Ridiculous Idealism

Wow. Christianity

I'm an agnostic turning into an atheist but I generally don't religion bash. It is politically incorrect.

However this story completely took me aback:

The lady who works in our house came and told us a story yesterday. She has around four to five children, all girls except the boy who is the youngest. Of the girls, three are married, one of them who recently worked in our house lost a baby due to SIDS ( a terribly tragic incident which completely shocked and frightened me.)

However, that is not the point here. Here's what happened at their house a couple of days back.

A Brother (one of those in training for priesthood) wandered into their house, caught hold of the son, sat down with him and said:

Come. I'll take you to the church right now and baptize you. I'll give you a new name and you can call yourself Christian.

The boy looked at him and said:

I'm sorry but I'm Hindu.

And he got up and left the house, without a second's hesitation.

Now here's why I'm glad I'm not a Christian. A religion which believes in such sort of conversion...well, there's something wrong about that. If a person wants to convert by themselves, well, they can go ahead and do it. But a religion which tries to gain power in this way...well, I'm sorry to say but please. Learn some respect!

Christian missionaries around the world are doing excellent work no doubt but not when their ulterior motive is to get more people to become Christian. Good work should be done for the sake of the work itself, not for power, or money, or whatever. What exactly are the brothers trying to do here? Slowly, but surely, eradicate other religions?

Tony Blair brought that up recently, when he said that he had his orders from God when he sent British troops to Iraq. Similarly, he and George Bush apparently prayed together for so-called enlightenment before mounting their attack on Iraq. Bush went as far as calling it a crusade. A crusade against what? The Muslims? The rest of the non-christian world?

And seriously, conversion really does nothing to improve most of the lives of such people. Arundathi Roy, in God of Small Things, explains that, using the example of Velutha, an untouchable who becomes a Christian, who is still treated as an untouchable (by even his Christian employers) but is denied the reservation and the rights for the untouchables because technically, he isn't one anymore.

I'm not saying that Hinduism is infallible. I can count millions of faults of Hinduism right now, off the top of my head. Archaism, ritualism blah blah. But atleast we are secure enough in our religious beliefs that we dont need to force people to become part of the religion!

I'm really not completely against Christianity. When Graham Steines was murdered, I joined the rest of the country in mourning his death. I have a large number of Christian friends who I really like. I dont think it is the fault of the religion itself, but of the people who interpret it wrongly, who take it upon themselves to play God with other people. And that is not only terrible but morally and socially depraved!

God save us all. Before we take it upon ourselves to do so.

posted by Books inc @ 9:25 AM