Rising menace of Christianity

[Karna]

From the data I have seen, Christianity seems to be dying in Europe; perhaps attributable to rising levels of awareness, technology, and living standards. US is on its way there - at least the fundamentalist kind of Christianity. And when that happens, I feel the other kinds will follow the path of Europe.

 

But I think Christianity is growing in economically poorer countries and developing countries. There is a lot of Christianity in Africa and South America - a sorry parting gift of colonialism. Those rich African, Central and South American (and not to forget the Greek, Nordic, etc) cultures have been appropriated by and all but vanished because of the proselytizing religions and their missionaries. But there is no point in crying over spilt milk.

 

What bothers me the most is the situation in my home country that is India. India is the birthplace of the four major Eastern religions. These religions are characterized by their huge degree of tolerance, assimilation, and freedom - something that a monotheistic religion can never provide. The eastern religions allow for atheism, agnosticism, or monotheism (of choice!) which cannot be matched by the straitjacketed desert religions.

 

The big problem though is the work of the missionaries from the west and the huge amounts of western dollars that are being pumped into this by the US, UK, Germany and other big countries. These missionaries target the poorest sections of the society and try to convert them, sometimes even by fraudulent means by coercion and by way of financial assistance. In a sense, they are selling their religion to the poor and needy masses. In the process, they demean the existing culture of the land and turn people against one another. The poor parents take up the Christianity offer as who wouldn’t like their kids to go to better schools or better hospitals? I believe the parents could be namesake Christians. But their kids and the generations after get infected by the virus more permanently.

 

When the Christianity virus is injected into a part of the society, the ‘Us vs Them’ attitude follows and now we have pockets of the country that is losing its traditions, culture, and fostering menace. Tolerance gives way to intolerance.

 

Casteism has been a problem in Hinduism which is gradually but surely diminishing. But casteism is a socio-economic problem. The Christian world loves to tout casteism as a big problem and market itself in India as a solution. What they fail to understand is that instead of eliminating the problem, they introduce a new problem which is socio-religious in nature. For an intolerant set of people will find it incredibly difficult to live alongside a tolerant set of people.

 

India got her independence 70 odd years ago. Northeast India was neglected by the earlier governments. They failed to assimilate the northeast and the missionaries got a free reign there. Nagaland is a tiny state in the northeast and is more baptist than Texas or Mississippi. In fact it is the most baptist state in the world! And now the state wants to break away from India and has its own nationalist movement going on for this purpose (similar to the HongKong protests that are supposedly being funded by the church). An example of how missionary activities can wreak havoc in a hitherto cohesive system.

 

The point is - without the big dollars from the west, the missionaries would be crippled. One has to understand the source of the big dollars. These came to the western powers through their colonialization of the other world (and Christianity was an ace card used during colonialization). And the riches thus obtained are now being used to ‘solve’ issues faced by developing countries like India.

 

Why not solve issues in the Christian countries in Africa and South America? Simple - because these problems cannot be solved by religion. Why not go proselytize in the middle-eastern countries? Simple - because the Islamic countries will not tolerate this. So what is left? A tolerant Hindu country that is India (Look up Joshua Project India online. It is scary and disgusting, the amount of work and strategy that goes on in this converting business).

 

So essentially, the only oldest country that still holds onto its traditions, religions, and culture inspite of being invaded, raped, looted, ruled over since 700CE is now being afflicted internally by the monotheistic viruses of Christianity and Islam. All I can say is that people need to wake up!

[TEG]

19 minutes ago, Karna said:

. . . tolerance, assimilation, and freedom - something that a monotheistic religion can never provide.

 

This is so true.  Look at the big three monotheistic (Abrahamic) religions and how they have acted through history.  Should the title be Rising menace of monotheism?  And is monotheism the worst thing that has ever happened to religion?  And we owe it all to Abraham . . . .

[Derek]

I'm still trying to figure out why Abraham is revered as he is...I mean, he was ready to kill his only child because he heard a voice. Yup...let's all follow that dude

But seriously, monotheism is certainly one of the biggest roadblocks to progress. As long as islam and christianity keeps spreading, human advancements will be hampered.

[Geezer]

Christianity (fundamentalism) flourishes in places where ignorance & superstition is rampant. That makes third world countries easy targets for missionaries.

 

However, many books have been written attempting to explain why highly educated people make important decisions based on emotion rather than evidence, logic, and reason. It’s a human tendency that is difficult to explain but one that keeps religion alive and needed in many peoples lives. 

[Wertbag]

My only word of warning is the merging of the terms Christian with Western. This can lead to a great generalisation where hatred of the western world is started by religion and directed at all of us who are not part of the problem. 

We have the same goal to reduce and counter religion, so need to remain united against the Abrahamic religions. 

[Derek]

46 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

My only word of warning is the merging of the terms Christian with Western. This can lead to a great generalisation where hatred of the western world is started by religion and directed at all of us who are not part of the problem. 

We have the same goal to reduce and counter religion, so need to remain united against the Abrahamic religions. 

Agreed.

[disillusioned]

Good post.

 

@Bhim I'd be interested to see your thoughts on this. 

[Bhim]

Thank you @disillusioned for pointing me to this thread.

 

@Karna, you've picked an excellent user name which honors one of the great anti-heroes of Hindu mythology. And that really gets to a fundamental difference between Hinduism and Christianity, doesn't it? Even Hindu "villains" such as Karna, Duryodhana, and Bhishma were well regarded for their devotion to God. This can be contrasted with the Christian Satan, who is more a caricature of evil than true evil. Christianity recognizes the reality of good and evil, but fails to acknowledge the nuance of life. It is a truly unsophisticated religion if ever there were one.

 

Regarding the proselytism that takes place in India, this is an issue that troubles me deeply. When I first left Christianity, I felt that the Indian government needed to take steps to ban Christianity within India's borders and to give Christians the persecution they so earnestly desire. I still do not object to a policy of literally burning down churches (with the parishioners outside their walls, of course), but I've come to realize that this won't cure the disease that is Christianity. Over the past few years, as I have become more politically and socially conservative, I've come to recognize the free agency of all men (gendered language intentional), and I now recognize that if India simply enacts anti-Christian policies, it will merely embolden Christians and confirm their belief that it is appointed to every follower of Jesus to be persecuted in his name. Again, I am not opposed to Indian anti-conversion laws, but I am saying that I now realize they are impotent to stop the spread of Christianity in India. What is necessary is for the Hindu majority in India to exert cultural rather than political influence.

 

I don't generally watch Bollywood movies, because they are awful, low-budget abominations that pale in comparison to American cinema. But when I do make the mistake of watching an Indian movie, I notice that Christianity and Islam are normalized as legitimate components of Indian culture, when they are in fact foreign innovations. Likewise, Indian university professors grant legitimacy to Christianity in academia. Hindus in India must do what liberals in the United States did to Hollywood and academia, and take control of Indian culture so that we can portray Christianity as the foreign religion that it is, and Jesus as the Western European deity whom he is. I mean no offense to Western Europeans, who have done much good in the world. But Jesus is their burden, not ours, and he deserves to be portrayed as antithetical to Indian culture and values. Hinduism is a religion which is pro-family and which emphasizes the family structure. Ask yourself: is it pro-family to convert a child to Christianity and create division in the new convert's family? Of course it isn't, and this is the message that Indian Hindus should promulgate with regard to Christianity.

 

To put this all more succinctly, I would say that when I first deconverted, I felt that the institution of Hinduism bore a responsibility for collectively opposing Christianity, but now I feel that the onus lies with the individual Hindu and that it is his responsibility to oppose this horrible religion at a social level rather than a governmental one.

 

That said, I support anti-conversion laws.

[Joshpantera]

On 9/5/2019 at 12:09 AM, Karna said:

From the data I have seen, Christianity seems to be dying in Europe; perhaps attributable to rising levels of awareness, technology, and living standards. US is on its way there - at least the fundamentalist kind of Christianity. And when that happens, I feel the other kinds will follow the path of Europe.

 

I tend to agree with the above. 

[Joshpantera]

23 hours ago, Geezer said:

Christianity (fundamentalism) flourishes in places where ignorance & superstition is rampant. That makes third world countries easy targets for missionaries.

 

Hopefully as technology infiltrates those regions people will start to question what they're being told and challenge claims, look things up. No doubt as the US falls in behind Europe, the third world would fall in somewhere behind the US as far as that goes. But to be honest, I hope that struggling people in third world countries find their way to this forum, read what we have to say, and take notice of our debates and interactions with christian apologist's (vain speculators claiming to have the "TRVTH").