Hindu Prayer Interrupted in US Senate

[Turbo]

You have hit the nail on the head with that one Balder. I really liked your posts, you don't preach hatred.

I am new here, I read you guys posts and I am amazed by the in depth knowledge of most of the people here.
But I did observe there are certain people who are here just to argue, not to learn. If you keep your mind so closed how can you expect to learn anything?

Why does anyone has to protect their God? Isn't God Almighty, All Powerful being? Can't he/she/it protect himself/herself/itself?

We Hindu's don't come to USA to convert Christians and make them Hindus then why does Christians and Islamists have to do that in our country?

Its about being tolerant to others thoughts. It's only insecure people who tend to oppress.

I don't think this thing that happened one year back was a good thing.

Regards
KB

Why are you so intolerant to our thoughts that we ought to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Maybe you should open your mind.

 

[kbagra]

This has to do with a difference in religious teachings. After all, according to Hindu beliefs, we've done something in a past life to deserve our unenlightened status.

Where is it said that Christians are unenlightened? Hinduism does not preach that it is the only religion and only Hindus are enlightened. If you go deep into Hinduism and leave all the rituals and external BS aside you will see it is a path to reach God and it is not the only path. In fact I have read Hindu books (An autobiography of an Yogi, check it out) that not only mentions Jesus Christ but glorifies him too.

Again, it comes to a difference in beliefs. You guys think you'll just be reincarnated after you die. We believe you'll spent eternity seperated from God, which is as bad as it can possibly get, and we don't want that for you.

I can see what you are saying and what Christians think when they try to convert others. How do you know that yours is the only way? How do you know that we will spent eternity separated from God? You know because you have faith and you strongly believe in your faith.
Now let me ask you this, what makes your belief stronger then my belief? If Christians believe in something then Hindus believe in something too.
If your religion says you need to convert people then I guess you have to do that. But do you really do whatever your religion tells you to? I don't and I don't think many people do that.

Do we just follow religion or think why it was told that way?

I don't see anything particularly oppressive about spreading the Gospel. Your average Christian missionary is more likely to be armed with a walking stick than a gun. Now Muslims are a different case. They actually do believe in spreading their religion by the sword.

I was not talking about spreading the Gospel. Christians are mostly nice and very polite when they are spreading the gospel. I know from my personal experience. I got many books from Christian missionaries when I was a kid and I read all of them. Yes I have read Bible (Old testament and New both) and I took the good morals and values from it and applied to my life but I had no reason to become a Christian.
What I was talking about was the way Prayers were disrupted in the senate. That is oppression.

 

[kbagra]

Why are you so intolerant to our thoughts that we ought to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Maybe you should open your mind.

I am not intolerant to any religion as such. I am not intolerant to Jesus Christ. I have said it in the previous post that I have read Bible and I pray to Jesus Christ too (yes I do, for me he is son of God and someone to be glorified) but I am a Hindu and I will remain one.
What I don't understand is the desire to "force" people into your religion.
We may have some miscommunication here. I have no problems if you want to make others aware of your beliefs and faiths, that is all right, as long as you don't persuade them to convert. The decision should be left to the person.
As I said before most of the missionaries are good but not all. I hate the zealots who are ready to use any means to convert people.
India has huge population of Christians and we all live together because we really don't care which God you worship, we just care if you are a good person or a bad person. I can not speak for all Hindus/Indians but I speak for the ones I know.

Let me ask you one thing Turbo, I have an open mind and that's why I have read almost all spiritual books and I have adopted good practices from them (praying to god at personal level, praying before food, treating God as your saviour, teachings in bibles, the list is long) but have you read Bhagavad Gita? How open are you to others thoughts?

 

[Turbo]

I am not intolerant to any religion as such.

Yes, you are. You are intolerant of evangelical Christianity. I'll explain below...

I am not intolerant to Jesus Christ. I have said it in the previous post that I have read Bible and I pray to Jesus Christ too (yes I do, for me he is son of God and someone to be glorified) but I am a Hindu and I will remain one.

Did you miss the countless passages in the Bible where God expresses that He is the only God that actually exists, that all other "gods" are false (idols), and that worshipping other gods makes Him very angry?

And did you miss where Jesus claimed no one comes to the Father but by Him?

You cannot love God but remain a Hindu any more than a woman can love her husband but sleep with a different man every night.

What I don't understand is the desire to "force" people into your religion.

You put force in quotes, but who has said it? What Christian desires to "force" people to accept Christ as Lord and Saviour? It can't even be done.

We may have some miscommunication here. I have no problems if you want to make others aware of your beliefs and faiths, that is all right, as long as you don't persuade them to convert.

Persuading someone is not forcing. Convincing someone of the truth though presenting evidence and sound reason, for example, is not the same as putting a gun to someone's head and telling them to recite a scripted prayer. (The latter would not force anyone to become a Christian, by the way, because Christianity isn't about what a person disingenuously says, whether by coercion or any other means, but it's about what a person believes in his heart.)

Why do you have a problem with Christians who know that the God of the Bible is the only true and living God and that Christ rose from the dead trying to convince others that these things are true? Would you rather we keep it a secret so that you die in your sins and are separated from God for eternity just so that we don't offend your sensibilities? Would that be loving?

If you asleep in your home and your house was on fire sleeping in a burning building, and your neighbor woke you up to warn you, would you complain that he disturbed your slumber?

The decision should be left to the person.

It is. It always is. That's unavoidable. But what's wrong with presenting the evidence and explaining the consequences of the decision? What's wrong with helping a person make an informed decision?

As I said before most of the missionaries are good but not all. I hate the zealots who are ready to use any means to convert people.

India has huge population of Christians and we all live together because we really don't care which God you worship, we just care if you are a good person or a bad person. I can not speak for all Hindus/Indians but I speak for the ones I know.

Being a "good person" will not save you, because everyone has sinned and is therefore unworthy of God. But God sent His Son to die to atone for our sins, and He rose from the dead on the third day. Our salvation does not depend on how good we behave (because we could never behave perfectly) but on whether we humbly accept the free gift of grace offered through Christ's shed blood.

This is the gospel. We are instructed by God to preach it and to give a defense for our beliefs. Who are you to demand that we don't? proselytize

Don't you realize that you're trying to push your belief that it's wrong to push your beliefs on others on us. And while claiming to oppose religious intolerance, you are being intolerant of our religion. Proselytizing is an important aspect of our religion and you are telling us that we shouldn't proselytize. You're being hypocritical.

Let me ask you one thing Turbo, I have an open mind and that's why I have read almost all spiritual books and I have adopted good practices from them (praying to god at personal level, praying before food, treating God as your saviour, teachings in bibles, the list is long)

By what standard do you judge which practices are good and which are not?

Apparently you reject God's claims that other gods do not exist, His admonitions against worshipping other gods, and Christ's teachings that salvation is through Him alone. Correct?

but have you read Bhagavad Gita? How open are you to others thoughts?

I was not raised as a Christian and entered adulthood as an agnostic evolutionist. But I was open minded enough to consider the evidence (which I was unaware of growing up) that molecules-to-man evolution is impossible and that the Bible's account of Creation and the Flood are plausible. That opened my mind to the possibility that the Bible as a whole is true and that Christ actually rose from the dead, and after investigating that evidence I became a Christian. No one forced me, but I was persuaded by the evidence and chose to humble myself before God.

I am open minded, but I am not open to every idea. I am not open to the notion that the moon is made out of cheese, for instance. And I am not open to the idea of worshipping what I already know for a fact are false gods.

 

[kbagra]

Dear Turbo,

First of all thanks for the detailed reply. It must have taken you considerable amount of time and that shows you care.
You are a nice person and after a lot of thought (I could not think of anything else ever since I read your reply) I could see where you are coming from and why you think what you think. I can understand that. When I first read your post I had the knee-jerk reaction of trashing you word for word but more I thought more I understood who you are and I decided against that.

I am sorry but my beliefs are different from your beliefs.

Religion is a path to God. The difference between you and me is that you believe there is only one path, your path, whereas I believe there are multiple paths including your path and my path.

After reading your post I have confirmed my belief that people can never live together, because what you want from others is what they want from you, to convert to a religion.

Peace
KB

 

[WizardofOz]

the point is, this country allows for freedom of religion and has a representative government. If many of the constituents are Jewish and Hindu and Muslim, etc, why shouldn't their forms of prayer be represented as well? Why discriminate against them and give preference only to Christians?

:thumb: This is really what it all comes down to.

Individual members of the senate are there, not to represent their own personal ideals, but to represent the will of the people whom they are employed by.

Does anyone have any justification as to why these hecklers should not have been arrested?

What do you think the Sergeant at Arms is paid to do exactly?