finally turning on them.



When Christian terrorists were murdering Hindus in the North East or killing the Swami in Orissa, who reacted from the gov't?



The Christian controlled media has always been solidly backing Muslim terrorists.



If the followers of the two disgusting cults want to kill each other then let them because then you might finally have a semblance of peace in the country.

[Bharatvarsh2]

Why Indians should reject St. Thomas and Christianity – Koenraad Elst



“Christians must acknowledge the historical fact that from Bethlehem to Madras, most of their sacred sites are booty won in campaigns of fraud and destruction. Since their theology urges a sense of sinfulness and guilt anyway, they should not find it too difficult to make such a confession. In fact, until the Church in India voluntarily offers to give some of its illegitimate property back, there is every reason to be skeptical about its protestations of a new spirit of dialogue.” – KE



India’s Christian Problem

In the West we don’t hear much about it, and even in India it doesn’t make many headlines, but Hindu society is faced with a Christian problem besides the better-known Muslim problem.[1] One focus of this conflict is the history of Christian iconoclasm, which is not entirely finished, and which past history has crystallized into some hundreds of churches standing on the ruins of purposely demolished Hindu temples. This history of iconoclasm is not an accident: it is the logical outcome of Christian theology, particularly of its deep hostility towards non-Christian forms of worship.



Christian sacred places in Palestine

A book well worth reading for those engaged in controversies over sacred sites, in particular concerning Christian churches in South India, is Christians and the Holy Places by Joan Taylor, a historian from New Zealand.[2] It shows that the places where Christians commemorate the birth and death of Jesus have nothing to do with Jesus, historically.



The Nativity Church in Bethlehem was built in the fourth century A.D. in forcible replacement of a Pagan place of worship, dedicated to the God Tammuz-Adonis. Until then, it had had no special significance for Christians, who considered pilgrimages to sacred places a Pagan practice anyway: you cannot concentrate in one place (hence, go on pilgrimage to) the Omnipresent. The concept of “sacred place” was introduced into Christianity by converts, especially at the time of Emperor Constantine’s switch to a pro-Christian state policy.



The Christian claim to Bethlehem as Jesus’s birthplace was a fraud from the beginning, as Cambridge historian Michael Arnheim has shown: through numerous contradictions and factual inaccuracies, the Gospel writers betray their intention to locate Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem at any cost, against all information available to them.[3] The reason is that they had to make Jesus live up to an Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah was to be born there.



Church in Jerusalem was built in forcible replacement of a temple of the fertility Goddess Venus,the personal initiative of Emperor Constantine. His mother had seen in a dream that Jesus had died at that particular place, though close scrutiny of the original Christian texts shows that they point to a place 200 metres to the south. Constantine had the Venus temple demolished and the ground searched, and yes, his experts duly found the cross on which Jesus had died. They somehow assumed that their forebears of 33 A.D. had a habit of leaving or even burying crucifixion crosses at the places where they had been used, quod non. The Christian claim to the site of the Holy Cross is based on the dream of a gullible but fanatical woman, and fortified with a faked excavation.[4]



Remember the Ayodhya debate, where Hindu scholars were challenged to produce ever more solid proof of the traditions underlying the sacredness of the controversial site? Whatever proof they came up with was automatically, without any inspection, dismissed by the high priests of secularism as “myth” and “faked evidence”. It was alleged that there was a “lack of proof” for the assumption that Rama ever lived there. But in the case of the Christian sacred places, we do not just have lack of proof that the religion’s claim is true, but we have positive proof that its claim is untrue, and that it was historically part of a campaign of fraud and destruction.



The stories of the Nativity and Holy Cross sites were trend setters in a huge campaign of christianization of Pagan sacred sites. Joan Taylor also mentions how the Aphrodite temple in Ein Karim near Jerusalem was demolished and replaced with the Nativity Church of John the Baptist. In the same period, all over the Roman Empire, Pagan places of worship were demolished, sacred groves chopped down and idols smashed by Christian preachers who replaced them with Christian relics which they themselves posted or “discovered” there, like the twenty-odd “only real” instances of Jesus’s venerable foreskin.



Pagan symbols and characters were superficially christianized. For example, Saint George and the archangel Michael, both depicted as slaying a dragon, are nothing but Christian names for the Indo-European myth of the dragon-slayer (in the Vedic version: Indra slaying Vrtra). The Pagan festivals of the winter solstice (Yuletide) and the spring equinox were deformed into the Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter.[5] The Egyptian icon of the Mother Goddess Isis with her son Horus in her lap, very popular throughout the Roman Empire, was turned into the Madonna with the Babe Jesus. At the same time, devotees of the genuine Mother Goddess and enthusiasts of the genuine winter solstice festival were persecuted, their temples demolished or turned into churches.



This massive campaign of fraud and destruction was subsequently extended to the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic countries. Numerous ancient churches across Europe are so many Babri Masjids, containing or standing on the left-overs of so many Rama Janmabhoomi temples. Just after the christianization of Europe was completed with the forced conversion of Lithuania in the fifteenth century, the iconoclastic zeal was taken to America, and finally to Africa and Asia.



Christian impositions on India



India too has had its share of Christian iconoclasm. After the Portuguese settlement, hundreds of temples in and around the Portuguese-held territories were demolished, often to be replaced with Catholic churches. “Saint” Francis Xavier described with glee the joy he felt when he saw the Hindu idols smashed and temples demolished.[6] Most sixteenth and seventeenth century churches in India contain the rubble of demolished Hindu temples. The French-held pockets witnessed some instances of Catholic fanaticism as well. Under British rule, Hindu places of worship in the population centres were generally left alone (some exceptions notwithstanding), but the tribal areas became the scene of culture murder by Catholic and Protestant missionaries. There are recent instances of desecration of tribal village shrines and sacred groves by Christians, assaults on Hindu processions both in the tribal belts and in the south, and attempts to turn the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari into a Virgin Mary shrine.[7]



In South India, the myth of St. Thomas provided the background for a few instances of temple destruction at places falsely associated with his life and alleged martyrdom, especially the St. Thomas Church replacing the Mylapore Kapaleeswara Temple in Madras. In this case, the campaign of fraud is still continuing: till today, Christian writers continue to claim historical validity for the long-refuted story of the apostle Thomas coming to India and getting killed by jealous Brahmins.[8] The story is parallel to that of Jesus getting killed by the Jews, and it has indeed served as an argument in an elaborate Christian doctrine of anti-Brahminism which resembles Christian anti-Semitism to the detail. At any rate, it is a fraud.



From those Christian polemists insisting on the St. Thomas narrative’s historicity (I will be the first to welcome the unexpected demonstration of the historicity of traditions dismissed as “myths”), we may at least expect that they tell their prospective converts the whole of the story. They should not omit that it describes Thomas as Jesus’s twin brother (implying that Jesus was not God’s Only Begotten Son) and as an anti-social character who exhausted his royal protector’s patience by luring many women away from their families; and that it relates how Jesus was a slave-trader who was not even above selling his own brother.



Towards a full accounting and apology

For a proper way of digesting this dark episode of Christian iconoclasm, we suggest the following two steps. First of all, a full stop has to be put to the surreptitious forms of Christian iconoclasm which are continuing to this very day. It is nonsense to talk of dialogue and communal harmony as long as attempts are still being made to disrupt existing modes of worship.



Secondly, Hindus and Christians should take inspiration from the contemporary American attitude towards the horrible story of America’s christianization through culture murder and genocide. After all, the Christian conquests in India and in America are two sides of the same coin. In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the Pope awarded one half of the world (ultimately comprising areas from Brazil to Macao, including Africa and India) to Portugal, and the other half (including most of America and the Philippines) to Spain, on condition that they use their power to christianize the population. The Spanish campaign in America had juridically and theologically exactly the same status as its Portuguese counterpart in India. If the result was not as absolutely devastating in India as it was in America, this was merely due to different power equations: the Portuguese were less numerous than the Spanish, and the Indians were technologically and militarily more equal to the Europeans than the Native Americans were. The Church’s intentions behind Columbus’s discovery of America and Vasco da Gama’s landing in India were exactly the same.



On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s first meeting with the Pagans of the New World (1992), many Christian dignitaries have expressed their shame and regret at what has been done to the Native Americans by (or, as they prefer to put it, “in the name of”) Christianity. Even the Pope has publicly acknowledged at least a part of his Church’s guilt.[9] Now that the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama’s landing in India [has passed], Hindus should make sure that the Christians including the Pope do not forget to do some similar soul-searching and to offer similar apologies.



Like the Native Americans, Hindu society will not be satisfied with a few cheap words. As Hindu spokesman Arun Shourie writes: “By an accounting [of the calumnies heaped upon India and Hinduism] I do not of course mean some declaration saying, ‘Sorry’. By an accounting I mean that the calumnies would be listed; the grounds on which they were based would be listed, and the Church would declare whether, in the light of what is known now, the grounds were justified or not; and the motives which impelled those calumnies would be exhumed.”[10] This is actually an application of the rules of confession, one of the Catholic sacraments: it is not enough to ask for absolution from your sins, you first have to confess what sins you have actually committed.



The Church now claims that it is no longer the aggressive Church Militant of the old days, that its whole outlook has profoundly changed. Shourie lists five criteria by which we will know whether these changes are genuine:



1.an honest accounting of the calumnies which the Church has heaped on India and Hinduism;

2.informing Indian Christians and non-Christians about the findings of Bible scholarship;

3.informing them about the impact of scientific progress on Church doctrine;

4.acceptance that reality is multi-layered and that there are many ways of perceiving it;

5.bringing the zeal for conversion in line with the recent declarations that salvation is possible through other religions as well.

I expect Church leaders to reply: “You cannot ask of the Indian Church to commit suicide like that!” But let us give them a chance.



Christian hostilities today

After the Church’s public self-criticism before the Native Americans, there is every reason [for Hindus] to take stock of what Christianity has done to India. But in this case, the Christians may need some insistent reminding: unlike in America, where they have had to face the facts of history, and where they have had to switch to a pro-Native stand under the aegis of Liberation Theology, the Christian Churches in India are still continuing on a course of self-righteous aggression against the native society and culture.



Seldom have I seen such viper-like mischievousness as in the most recent strategies of the Christian mission in India. It is a viper with two teeth. On the one side, there is the gentle penetration through social and educational services, now compounded with a rhetoric of “inculturation”: glib talk of “dialogue”, “sharing”, “common ground”, fraudulent donning of Hindu robes by Christian monks, all calculated to fool Hindus about the continuity of the Christian striving to destroy Hinduism and replace it with the cult of Jesus. This is not to deny that there are some Indian Christians who sincerely believe that the denomination game is outdated, that we should go “beyond the religions” and mix freely with non-Christians without trying to change their religious loyalties; but they do not represent official Church policy.



On the other side, there is a vicious attempt to delegitimize Hinduism as India’s native religion, and to mobilize the weaker sections of Hindu society against it with “blood and soil” slogans. Seeing how the nativist movement in the Americas is partly directed against Christianity because of its historical aggression against native society (in spite of Liberation Theology’s attempts to recuperate the movement), the Indian Church tries to take over this nativist tendency and forge it into a weapon against Hinduism. Christian involvement in the so-called Dalit (“oppressed”) and Adivasi (“aboriginal”) movements is an attempt to channel the nativist revival and perversely direct it against native society itself. It advertises its services as the guardian of the interests of the “true natives” (meaning the Scheduled Castes and Tribes) against native society, while labelling the upper castes as “Aryan invaders”, on the basis of an outdated theory postulating an immigration in 1500 B.C.



To declare people “invaders” because of a supposed immigration of some of their ancestors 3500 years ago is an unusual feat of political hate rhetoric in itself, but the point is that it follows a pattern of earlier rounds of Christian aggression. It is Cortes all over again: Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, could defeat the Aztecs, the ruling nation which had immigrated from Utah three centuries earlier, by enlisting the support of nations subdued by the Aztecs, with himself posing as their liberator (of course, they were to regret their “liberation”). The attempt to divide the people of a country on an ethnic basis—whether it is a real ethnic distinction as in the case of Cortes’ Mexico, or a wilfully invented one as in the case of India—is an obvious act of hostility, unmistakably an element of warfare.



While in the post-colonial decades, Church rhetoric has markedly softened, its action on the ground has only become more aggressive. Shourie quotes intelligence reports on the role of missionaries in armed separatist movements in the North-East, and on their violations of the legal restrictions in Arunachal Pradesh on conversion by force or allurement.[12] The World Council of Churches officially supports separatism in the tribal areas (and even among the Schedules Castes, another “indigenous nation”!), in pursuit of the long cherished project of carving out Christian-dominated independent states. In its 1989 Darwin Declaration, the WCC announces: “Indigenous peoples strive for and demand the full spectrum of autonomy available in the principle of self-determination, including the right to re-establish our own nation-states”. The Churches and governments have an obligation to see [this] come to reality by providing the necessary means, without any restriction attached.”[13] What sounds fair enough in the case of the Tibetans or the East-Timorese, is used in India as a step on the way to unrestricted exercise of clerical power, a formalization of the already existing trends in the Christian-dominated states of the Indian republic.



Therefore, “without any restriction”, Christians are teaching some sections of Hindu society hatred against other sections. You don’t normally try to create hostility between your friends, so the Church’s policy to pit sections of Hindu society against one another should be seen for what it is: an act of aggression, which warrants an active policy of self-defence and counter-attack. This counter-attack should take a proper form, adapted to the genius of Hinduism.



Why Christianity should be rejected

The Hindu response to Christian aggression should concentrate on consciousness-raising. Information should be widely disseminated on the two fundamental reasons why Christianity is totally unacceptable as an alternative to Hinduism.



The first is its historical record, with its destructive fanaticism as well as its opportunistic collaboration with whichever social force seemed most helpful to the Church’s expansion. Contrary to current propaganda, Christianity has historically supported feudalism, absolute kingship, slavery and apartheid, all properly justified with passages from the Bible. St. Peter and St. Paul gave a clear message to the oppressed of the world: “Slaves, accept with due submission the authority of your masters, not only if they are good and friendly, but even if they are harsh.” (1 Peter 2:18) And: “Slaves, be obedient to your earthly masters with devotion and simplicity, as if your obedience were directed to Christ Himself.”(Ephesians 6:5)[14]. Liberation Theology, far from constituting a break with the Church’s long-standing collaboration with the dominant powers, is merely the application of the same strategy to new circumstances: now that the masses constitute a decisive political force, now that social activism is a theme which ensures political and financial support from different quarters, the Church has decided to tap into this new source of power as well.



The other (and in my opinion the most important) fact about Christianity which ought to be the topic of an all-out education campaign, is the scientific certainty that its fundamental teachings are historically fraudulent, intellectually garbled, and psychologically morbid. Jesus was neither the son of a virgin mother nor the Only Begotten Son of God. Jesus’s perception of himself as the Messiah and the Son of God was a psychopathological condition, supported by hallucinations (especially the voice he heard during his baptism, the visions of the devil during his fast, the vision of Elijah and Moses on Mount Tabor), and partly caused by his most ordinary but traumatic shame of having been conceived out of wedlock. Numerous manipulations (interpolation, omission, antedating, deliberate mistakes of translation and interpretation) of the textual basis of Christian doctrine by the evangelists and other Church Fathers have been discovered, analyzed and explained in their historical context by competent Bible scholars, most of them working at Christian institutes.[15]



Now some Hindus will object that there must also be a bright side. I am well aware that Christian history has produced some important contributions to human progress in culture, art, philosophy. I have a rather positive opinion of some of the Christian classics, such as Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy, or the Church’s social teachings (which are rather different from Liberation Theology), and I stand by my earlier suggestion that Hindu political ideologues would gain a lot from studying the works which inspired their natural European counterpart, the Christian Democrats.[16] However, a closer analysis shows that the truly important elements in these contributions are ultimately of non-Christian origin.



The intellectually most attractive elements in Christian doctrine are bits of Hellenistic philosophy co-opted by the Church Fathers, without any prophetic or revelatory origins, apart from elements of Judaic tradition which predated Jesus and were in no way augmented or surpassed by his supposed teachings. The way Christianity incorporated them is often a superficial cover-up of the contradictions between mutually exclusive teachings. Thus, the Platonic notion of an immortal soul, which is part of Church doctrine, makes the central Christian message of the “resurrection of the body” (which originated in a Jewish tradition ignoring the notion of an afterlife) superfluous. If death does not really exist, if it is merely a step from this type of life to another type, why bother about bodily resurrection? And if we partake of the Divine nature by sharing God’s immortality, where is the need for a Saviour?



On the other hand, those contributions which set Christianity apart from the prevailing religious and intellectual atmosphere in the Greco-Roman world, are not always the most desirable. Thus, Christianity’s emphasis on the individual’s dependence on Scriptural or Church authority has suffocated millions of people in their spiritual development and directly caused the persecution and killing of numerous freethinkers. Its contorted and repressive attitude towards human sexuality is notoriously responsible for untold amounts of psychological suffering. Add the negative attitude towards worldly pursuits including science; the sentimental fixation on a single historical person with his idiosyncratic behaviour, extolled moreover to a divine status (Jews and Muslims have a point when they consider this the ultimate in “idolatry”); the concomitant depreciation of all other types of human character (artist, warrior, householder, humorist, renouncer) in favour of the pathetic antisocial type which Jesus represented; and the morbid love of martyrdom. Our list of Christianity’s failures is not complete, but is sufficient to justify the evaluation on which millions of Christian-born people have come to agree: Christianity is not true.



Jesus was not God’s Only Begotten Son, and he was not the Saviour of mankind from its Original Sin. Historically, he was just one of the numerous antisocial preachers going around in troubled Palestine in the period of Roman rule. He believed the End was near (definitely a failed prophecy, unless we redefine “near”), and had a rather high opinion of himself and of his role in the impending catastrophe. We can feel compassion for this thoroughly unhappy man with his miserably unsuccessful life, but we should not compensate him for his failure by elevating him to a super-human status; let alone worshipping him as Saviour and Son of God. Whatever the worth of values which Christians claim as theirs, nothing at all is gained by making people believe in a falsehood like the faith in Jesus Christ.



Life after Christianity

Hindus with their conservative and pluralistic concern for the continuity of people in their respective faiths may wonder whether, for Christians, there is life after Christianity. Let me speak from my own experience. I have grown up in a Catholic family, gone to Catholic schools, and am a member of Catholic social organizations, so in a sociological sense I belong to the Catholic community. Moreover, I publish articles defending the Christians against the Islamic onslaught in foreign countries as well as against cultural aggression by Left-secularists in my own country. I also like to point to the worthwhile contributions of the Church tradition and of Christian thinkers and artists against the sweeping anti-Christian positions of some of my atheist and Hindu friends. Yet, like most of my friends from the same background, I have gradually discovered that Christianity is an illusory belief system, and without any outside intellectual or other pressures, my attachment to it has dissolved.



This step from belief in an irrational “revealed” doctrine towards truthfulness and the spirit of independent inquiry has not been a loss to me, nor to most people in the same situation that I know of. On the contrary, I have found that St. Paul’s dictum is fully valid: “Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”



For many thoughtful Westerners, the end of Christianity has not turned out to be the end of religion and morality, contrary to the predictions of our teachers. To be sure, there has been a profound change in public morality, which is partly a liberation from repressive prejudice, but partly also a real decline in moral sensitivity and responsibility, as demonstrated by the rising crime rate and the increasing number of broken families. Christianity claims to be the solution to this problem (hence the call for a “second evangelization”), but to quite an extent it should accept the blame for this development. By identifying religiosity and morality with its own irrational belief system, Christianity has made many people who outgrew this belief system throw out the annexes of moral responsibility and spiritual striving as well. Now, people are needing some time to discover for themselves that religion and morality still make sense after the demise of Christianity.



Back to pre-Christian roots

Though the decline of Christianity in the West brings a few problems with it, that is no reason to reverse the process. Instead, we are reconstructing religion and morality for ourselves. One of the sources of the post-Christian religious revival, numerically still marginal but of great symbolic significance, is the rediscovery of ancestral Paganism. Intellectually, this movement still lacks solidity and consistency, and finds itself associated with a variety of social and political concerns stretching across the ideological spectrum: ethnic revivalism, nationalism, ecologism, feminism, communitarianism, anarchism. Part of the reason is that in European Paganism, unlike in Hinduism, there is no historical continuity, so that (except for the well-documented Greek traditions) there is ample room for guessing and fantasizing about the historical contents of ancient Paganism: an open invitation to romantics and theosophists to project their own pet ideas onto the mute screen of the ancient religion. Perhaps that is why the most consistent neo-Pagan movement arose in Iceland, where the memory of ancient Paganism was best preserved.



When Pope John-Paul II visited Iceland, he was received by Christian dignitaries, but the first one to address him was the country’s senior most religious leader, Sveinbjšrn Beinteinsson (1924-93). Originally a farmer, Beinteinsson gained fame across northern Europe as a traditional singer and songwriter (what the English call, with a term from the Celtic part of their cultural ancestry, a bard), and in 1972 he founded the Asatruarflagid, the “society for the Ase religion”, which was officially registered as a religion on 3 May 1973.[17] As “the whole people’s invocator” (Allsherjargodi)[18] of the reconstituted ancestral religion, he spoke with mild irony to the Pope, about these “new fashions in religion” (meaning Christianity) which his tradition had seen arriving in Iceland.



The Icelandic example is being followed in other Germanic countries including North America. Celtic-based revivals are flourishing in Celtic countries or countries with a Celtic past (France, where some 40 different neo-Druid societies of divergent quality co-exist, England and Belgium). Slavic and Baltic countries have their own variety, with Russia and Lithuania being particularly fertile grounds for neo-Paganism.[19] In the former Soviet provinces of Tajikistan and Ossetia, there is a revival of Zoroastrianism, while forms of Shamanism are resurfacing from Kyrgyzstan to Hungary. In North America, these movements are partly absorbing those circles which were flirting earlier with Native American spirituality (sweat lodge ceremony). They now accept that the Native Americans themselves don’t appreciate this type of imitation and prefer European-descended people to rediscover their own Pagan heritage. While evangelists are working hard to christianize tribals in the interiors of Latin America, many christianized Native Americans are returning to their ancestral traditions. In Brazil, supposedly the world’s largest Catholic country, the black and mulatto populations are taking to the elaborately polytheistic Candombl cult, with the sympathy of growing sections of the European-descended people, who view this cult of African origin as the emerging national religion.



Most of these neo-Pagan groups are still too obviously immature, groping in the dark created by the Christian destruction of their historical roots; it is interesting to watch some of them adapt their own rituals and doctrines to new scholarly findings about their chosen religious ancestry.[20] We shall have to see how this line of response to the post-Christian vacuum develops; but already, its very existence poses a powerful symbolic challenge to Christianity.



Meanwhile, the biggest actual challenge to Christianity in the West is the appeal of Oriental religions. Now long past the stage of beatnik experimentation with Zen Buddhism and hippie affectations of Indian lore, the Western daughter-schools of Asian schools of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism are gaining in authenticity and respectability as well as in attendance numbers. Some people formally convert and declare themselves followers of these religions; many more just practise the techniques they’ve learned and try to live according to the teachings, all while insisting on their individual non-attachment to any organized religion. Thus, in Germany (at least among natives, as opposed to the prolific Muslim immigrants), Buddhism is the fastest growing religion with some 300,000 practitioners. Even more far-reaching is the gradual penetration of small bits and pieces of Oriental heritage: most sportsmen as well as pregnant women preparing for birth now learn some elementary yogic breath control (prānāyāma) techniques, while even among Christian monks and nuns there is a substantial percentage who defy the Pope’s warnings and practise non-Christian forms of meditation.



Part of Christianity’s appeal among Indian tribals and fishermen is the (waning, but still palpable) prestige of the West. They should realize that the West is gradually opening up to the traditions of India and China, even while the elites of these countries are still spitting on their own heritage and pursuing westernization. Indians living in the middle of these traditions should have no problem finding a worthwhile alternative to Christianity. Even Dalits with a grudge against Hinduism should have no problem in rejecting the eager invitations of Christianity and Islam, and in following their leader Dr. Ambedkar onto the path of the Buddha. In time, closer study of the Buddha’s teachings may well reveal to them that, just as Jesus was a Jew, the Buddha was a Hindu.



Christianity against Paganism

It is interesting to see how the mild and harmless people who run the leftovers of the once powerful Churches in Europe suddenly show a streak of fanaticism when confronted with signs of life in the long-buried corpse of Paganism. In Iceland, the established Lutheran Church has intervened to stop the ongoing construction of a Pagan temple halfway; the government complied with the pressure and temporarily halted the construction work.[21] In contemporary polemical publications from the Christian side, we see a boom in attacks on what is loosely called the New Age movement, meaning the mixed bag of feminist neo-witchcraft, ecologist philosophy (“deep ecology”), astrology, Pagan revivalism, Taoist health techniques and Hindu-Buddhist meditation. The Pope himself has condemned yoga, and in January 1995, his derogatory utterances on Buddhism provoked an anti-Pope agitation during his visit to Sri Lanka.[22]



By contrast, the Church leadership strongly opposes any serious criticism of Islam.[23] In India’s Hindu-Muslim conflict, the Christian media with their world-wide impact have thrown their weight completely behind the Islamic aggressor. The reason for this uneven treatment of Paganism (in the broadest sense) and Islam is not merely the relative closeness of Islam as a fellow monotheist religion, nor just the fear which Islam inspires. Churchmen have the (correct) impression that the Pagan alternative, though softer and weaker than Islam in a confrontational sense, ultimately has a stronger appeal to the educated Western mind. They calculate that the better-educated mankind of the next century will typically go the way of today’s European intellectuals, rather than the way of today’s Black Muslims or Christian Dalits.



Islam’s money and muscle power may look impressive, certainly capable of doing some real damage to targeted countries and societies, but Islam has no chance of becoming the religion of a science-based, space-conquering world society. Exclusivist revelations have no appeal among educated people, especially after they have acquainted themselves with the Vedantic or Buddhist philosophies. That is why the Churches are investing huge resources in the battle for Asia’s mind, where they face their most formidable enemy. That is why they are so active in India: not only is India’s atmosphere of religious freedom more hospitable to them than the conditions of Islamic countries, or even of non-Islamic countries where proselytization is prohibited (countries as divergent as China, Myanmar, Israel, and, at least formally, Nepal); but they also know and fear the intrinsic superiority of the Indian religion.



The role of disputed places of worship

In the present struggle to death which Christianity is waging against Hinduism, is it any use for Hindus to rake up disputes over usurped places of worship? Or, as Christians who have the preservation of their churches in mind, are wont to ask: isn’t one Babri Masjid problem enough?



The Hindu response should be in proportion to the seriousness of the matter. Within the hierarchy of Hindu sacred places, I don’t think that any of the most important ones has been usurped by Christianity, the Mylapore Shiva Temple being (with due respect) of secondary rank; though I admit that this is all relative. Of course, the Church itself is welcome to make a move and offer the stolen places of worship back. In fact, until the Church voluntarily offers to give some of its illegitimate property back, there is every reason to be skeptical about its protestations of a “new spirit of dialogue”. However, in my opinion, it may be wasteful and strategically counterproductive to start clamouring for the return of stolen places of worship.



Hindu society should be more ambitious. A place of worship may be an important focus for mobilization and consciousness-raising (vide Ayodhya), but it is hardly important in itself.[24] Better to go for the big one: attract the worshippers, and they will bring the places of worship along with them. Not the places but the offerers of worship are to be liberated from Christianity.



The fate of Hindu sacred sites at the hands of Christian missionaries, as a piece of significant historical information, may have a certain auxiliary role to play in this process of consciousness-raising. Their ruins are witnesses to the antireligious and destructive edge of a Church which now advertises itself in India as the bringer of progress and social justice. A formal “liberation of sacred sites” need not be put on the agenda, but the Hindus have every right to insist on a mental and verbal breakthrough: Christians must acknowledge the historical fact that, from Bethlehem to Madras, most of their sacred sites are booty won in campaigns of fraud and destruction. Since their theology urges a sense of sinfulness and guilt anyway, they should not find it too difficult to make such a confession.



_________________________________________________



Notes:



1.We do not hear about the Christian problem because the mainstream “secular” media is either Christian owned or Christian controlled. – IS

2.Joan Taylor: Christians and the Holy Places, Oxford University Press 1993.

3.Michael Arnheim: Is Christianity True?, Duckworth & Co., London 1984.

4.The church is known today as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was built to enclose the alleged sites of the cross and the tomb which were believed to the close to each other. Its first building was dedicated ca. 336 A.D.

5.In their own version of the winter solstice, the Romans celebrated December 25th as the birthday of Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness, at the close of their most popular festival, the week-long Saturnalia. January 1st was then celebrated as the beginning of the New Year. The contention of Protestant fundamentalists that Christmas, the New Year and Easter are Pagan festivals is correct. The names of the days of the week and months of the year in the Western “Christian” calendar are also of Pagan origin, as is the choice of Sunday as the designated holy day.

6.The Indian Express, true to its current negationist editorial policy, continues to publish sentimentalized and misleading articles about this missionary and his Lutheran counterpart Bartholomeus Ziegenbalg, and about Portuguese churches built on temple sites, in its features pages. These missionaries and others are presented as lovers of and contributors to Tamil learning and culture, when in fact they came to India with the sole intention of destroying both. Prof. Maria Lazar, the author of a Ziegenbalg piece, has also done an article on Hindu craftsmen who manufacture images of Christian saints, and sententiously comments that this is a much needed example of religious tolerance today. Hindu craftsmen doing this kind of work are not unusual in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and real religious tolerance will be seen in South India when Christian craftsmen start making images of Hindu deities with the same dedication and respect. – IS

7.The phenomenon of Christian violence against Hindus in South India, generally ignored by Western India-watchers, is briefly mentioned by Susan Bayly in her (otherwise anti-Hindu) article: “History and the Fundamentalists: India after the Ayodhya Crisis”, in Bulletin of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, April 1993. The problem has hardly been documented by Hindu organizations, with their usual slothfulness in gathering and providing information. One of the few exceptions is Thanulinga Nadar: Unrest at Kanyakumari, Hindu Munnani, Kanyakumari 1982.

8.In Roman days and long afterwards, “India” was practically synonymous with “Asia”, from Ethiopia to Japan. Columbus expected to reach Zipangu (ChineseRibenguo, “land of the sun’s origin”, i.e. Japan), and when he thought he got there, he called the inhabitants “Indians”.

9.9] Pope John-Paul II had even announced a comprehensive statement of the Church’s guilt by the year 2000. This provoked a lot of protest from other Church dignitaries.

10.Arun Shourie: Missionaries in India: Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas (ASA Publ., New Delhi 1994), p.229. The book is an expanded version of his lectures before a conference called by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Its publication provoked a new round of debate (rather less friendly, this time) of which the proceedings are being published by Voice of India: Arun Shourie and His Christian Critic.

11.ibid.

12.Op.cit., p.234-235. A study yet to be written might usefully add some research into the complicity of Indian politicians. Thus, I know a Jesuit missionary working in Chhotanagpur, expelled from India by the Rajiv Gandhi administration because of political agitation. Back in Belgium, already preparing to move to another country, he received news that the new (Janata Dal) government would extend help to whomever the Hindus disliked; he applied for a visa and is now back among his flock practising Liberation Theology. I won’t doubt the man’s honesty (“I was only agitating against the redeployment of tigers in the jungle by urban ecologists who value wildlife more than tribal people!”), but the point is that any Christian agitation and intrigue will be supported by other factions of India’s colourful anti-Hindu coalition.

13.Published in Link, the bimonthly newsletter of the WCC’s “Programme to Combat Racism”, 1989/4.

14.This is not to deny the merits of some Christians at some stages in the struggle against slavery, e.g. the Jesuits in Brazil and Paraguay in the 17th and 18th century, and the Quakers in the USA in the 19th century. But remark that the Jesuit efforts were stopped by the Church itself, and that in the 18th century, the Quakers had been quite well-represented among slave-owners themselves. Christianity as a doctrine cannot claim the honour of freeing the oppressed.

15.For a synthesis of the findings of critical Bible scholarship with the proper logical conclusions, however, we have to refer to studies by non-Christian or ex-Christian scholars, because Christians tend to avoid the consequences of their findings (e.g. by claiming that “the Jesus of history” is unknowable and unimportant). See e.g. Michael Arnheim: op.cit.; Robin Lane-Fox: The Unauthorized Version. Truth and Fiction in the Bible, Viking, London 1991; and Herman Somers: Jezus de Messias: Was het Christendom een Vergissing? (“Jesus the Messiah: Was Christianity a Mistake?”), EPO, Antwerp 1986.

16.For example Jacques Maritain’s seminal book Humanisme Integral (1936); the title should ring a bell among Hindu nationalist ideologues professing “integral humanism”.

17.Ase is the ancient Germanic word for “God”, cognate to Sanskrit Asura (which simply meant “Lord” before the wars between the Vedic people and the Asura-worshipping Iranians gave it a negative meaning).

18.Godi, like its Sanskrit cognate hotr, means “worshipping priest”; hence the related Germanic word God, “the worshipped one”. In 1993, he was succeeded by Thorstein Gudjonsson. The Asatr Society publishes a periodical, Huginn ok Muhinn, PO Box 1159, IS-121 Reykjavik.

19.Lithuania, even more than Iceland, has a fair claim to some threads of continuity with historical Paganism because of its late christianization.

20.Historians are gradually bringing more reliable information to light, a prime example being Ronald Hutton: The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles, Blackwell, Oxford 1993. Often, this research highlights both the limitations of our knowledge of ancient Paganism, and the distance between the original and the imagined Paganism (esp. Druidry) of Theosophy or the Wicca movement. It certainly makes neo-Pagans envy the comfortable situation of Hindus with their uninterrupted age-old tradition.

21.Iceland News, April 1994.

22.See Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, and Pope John Paul’s Mission of the Redeemer: John Paul II on the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate. Hindu and Buddhist intellectuals who fancy that they are in dialogue with the Jesuits, and Liberal Catholics who still believe that the declarations of the Second Vatican Council regarding non-Christian religions are valid, should study these documents carefully. Copies are available from St. Paul Publications, Bandra, Bombay. – IS

23.For example, in May 1993, a lecture series on Islam, organized by a Catholic foundation, and in which I (K.E.) was one of the speakers, was prohibited at the last minute by the authorities of the Jesuit University in Antwerp.

24.This is not true for the Hindu, who may believe a particular site to be sacred for a variety of reasons and continue to visit it even after a mosque or church has encroached on the consecrated area (as in the case of Ayodhya and Velankanni). However, the point being made here is well-taken. – IS



http://apostlethomasindia.wordpress.com/

[acharya]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snR6XK513...re=related



Check the Tirpupati photo and temple and they are doing christian prayers.

This is total fraud

[HareKrishna]

you wana be a real christian?

then check this guys



http://media.bigoo.ws/content/image/funny/funny_684.jpg

http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/wp-...usM16.jpeg

[Guest]

[url="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/southern-baptist-leader-on-yoga-not-christianity/"]SOUTHERN BAPTIST WARNS AGAINST CHRISTIANS PRACTICING YOGA[/url]

[Bharatvarsh2]

Hindoos in Armenia

Written by Dr.Mesrob Jacob Seth



http://www.angelfire.com/hi/Azgaser/hindus.html

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/Azgaser/hindus2.html

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/Azgaser/hindus3.html

Most important part is:

These gods were made entirely of brass, the former, according to Zenob, was twelve cubits high, and the latter fifteen cubits and the priests that were appointed for the service of these gods were all Hindoos. Under the auspices of a heathen government, in whose eyes they had evidently found great favour, the Hindoo colony flourished for a considerable time in Armenia, but with the dawn of Christianity in idolatrous Armenia in the year of 301 A.D. the tide of royal kindness began to ebb and ebb very swiftly, for the Indian gods shared the fate of the national gods and goddesses, which were destroyed by that relentless iconoclast, St.Gregory the Illuminator, who had the famous temples of Gisaneh and Demeter razed to the ground, the images broken to pieces whilst the Hindoo priests who offered resistance were murdered on the spot, as faithfully chronicled by Zenob who was an eye-witness of the destruction of the Hindoo temples and the gods.



On the site of these two temples, St.Gregory had a monastery erected where he deposited the relics of St.Jhon the Baptist and Athanagineh the martyr which he had brought with him from Ceaseria, and that sacred edifice, which was erected in the year 301 A.D., exists to this day and is known as St.Carapet of Moosh and has always been a great place of pilgrimage for Armenians from all parts of the world.



The Hindoo priests attached to the temples of Gisaneh and Demeter, seeing the destruction of their national gods and their temples, with tears in their eyes entreated the victorious Armenians, their erstwhile brother idolators, to put them to death rather than destroy their mighty god Gisaneh, and for the resistance that they offered to the victors, six of the Hindoo priests were killed on the spot.



On the restoration of peace between the Armenians and the Hindoos, the Armenian prince of the house of Siunies proceeded to the Hindoo village of Kuars and succeeded in persuading the inhabitants of that place to renounce idolatry and embrace the Christian faith which had now became the State religion. His efforts were crowned with success and they were dully prepared for baptism, and being conducted to the valley of Ayzasan they were baptised there by St. Gregory.



According to Zenob, who as i have said was a disciple of Apostle of Armenia, and an eye-witness of the events he narrates, the Hindoos that were baptised on the first day of Navasard, (the ancient Armenian New Year day)numbered 5,050 and these were composed of men and children only, as the females were, it appears excluded from that number and baptised on another day specially appointed for the occasion.

Religion of "love" indeed.

[HareKrishna]

christian priest beat a believer <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



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

[G.Subramaniam]

Posted by Brihaspati on BRF - For the missionary drive :

One of my most favourite authors/philosophers writes :



Whence comes the impulse to proselytize?



Intensity of conviction is not the main factor which impels a movement to spread its faith to the four corners of the earth: 'religions of great intensity often confine themselves to condemning, destroying, or at best pitying what is not themselves." Nor is the impulse to proselytize an expression of an overabundance of power which as Bacon has it "is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow." The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgivings, some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center.



Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It Is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing Impulse. It is doubtful whether a movement which does not profess some preposterous and patently irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which "must either win men or destroy the world." It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradictions between profession and practice -that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt - are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their;faith on others. The more unworkable communism proves in Russia, and the more its leaders are compelled to compromise and adulterate the original creed, the more brazen and arrogant will be their attack on a non believing world. The slaveholders of the South became the more aggressive in spreading their way of life the more it became patent that their position was untenable in a modern world. If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.



The passion for proselytizing and the passion for world dominion are both perhaps symptoms of some serious deficiency at the center. It is probably as true of a band of apostles or conquistadors as it is of a band of fugitives setting out for a distant land that they escape from an untenable situation at home. And how often indeed do three meet, mingle and exchange their parts.



_______Eric Hoffer in The True Believer - Psychology of mass movements, 1948/51.

[Bharatvarsh2]

Oct 5, 2010

Buddhists Under Threat to Embrace Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh



By sinlung / On : 10:18 PM



By Jyoti Lal Chowdhury



Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India is a home to 20 major and about 100 sub tribes. They have been living peacefully for centuries.





A Tikhak family with monks.



The Tikhak Tangsa tribe is under severe pressure to convert to Christianity by fundamentalists with the help of local militants



But, they are now in perpetual fear, particularly after the Chinese aggression of 1962, of extinction of their distinct culture and tribal faiths at the hands of Christian missionaries. In fact, this oasis of peace in the turbulent frontier region has also come under the impact of feverish proselytisation design. Although there was not a single Christian in 1951, their number rose to 1438 in 1961, 2,593 in 1971 and in 2001, the trend is quite alarming.



This is clear from the census report of 2001. Of the total population of 10,97,968, 7,05,158 are schedule tribes, constituting 64.2 per cent of total population. Of the total population of ST, 47.2 per cent has been returned as "other religion followers", besides 26.5 per cent of STs are Christians, 13.1 per cent Hindus and 11.7 per cent Buddhists. Sizeable population among Adi, Nishi, Nocte and Wancho have been converted to Christianity. Khampti, Monpa, Momba, Sherdukpen and Singpho are mostly followers of Buddhism.



Foreseeing the alarming trend of conversion activities of the missionaries, it is to be recalled, all the tribal organisations started mass movement against it and ultimately the territorial Assembly passed the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Indigenous Faith Bill 1978 providing legal and constitutional protection from conversion to other faiths alien to Arunachal Pradesh, "by force, fraud, inducement and allurement."



But despite the Act and the inner line restrictions on movement of non-tribals, missionaries could make considerable headway in bringing a sizeable number of tribals into Christian fold, particularly in Lohit and Subansiri district. Arunachalees still recall with gratitude the fold stand taken by Lt. Governor K A A Raja and the then Chief Minister Prem Khandu Thangon for the enactment of the Religious Freedom Bill in the face of stiff opposition by the Christian political leaders of Meghalaya and Nagaland and the influential ‘Shillong Churches Committee’.



The dreaded terrorist outfit National Socialist Council of Nagaland led by Isac Chish Swu, chairman, and Thuingalem Muivah, general secretary, better known as NSCN (IM) and regarded as the fountain-head of insurgency in north east region, which is claiming and campaigning for the inclusion of Naga inhabited areas of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in greater Nagaland, has hidden its design to convert the people of these contiguous areas into Christianity.



After Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh is now the soft target of the missionaries with enormous funds from Uncle Sam’s country. It was not long ago that a group of 11 American and Canadian missionaries in the name of four-day harvest and healing festival near Itanagar induced the innocent people of the state for religious conversion. They not only camouflaged their identity but also their intent and purpose, besides four if them could make their entry in the state on the strengthen of two visas and two passports.



The Buddhists monks said that in the last days, of May 22 NSCN (IM) rebels armed with AK 47 and SLRs warned the villagers to convert to Christianity by June 4 or else face dire consequences. They have identified the militant commander leader Mitchel Lingam Tangkhul. Both the Buddhists monks have drawn the attention of the government, security forces and international Buddhists Forum towards the NSCN (IM) threat.



He threatened them to embrace Christianity and cautioned them not to celebrate any festival in glory of Buddha. The role of catholic priests of Miao Bishop’s is also reported by the Forum.



Some background information on Arunachal Pradesh's various tribes



Tangsa is a major tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. There are more than 17 sub-tribes in Tangsa. The Tikhak is one of the sub-tribes of it. The Tikhaks are inhabitants of Changlang district, Arunachal Pradesh.



Some of these people have settled in Tinsukia district of Assam, adjacent to Changlang district.



The Tikhak is the oldest group to arrive at the present locations, probably in AD 1300, after the appearance of the Ahoms in Assam, India.



They have a rich culture and traditions. Their dances, like Ongle Tam, Ongle and Bongtom, are the classical form of dances. They have classical songs called Bayangsai and Rung Wang.



Famous heritage sites of Changlang district are Second World War Cemetery, Stilwell Road, Hell Gate, Ashoka (Buddha) Stupa. Namdapha National Park and Pangsau Pass on the Indo Myanmar



http://www.sinlung.com/2010/10/buddhists...brace.html

[Bharatvarsh2]

ΔΥΟ ΗΛΙΟΙ ΣΤΟΝ ΟΥΡΑΝΟ(μέρος 1ο),TWO SUNS IN THE SKY 1(english subs)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB4ac-WpC...r_embedded

This movie shows the true story of how Greece was made into a Christian country and was made by George Stamboulopoulos in 1992 with help from the national television in Greece but when the fanatics of the Greek Orthodox Church saw it they made sure that it wasn't shown on the TV and was kept in the closet.



A copy of it was acquired from George by the followers of the Hellenic religion and it has now been uploaded on youtube.



In the comments on youtube it is described as:

To all non-Greek speaking viewers and people who may be interested, this film is very controversial in Greece. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens has evidently pulled some secret police type tactics to suppress the distribution of this film and its conversion to DVD which is not only historically accurate and cintematographically beautiful, but should also be viewed and accessible by all students of Ancient Greek history, so called Christians and lovers of Ancient Greek theatre. further...



The film shows that this transformation was violent and not peaceful as the church argues. 1600 years have passed since the time depicted in this film, yet, the Christian occupation of Hellas continues...

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/5-NGO-staff-held-for-kidnapping-28-Ladakhi-kids/H1-Article1-617448.aspx"]5 NGO staff held for kidnapping 28 Ladakhi kids[/url]

Twenty-eight children from Leh, who were kept in confinement in dingy rooms by a non-governmental organisation, were rescued by the Jammu police on Sunday. The children have been handed over to the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), which will take them back to Leh on Monday. The police also arrested five members of the NGO, Youth Movement for Peace, on charges of kidnapping, abduction, hatching criminal conspiracy and wrongful confinement.



The police are looking into allegations that the children were kidnapped for religious conversion.

[G.Subramaniam]

Dailypioneer



Why this cross is red

October 31, 2010 4:52:08 AM



Margins of faith

Author: Rowena Robinson

Publisher: Sage

Price: 695



The book seems a propaganda literature for the church, says BB Kumar



The book, Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity, has a strange title; stranger still is the content of the book.



First, Christianity with Euro-American backing, a multi-billion dollar soul-saving industry, and with its churches owning/controlling more than 1,300 universities and 1,500 other institutions teaching theology and church history, running about 1,500 radio/TV centres, 930 research centres and publishing 3,000 journals in addition to another 20,000 magazines/newspapers can never be marginalised.



Second, the term ‘Dalit’ and ‘Tribe’ Christianity became necessary due to the church’s failure to bring promised change in the status of Dalits and tribes even after conversion. After all, conversion was often perceived as one of the ways of escaping ‘caste oppression’.



The book, in general, talks of “double marginalisation of tribal church”, which includes intra-church marginalisation and that by Hindu tribes. SM Michael’s paper, ‘Dalit Encounter with Christianity: Change and Continuity’, in particular, talks of five-fold discrimination against Dalit Christians — by the state, caste Hindus, fellow Hindu Dalits, upper Caste Christian community and Dalit Christian subgroups.



In reality, however, only Hindu tribes were subjected to marginalisation, as the church and the British empire helped Christian converts enormously. Senior British functionaries regarded the converts as collaborators and helped them. Thus the problem is a psychological one, emanating primarily from the numerical inferiority of the converts.



The European soldiers and Christian priests, working in unison, were enormously successful in colonising the world and proselytising Africa, Americas, parts of Asia. But Hinduism resisted conversion, which baffled early missionaries. Abbe JA Dubois, an 18th century French missionary, could only convert about 200 to 300 people during his 31 years of missionary work. Incidentally, two-thirds of the converts were “pariahs, or beggars”! He wrote about them: “I will declare it, with shame and confusion, that I do not remember anyone who may be said to have embraced Christianity from conviction.” No wonder many converts, not getting expected temporal advantages, relapsed into Paganism.



He saw no future for Christianity in India unless “intellectual Hinduism” was countered by taking steps to diminish the influence of Brahmins among Hindus.



For church, as the Niyogi Committee Report reveals, end justifies the means. Purity of means is meaningless for them. Adoption of “liberation theology” — a philosophy of direct political action — has given new dimension to the activities of many missions. Dubious organisations, calling themselves civil rights groups, are floated. They act through local political forces and ideologies of divisive significance, hoping to succeed in an India of subverted nationalism.



An official Catholic publication, India and its Missions, issued by its American Capuchin Mission Monks (1923) discussed the “Spiritual Advantages of Famine and Cholera”. It quoted the report of the archdiocese of Pondicherry sent to its superiors in Europe: “The famine has brought miracles. The catechumenates are filling, baptismal water flows in streams, and starving little tots fly in masses in heaven.”



The book uses notorious terms like Brahminism (for Hinduism) and neo-Hindus (for tribals). It does not examine why a convert becomes Hindu-hater? The authors of this book have no use for serious studies, as was done by Dharampal, proving in no dubious term that exploitation by the British empire was the root cause of poverty and illiteracy in India. These weaknesses make the book a propaganda literature, rather than a serious study of the subject.



--The reviewer is editor, Dialogue

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5374/53/



Catholics in Nagaland claiming persecution at hands of Baptists

By Bob Allen

Tuesday, July 27, 2010









Baptists in the Indian state of Nagaland are defending themselves against charges of anti-Catholic bigotry after villagers tore down a Catholic church because the town allows only churches of the Baptist denomination. The controversy has generated widespread media attention, pitting Catholics against the Nagaland Baptist Church Council.



Iringtie Kauring — the council's acting general secretary while his boss, Anjo Keikung, traveled to attend this week's Baptist World Congress in Hawaii — released a statement saying the crisis in the village of Anatangre had been "blown out of proportion by people without studying the ground realities and listening to both parties in conflict."



"The conflict is not between Catholics and Baptists, but between Catholics and Anatangre Village Council," Kauring said. "The Village Council has considerable authority in solving any problem within its jurisdiction for the welfare of the people. Therefore, NBCC appeals all concerned to address the crisis in the right perspective for the sake of peace and harmony in our land."



Catholic and media critics said the statement was too slow in coming and could have been more conciliatory in tone. The controversy occurs at a time when Baptists are taking a leadership role in opposing an effort to lift Nagaland's prohibition on liquor, established in 1990.



Catholic priest Abraham Lotha penned a column in The Morung Express comparing the Baptist leaders' statement to "refusing to see the elephant in the room." While Baptists and Catholics coexist peacefully in many Nagaland villages, Lotha lamented, "The truth is that anti-Catholicism is still the staple food for many people in Nagaland."



Majority-Baptist state



Nearly 150 years after the first American Baptist missionaries arrived, 65 percent of Nagaland's 1.9 million citizens are Christians, according to the council. Among native Nagas, whose ancestors were headhunters, the figure is 90 percent.



The vast majority of Nagaland's Christians are Baptists, creating an irony that in India — a country often known for persecution of Christians by Hindus — Baptists are being portrayed as oppressors.



Catholic schools across the state shut down to protest what the Catholic Association of Nagaland called a denial of "basic human rights."



The deputy commissioner in Kiphire district ruled July 23 that an Anatangre Village Council resolution passed in 1991 prohibiting the establishment of churches of denominations other than Baptist had no legal standing. That resolution, passed in an attempt to prevent Baptists from converting to Catholicism, was behind a vote in March imposing fines and seizure of property against persons bringing other religions into the community.



Villagers constructing a Catholic Church in Anatangre were stopped July 9. The building was dismantled and construction materials were confiscated.



Ken Sehested, co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville, N.C., said there is no doubt that tension exists between Catholic and Baptist communities in some locales in Nagaland. "The anti-Hindu prejudice is even worse," Sehested said in an e-mail July 27.



Sehested, former director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, has traveled overseas with Daniel Buttry, an American Baptist missionary, to work on conflict resolution between various Naga factions.



Buttry, global consultant for peace and justice with International Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA, circulated an e-mail denouncing the actions taken against the Catholics in Anatongre.



"This is not in keeping with basic Baptist principles about freedom of religion and freedom of conscience," Buttry said. "Our Baptist forebears suffered under this kind of religious exclusion, and it is both ironic and shameful when Baptists treat others like they themselves don't want to be treated."



"Catholics are not our enemies but are part of the Body of Christ even if we disagree with some of their teachings and practices," Buttry said.



Settled in northeast India for centuries, the Naga people wanted their independence after the fall of British control over the region. Instead they were established as an Indian state.



An article in the Indian Constitution grants Naga villages jurisdiction to pass resolutions to protect "traditional culture and practices," but Catholics say that doesn't mean they can deny fundamental rights like freedom of religion.



Kauring defended the Nagaland Baptist Church Council's response and said July 27 it appeared that the village council in Anatangre was taking steps to resolve the situation.

[Bharatvarsh2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuncolim_Revolt

Church-Cuncolim Gaunkars clash over martyrs' memorial



13 November 1999 22:07 IST

Little similar to the Ramjanmbhoomi - Babri Masjid issue, a unique kind of controversy is haunting the tourist state here on the issue of building a memorial of the martyrs, the villagers who were killed four centuries ago by the Portuguese Jesuits during inquisition.



The Church has objected, not to the memorial but the construction site, as it is adjacent to another memorial built 102 years ago in memory of the five Jesuit priests, who were killed by the same local villagers while retaliating against the forceful conversions.



The uniqueness of the issue however also lies in the combined efforts of Kshatriya community called Gaunkars, belonging to both Hindu and Catholic religion, to build the memorial in Cuncolim, a semi-urban village in South Goa, in memory of their forefathers of pre-conversion period.



The caste system in the Catholic religion still prevails till date in the former Portuguese colony even 500 years after the conversions from Hindu faith. In fact the casteist pride reins supreme even after separating them into two different religious faiths, especially in the village of Cuncolim.



The Catholic Gaunkars are also fighting the Church against its secular action of giving representation to the non-Gaunkars on the committee for parishioners. They have been trying to assert their sole right over the management of the village Church, citing the historical facts.

"Till date, the Hindu and Catholic Gaunkars are joint owners of various properties and assets which also includes Church properties", claims Josico Fernandes, secretary general of the Co-ordinating Committee of Gaunkars of Cuncolim.



Though property rights appears to be the real hitch of all the issues erupting in Cuncolim for several years now between the Gaunkars and others castes of Catholic religion, the issue this time is the construction of the martyrs' memorial.



"There is no casteist overtone to the issue. We, the Gaunkars, have promoted the idea of the memorial and others are free to join us. The purpose behind the construction is to remember achievement of our forefathers and keep the nationalist spirit alive", says Madhukar Desai, president of Cuncolim municipal council.



The incident goes back to 15 July 1583, when open war broke out between the chieftains of Cuncolim and the Jesuit priests at the spot where the memorial is now coming up. Though history says five priests were killed, the Gaunkars now also claim casualties on their side. In retaliation, 16 chieftains were called for peace parleys in the neighbouring Assolna village and mercilessly killed.



Only one could flee to tell the horrifying massacre while the Church confiscated their property and also converted them. Later, the Church beatified the five priests as martyrs while building a cross where they were killed. A chapel was built over the well in which their bodies were thrown, dedicating it to their remembrance.



"Our forefathers had waged a relentless struggle against the Portuguese rulers and the Jesuits for 25 years. They are the real martyrs in whose memory we are rewriting the history today", says Dr Vemssinio Coutinho, a US-based Cuncolim villager and a retired professor of Catholic University run by the Jesuits there. He heads the construction committee.



Though the Church is officially silent over the issue, Fr Socorro Mendes, the Cuncolim parish priest, has termed the memorial illegal. "No doubt the memorial needs to be built, but it is in violation of rules to construct anything within 100 metres of any historical monument", he says.



"The existing historical fact should not be eclipsed with another one", feels Fr Mendes, while also admitting that the methods adopted by the Church in those days appear wrong, but from today's point of view. But you also cannot say they were wrong if looked at it on the basis of the norms followed those days, he adds.



While the Church suggests that the monument could be built in Assolna where the chieftains were killed, Dr Noronha insists that the existing one is the most ideal site as the first War of Independence had broken there in the 16th century. "We are open for a dialogue", say both the parties, but not prepared to take initiative.



Cuncolim consists of around 2500 Catholic Gaunkars while the non-Gaunkars are around 11,500. The Hindu population here is around 6500 with Gaunkars still dominating in the local Shantadurga temple. The Muslims are only 2500.



The issue complicates further here with the Gaunkars, in a letter written to Pope John Paul II, demanding restoration of their traditional and ancestral rights in the management committee of the Church while also seeking clarification on the incident of massacre.



"The Church is enjoying right over religious affairs since 1942 when it was transferred to us by the Portuguese government", asserts Fr Mendes. He also blames the Gaunkars for making it a casteist issue while the Church is trying to play secular by giving representation also to the non-Gaunkars.



http://www.goanews.com/news_disp.php?pag...&newsid=32

Translation of Church gibberish: How dare you Hindu heathens try to raise a memorial to patriots, it was normal and okay for Christians to butcher Hindus and forcibly convert you.



Note that the Jesuit scum that were killed were the real criminals who went there to destroy mandirs and forcibly convert people.



This is how the early Christians also got their "martyrs" in Rome as Husky points out, first vandalize non Christian shrines or forcibly convert people and when the people retaliate claim "persecution" and "martyrdom".

[Bharatvarsh2]

What was worse was that every church, every missionary who set foot on Indian soil had been preaching that the British must rule India for the benefit of Indians themselves - material and spiritual. Those pagans who worship stones were sinners who must be taught the truth of the Bible and spread its message. Christianity must have a firm hold on India for the stability of the British Empire. There are plenty of extracts to support this, let just take two –

* When the East India Company got control of whole of India, Mr Maugles, one of its Directors gave evidence to House of Commons and explained the Company’s policy of rule in India. He said, “.. Providence has entrusted the extensive empire of India to England in order that the banner of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of India to the other. Everyone must exert all his strength that there may be no idolatrousness on any account in continuing the grand work of making all India Christ.”

* Now let us see what Reverend Kennedy said in 1856 –

“.. Whatever misfortunes come on us, as long as our empire in India continued, our chief work is the propagation of Christianity in the land. Until Hindusthan from Cape Camorin to the Himalayas embraces the religion of Christ, we must use all power and all the authority in our hands until India becomes a magnificent nation, the bulwark of Christianity in the East.”Letters of Prof Maxmuller and Macaulay whom our people had regarded as liberals had the same dreams. This is evident from their letters recently published. For further details, readers should refer to my book

Indian War of Independence 1857 – chapter entitled Adding fuel to fire.

One must stress that the Christianity here was not the one of ‘turning the other cheek, but the ’ Christianity’ to stabilise British power. When the British went around the world to conquer, they had Rifle in one hand and the Bible in the other. They knew from experience that a Hindu once forced to become a Christian, becomes lost to Hinduism forever. His progeny too automatically become Christian. They in turn became enemies of Hinduism and supporters of the British rule in India. They considered the British Raj as their own.



The position of the British people was like the drunken monkey. They would send its representatives to the House of Commons, only those who would keep a firm grip on British power in India. It was the British Parliament thus elected by British people who would be responsible for sending administrators to India from Viceroy to Collectors. These administrators (ruling class) were called – Anglo-Indians. They were not independent, but mere puppets of the British people. If any one of them had behaved in a way not liked by the British people, they would have insisted on sacking of such officers – even Viceroys. If need be, they would have even toppled their own government. When examples of repression, torture, and injustice in India were known, the British people showed no concern. They always honoured barbarians like Robert Clive, Dalhousie, Canning or Curzon. Thus, in reality, the British people and the Anglo-Indian ruling class in India were no different. Lord Curzon had declared on many occasions in 1904-05, “We will not relinquish our power to the last drop of our blood.” And he dismissed the Queen’s declaration of 1858, which the Congress leaders worshiped, as ‘an impossible charter.’ Though the words were spoken by Curzon, they reflected the thinking of the British people.

(Notes -

1 Times (of London) says on 18 February 1930, page xi, col A, “Up to 1909 or so there was no doubt what sort of Government India had….. Constitutionally speaking, the supreme power rested with the electors of this country, who made and unmade Ministries, and therefore called the Secretary of State for India and the whole Cabinet to account if unacceptable things were done in India.” -

That is exactly what Savarkar was saying in 1906.

2 One should remember that statue of General Havelock, who was involved in barbaric suppression of Indians during the 1857-59 uprising in India, was erected in London, Trafalgar Square in 1861, by public subscription.

3.Savarkar’s views were also fully justified by what happened at the time of Jalianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Readers of The Morning Post (London) collected funds totalling £20,000 and honoured Brigadier General Dyer with a sword publicly!)



http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/...p.v001.pdf

I wonder what the "Indian" followers of this cult have to say to this?



On a side note:

[acharya]

[size="6"]Pope Criticizes Antichurch Feeling in Spain

[/size]New York Times - ‎1 hour ago‎

By AP SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday strongly criticized the “aggressive” antichurch sentiment that he said was flourishing in Spain as he sought to rekindle the faith in a once staunchly Roman Catholic nation that ...





Pope Benedict XVI sees 'aggressive secularism' in Spain

BBC News - ‎4 hours ago‎

Pope Benedict XVI has warned of an "aggressive anti-clericalism" in Spain which he said was akin to that experienced during the 1930s. He arrived in the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela at the beginning of a two-day visit to Spain. ...

Protesters greet Pope in Spain

euronews - ‎1 hour ago‎

On the first day of his visit, there are plenty of voices in Spain calling for Pope Benedict XVI to go home. A number of groups were in Santiago de Compostela to protest, ranging from anti-child abuse activists to gay rights campaigners, ...

...a pilgrim himself, the Pope said that he was visiting the city during the jubilee year to confirm Catholics in their faith, give them hope and entrust their "aspirations, struggles and labors in service of the Gospel" to the intercession of St. James.

more by Pope Benedict XVI - 1 hour ago - Catholic News Agency (1 occurrences)



http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf...NM&topic=h