<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: johndayal@... < johndayal@...>
Date: 16 Apr 2007 20:59:14 -0700
Subject: [ ] Launch of Hindutva Watch
To:Â
<b>Launch of `Hindutva Watch'</b>
Dear Friends
I and like minded friends, among them senior academics who are experts in this subject, are launching this group to share information, authentc on-record data about the Hindutva parivar and its groupmorganisations. This will be interest to writers, Journalists, Academics, Civil society and Freedomof Faith advocacy groups, Dalit activists and the Church at large
If you are interest, kindly send en email at the followoing addresses
Thank you very much
John Dayal
( Chairman All India Catholic Union,Â
a Catholic member of Indiaâs National Integration Council ,
secretary general of the All India Christian Council)
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Here you go, here is open agenda.
I'm no biblical scholar. As I like to tell the Mormons when they stop by and offer me a copy of the 3rd book of the Bible: "I haven't read the first two yet".
The problem with Christianity is humanity. Don't throw the book out with the bath water, but realize that this and all religions have been filtered through the human ego. Think Monks spending their whole lives writing and rewriting texts. <span style='color:red'>That is where 'Only way to God is through me' comes from. I think that line has been the most detrimental to Christianity and has caused the many back lashes to it including the current one. (I much prefer 'judge not', a great early Bob Marley song if you can find it). And like all 'lashes', backwards or forewords, somebody is going to try and make money off it.</span>
Christianity in the US has not been sold well. The best they can come up with is billboards saying 'Jesus is Love'. The common person does not understand this. If they sit home at night, and their life is full of sorrow or pain, and they reached a place where they feel like they can't go on, and all they have is the 'Jesus is love' billboard or images of people being saved that they witnessed while channel surfing they might try and accept the fact that all they have to do is ask Jesus for help and they will feel him, like a rush, maybe like a feeling when they drink too much and smoke allot of pot.
It doesn't happen like that.
Everyone has their own path, but <span style='color:blue'>I became a better 'Christian' through Buddhism. Buddha was never thought to be a God until after he died and various sects developed. By the time it got to Japan it was samurai (Yeah, Iâll meditate, but I'm keeping this sword over my lap). All Buddha did was sit under a tree, which is really all any of us has to do.</span>
This looking for facts to prove or disprove. Well, people who need that perhaps are not the most faithful. I remember a favorite english teacher tell us the bible can be summed up with 'Have Faith". I think that is true of all religions. But I do believe that the current doubting in this information age will lead to some good âlooking inwardâ situations for all people.
I hope that after I save the world that people 2000 years from now don't waste time and money digging up my trailer site to find remnants of my laptop. Get on with your lives! Go help some old person with her yard work. Go teach a kid to read. Stop digging around here! Get out of my yard!
As for Jesus not smiling or laughing, well, being somebody who also has a very dry sense of humor I can attest that if 'The poor you will have with you always, how long are you going to have me?' wasn't a joke by a man who knew he was soon to die to a man who soon will betray him then I don't know what is.
Not only there are only stories about Jesus spending his unaccounted years in India, there are claims about Jesus spending his old age right till his death in Kashmir, India.
Jesus of the East
Although Jesusâs death on the cross, resurrection and ascension to Heaven are fundamental to the Christian faith, a number of stories persist that He travelled in the East and is buried there. Simon Price reviews the claims for the Saviourâs final resting place.
" Various writers, researchers and investigators have explored the notion that Jesus was no stranger to the East (see FT26:28 and FT141:40-44). Generally speaking, the resulting theories can be broken down into two main camps. Either they posit that Christ survived the crucifixion and travelled to India, usually via modern Iran and Afghanistan, or that he spent much of his âlost yearsâ (between the ages of 18 to 33, the period that goes unmentioned in the Gospels), travelling widely in the Far and Middle East. Some theories combine the two elements. But why would Christ have set out on a journey to the East? Apart from the obvious need to escape the clutches of the oppressive Roman Empire there is, perhaps, a more fundamental reason, one bound up with the notion that Jesus was actually searching for his roots."
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/183...ast1.shtml
Interesting topic, something I've wrestled with forever - the whole question of faith. It's Jesus here, but you could conceivably extend this debate to most religious texts. If their historical validity is questionable â and in truth, all history is, to some extent, since we can't go back in time to verify it personally â does that also put in doubt the accompanying religious beliefs & dictums? If Christianity holds that one of Jesus' teachings was to turn the other cheek, how relevant is the question of whether there was a Jesus and that he indeed rose from the dead, etc?
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<b> One of the reasons Vedanta appeals to me is that its tenets stand at arm's distance from historical facts. For instance, the great battle of Mahabharatha may be the setting for the Bhagavad Gita, but it has relatively little to do with the appeal of its teachings.</b>
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I think the reason we get so caught up in the historical background of our religions is because we need to prove our religion is 'right'. Hey, my authority figure (insert prophet/God/Son_of_God) pulled off this miraculous feat (rose from the dead, levitated, spoke in tongues, etc), so my religion must be the RIGHT one. Taken to extremes, this gives me justification to kill/plunder/burn you, but on an everyman/everyday level, I just feel righteous/good/morally superior.
How 'bout we just say: "these are my beliefs/fictions and those are yours". No, instead it's "this is my Truth and I'm going to stuff it down your throat".
The Christian Church is a political entity that was created and has nothing to do with the original esoteric teachings of Jesus. In fact the Church and it's political masters are the very same ones that crucified Jesus. Let us not be fooled. They have simply stolen what Jesus created along with an endorsement that he never gave, and then perverted it to their own benefit for control and aggrandizement. The members are led to believe the fiction of a great future in heaven, a future that never comes, as their reward for living a mundane life of lack.
No doubt the Islamic Church is also a political entity contrived to keep a few in power and riches (mostly oil) while the rest suffer having been led to believe that their rewards for their living as an indentured servitude will come in heaven. Here again we have the works of the Great prophet of God Muhammad being twisted and used for political gain and power and control. I would also like to note that the word infidel was a word intended for those dominated by the egoic mind and therefore prone to irrational destructive behavior and by the sword of truth they should be brought wisdom and awareness and their fictions destroyed.
The intention of the masters was to create Heaven on Earth, as I imagine that also to be Divine intention. Not to create a hell with hope of a heaven that does not exist as a place with universal coordinates. Their hope was to eliminate the fictions of the world born of ego and the separation from God, the truth that we are all one and connected. It was their intention that we may live in truth which leads to happiness and abundance.
Disclaimer: This is not directed at any specific church and itâs membership, although many live a life of hypocrisy. Many churches do a great deal of good with charity and the support of brotherhood and forgiveness, understanding and love, these things should be preserved. It is the Church and those that would use it as a political machine of control and manipulation and the propagation of fictions that must be dissolved by us becoming aware.
All the Christians on this blog make me LOL when they try to relate to other Eastern religions.. I wonder they would have these feelings "About oneness" without studying "other religions". If Christianity had the capacity to evolve to the concepts of "super consciousness" which exists in the eastern religions then it would not had the intolerance towards other religions to the extent that it tries to "covert" people of other religions.
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I think the British did a favor to the Western people by spreading English to eastern world. The Eastern people are now capable of communicating and helping Western minds to evolve from the "Animalistic" concepts of "Survival of the fittest" to the concepts of "Survival of the wisest". If just Goodwill and Charity are the foundations of the religion then Western minds need 1000 years of evolution in thought before they can understand where the Eastern minds have reached as far as religion is considered... By the way, Western people forget that every time they find benefits form Yoga they are benefiting from the <span style='color:red'>religious evolutionary thoughts from the 3'rd world.. </span></span> Every time they do mathematical calculations to send satellites far into the galaxies they are using "Mathematics" invented by the religious evolutionary thoughts from the 3'rd world.
Western minds have to evolve enough to understand that some of the Eastern religions are not organized but were an enquiry into nature which included your own body and mind.
So Deepak why spend so much energy proving or disproving Jesus.
Why don't we just ask him to pay us a visit?
To me the Christian Religion is based on the absent father dynamic. You just wait till your father gets home, then he doesn't come home. So we are left with step fathers, priests and preachers.
I know this is a judgement on my part. Yo, obviously my father never showed up.
It was when I really started reading the Bible that I realized how different it was than what they said in church. I talked to Jesus a lot back then, he never showed up either.
I have come to see Jesus as just another man who had an understanding that not many others had.
I agree that there is no point in trying to prove or disprove the historical events written in the Bible because their value is in the spiritual message they convey. On the other hand, it is not totally irrelevant. Ardent believers do take what is written in the Bible literally; for example, that is why we have the "intelligent design" debate at present: should we teach our children that God created the world in six days or should we teach them the Darwin's theory of evolution?
Changing the subject, will someone please explain to me the spiritual significance of Christ rising from the dead three days after crucifiction. Being brought up as a Hindu, I thought, the point of resurrection was to demonstrate the immortality of the human spirit (not of the physical body) and His love for those who trusted in Him but it seems Christians attach great significance to disapperance of Christ' physical body from the tomb and to His moving around with a physical body for a few days after resurrection.
I am always amazed at the power of autosuggestion. People believe what they want to believe whether they believe in reality or delusions. As an Episcopalian by definition you are a heretic and therefore your schism is a fairytale, a cult and an illusion. You canât just choose your âflavor of religionâ, itâs not a fast food business though Religion today does cater to peoples fantasies.
There is only one âtrueâ Christian Church and that one is the Orthodox Catholic Church. The Bible is either âthe undisputed and indisputable word of Godâ or it is hogwash.
Your heretic Church admits itself that the Bible cannot be taken literally and maybe even too seriously because âthe Gospels are old booksâ with âcontradictions and distortionsâ. And it pretends to be able to remove at least one layer of distortion, understand the actual words of the Gospels and the Bible and produce a more honest reading of these.
Iâm sorry but that is quite an ego your Church has there.
I understand your point though. Does it really matter if Jesus really existed after all? What matters is that âHisâ message lives on, is that what youâre saying? But your Church hasnât scrapped the Bible completely, or has it? It continues the fairytale doesnât it?
Itâs like we were to debate if Romeo and Juliette really existed, then we would just turn around and say, âWell it really doesnât matter as long as their lovely story lives onâ; welcome to the fairytale. And because this story has lived on so long it must be true.
The so-called Book of the Dead written by the Egyptians lasted much longer than the Bible; does that make it true?
You donât know any more than anyone if the Bible is the word of God or what an imaginary Jesus may have said is a reflection of Godâs will or not, because the Bible is not authority on the matter and by admitting to its distortions you are admitting that it is disputable and perhaps altogether false.
I think that a great many people who call themselves Christians would be shocked out of their Christianity. It would cause a great crisis of faith.
Such a critical finding would be like discovering that one's lover had cheated, lied, etc. A real connection would survive the test and challenge. The crisis would sweep away unimportant things, and allow the connection to seem stronger by standing on its own, with no crutches, no deceptions, after the crisis resolves.
04-20-2007, 01:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 01:58 AM by acharya.)
I really want to believe the info in the canonized bible but I am afraid it cannot be so. My reason's are as follows:
1) The Council of Nicaea in 325
2) The Council of Trent between December 13, 1545 and December 4, 1563
I will not go into anymore detail than that. <span style='color:red'>If you would like to learn some scary stuff about how the Religion of Christianity was developed and who determined its direction then research what happened at those Council's.</span>
Christian's are told to believe everything that is written in the bible to be God's word or inpired by God. If this is the case why did men decided what parts of God's word would be canonized and which parts would not. <span style='color:red'>What happened to the material that did not make it into the bible?? Why doesn't the church want you to read those scriptures or ideas?</span>
<span style='color:blue'>Argument : Historical evidence is irrelevant. The real Jesus exists in disembodied form.
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Con: Faith can be neither proved nor disproved. Once you take a completely mystical or ideal view of Jesus, the rules of historical research are irrelevant. This is an argument that offers no compromise with skeptics and scholars who try to unearth evidence of the real Jesus. Of course, to take such a position means that the mind of the believer becomes divided. On one side is Jesusâs miraculous world, where God can do anything and physical laws of nature obey his will. On the other side exists the material world, where God doesnât intrude and the physical laws of nature dominate.
In the past, believers were much more comfortable with such a divided reality. Today the two poles have pulled even farther apart, and the internal politics of the churchâespecially the conflict between fundamentalism and more liberal interpretations of the bibleâhave forced Christians to ask, Is Jesus part of a miraculous world or not?
04-20-2007, 02:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 02:06 AM by acharya.)
<span style='color:blue'>Argument . The Jesus found in scripture is so confusing and contradictory that a real person cannot be retrieved.
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At the opposite extreme, modern skeptics point out that early Christian texts invariably contain a portion of propaganda, or to use a less pejorative word, polemic. The gospel writers wanted to convey the urgency of conversion to the new faith.
In between these extremes are shades of belief and doubt. One can accept the criticisms but still believe the gospels give us a living person whom we recognize and feel close to. At the same time, however, such believers concede that the biography of a real person isnât found in scripture, nor should we expect one.
Any argument based on the lack of facts about Jesus can be countered by saying that faith trumps history. The four gospels are true as revealed by God. Devout Christians can also point to the many places where the gospels agree with each other. They can argue that Jesusâs followers knew him intimately and laid down the factsâeven though meagreâaccurately. Even if they idealized their teacher because he was the Messiah, a uniquely perfect human being, the miracles attributed to him were fact. It was these very miracles that mark a Messiah, and as to the other events in his life, the vividness of Jesusâs persecution, death, and resurrection are true. The best evidence for this is the new religion that sprang up like wildfire around Christ. Those who witnessed his life story spread the word about what they saw.
The argument against scripture had no validity in an age of faith, and only in the past century or so was it considered permissible to apply ordinary standards of history and biography to Christ. <span style='color:red'>Once they are applied, however, it becomes difficult to see how the four gospels can be accepted as factual accounts. </span>Nonbelievers are likely to shrug their shoulders and say that the four gospels are a mixture of fact, myth, faith, and fantasy that can never be unravelled. Christians themselves are left in a shadow region full of ambiguities. <span style='color:red'><b> To some extent they must accept the four gospels because there is no Jesus without them, while on the other hand there is no guide for sorting out fact from fiction that suits everyone. </b>
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I couldn't agree with you more ruth!!! I believe there is a major spiritual movement happening in the world. It's almost like in the movie the Matrix where we all feel that something is just not quiet right but we can't put our finger on it! But as society progresses and the church's have less influence on how we think, say and do...theologians can open the door for discussion and questions can be answered.
It's no secret that religion works. It truly helps the majority human's stay in line, live a happy & meaningful life. <b> <span style='color:red'> But the problem with religion is that it imposes boundaries on a boundless universe!</b></span>
Society progressess so it is necessary for religion to progress with it. T<span style='color:red'>he scary thing is that evangelical Christian membership is actually increasing!!! Especially in the United States. Evangelical's take literally what is printed in the bible and impose that practice and lifestyle on the rest of us. The problem occurs when these people get into a position of power that ultimately determines the direction of non evangelical people. There is an agenda and that is to fulfill prophecy!!!
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But our job as spiritual beings is to let the children play and learn. When the students are ready the teachers will present themselves. <span style='color:blue'>It is possible to have a world that functions entirely based on spirituality and have no religious affiliation. We are getting closer to this day because spiritual beings do not recognize boundaries in a boundless universe.</span>
I don't believe in Bible or any religious text for that matter. Let us say we take bible literally and let us assume that Jesus is coming. I would say it will be the best thing to happen. he should come and tell all the evangelicals that their interpretation of Bible is wrong. As long as it doesn't happen, these guys are going to continue in the same way.
From what I've gathered about Jesus, the more you believe in him the less tolerant you are of those who don't believe in him. This is the fundamental flaw in the religion. What the west has managed to carve out for itself, via secularism, is the concept of civic tolerance. But Christianity is incapable of tolerating rival religions. If the Church was to take the offical stance that Ramana Maharishi is equal to Jesus, it would in effect commit suicide. <span style='color:red'>The religion is built around one God and his only son and there is no room for other objects of worship. Notice the careful choice of the word "tolerance". This is the best they could come up with. They are not allowed to express "respect" for other religions. That would be sacrilege.</span>
The other basic flaw with Christianity is its assertion of "truth" claims. The Bible is the word of God and it is God's truth. Everything else is mythology. Challenging the bible is equal to challenging God's word. By contrast, Hinduism does not make any truth claims about the world so it is wrong to suggest that all fundamentalism is the same. For every assertion in a Hindu story, there is an opposite assertion as well. Which of these can one consider the fundamentals of the tradition?
Assuming you believe that the New Testament was actually the transcribed teachings and words of Jesus, the main problem with the Bible and the way that it is interpreted is that it is a teaching that is Eastern. Judaism/christianity is NOT western... it's eastern. It has been interpreted, however, by western thought. Western thought is wonderful. It is a left brained ideal that has brought improved science, medicine and deepened our understanding of the mechanics of the natural world. However, Eastern thought, particularly religious/spiritual thought tends to be right brained. It is intuitive, creative and expresses itself in stories. Fundamentalism uses the left brain to interpret a story meant for the right brain and comes up with the belief in black and white morality; absolute right and absolute wrong. It creates "enemies" out of those that simply have a different perspective.
In other words rather than using the story to teach a moral lesson that can be a guide to living and an aid in getting "the big picture", left brained thought interprets the story as literal. When that happens the story is at best confusing and at worst nonsense. It is neither moral nor scientifically verifiable when the left brain is used and leads to the murder of our brothers and sisters.
At the heart of conflicts are those who think that they hold some sort of morally superior postion and therefore use that "superiority" to kill "lesser" people.
Suicide bomber justify their killing and sacrifice because they see themselves as warriors in a "just" cause, killing those that are the enemies of God. By making the claim that Judeo/Christian morals are superior then you are buying into that idea and making it increasingly difficult to understand one another. If you buy that idea then you are no different than those that you profess to be against.
04-20-2007, 02:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-20-2007, 02:44 AM by acharya.)
The wholesale spread of the religious mindset was brought about by Christianity.<span style='color:red'> It is now a poison that has infected almost all forms of thinking. In pagan societies there was far more intellectual freedom and diversity. Asian culture even to this day carries traces of this diversity although it is fast disappearing.</span> There are no commandment-like rules but rather social convention and traditions forumulate behaviour and thought and this is manifested differently depending upon the context, person and time.
Such societies will still display negative traits and fight for power or land but they do not believe in harrassing others simply based on their lifestyle. Things like abortion, homosexuality, idol worship, etc. are (were) not issues in these societies like they are in the west. Indian thought for example runs the full range from liberal sexual expression to strict celibacy. It is up to an individual's social circumstance to find his place in the spectrum. Such freedom is not allowed by religious societies where things are considered either bad or good.
acharya,
These extra large bold letters are very painfully to eyes.
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