Conversion in any form is
Destruction of Culture 

Ed Viswanathan

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Conversion in any form is the destruction of the culture of a community and a nation. Conversion of Hindus in India to Islam and Christianity is the cruel destruction of the culture of India.

Christianity and Islam are the two great religions of this world. True that every one should have the right to convince some one else about his beliefs and ideas. True that there is nothing wrong for a Moslem or a Christian to tell a poor Hindu all about his beliefs. We need free flow of thoughts during this age of confusion and conflicts. Unluckily, missionaries inject lies about Hinduism when they preach about their religion. They falsify the facts and figures documented in the world history. They prey upon the “poor and sick” of India.

What a paradox! One is not even allowed to carry a copy of the Holy Bible in Saudi Arabia; One is not allowed to convert a Jew into any other religion is Israel; One is not allowed to convert a Muslim to any other religion in Malaysia, Pakistan, Jordan and even Turkey; but in India, every one is allowed to convert any Hindu into any other religion forcefully or other wise.

Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first elected Prime Minister (1963-1964) and President (1964-1978) said: “When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” Hope and pray that this will not happen to India.

Most of the conversions in India are rice converts, people converting to other religions so that they can have free food. Hindus do not have the bank balance Moslems and Christians have. As such nobody is discussing every aspect of Hinduism in a market place. It is a shame that claims of Christians and Moslems, about the superiority of their religions, are going unchallenged through out the world.

I fully agree, like all other religions and cultures in the world, Hinduism has the good, the bad and the ugly aspects in it. Caste system is a disgrace and it is a curse on Hinduism. It only brought misery to India. I am sick of the humiliation lower castes subjected in India. I am for first complete eradication of caste system and then for stoppage of forcible conversion all over India.

At the same time, Please remember that Slavery was part and parcel of the Holy Bible. There are many verses in the 66 books of the Holy Bible supporting SLAVERY and that was the reasons why, good, loving, caring, Church going Christians kept African Americans as SLAVES for hundreds of years. Slavery was sanctioned by Old Testament of the Holy Bible. Biblical verses such as Genesis 9:25-27, Leviticus 25:46, Exodus 21:1-6; Deut. 15:17; Exodus 21:7-9; support slavery. Moses did not condemn slavery. Jesus did not condemn slavery. In fact Jesus did not even address the issue at all, even though slavery was widespread in Palestine during Jesus’ time. Slavery is even mentioned in the New Testament of the Holy Bible..

During Civil War, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, said that ” Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation.” George Washington, the father of our country, owned slaves. The great Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence owned many slaves. Patrick Henry, who said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” was a slave owner. They owned slaves since they felt nothing wrong about it at all. I admire Christians and Christianity for eradicating slavery. Like Christians We should eradicate caste system, which is nothing but slavery..

If we study world history, we will see that the whole idea of conversion does not make any sense at all. History shows slow development in thinking process of men. Even though every religion claim that Almighty God wrote their scriptures, it was men who wrote all scriptures. Nobody has the monopoly on God or truth. Those things are universal.

1. First Man was a nomad and this nomad man settled on the banks of rivers of the world.

2. First thing man did after settling is agriculture. When man started cultivation, he had problems with nature.

3. So he worshiped all natural powers like Sun, Moon, rain, thunder, serpent etc as gods. Then finally man started worshiping one and only God instead of many. Hindus and Jews worshiped many gods.

4. When man settled on banks of rivers, for the proper functioning of society, he made many laws and regulations such as Manu Smriti in in Hinduism and Ten Commandments in Judaism.

5. So first man started cultures all over the world near river banks. Then out of these cultures came organized religions.

6. Hinduism and Judaism are two ancient cultures and all organized religions of the world today came from those two “mother cultures”.

7. Islam, Christianity, Bahaism etc came from Judaism. Holy Koran mentions the name of Jesus Christ many times in its chapters.

8. Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and to some extent Jainism came from Hinduism.

9. Everything that is coming from the west has its roots in Judaism like the Ethics and morality segments of Islam & Christianity.

10. Similarly, everything you see in the East has its origins in Hinduism. Believe it or not, even the rituals in Christianity that people in the east follow has close resemblance with Hindu rituals.

11. Sixty six books of the Holy Bible deals with the trails & tribulations of the Jews. You will only read about Jews and their history in the Holy Bible.

12. Similarly, in the Hindu scriptures one is studying about the culture of India, the culture of the people who gave up their nomad life style and settled on the banks of the rivers such as Ganges, Brahmaputra, Godavari, Indus etc.

13. Sixty six books of the Holy Bible does not mention about the prosperous Indian Hindu civilization nor about the Chinese civilization, since Holy Bible was written by Jews about Jews and for Jews. Holy Bible does not even mention about the American Continent. World came to know about its existence only after Columbus stumbled upon it on his way to India.

14. According to the Holy Bible, Jews are the chosen people of God. Jesus Christ was a Jew. Jesus did not intend to break away from Judaism. He came to make Judaism better by eradicating the evil things that have crept into it.

15. Today, all organized religions are amalgamations of many civilizations. No culture or religion can boast its tenets or concepts are unique nor it alone has the monopoly on God and Truth.

My point is that all cultures in the world are the result of “slowly developed thought process in the man” and organized religions came from those cultures. Nobody has the answer even for a question like “whether there is a God or not or are we speculating?”

History is stained with the blood of millions of human beings who fought in the name of their personal God and religion. Let us not repeat history. Let us study from history and learn the fact that all religions are belief systems and not scientifically or historically documented facts.

Nobody has monopoly on God or truth. God and truth are universal. Nobody can describe what God is! As such We have to and we should respect each other’s beliefs, since nobody can prove or disapprove any one’s belief.

– Ed Viswanathan
January 5, 2003