Re: [nukkad] Imam Bukhari's predecessor

["Mahesh chandra gupta" <>]

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On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 zaverirm sent the following:

The Christian Conquest of India (excerpts) - By Bishop James 
Thoburn


Bishop James M. Thoburn (1836-1922) wrote in his book, The 
Christian
Conquest of India in 1906, about the Millions Waiting to be 
converted
in the British Empire:

  The word should be passed all along the
line
that India is to be won for Christ, and that the greatest 
movement
ever attempted in the history of Christianity is now at hand. 
Nothing
in all modern history, nothing since the day of Pentecost, has 
been
equal to the present opportunity.
======================================================================

A century later, Christians number 2% of Indian population. This 
does not mean there is anything wrong with Christianity as a 
religion. But this does mean two things:

1. The religions by the Book [Islam, Christianity, Judaism] might 
have prospered when people were illiterate, printing was 
unknown/almost unknown and other means of communication, except by 
word of mouth had not been developed. Today, there is freedom of 
speech and thought and learning and people have books, newspapers, 
radio, TV, internet, audio-video tapes, films etc. to learn from. 
Anybody who thinks he can rule the minds of masses by spreading 
the message of the book is living in a fools' paradise. True, the 
media today constitute a strong hypnotising force. But that needs 
effective use of modern media, not the sermons of mullahs and 
missionaries. What can they achieve in the absence of icons that 
can be spread by the modern media? Allah and the Prophet can be 
picturised only on pain of blasphemy charge. The Bible has been 
picturised but still there is no image of god. We are supposed to 
worship the Father, but all we have to be content with is seeing 
the Son. The Father is for ever out of sight, though he is 
supposed to be always in mind. The old conundrum operates: out of 
sight, out of mind. On the other hand, Hinduism does not need a 
Son or Prophet to reveal god to humans. The god reveals himself 
directly, not in a special, exclusive form, but in an all 
pervading manner, present and visible in every nook and corner, 
every particle or sub-particle or photon and energy-wave. Such a 
god is never in danger of extinction, nor in need of preservation. 
In Hinduism, god created man; rather, god is in man, as in 
everything else. In Islam and Christianity, though they state god 
created man, in reality, it is the Book religions that have 
created god. They think god is their creation, so they must 
protect, preserve and spread their creation. The problem with them 
is not that they are different from other religions. The problem 
is that they do not recognize the right of other religions to 
exist. The essential problem is not between Hinduism and Islam. 
The toles of Christians and muslims vis-a-vis Hinduism would have 
been reversed if Christians were 18% and muslims 2% against 80% 
Hindus. The aggressive tones of Christianity are not unknown to 
serious students of history. Bishop James Thoburn's write up is 
but a small reminder of this. The history of spread of 
christianity by conquistadors [the spanish whose aim was to 
achieve conquest of christianity over the new world's original 
inhabitants] is written in blood, murder, rape and burning [of 
people and libraries]. Even the slavery prevalent in US till a few 
decades ago was essentially a subjugation of the non-christian to 
christians. Would anybody have thought of making slaves out of the 
African natives and treating them worse than animals if they had 
been christians? That they became christians after generations of 
slavery is another matter. In which religion and society has caste 
not existed? People on this list talk about caste in Hindu India. 
What about the castes in islam [bohras, meos, khojas, shias, 
sunnis, ahmadias etc.] and christianity [catholics, protestants, 
anglo-indians, black christians etc.]. A close friend of mine, 
highly educated, told me a fortnight ago about the problem he is 
facing in finding match for his daughter, a doctor in UK at 
present. He is catholic. Highly educated matches are difficult to 
come by among catholics. He can't dream of getting the daughter 
married to a protestant. According to him, it is better to get a 
catholic married to a muslim or Hindu than to a protestant!

2. There must be something that has enabled Hinduism to be 
followed by a billion plus people in the world, though they have 
never tried to convert others to Hinduism, in the face of attempts 
by others to convert them away from Hinduism. Let others on the 
list vent about what is that something.

MC Gupta



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