Re: Shocking!

[Npsingh123@aol.com]

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In a message dated 10/22/00 2:03:41 AM Central Daylight Time,
ramn@adelphia.net writes:

<< There is no question of any Indian being prevented from changing his or her
 religion of his or her volition. The question is does any one have the right
 to to indulge in fraudulent methods to convert the poor, the illiterate and
 the tribals and in the process destroy their cultural roots? That's
 everybody's business!

 Ram Narayanan >>

Conversions as you described in your initial post have two components, the
missionaries who offer the money and the people who chose to accept it to
convert. While you are concerned about the activities of the missionaries how
can you not talk about the motivation of the people who accept the
inducements.

It is quite possible that the poor of India have nothing more to sell than
their cultural roots and their decision to convert is purely an economic one.
 The way to stop conversions is then to work for improving the material
condition of the poor rather than to interfere with their basic freedoms.

Incidentally, the motivation to convert to Christianity for the the poor and
illetrate amongst the Hindus is the same as the motivation among the better
off Hindus to abandon their cultural and family roots and settle in Christian
beef eating countries. If  the well educated Hindus here in the West can eat
at  McDonalds then why is it more shocking that the poor pray at a church
back home.

We should be more shocked by the poverty and wretchedness of our daily lives
( I will spare everyone the graphic descriptions) than by anything else.


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