Freedom Bulwark | Evil triumphs when good people do nothing

Absolutely no doubt that the Pope would look upon a Hindu as yourself as an unbeliever fit to be converted albeit in a more benign way compared to the grand Mufti of SA for whom you would definitely be Najas material, a kafir and a mushrik to boot.

The Pope is on the lookout for poor tribals as conversion candiadtes. Hindus like me would be better taken care of by the evangelical-naxal armies of Christ.
Ironically, it's Hindus like me who defend so called "secular" bible thumping Christians like you when the Pope gets possed by the holy spirit

Hindus denounce Pope for being offensive to atheists
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/09/17/hindusdenounce-pope-for-being-offensive-toatheists.html

On this count let me assure you that the pope or the mufti would not differentiate between a Hindu like yourself and a secular like me. In fact profession of secularism in SA is punishable with death, whereas profession of non Islamic religions is generally tolerated if the non Muslim takes care to keep himself invisible.

It's not been a long time when atheists were put to death in christian world too.It's only in Hinduism that we see charvaks(atheists) living happily along with the theists and with the full liberty of mocking the theistic rituals and philosophy.

So thank your stars , that you live in a  country where the majority religion inherently is secular and allows you to whole heartedly call it communal .

Don’t know about you but a secular like me has no desire or need to go to a religious place of any kind.

It;s not about you alone silly! we are talking in general terms ..you are great but that's a digression :)


So if they decide I’m not eligible to go into Mecca or Medina it’s no problem with me. I’d rather be at the receiving end of apartheid than indulge in apartheid myself.

You don't get it ..do you? is Mecca or Medina a Mosque or a city? You don't have to tell me rights of passage to a place of worship rests with religion itself.

If the other religions impose a similar ban on Islam , all muslims will end in Saudi arabia. India has got 100s of cities where they have their holy temples..does this imply that non-hindus must be thrown out of the CITIES where these temples are

So while you could go in and have your darshan, a secular like me would have to take  blessings from the outside if I cared for them.

as i said , a temple is a place of worship , a city is not. If i ban your entry in benaras , then you would have a point .

Following the example of these temples the Mangueshi temple in Goa, that evangelical hotbed, has very recently banned entry of foreigners citing the objectionable dresses they wear. 

Till such time that Churches allow  bikini sunday masses , is it too much to ask for these guys to enter temples in a proper dress?

or is your Christian self offended at the thought of a lowly pagan place of worship demanding as much respect as a church?

Check this out too. If you can appreciate the rationale behind keeping non Hindus out of these temples, no reason why you would deny the Muslims their rational of keeping non Muslims out.

I never objected to muslims keeping non0muslims away from mosques. I am objecting to state banning the entry of non-muslims in it's cities!

After all at the very basic levels the human mind works in almost similar fashion i.e. the national, social and religious ego all have to be kept happy.

Till the day all nations give up the the idea , it would be foolish for a single nation to drop the idea of nationhood or national pride. Or you want India to do a  Tibet ?

And incidentally non Muslims don’t have to go to these places to find out they aren’t welcome; this is conveyed to you early on.

So you are game if i ban Chritians from all holy cities of India. You are a stickler for accurate information ..right? doesn't matter if it is bigoted or irrational

As for the medieval happenings, such as the Jizya tax, I like to keep in them in the medieval ages, like for instance Martanda Verma the “Padhmanabha Dasa” used to collect a breast tax from lower caste women which permitted them to suckle their kids. This amongst various other taxes imposed upon lower caste people such as marriage taxes, birth taxes and death taxes. All these taxes contributed towards the Rs. 5 trillion treasures recently uncovered in the padhmanabhaswamy temple.

It was not Padmanabha Dasa but his 8 ministers who levied  such atrocious taxes.They even tried to kill him and take hold of the empire.But lets not forget that maximum amount of wealth  was gathered from the various conquests of padmanabha dasa.and he used the wealth not for his personal needs but for the state. He brought an agricultural revolution, he made his army strong so that the invading ghazis could not loot the wealth of the state.

as for the emotion spin around the taxes , let me give you another story 1000 years from now. Currently we pay taxes on every item we purchase cereals, food grains, millk name it  and there's a tax. Now 1000 years from now it would easy to say that the Christian headed government of India was so cruel that no child could get milk without paying a tax or no man could have a morsel of read until the tax for it was paid for.

He of course drew the legality of his actions from the canon of the Manu Smriti, that spelt out in no uncertain terms how lower caste people ought to be treated.

Now you concoct your own story.give me the evidence for this. Do you know that there was a tax if any spat on the roads? there was a penalty on a vendor if his customers littered around his stall?

This is but one example of the consequences of a caste based social structure spanning several centuries.

hmm.. now you mean to say that the other castes lived a tax free life. to your disappointment, the taxes on the higher castes were the highest.

So if you forgive Martanda Verma for collecting money from his defenseless lower caste subjects, why can’t you forgive Aurangzeb, for collection protection money from his defenseless Hindu subjects?

Because Martanda Varma used the wealth for the betterment of the subjects whom he taxed which included all castes.Travencore was the most prosperous city of its time.MV never used the money for himself but lived an austere life and dedicated all the money to Lord Padmanabha , acting just as a trustee of the states wealth..the state itself was dedicated to lord Padmanabha.

Now lets look at aurangzeb. He killed, tortured and levied heavy taxes on Hindus.he destroyed their temples and raised mosques atop these structures.You can;lt compoare this rascal with MV.

A secular like me would examine the moot point here, the defenseless being rolled over by the powerful citing religious sanction. Essentially your argument is, as long as a Hindu exploits a Hindu, it’s really ok. It’s not ok if a non Hindu exploits a Hindu.

You miss the point once again. The hindu king did not appropriate the tax to himself.He funded development activities for his state and ensured that it was the best state to live in India. History attests this fact.

You would find this kind of reasoning abundant in the neighboring country across the border. Incidentally the imposition of the Jizya by Aurangezeb spelt the death knell of the Mughal Empire, since practically speaking, bigotry doesn’t really pay, no matter what form or color that bigotry takes, exactly as the canon of Manu,that one text that allowed the upper caste to consider themselves as greater hindus than others, lies discarded and unattended to in contemporary India.

Bigotry does pay in the short term. There are 3 billion Chrustians and 1.5 billion Muslims thriving on the bigited idea that the others are doomed to hell.

Manu smriti is just one of the 18 smritis.you don;t even know what a smriti means - it's scope is limited to a short span of time and it is not the final word. So the problem was not in manu smriti but following it even after its span had ended. It got distorted in such a fashion that varna sytem was done way with and jati started being treated as a varna..and thus the despicale birth based caste system was born.In contemporary India, the jati system has been immortalised by bringing in the birth based reservation system ..thousand years from now the brahmins would become dalits and lament how the jobs were reserved for a the upper castes(at that time the dalits wopuld be called upper castes ..right?) ..the idioyt govt believes in re-birth more than the hindus.

To be absolutely fair to the gulf states there are approximately 3 – 4 million Indians, very many of them Hindus like yourself who work in the non secular countries of the gulf, many of them including SA are tax free (no pun intended) and have made good money for themselves and successive Indian Governments keep diplomatic relations with all of them. Give the credit where it’s due, and see the goodness wherever you can, I always say.

what you always say is a reminder that it;s probaly something you should do yourself befire preaching others. case in point is your denigration of everything hindu at the word go ! let me see some respect from your side towrds Hindusim before i  concede to what you always say ..but never seem to do !

The gulf is the worst place to work. It's money that makes a poor indian migrate to these countries and offer his slaveship to the sheikhs. His passport is confiscated. his wife is raped and if he complains , he is put in jail as an illegal immigrant and dies there!

The gulf only attracts poor people from india for whom money is far bigger than self prode or freedom.I don;t mock their decision because life can be a horrible teacher. But resoect the gulf you say ..i say never!

One thing I would appreciate them for and you would castigate them for, is that they are upfront about the supremacy of Islam in their neighborhood. They make no pretensions about observing secularism

should i read that as a message that the Hindus become as (in)tolerant as these guys.That we lack the upfrontness to ask you to buzz off?

what kind of an argument is that? If a religion deems itself superior than others then it must be banned in all secular countries because the idea of secularism is that all religions are equal.

you don't like the idea because christianity suffers from the same disease .It can't co-exist with secularism .that's your weak point pastor , why wont you support the other supremacist now ..notty notty.

Argue with their Islam and find yourself headless or imprisoned or booted out. No two ways about it, accept it or leave it. I’m not here to change the world or make it conform to my ideals of secular behavior.

hmm.. you are out there to change this world's perspective on hinduism .come on pastor , drop it..i know what a christian secularist means - its an oxymoron !

I would however be a little hesitant to be a Muslim in say, Halol, because, while on the face of it India is a secular country, I wouldn’t know when the rage of the majority demands my life as tax, if some of my co-religionists created some mischief elsewhere, and the state withdrew its protection from over my head.

Yes of course. The fact that a muslim will chop your head in an Islamic state is not frightening when compared to the mere fear of being killed by hindus ..right?

Wake up dear ..stop dreaming ..try entering a muslim ghetto in UP or a christian ghetto in north east and you would thank Jesus that there are Hindus still around in this planet.

Every religion that was persecuted in the world has found refuge in Hindu India.I don't need to learn from aggressive proselytizers how to act secular.

Again instances of the majority rolling over the minority citing religious sanctions. Do you really expect me to behave like them by giving such an example??

You need to study the history of riots in India. in almost all the cases the riots are started by minorities. Now turn to riots in other countries where the majority religion is an abrahmic religion, there all the riots are initiated by majority communities.

so your "majority madness" argument does not apply to india.here if you behave as the majority , chances are 99% of the times you would be behaving in secular fashion only.

Regarding the second part lets first see what Manu has to say about the killing of non Muslims at the hands of Muslims, what his preference might be. Maybe you could ask him his views on this subject. As for me I’d rather be dead for the cause for secularism, too few martyrs for the cause of secularism nowadays.

I understand your plight pastor. who better to talk about secularism than a Christian or a Maulvi in a country filled with Pagan hindus who need to learn a thing or two from these abrahmic faiths about secularism.

wishing your church all the best