More on the plight of the Christians of the Islamic Middle East. "Convert or else," from the New Republic, October 13:
Some people fear for their livelihoods. Other people fear for their lives.Of course, sometimes livelihood is life.
The world has a terrible record in salvaging either one if the threat to them is a mass phenomenon. Some threatened folk can't even get the attention of others.
And Christians are the most unfashionable of victims.
In India, according to this morning's New York Times many Christians are given the choice: "Embrace Hinduism...Otherwise, you will be killed..." No, they were not told to "embrace Islam..." It was Hinduism to which they were supposed to convert. Or else.
Threatening Christians, however, is still a habit among Muslims. As one can tell from the calvary of the Copts of Egypt. Or of the Christian faithful in what is said to be Palestine, where the number of those who worship at the cross falls every day. In Bethlehem, the Christian population has fallen from perhaps 75% to 30%.
But, in Iraq, even in the "new" Iraq, the Chaldeans, acolytes of an autocephalous Catholic church, like the Maronites, face not only threats of death but actual death. Clerics have been murdered and ordinary men and women of belief. Mostly around Mosul. Two suicide bombs went off yesterday. Why do pious Muslims so much fear their neighbors who pray to Jesus?
Well, if you gave people the choice between a religion of peace and one of war, they'd loose all their adherents.
The world, according to the media and the far left, is upside down.
Peaceful Christians in the middle east, Africa and far east who are butchered by muslims, and who have never lifted a finger against their oppressors, are to be fastidiously ignored.
Muslim terrorists who continually kill innocents are made out to be victims..
Im surprised that people were forced to convert to Hinduism or die. Never heard that one before.
Im a hindu & I find this act disgusting. However, NYT is known to write incomplete & biased reports as well. Lets see how it develops.
As for muslims threatening Christians, Im not surprised.
This cruelty on christians must end.
"Why do pious Muslims so much fear their neighbors who pray to Jesus?"
Nothing to do with faith and everything to do with greed. They want to scare them off to get their properties, their businesses, their school systems, their buildings, their houses of worship, without having to pay or work for them.
The main problem faced by polygamous societies with a very high birth rate is space. So they simply steal a neighborhood, sometimes with the complicity of the authorities who then don't have to take care of the problem.
What's more, the little green book legitimizes theft from non-muslims and even sacralizes it
"Why do pious Muslims so much fear their neighbors who pray to Jesus?"
Could it be they have the spirit of the Accuser, hating the Gospel and everything to do with it?
tjwork, I hope you are not denying that there is Hindu violence directed at Christians
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29665
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hUyqvYx_fXohxeJa18rTfLDwm0uAD93QBB600
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=226847
Ask the Christians of Orissa who have been hounded, harassed and slaughtered, due to the unhinged rantings of one strident Hindu (murdered by Maoists, recently) and his followers. The christians have had a presence in this part of India from the days of Saint Thomas.
hi infidelk9,
i dont deny that there are hate crimes hate & there as there are hate crimes from christians & muslims against hindus & sikhs. There are no different & equally bad.
Also note that there are muslims posing as hindus attacking christians, but always denied by the goverment of india. for some reason, blaming on someone else seems to ease off tension.
most of this acts are mainly revenge & politically motivated, not religious. hinduism does not have the concept of forcing someone to convert or die, no conditions to this either.
however, what hinduism does in general is to encapsulate other religions into it. It does not make sense to attach this crimes to religious motivated.
what infiriates me the most is that the idea of hindus forcing others.
indians in general know their history well. They knew that the british invaded india, killed their leaders & warriors, raped their women, stole their wealth & erected churches & christianity grew from this sins.
christians had a good life & allowed muslims to flourish while hindus are stuck in many aspects.
perhaps this is the real real reason for retaliation.
Im surprised that people were forced to convert to Hinduism or die. Never heard that one before.
Im a hindu & I find this act disgusting. However, NYT is known to write incomplete & biased reports as well. Lets see how it develops.
As for muslims threatening Christians, Im not surprised.
This cruelty on christians must end.
Posted by: tjwork at October 14, 2008 4:42 PM
I have never heard of that either. The choice traditionally given by Muslims is to either convert or die. There is 1400 years of history of this compulsion in a religion that claims "there is no compulsion in religion".
If Hindus are doing it, then I am against that action. Hinduism does not teach us to do this, but then again, after having Muslims do it to us for centuries, you're bound to pick up some bad habits.
I would expect this more from the Muslims, since I am surprised the NYT chose to report on Hindus but ignores the plight of Christians in Pakistan.
The Church in India is not innocent, netiher are Hindu fundamentalist groups. But Pakistan's (and Bangladesh's) treatment of both Christians and Hindus makes the recent violence in India look like a highschool brawl.
Ayo Gorkhali
Hindu religions have not historically been militant when it comes to conversions. This appears to be a new phenomenon.
I don't mean to sound like I a rationalizing this kind of thing (I most certainly am not), but the Christian community in India is hardly innocent. In fact, it behaves in many ways that are similar to the ways Muslims behave in countries in which they are a minority. They aggressively proselytize among Hindus to the point of publishing vile and hateful propaganda in the very country in which they are a minority. Imagine a Hindu in the United States publishing anti-Christian propaganda - it would likely be regarded as provocative and hateful.
Even worse is the fact that Christian propaganda against Hindus manages to find its way into school and college textbooks. Many depictions of Hinduism in Indian schools are one-sided, unflattering, and just plain disgusting.
It is a well known fact among Hindus in India that their temples are regularly vandalized by Christians. I observed this at Sri Rangam, one of India's most revered pilgrimmage sites, in which someone had spray painted "JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY" on one of the inside walls.
Recently a Hindu holy man was murdered by Maoist guerillas acting in concert with local Christian gangs. This was done in front of the children of the ashram he was serving.
Unfortunately, the press rarely describes or discusses these things. Their interest is limited only to the "Hindu fundamentalists" who are provoked into violence. This appears to be the modus operandi of Christians in India - spew hate speech, vandalize, insults, etc against Hinduism until they manage to provoke some "Hindu" gangs into a response, then cry about how the Christians are being "persecuted" by Hindus (which then leads to more calls for donations for missionary work to further the hate campaign).
The truth is, most of these "Hindu fundamentalists" aren't even practicing Hindus. They are just gangs of low-class people who happen to have been born Hindu. The press has a double standard in India in which they refuse to invoke the birth religion of an aggressor if he happens to belong to a minority religion and acted out of religious malice, but will always invoke Hinduism as the cause of any crime committed by a Hindu even when his Hinduism had nothing to do with it. Hence, a headline that reads "Man rapes woman" might actually mean "Christian man rapes Hindu woman." But it will never read as the latter because the media has a left-wing prejudice.
Hello Everybody....
By Jewel Atkins "
The christians have had a presence in this part of India from the days of Saint Thomas. "
In this part of India Christians started to arrive only with the British colonizers. This part is called "ORISSA" not " KERALA" which is the place they were living since Saint Thomas (who never arrived as acknowledged by the POPE himself).
By jewel Atkins
"
Ask the Christians of Orissa who have been hounded, harassed and slaughtered, due to the unhinged rantings of one strident Hindu (murdered by Maoists, recently) and his followers"
Mr. Jewel Atkins in which World do you exist? Do you have any information ?
This Strident Hindu is an 86 year old man working in that Forested area for the up liftment of the Tribals, who became the special targets of Christian missionary activities as they are illiterate and poor. That strident Hindu was educating the tribal's and standing between the Christian missionaries intentions of converting tribal's. Pure cheating is what these missionaries employ offering money, abusing Hindu gods and publishing such literature.
Now this Strident Hindu's so called rantings(if you may like to post some so that readers here can know whether he is a fundamentalist or a ranter) is against this immoral activity of the Missionaries.
This strident Hindu of 86 year old's body has been sprayed with bullets and to ensure his certain death, his ankles veins were cut open.
Now he was not Killed by Maoists understand Mr jewel. Just as the Church in the North East is wants an independent country for the Christians because "Most of the North eastern population of India has been converted into Christian"
Maoist are that Shameful front of Christian spirituality just as Constantine has been in the ages gone by......
Where Islam and Christianity takes a hold there is no peace....Shame on Christians to donate money for the purpose of harvesting souls..I myself a first hand witness of the Christian fraud and my school and its teacher(who existed by the grace of Christian bigotry and discrimination to recruit as far as possible only Christian employees)