Mass Conversion (in India) Makes Buddhists (While Christian Priests are Slaughtered)

The Australian ^ | May 12, 2007 | Bruce Loudon

[Zakeet]

The largest religious mass conversion in India's history was set to go ahead last night after a court ruling that allowed more than half a million people to become Buddhists in a single rite performed by the Dalai Lama.

The ceremony will go ahead at Mumbai's Mahalaxmi Racecourse after the Bombay High Court rejected a public interest petition calling for a ban on using the racecourse for the event.

More than 1000 nomadic groups and other families - numbering more than 500,000 people in all - will embrace Buddhism simultaneously.

[Snip]

The issue of religious conversion in India is normally fraught with controversy when it involves Christianity, but not so with Buddhism, which coexists with the majority Hindu religion, despite the extreme zealotry of some of Hinduism's fundamentalist practitioners.

Earlier this week, horrifying pictures were carried on Indian television channels showing two Indian Christian priests in Ichalkaranji, in Kolapur district, being savagely bashed by Hindu extremists after they were accused of converting seven locals from Hinduism to Christianity.

The two priests -- Ajit Billawi and Ramesh Kagargole, of the Frank Missionary Prayer Board -- were set upon by the extremists, brutally beaten by the mob, and then frogmarched to the local police station where they were again bashed.

Instead of police defending the two priests, they were locked in cells while charges were investigated over complaints that they had been converting Hindus to Christianity.

Police later claimed they were trying to identify the attackers.

[voletti]

Makes sense that the lower castes in India will embrace Buddhism.

It is after all an Indic faith.

Christianity, at least as preached currently there, is alien to the Indic ethos.

[353FMG]

And to think that it was a Christian (Mother Teresa) who showed compassion for the Indian poor. The same is happening in another country that I won’t name where Christian nuns take care of the dying and abandoned Muslim children because there is no one else to do it. When I hear a Muslim talk about merci and compassion I lose my appetite.

[familyop]

How are Christians treated in Pakistan?

[NYer]

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[Salvation]

**Instead of police defending the two priests, they were locked in cells while charges were investigated over complaints that they had been converting Hindus to Christianity. **

And they say that nothing is happening in India. May God bless these two martyrs.

[Salvation]

Not to worry, however, when people are persecuted and killed like this — it brings all the more to Catholicism.

[vladimir998]

Amen!

[YOUGOTIT]

That is the way it is in all the world and will be so here when the Democrats finish with their surrender to Islam.

[mylife]

My Brother lives in India.
India is not so tolerent of religious differences as we are often lead to believe

[starbase]

I took a short trip to India last year. I found it to be hateful and violent. Corruption and incompetence was absolute. When you passed a policeman you had the distinct feeling that he was the policeman of just where he was standing. If you passed another you'd feel like he was a different police force. And who knows what it would be like if you had to talk to police across town.

And if you had an actual problem you would be in dire straits in that country. I was not at all comfortable there and left almost immediately. I'll never go back.

[mylife]

I’ll prolly go next year to see for myself

[Candor7]

You will note that it was not Buddhists who did the bashing, an important distinction.

[RobbyS]

“Indic ethos”? You mean the caste system, right? That plus the fact that is is possible to be a Hindu as well as a Buddhist.

[starbase]

I’ll prolly go next year to see for myself

Well, be careful. I was in Kerala, ostensibly the place in India with the highest living standard, but it was still a filthy dump.

Piles of trash in the roads with rats and mice running in and out in the middle of the day. I went to a small local market, lots of the fruits and vegetables were rotten (though not all were), and a guy selling fish had his fish on a table absolutely swarmed over by hundreds of flies, crawling all over the fish, it was so gross.

I went by a full cricket field and a cricket ball rolled near me, so I picked it up and threw it to a player and he said "Thanks boy" and thirty people starting laughing (I'm in my mid thirties)

I was walking by the beach and this family of Hindus started shouting "Hello, hello" and rolling their eyes at me, laughing. So I said "Namaste!(hello)" and they immediately looked away, then 4 of the 12 year olds formed a line shoulder to shoulder and starting walking after me. So I stepped to the side, which confused them, then they just proceeded down the walkway as if they were still following me.

And yet again I was walking on the street and two jerks were riding a scooter the opposite direction and they turned across the road, circled all the way around me within a foot of me, and blared the horn. Then stopped and looked arrogantly at me at the side of the road.

The whole population is really hostile right now, and they stupidly think they're about to take over the world. Some of the movies that are popular now tell Indians they need to be much more aggressive and violent. And so the ignorant Indians are doing just that.

I also saw a music video where these pickups full of guys with machetes drive by and whack young banana trees in half, the next scene two trucks full of guys weilding machetes are chasing unarmed men as they run fearfully down a fishing dock! (I guess to murder them with the machetes, nice music video)

And always walking down the street, people would leer at me, and once a guy pointed his feet at me and started walking directly at me, then stopped and laughed.

And this trash is supposed to be the people with the highest standard of living in the country! If they are the highest, then the lowest must be disgusting animals.

Oh, and a British guy named Bennett was chased after and murdered while I was there, he made desperate cell calls to his family in England, but of course, what could they do? He was killed.

I wouldn't go there if I were you.

[mylife]

And to think.. I was gonna take my Son there to ride motorcycles in the himilayas

[plain talk]

Our church (PCA) had a missionary in India and worried about him. That is dangerous work.

[John Valentine]

How are Christians treated in Pakistan?

You must be joking, or you havne't read a newspaper in the last ten years.

[familyop]

Nah, I was begging the question in order to introduce a more relevant, related topic.

[starbase]

And to think.. I was gonna take my Son there to ride motorcycles in the himilayas

Personally, I would not. Here's a link to the Bennett murder on the BBC that happened while I was there, plus an excerpt:

He said he was travelling with two Indian men who were allegedly going to see a firework display in Mumbai. "They seemed over friendly and from time to time they lapsed into their local language and their tone changed as they talked to one another so we were very anxious to try and get him to come back," said Stephen's father Carol Bennett.

The police are now looking into claims he may have been kidnapped.

Mr Bennett's wallet, which contained more than £300 in cash, was found next to his body, along with his passport.

Unfortunately a lot of Americans are still envisioning this peaceful world where, except for a few problem areas, people have their eyes on this peaceful new world for us all to live in.

But there are many unresolved cultural and even "mental" issues in populations all over the world. Chinese, Thai, Taiwanese,Burmese, Indian, European, even Japanese, they all have "issues".

The idea of global tourism is rapidly dying. I'm not saying there won't be multi billion dollar tourism, there will be. But this assumption that it will be a nice place unless you hear something bad is going to get lots of Americans (and other foreigners) killed, until it sinks in for us in the West. The assumption should be that you have a high chance of dying if you haven't heard about an area.

Motorcycling through the Himalayas, with killer Muslims, and desperate poor people, sounds like a good way to get killed, unfortunately.

I would ride motorcycles across our own magnificent country, if I were you. It's stunning, beautiful, free, closer, and much, much safer.