More Hindu-Christian Dialogue

Birdie:

Since the stay of foreign missions is voluntary in India, according to your logic, they have absolutely no right to complain. Similarly, its voluntary to follow any religion in India( religion is a conscious act, so a new born baby decided later on to follow a religion), so the contractual agreement with the state would be the constitution and the laws. if you don't want to follow the constitution, you can say you are a missionary and move to any 'free' country where no VISA or immigration technicalities are required if you are on a religious mission as claimed by the wise author.

Germans and Nazis are indeed different people. what a weird comparison. But its the same institution that sanctioned the inquisitions in Goa. Hindu places of worship were permanently destroyed and thousands tortured and killed. Just the same way as you say Hindu cast system was created by people who are dead, but the religion is receptive enough to change itself and acknowledge the evils and take corrective action. An on going process indeed, but officially corrected by the state and the religion too, and there's an independent judiciary to protect it. In your case, the perpetrator is itself the state, the institution and the judge. not quite the comparison. Then why not own up and say it was a mistake? If not, then why shouldn't India be suspicious of what you are sowing?

Interesting fact : "Lower caste catholics in India demand reservations." search news. If you say backwordness of certain classes is a religious issue with my religion and not a social one, then kindly explain what in the world is lower caste catholic? their backwardness is finished with theie conversion (thats the promise). Now don't say that too is a hindu conspiracy, as catholics in India are quite well to do. Many prominet businessmen and academicians and stars are from minorities. The richest Indian is a minority too. I'm a low caste Hindu myself. What saved me was education, and no 'seeing the light'.

When I say something is not done in international affairs, you are giving me examples of the same party lecturing others (righly or wrongly, I'm talking abt protocol). I do believe you should take some lessons in logic, but it might conflict with theology.

Whan you take out a religious procession, you have to inform the authorities in India. Same applies to any public religious activity. The idea is not to curb freedom but to make sure there is no social tensions created as these activities have the potencial in the complex yet liberal India. When the law has not been misused in 38 years, including in BJP ruled states, then why are you implying it will be misused? because the boss said so. Whats the problems with following laws? resist misuse, indeed.You saying the religious leader spoke not the head of state is factually incorrect too as the pope himself is against separation of religion and state. Don't be a heretic.

Birdie


Od:

Hi again, Birdie!

Birdie, you seem to be making the same error Trip did a few comments ago: assuming Indian Christians are foreigners. Christianity is the third largest religion in India. There have been Christians in India for longer than there have been Christians in England or America.

Nor can Christian Indians simply leave the country at will in the face of oppression.

You claim that, as an institution, it was the Nazis who sanctioned the persecution of the Jews. This is incorrect; as an institution, it was the German government, which continues to exist, which persecuted the Jews. But this does not justify persecuting individual Germans today, and equally, supposed past wrongs, even if real, do not justify persecuting individual Catholics today.

You also seem to conflate the Hindu religion with the Indian government. If the Indian government bans the caste system, that does not mean that the Hindu religion has renounced it. Admittedly, it is difficult to say what the Hindu religion, as a religion, officially believes, as it has no central authority to speak for it.

I am no expert on the Goan Inquisition proper, but one vital fact about the Inquisition everywhere seems always to be forgotten: only Christians were subject to it. No Hindus were “tortured and killed,” at least not by the Inquisition.

Indeed, strictly speaking, the Inquisition killed no one. Its job was only to certify whether someone was a heretic. What then happened was the business of the civil authorities, although the Church of course bore some guilt if the civil power commonly tortured or killed those so designated.

Historians now believe, however, that only perhaps three thousand people were killed as a result of the Inquisition worldwide, over the three centuries in which it was most active. Considering the frequent use of the death penalty in those days, this is a very small proportion; coming before the Inquisition was far safer than coming before any other court of the day.

As for “owning up” that the Inquisition was a mistake, the Catholic Church has done that.

I did as you suggested and searched Google news for “lower caste Catholics in India demand reservations.” Zero hits. Could you refer me to a specific story on the Web?

You claim that only the Vatican complains about human rights violations in other countries. Not so; just in the latest issue of The Economist, the US objected to France’s ban on abayas in the schools. Common practice.

Whether one needs a police permit in order to hold a parade in India is not of interest; this is a straw man. One needs such a permit in most countries.

You claim that the Pope is himself against the separation of church and state. This is also incorrect. The separation of church and state is fundamental to Christianity itself. It is in the New Testament: “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; render unto God what is God’s.” It was propounded clearly by St. Thomas Aquinas; and the Vatican exists so that the affairs of the Catholic Church cannot be entangled with the affairs or interests of any particular country.

Od


Trip:

Hi,
Nazis (institution) sanctioned the holocaust, hence Nazis are bad, NOT germans. Nazis are more or less extinct. The church (institution) sanctioned the inquisition in Goa, so it is responsible, not present day portuguese. the church is very much here and has a responsible role to play. This responsibility is what we'd like to see in its conduct and the accountability for its actions just the way Indian behaviour is scrutinized or open to punishment in case of violations of international laws and conventions, the Vatican is too if it seeks equality and the right to sermon. However common theme is its religion so its above the law or Vatican is a special case no religious freedom there. There are other religions too, and if all go above the law, then we are back to the days of barbarians.

There must not be any persecution at all in any state. I totally agree. Its not a perfect world though, and we must try to keep improving always.

Partition of India was not a case of persecution my dear friend, it was a catastrophic event of tearing apart one ancient civilization. Conceived and ably implemented under the God fearing british. Interestingly the whole episode can be tracked back in history to someone far away far back in time having the bright idea of converting the heathens of India to a superior peaceful faith . Quite the same thing we are discussing here.

I think I've said what I had to and I much better understand your point of view now. Thanks for the opportunity to interact and sorry if I said anything offensive in my zeal to point out what I think is major inconsistency in your contention. All the best in whatever you are doing, and stay safe.

Trip


Od:

Hi, Trip!

Partition of India involved and inspired extreme religious intolerance. Many people were killed only because they were Muslim or only because they were Hindu.

As India has rarely been politically unified, it is not reasonable to call this a “tearing apart of an ancient civilization.” Nor is it right to blame the British, who are purely scapegoats here. They had no interest in partitioning India.

And note that, when the Muslims arrived in India, the majority faith was Buddhism, not Hinduism. The subsequent rise of Hinduism, therefore, could as easily be seen as an intrusion on Islam as vice versa. It could also be seen as an intrusion of Hinduism on Buddhism, by the same logic that now objects to Christian missionaries in India.

Od


Trip:

Maybe you can better understand Hindu viewpoint below

http://www.hvk.org/Publications/perception.html

Trip


Od:

Hi again, Trip!

I am largely in agreement with the author, Suresh Desai. There is little point to conversion. It is more important to follow any one religion sincerely. But neither should conversion be prohibited or obstructed. It is necessarily true that one religion is truer than all others, and we must not be prevented from seeking it.

Further comments on specific passages in the article follow:

SD:
… I am very deeply interested in the Hindu tradition and civilization which is the oldest surviving civilization in the world.

SR:
Cultural chauvinism. Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and China would all make the same claim.

SD:
… the missionary activities and Christianity are inseparably associated with Inquisition, with intolerance of science, with the fate of Galileo, Copernicus, Bruno, Joan of Ark, killing of lakhs of women on suspicion that they were witches, crusades and thousands of victims in the Goa Inquisition.

SR:
As noted elsewhere, the Inquisition was considerably less sinister than it has commonly been portrayed.

Christian intolerance of science? This is a myth invented in the nineteenth century. Christianity nurtured science.

The fate of Copernicus? It was to die in his bed a priest in good standing.

The European witch hunts have also commonly been exaggerated. About 50,000 in total were killed as witches in Europe over the centuries, 25% of them male. It was a civil, not an ecclesial crime. Nor is this concern in any way peculiar to Christianity. Witchcraft is also prohibited in Islam, for example, on penalty of death. That law is still on the books in Muslim countries. The execution of witches also continues today among the tribal people of Africa. If you believe it is possible to put a curse on someone, witchcraft is no minor crime.

Crusades? The Christian world uniting to attempt to win back land that had been Christian, and been taken by the sword.

SD:
[Conversion to Christianity is] cultural alienation in a country like India where nationalism is based on cultural and civilizational heritage…

SR:
I find this claim quite sinister. Again, Christianity is more indigenous to India than to England; it is wrong to see it as something culturally foreign. And this passage implies that Christians in India are and should be second-class citizens. It would seem that the same logic would apply too to Muslims, Sikhs, and Parsees.

SD:
Ultimately, what is the objective of conversions? At the spiritual level conversions from one's religion to another are quite meaningless unless the motives are purely mundane…. If the basic motive of the missionaries is still to bring Hindus to the fold of Christianity, no amount of change in strategies … will exonerate them from the eyes of their critics, despite liberal theology and acceptance of salvation through other religions …. These terms are hair-splitting, pure and simple.

SR:
I’m not sure what the author means by this, but clearly, he objects to conversion per se. I think he is basing this on the premise that Hinduism and Christianity are equally true. Even if this is so, individuals still have the right to choose one over the other. But it is logically very unlikely to be so. Hinduism and Christianity do disagree on some things. When they do, one is probably wrong, and the other right. As individuals, we have the right to think for ourselves in this matter.

SD:
One question which continues to plague my mind; why missionaries want to expand Christianity in numbers? There is no evidence that the conversion to Christianity has improved the world spiritually.

SR:
In the New Testament, Jesus himself tells his followers to “go forth and convert all nations.” If Jesus and Christianity are the most efficient means to salvation, if Christianity is truer than other religions, then compassion requires Christians to spread the word to others. It is the same ethic that inspires some to teach, or to become scientists.

Christians of course do believe that conversion to Christianity improves the world spiritually. The same idea is hardly foreign to Hinduism: TM claims the same thing.

SD:
At the same time there are movements like New Religion Movement (NRM) which are weaning the Catholics away from the orthodoxy in favour of Pentecostal churches.

SR:
I’m not sure what the author is referring to, but Pentecostalism, aka “the charismatic movement,” is orthodox for Catholics.

SD:
I once again bring to your notice that mankind is turning its back on God and that is the real problem. Conversions from one faith to another in this context are ridiculous.

SR:
Here he is right. It is far less important to seek conversions from another religion than to help the unchurched and the despairing. I would rather a man were a good Hindu than a bad Christian. However, it is worse than a waste of time to seek to prevent conversions, because it is also a violation of human rights.

SD:
I repeat that equality is a social and not a religious concept.

SR:
Not so. The idea of human equality is explicit in the idea that all men are children of the one God. John Locke based his doctrine of equality and human rights explicitly on this religious premise. Thomas Aquinas also insisted on the equality of man as a matter of theology.

Od.