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

[raajveer]

अब सब धर्मों की अजब अजब कथाएँ विज्ञान की युक्ति द्वारा प्रमाणित करने की एक लहर उठ पड़ी है। मियाँ! अगर प्राकृतिक नियम से यह सब हो सकता है तो फिर तुम्हारे 'यावे' देवता बीच में क्यों टपक पड़ते हैं? ... उत्तर की तरफ चल रहा है। ... अहा सभी विफल! उन्हीं पिरमिडों को खोदकर, अनेक कौशल के रास्तों का रहस्य भेदकर रत्नों के लोभ से दस्युओं ने उस राजशरीर की चोरी की है। आज की ... उन लोगों ने अनेक संप्रदायों की सृष्टि की - थेरापिउट, अस्सिनी, मानिकी आदि आदि - जिनसे वर्तमान ईसाई धर्म का उद्भव हुआ।

- Swami Vivekananda

[Rani]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/h...anity-1.298638

Aug 1, 2000, 01:00

Nearly 600 years after the first Christian missionaries landed in India to convert the locals, Brahmin priests are being prepared at a seminary near New Delhi to take their religion to expatriate Hindus throughout the world -in an effort to counter the influence of Christianity.

This, and an upsurge in Hindu nationalism, coincides with a series of well organised attacks on churches, missionaries and other Christian organisations reportedly by Hindu extremist organisations across India.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council, in the forefront of criticising Christians for proselytising in India, has recently established a branch at Durban in South Africa to defend "the rights of Hindus against conversion".

Equipped with geometrical-shaped urns, water from the Ganges river - considered holy by millions of Hindus - and a variety of incense, three of 33 Brahmin graduates from the Hindu Heritage Parishthan at Modipuram, 40 miles from India's capital New Delhi, left recently for the US, Singapore and Mauritius.

"Well versed in ancient scriptures, these priests are expected to spread the virtues of Hinduism and perform rituals for the Indian diaspora," said Shashi Sham Singh, head of the seminary.

All entrants to the seminary are required to be proficient in Sanskrit and have a working knowledge of English. During nine months of training, they study ancient texts, learn to perform complicated Hindu rituals such as marriages, child-naming ceremonies and death rites, and recite lengthy and complicated Sanskrit prayers by rote. "It is not only Hinduism the priests are taught, but also other religions to enable them to counter Christian arguments," Singh said.

Over the years, Hindu religious organisations and temple trusts, like the Temple Society in North America, have "imported" Brahmin priests from India, as has the South Indian Religious Society in Singapore.

And though overseas Hindu religious organisations play a major role in importing priests, many manage to secure appointments through networking skills and personal contacts.


Priestly duties are not all about prayer but have material benefits too. A name-giving ceremony in Singapore, for instance, costs the patron $31. The sacred thread ceremony, essential for all traditional Brahmins, costs $101 and a marriage $251. Charges for all rituals and ceremonies double when conducted in the home.

Some temples allow their priests to freelance but they take a percentage of the income earned. The younger priests have reportedly become more outgoing, convinced their earning capacity overseas is tremendous, especially for those with an appealing ecclesiastical manner.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Christians organised protest marches across southern India early last month following a series of church bombings. They demanded protection from fascist and intolerant organisations determined to spread sectarian tension by spreading lies about them.

Church leaders said India's 17 million Christians, constituting around 2.5 per cent of the country's predominantly Hindu population, were under "siege" following the continuing wave of violence against them. They said this began shortly after the Hindu nationalist-led coalition government came to power over two years ago.

AT least 43 attacks have occurred since January against Christians, their organisations and institutions. These include the murder of a Christian missionary in a small town 50 miles north of New Delhi in June, the death of his Christian helper in police custody and a preacher killed in northern Punjab state.

Serial bombings of churches followed in the adjoining states of Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka. Christian leaders hold Hindu fundamentalists responsible for the attacks and blame the federal government for failing to protect them.

"The needle of suspicion for anti-Christian attacks points to fanatic Hindu groups," Father Dominic Emmanuel of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India said. These groups, many of which are linked to the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads the federal coalition, were working to an agenda to persecute India's minority communities, he said.

In June, the Pope expressed his concern over the continuing violence to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who assured the Pope, during a meeting at the Vatican, that his government would protect Christians.

The recent violence culminated in a Hindu extremist murdering Graham Staines, an Australian missionary, and his two sons as they slept in their jeep in a remote village in eastern India. Their vehicle was doused with paraffin and set alight.

It took police over a year to arrest the accused who was, on at least one occasion, easily tracked down by a private television channel for an interview. A judicial inquiry into the Staineses' murder absolved any Hindu organisation of the crime.

Hindu extremist leaders justify their anti-Christian campaign on the grounds that missionaries need punishing for trying to convert lower caste Hindus to Christianity, a charge denied by church leaders.

The World Hindu Council said Christians posed a greater danger to the country than Muslims, who constitute around 13 per cent of India's one billion population. Its secretary general said Christians were attempting conversions by "trickery" and such efforts would continue to be opposed.