lpetrich

Possibly because it is Christianity that many atheists are up against. Michael Turton also mentioned Chinese objections to Christianity in the colonial era, according to him, they ranged from "they'll eat your babies" to arguments that he described as reasonable -- and that probably included some of the arguments below.

I agree.

Good question. And when one considers that Christianity has lots of divisions within itself...

I agree -- it seems too contrived to me. Even its Abrahamic cousins, Judaism and Islam, are more reasonable here.

And the same is true for statues and pictures of the Virgin Mary and saints that some churches have -- it's not for nothing that many Protestants have consider Catholics to be idolators.

And in response to FarSeeker, I do think that there is something idolatrous about flag cultism.

lpetrich

Who might be called the Christian Mother Goddess.

Scrutinizer

I don't know a hell of a lot about Hinduism, but the Hindus I've come into contact with seem to have an entirely different idea of logic. For instance, many Hindus I've talked to don't see any problem in being a Hindu as well as a Christian. I talked to a Hindu recently who asserted that he is indeed a Christian and has no problem in praying to Jesus, etc., but that he is also a Hindu.

Is it true, therefore, that Hindus often don't believe in the law of non-contradiction? In my experience, it's not so much that Christianity is so stupid that it cannot even persuade credulous Hindus, but that Hindus simply won't come to terms with the idea that Christianity must be held to without remaining a Hindu.

I stand to be corrected.

Regards,

- Scrutinizer

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Scrutinizer ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Vibr8,
If you insist:


God punishes no one. Purgatory and Hell are expressions of who we are in God's presence.



Because our God explicitly told us He was the Way and the Truth, nothing plural about those words. Which one of their million-plus Hindu gods make the same claim? None? Next!



Wow. This is a tough one. Let me think. OK. I think I've got it. Calling substitute sacrifice "too absurd" is like really way too absurd to even contemplate?! My four pejorative adjective trump her single one.



I'm sure every one of those Hindus were known to clutch their wives and get upset if those wives got broken, too. Ergo, based on their logic, and a population of one billion, they must add 500 million wives to their pantheon of 1 million gods.

Superciliously, Albert

Epitome

hinduwoman: ...What impressed me most was that many hindus couldnot grasp the logic of Christianity...

Yeah, but they're wisening up... many Hindus are seriously looking into Christianity as a way to break the back of the evil Caste System that oppresses their country.

Hinduism believes in reincarnation- where you come back into this life based on the kind of life you led before. This leaves those in the lower classes paying for crimes in their past lives and even though it's illegal, the tradition is that they are 'untouchable'

The social implications of this religion is that class discrimination prevents anyone from moving up or getting out of their situation. There's even something in Hinduism that says helping someone of a lower class only messes up the 'natural' order of things.

Christianity, on the other hand, puts everyone on an equal footing and encourages those who have to help those who have not.

The logic the lower caste Indians see in Christianity is that Hinduism brings poverty and stagnation while Christianity opens the doors to a country with people who are equal and help one another.

Of course the upper caste folk think Christianity stinks...

Before you attack Christianity, Hinduwoman, perhaps you might defend the caste system and what it does to India's poor?

Epitome

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Epitome ]</p>

Ernest Sparks

India is the software capital of the world. Many, many, many of those software architects,designers and web painters have to be Hindu. Now computer tech may not be highest LOGIC, but it is just next door to it.

Liquidrage

It is my understanding, not from books or TV but from someone from there that I worked with for the past 8 months and had many conversations with (incidently I'm a software developer) that the caste system is not what we typically deem it to be.

My view point was exatly what you mention.
The the caste system is evil, holds the man down.

My friends view was that it is overblown here. Most people in India do not pay attention to the caste system.

I of course told him that I have seen the poverty on TV. Pictures that made India look 3rd world.

His response was that while America was overall probably less improverished those same pictures could be taken here. He's lived there and just didn't consider the caste system a major problem.
Also not one that is enforced by the government or if real would be solved by a conversion to Christianty.

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>

lpetrich

I think that the answer is that Hinduism is a non-exclusive religion; Jesus Christ is simply an additional deity to worship among the numerous others that Hindus worship.

And in the early centuries of Christianity in the Roman Empire, there was a remarkably similar approach toward religion, with Jesus Christ sometimes being treated as an additional deity.

And closer to home, at least in the US, followers of "New Age" and alternative religions sometimes picture Jesus Christ as a New Age guru or whatever, with no pretensions of exclusivity.

RyanS2

Most of the pictures of India are propaganda, it's like going to the ghetto's of America and posting them up on the t.v. and saying, "Look at how crumby America is!!!" What most people don't know is that India has a very large middle-class and a well-educated upper class economy, and that like America, the poor are situated in ghetto's.

Some Hindu's also believe that Jesus Christ, (Yeshua Ben Yosef) was the 9th incarnation of Lord Vishnu. If you compare Lord Krishna versus Jesus Christ, they read almost identical. Even had the same three wise men from the east come and visit them, both sets bearing the same gifts, and same skin color, (Krishna means "Dark" in Sanskrit, and Jesus had very dark skin according to the Bible).

Vibr8gKiwi

I'm going to cut the 4 points down to one, though I don't think you respond to any of them very well.

Albert, imagine you have four kids. When 3 of them are bad for one day and eat cookies and spoil their dinner. Do you require them to kill the fourth child (who was being good) before you can decide to forgive them? If not, why not--this is the example your god sets forth.

If they don't kill the fourth child, do you then lock the children in their rooms for the rest of their lives as punishment for being bad one day? (that wouldn't even be as bad as god's punishing people FOREVER in hell for being the way he created them for a few years of life).

Are the absurdities become a little clearer yet or should I go on?