COMPARATIVE STUDIES: Hinduism v Christianity - Idol worship?

[KALKI]

EVER SINCE THE FIRST GOA INVASION, HINDUS HAVE BEEN PERSECUTED FOR IDOL WORSHIP AND MANY OTHER THINGS BY JESUITS & CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES.

...I'VE TRIED TO KEEP THIS POST SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE...

The Goa Inquisition was a colonial era Portuguese institution established by the Roman Catholic Holy Office between the 16th- and 19th-century to stop and punish heresy against Christianity in Asia.

The institution persecuted Hindus, Muslims, Bene Israels, New Christians and the Judaizing Nasranis by the colonial era Portuguese government and Jesuit clergy in Portuguese India.It was established in 1560, briefly suppressed from 1774 to 1778, continued thereafter and finally abolished in 1820. The Inquisition punished those who had converted to Catholicism, but were suspected by Jesuit clergy of practising their previous religion in secret. Predominantly, the persecuted were accused of Crypto-Hinduism.

A few dozen criminally-charged natives were imprisoned for numerous years, publicly flogged, or, dependent on criminal charge, sentenced to death, often by burning at the stake.
The Catholic Christian missionaries also burnt any books written in Sanskrit, Arabic, Marathi, or Konkani that they could find in Goa, as well as restricted Protestant Christian books from entering Goa on Dutch or English merchant ships.

The setting up of the Goa Inquisition was requested by Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier from his headquarters Malacca in a letter dated 16 May 1546 to King John III of Portugal. Between the Inquisition's beginning in 1561 and its temporary abolition in 1774, at least 16,202 persons were brought to trial by the Inquisition. Almost all of the Goa Inquisition's records were burnt by the Portuguese when the inquisition was abolished in 1820. It is impossible to know the exact number of those put on trial and the punishments they were prescribed. The few records that have survived suggest that at least 57 were executed for their religious crime, and another 64 were burned in effigy because they had already died in jail before sentencing. Other records such as those left by the French physician Charles Dellon, who was also a victim of the Goan Inquisition, and others, suggest that nearly 70% of those found guilty of Crypto-Hinduism were executed, many prisoners starved to death and racial discrimination against Indians was rampant during the Goa Inquisition proceedings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_Inquisition



MY THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER....

THE CONCEPT OF GOD IS SIMPLE IN HINDUISM (VEDIC PERSPECTIVE) SEE GOD IN EVERYTHING...IF YOU TRULY BELIEVE IN A CREATOR....YOU WILL SEE HIM/HER EVERYWHERE!

WHETHER IT BE HUMANS, ANIMALS...PLANTS , ROCK ...WITHIN EVERY PARTICLE...

THIS IS EXPRESSED CLEARLY IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA:
..

Sanskrit:

yo mam pasyati sarvatra
sarvam ca mayi pasyati
tasyaham na pranasyami
sa ca me na pranasyati

“For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me.”

- Chapter 6 Verse 30
https://asitis.com/6/30.html

ALSO, THE VITAL TEACHINGS OF BHAKT PRAHLAD EXEMPLIFIES, SEEING GOD/VISHNU EVEN IN STONE!

After tolerating abuse from Hiranyakashipu, Prahlāda is eventually saved by Narasiṁha, Lord Vishnu in the form of a man-lion chimera, who emerges from within a stone pillar, who places the king on his thighs, and kills him with his sharp nails at the entrance to his home at dusk, thus nullifying all of Hiranyakashipu's boon of virtual immortality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prahlada

TRUE DEDICATION (BHAKTI) AND YOUR VOICE WILL BE HEARD.

THIS CONCEPT GOES EVEN FURTHER....THAT EVEN YOUR HATERS SHOULD BE TREATED EQUAL:

Sanskrit:

ihaiva tair jitah sargo
yesam samye sthitam manah
nirdosam hi samam brahma
tasmad brahmani te sthitah


“Those whose minds are established in sameness and equanimity have already conquered the conditions of birth and death. They are flawless like Brahman, and thus they are already situated in Brahman.”
- Chapter 5 Verse 19
https://asitis.com/5/19.html

......AND;

Sanskrit:

suhrn-mitrary-udasina-
madhyastha-dvesya-bandhusu
sadhusv api ca papesu
sama-buddhir visisyate

“A person is said to be still further advanced when he regards all—the honest well-wisher, friends and enemies, the envious, the pious, the sinner and those who are indifferent and impartial—with an equal mind.”
- Chapter 6 Verse 9
https://asitis.com/6/9.html


THE CONCEPT OF NAMASTE SIMPLY MEANS TO SEE THE DIVITINY FORM OF GOD WITHIN EACH OTHER.

MOVING ON........


BIBLICAL SOURCES CLEARLY DISLIKE ANY FORMS OF IDOL WORSHIP (Idolaters to Be Put to Death)

YET, MANY CHURCHES / PLACES HAVE AN IDOL OF JESUS OR MOTHER MARY.....WHY?


"For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:"
- Exodus 34:14
https://biblehub.com/exodus/34-14.htm

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters below.…"
- Exodus 20:3
http://biblehub.com/exodus/20-3.htm

"The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk."
- Revelation 9:20
http://biblehub.com/revelation/9-20.htm

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
- Revelation 21:8
http://biblehub.com/revelation/21-8.htm

"But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols."
- Revelation 2:20
https://biblehub.com/revelation/2-20.htm

"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace,a or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (which neither you nor your fathers have known, the gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the earth to the other), you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him."
- Deuteronomy 13:6
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/13-6.htm

"Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God."

- Leviticus 19:4
https://biblehub.com/leviticus/19-4.htm

"'Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God."
- Leviticus 26:1
http://biblehub.com/leviticus/26-1.htm

"Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips."
- Psalm 16:4
http://biblehub.com/psalms/16-4.htm

"And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood."
- Psalm 106:38
https://biblehub.com/psalms/106-38.htm

"And I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars."
- Ezekiel 6:5
https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/6-5.htm

"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands."
- Psalm 115:4
https://biblehub.com/psalms/115-4.htm

"Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?"
- Jeremiah 16:20
https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/16-20.htm

"Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them."
- Jeremiah 51:17
https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/51-17.htm

"Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too.…"
- 1 Corinthians 10:20
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/10-20.htm

"Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship!"
- Isaiah 46:6
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/46-6.htm

"Everyone is senseless and devoid of knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud; they have no breath in them. They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment, they will perish. The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things: Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; the LORD of Hosts is His name.…"
- Jeremiah 10:15
https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/10-15.htm


"The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been offered to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’"
- Jeremiah 19:13
https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/19-13.htm


"You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led."
- 1 Corinthians 12:2
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/12-2.htm


"idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,"
- Galatians 5:20
https://biblehub.com/galatians/5-20.htm

"a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks;"
- Isaiah 65:3
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/65-3.htm

"Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it."
- Habakkuk 2:19
https://biblehub.com/habakkuk/2-19.htm

"Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols."
- Acts 17:16
https://biblehub.com/acts/17-16.htm

"But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one."
- 1 Corinthians 5:11
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/5-11.htm

"I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images."
-Isaiah 42:8
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/42-8.htm

"that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
- Acts 15:29
https://biblehub.com/acts/15-29.htm

"In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,"
- Isaiah 2:20
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/2-20.htm

"For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God."
- Ephesians 5:5
https://biblehub.com/ephesians/5-5.htm

"And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction."
- Deuteronomy 7:26
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/7-26.htm

"For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry."
- 1 Peter 4:3
https://biblehub.com/1_peter/4-3.htm

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!"
- Habakkuk 2:18
https://biblehub.com/habakkuk/2-18.htm


"They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”"
- Isaiah 42:17
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/42-17.htm

"Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man."
- Acts 17:29
https://biblehub.com/acts/17-29.htm

"Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made."
- Isaiah 2:8
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/2-8.htm

"and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands;"
- Micah 5:13
https://biblehub.com/micah/5-13.htm


“‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the LORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
- Deuteronomy 27:15
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/27-15.htm

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,"
- 1 Corinthians 6:9
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/6-9.htm

"And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”"
- Isaiah 44:17
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/44-17.htm

"and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."
- Romans 1:23
https://biblehub.com/romans/1-23.htm

"Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”
- Judges 10:14
https://biblehub.com/judges/10-14.htm

Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
1 Corinthians 10:7
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/10-7.htm

“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips."
- Exodus 23:13
https://biblehub.com/exodus/23-13.htm


"The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,"
- Revelation 9:20
https://biblehub.com/revelation/9-20.htm

“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save."
- Isaiah 45:20
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/45-20.htm


"The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands."
- Psalm 135:15
https://biblehub.com/psalms/135-15.htm


"Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."
- 1 Corinthians 10:14
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/10-14.htm

"The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips."
- Psalm 16:4
https://biblehub.com/psalms/16-4.htm

"All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame."
- Isaiah 44:9
https://biblehub.com/isaiah/44-9.htm


"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."
- 1 John 5:21
https://biblehub.com/1_john/5-21.htm

"Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love."
- Jonah 2:8
https://biblehub.com/esv/jonah/2-8.htm


"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
- Colossians 3:5
https://biblehub.com/colossians/3-5.htm

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
- Exodus 20:4
https://biblehub.com/exodus/20-4.htm

[Amrita]

Sooooooo manyy idol hating verses

[BulletProofYogi]

Originally Posted by Amrita

Sooooooo manyy idol hating verses

what did you expect

Richard Zimler's novel, Guardian of the Dawn, documents the little-known Portuguese Inquisition in India, in 16th century Goa. He points out that, apart from their laws and religion, the Portuguese also imported and enforced their infamous methods of interrogation to subdue troublemakers.

Zimler has won numerous awards for his work, including a 1994 US National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and 1998 Herodotus Award for best historical novel. The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon was picked as 1998 Book of the Year by British critics, while Hunting Midnight has been nominated for the 2005 IMPAC Literary Award. Together with Guardian of the Dawn, these novels comprise the 'Sephardic Cycle' -- a group of interrelated but independent novels about different branches of a Portuguese Jewish family.

Intrigued by his novel, as well as his reasons for writing it, Senior Features Editor Lindsay Pereira decided to ask him a few questions.

You were born in New York and went on to study comparative religion. Why the decision to write about the Portuguese inquisition in Goa -- a whole other world?

About 15 years ago, while doing research for my first novel, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, I discovered that the Portuguese exported the Inquisition to Goa in the sixteenth century, and that many Indian Hindus were tortured and burnt at the stake for continuing to practice their religion. Muslim Indians were generally murdered right away or made to flee Goan territory.

I couldn't use that information for my novel but decided, a few years later, to do more research into that time of fundamentalist religious persecution. I discovered that historians consider the Goa Inquisition the most merciless and cruel ever developed. It was a machinery of death. A large number of Hindus were first converted and then persecuted from 1560 all the way to 1812!

Over that period of 252 years, any man, woman, or child living in Goa could be arrested and tortured for simply whispering a prayer or keeping a small idol at home. Many Hindus -- and some former Jews, as well -- languished in special Inquisitional prisons, some for four, five, or six years at a time.

I was horrified to learn about this, of course. And I was shocked that my friends in Portugal knew nothing about it. The Portuguese tend to think of Goa as the glorious capital of the spice trade, and they believe -- erroneously -- that people of different ethnic backgrounds lived there in tolerance and tranquillity. They know nothing about the terror that the Portuguese brought to India. They know nothing of how their fundamentalist religious leaders made so many suffer.

What were you trying to do with this cycle of novels? Did you set out, initially, to merely inform your audience about that period in history?

I always set out first to tell a good, captivating story. No reader is interested in a bland historical text. People want to enjoy a novel -- and find beauty, mystery, cruelty, love, tenderness and poetry inside it.

Within that story, I do try to recreate the world as it once was.

In the case of Guardian of the Dawn, I want readers to feel as if they are living in Goa at that time. I want them to see the cobblestone streets of the city and the masts of ships in the harbour, to smell the coconut oil and spices in the air, to hear calls of flower-sellers in the marketplace. I want them to feel the cold shadow of the Inquisitional palace falling over their lives.

In my cycle of novels, I have written about different branches and generations of the Zarco family, a single Portuguese-Jewish family. These novels are not sequels; they can be read in any order. But I've tried to create a parallel universe in which readers can find subtle connections between the different books and between the different generations.

To me, this is very realistic because we all know, for instance, that there are subtle connections between what our great-grandparents did and what we are doing.

The research involved in Guardian of the Dawn is obviously immense. Could you tell me a little about the kind of preparatory work you had to put in?

To write the book, I tried to read everything I could about daily life on the west coast of India -- more specifically, in and around Goa -- at the end of the sixteenth century. The Internet has made that sort of research much easier than it used to be, and I was able to order books about everything from traditional medical practices -- including recipes for specific ailments -- to animals and plants indigenous to that region.

When I write a novel, I want to get all the details right, so this is very important. Of course, it was also vital for me to know as much as I could about Hinduism and Catholicism. As you mentioned, I studied Comparative Religion at university, so this was pretty easy. One of the main characters in the novel is a Jain, which is a religion I have always been curious about, so I read three or four books about Jainism as well. It was wonderful to be able to learn a bit about Jain belief and practice. Writing is always a great opportunity for me to keep learning.

Tiago Zarco is a character you manage to strongly empathise with. Where did he come from? Was there factual data on someone he was actually based upon?

Yes, he's someone I really like -- and for whom I feel a strong empathy. He's a good man who is changed by his suffering and who decides to take revenge on the people who have hurt him and his family. But I did not base him on a real person. I think, in a way, he was born of my previous two novels, because I tried to make him someone who could fit into the Zarco family and yet be fully developed as an individual. With Tiago, I tried to ask the question -- how far can we bend our own moral code to fight evil?

In other words, can we use deception and even violence to try to destroy a cruel system of fundamentalist religious fervour like the Inquisition?

Re-examining the Inquisition seems apt, more so at a time like this when religious fanaticism is changing the world in ways unknown to us. What do you, as an author, believe we ought to take away from a study of it? I couldn't agree with you more, and that is one of the reasons I wrote Guardian of the Dawn. Put simply, I think we all need to be alert to the intolerance in our societies and in ourselves. We ought to maintain government and religion completely separate -- such a separation is the only guarantee we have of freedom of expression. We ought to learn from the ancient Asian tradition, which is to respect the religious beliefs of others and not impose our own Gods on them.

Did you visit Goa at any point? If not, what did you base your descriptions of the state upon?

No, I decided not to go to Goa, because I didn't want any images from modern Goa to infiltrate into the novel. I didn't want to risk inadvertently putting something from today into it. So I based my descriptions on other areas of the world I've visited that have similar flora and fauna -- Thailand, for instance. Also, I read all I could about the city so that my descriptions of the buildings, for instance, would be accurate. I then used my imagination, which is the most important thing for a writer. I now have a landscape in my head that is Goa -- and the surrounding region -- in 1600. I don't know how it developed. It's almost magical.

Portugal, today, is still a country deeply steeped in a Catholic tradition. Do you think people are aware of the Inquisition and what it meant back then? Would they look at this as a re-opening of old wounds?

No, few people here know anything about the Inquisition. Many of them would rather not examine what their ancestors did, both in Portugal and its colonies. But others are very curious about what they didn't learn in school about their own history. Yes, in a sense I am opening old wounds. But I think it's important to do that. I think that we need to face the bad things we do -- both individually and as a society. In general, the Portuguese have been very receptive to my books.

Guardian of the Dawn has been a Number One bestseller here, for instance. A great many readers tell me I have opened a door to a part of their history they know nothing about. I'm proud of that. And I'm proud of having made it possible for Indians and Jews who were persecuted and imprisoned to 'speak' to modern readers through this novel. I think that's important because I don't want their suffering -- and their heroism -- to be forgotten.

As an author -- more specifically, an author devoted to history -- you have a unique perspective on the past. As a journalist, how important is examining the past to you?

As a journalist, it's important, because I think we can change the world by exposing past injustices. By writing about atrocities, we can change policy and avoid future wars. We can get war criminals punished. We can help people win fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, so much journalism is superficial and stupid that there is little room left for important articles.

Do you plan, in future, to base your work on other periods, or religious themes? Or do you plan to break away from the genre of historical fiction?

I have written a new novel that has just come out in England called The Search for Sana, which is about two women -- one Palestinian, one Israeli -- who grew up in Haifa together in the 1950s. It's about how their friendship is destroyed by political events that lead to tragedy for one of them. I am now working on a novel set in Berlin in the 1930s, in which one of the main characters will be a member of the Zarco family. So this will bring the cycle up to the 20th century. Where I will go from there is anyone's guess.

In late-sixteenth-century Goa, young Tiago Zarco, whose family had fled forced conversions in Portugal, once again confronts the long reach of the Inquisition as he fights to save his family and preserve his relationship with the Hindu girl he loves, until an act of betrayal forces him on a perilous odyssey into the depths of depravity and the dark realities of revenge. Original. 20,000 first printing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guardian-Da.../dp/0385338813

[Rahul5362]

Share kiya, thanks bhai

[·°¤»DiVa»¤°·]

thank you so much

[CrazyH]

Originally Posted by BulletProof

what did you expect

In late-sixteenth-century Goa, young Tiago Zarco, whose family had fled forced conversions in Portugal, once again confronts the long reach of the Inquisition as he fights to save his family and preserve his relationship with the Hindu girl he loves, until an act of betrayal forces him on a perilous odyssey into the depths of depravity and the dark realities of revenge. Original. 20,000 first printing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guardian-Da.../dp/0385338813

I read something similar....take a look:

Christians are using the same tactics to spread their lies and myths that have been used since its birth. They over salvation in a mythical afterlife as well as food and health services in the here and now. But there's a catch: you must follow their "true" faith and scorn all other beliefs and ideas.

In ancient times, these tactics succeeded in recruiting large flocks of followers from the vast poor masses. The old pagan religions that were centered on the Olympian and Egyptian gods offered nothing compared to what Christians promised. The gods were considered distant. Other religions, such as Mithraism, made afterlife promises similar to those of Christianity, but they were too esoteric and exclusive for most people. It's little wonder that after the old pagan religions lost their state subsidies under the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, they dried up. When the Emperor Justin (aka Justin the Apostate, as Christian historians call him) tried to revive the pagan religions in the mid 4th century, he had little luck in attracting people during his short reign.

Once the Christians gained political power, their intolerance to other ideas led to the suppression of the classical philosophies and to centuries of religious intolerance that didn't end until the Enlightenment over 1,000 years later. Christian Europe's anti-Semiticism continued of course and culminated in the Nazi Holocaust.

Today, fortunately, a growing number of people are realizing that religion is based on nothing more than ignorance of the unknown. Where is the proof that a god exist? Deities were used to explain scary natural phenomena, and these supernatural beings had to be pleased or else. All the religious rules and scriptures grew from there, be they those of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or animism. Secular-based utopian ideologies, such a Communism, are little different. Religion should be a private matter. There have been wars and tyranny throughout history when followers of a creed feel a duty to convert everyone else. How long will it take for the Middle East, India and other hotbeds of religious violence to learn this?

I'm glad I live in America, where the Christian clerics have been defanged. For all their rhetoric, it's all bark and little bite. Sure, they cause a few problems here and there. But as long as there's vigilance, they won't succeed in imposing their totalitarianism.

link: https://www.economist.com/node/12305...#sort-comments

[balti]

The same happen in USA + Africa..Christian missionaries!

Abstract
There were Africans in New England before there were Puritans there, and by 1700 they numbered about 1,000 out of a total population of 90,000. Roughly half of them lived in Massachusetts, and were concentrated in Boston and the coastal towns. Puritans actively participated in the trafficking of enslaved persons, importing Africans from the West Indies and sometimes selling native American prisoners overseas.

Cotton Mather’s household contained enslaved Negro servants, and his congregation at the Second (or North) Church included both merchants of slavery and persons of African descent. The pamphlet reprinted here appeared in 1706 without his name, but his authorship of it was generally known. It calls on those who held people in slavery to educate their “servants” in the Christian religion, to treat them justly and kindly, and to accept them as spiritual brethren. It includes two catechisms and other instructional materials. It advances both spiritual and pragmatic arguments: the Christian has a moral responsibility for the souls of those in danger, and the Christianized servant is more profitable to his master.

Mather’s style in this work is (for him) unusually plain-spoken and direct. He quotes only one church father (Chrysostom), one classical philosopher (Cato), and one modern historian (Acosta). Moreover, his language seems particularly fresh, almost contemporary: “Man, Thy Negro is thy Neighbour. … Yea, if thou dost grant, That God hath made of one Blood, all Nations of men, he is thy Brother too.”—and, at another point, “… say of it, as it is.”

The electronic text presented here was transcribed from the first edition, printed at Boston in 1706. A very few notes have been included and also a list of typographical errors corrected.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/28/

The Negro Christianized. An Essay to Excite and
Assist that Good Work, the Instruction of NegroServants in Christianity (1706)

Cotton Mather
The Negro Christianized (1706)
There were Africans in New England before there were Puritans
there, and by 1700 they numbered about 1,000 out of a total population of 90,000. Roughly half of them lived in Massachusetts,
and were concentrated in Boston and the coastal towns. Puritans
actively participated in the trafficking of enslaved persons, importing Africans from the West Indies and sometimes selling native American prisoners overseas.
Cotton Mather’s household contained enslaved Negro servants, and his congregation at the Second (or North) Church included both merchants of slavery and persons of African descent.
The pamphlet reprinted here appeared in 1706 without his name,
but his authorship of it was generally known. It calls on those who
held people in slavery to educate their “servants” in the Christian
religion, to treat them justly and kindly, and to accept them as
spiritual brethren. It includes two catechisms and other instructional materials. It advances both spiritual and pragmatic arguments: the Christian has a moral responsibility for the souls of
those in danger, and the Christianized servant is more profitable
to his master.
Mather’s style in this work is (for him) unusually plain-spoken
and direct. He quotes only one church father (Chrysostom), one
classical philosopher (Cato), and one modern historian (Acosta).
Moreover, his language seems particularly fresh, almost contemporary: “Man, Thy Negro is thy Neighbour. … Yea, if thou dost
grant, That God hath made of one Blood, all Nations of men, he is thy
Brother too.”—and, at another point, “… say of it, as it is.”
The electronic text presented here was transcribed from the
first edition, printed at Boston in 1706. A very few notes have
been included and also a list of typographical errors corrected.

[MahaRani]

Abbe J.A. Dubois or Jean-Antoine Dubois (January 1765 – 17 February 1848) was a French Catholic missionary in India, and member of the 'Missions Etrangères de Paris'.he was called Dodda Swami by the local people. In his work Hindu manners , customs and traditions he presented Indian cultures, traditions, thoughts and varnasrama system in his work. After some years he returned to France, and authored the book Hindu manners, customs and ceremonies, a valuable work of Indology. He is remembered locally for having adopted the way of life, clothing, food (vegetarianism) and language typical of a Hindu monk or renunciate, and to have thereby earned the trust and respect of the local people. However, he failed in his mission of converting Indians to Christianity, and often expressed the opinion, in writing and in conversation, that the project of bringing the Indians to Christ is doomed to failure.

In India, Dubois was at first attached to the Pondicherry mission, and worked in the southern districts of the present Madras Presidency. After the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, he went to Mysore to reorganize the Christian community.

He abjured European society, adopted the native style of clothing, and made himself in habit and costume as much like a Hindu as he could. He used to go around in the garb of sanyasi and abstained from eating meat for many years.

He was credited with the founding of agricultural colonies and the introduction of vaccination as a preventive of smallpox. He also caused a church to be built in Seringapatam, known in his honour as the "Abbe Dubois Chapel."

He was known as Fraadh Saaibh to the parishioners of the Holy Cross Church, Cordel in Mangalore, among whom he ministered, and as Dodda Swami-avaru in the Mysore region.

Rev. Elijah Hoole of the Wesleyan Mission records meeting Abbe Dubois on Saturday 4 August 1821 at Seringapatam. He describes the Abbe as being dressed in Muslim or Turkish clothes. The Abbe complains about many of his followers being forced to convert to Islam by Tipu Sultan. Having gained proficiency in local languages and customs, the Abbe gained respect among the locals. In his conversation with Elijah, the Abbe expressed the view that India was incapable of accepting Christianity and advised Elijah to return to England at the earliest



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Antoine_Dubois

[xxHaRrOw-GiRlxx]

i thought about this once...why do they have a statue of Jesus

[jay999]

nailed it!