Interesting facts about religion

Interesting facts about religion

.

 CHRISTIANITY:

One Christ, One Bible, One Religion
BUT the Latin Catholic will not enter Syrian Catholic Church.
These two will not enter Marthoma Church.
These three will not enter Pentecost Church.
These four will not enter Salvation Army Church.
These five will not enter Seventh Day Adventist Church.
These six will not enter Orthodox Church.
These seven will not enter Jacobite church.
Like this there are 146 castes in Kerala alone, each will not go to the other's church to pray...!
So much for One Christ, One Bible, One Jehova.....
What a unity!

 ISLAM:

One Allah, One Quran, One Nabi....!
AND ALL MUSLIMS CALL THEMSELVES BROTHERS!
BUT, Shia and Sunni cannot see eye to eye and kill each other anywhere and everywhere.
The Shia will not go to Sunni Mosque.
These two will not go to Ahamadiya Mosque.
These three will not go to Sufi Mosque.
These four will not go to Mujahiddin mosque...
There are 13 castes in Muslims and these brothers can't share their places of worship.
The brothers have been killing/bombing/conquering/murdering/raping each other in the name of Islam for the last 1500 years, since the day Islam existed...!
They have never been or never will be at peace with Jews or Christians in the name of religion, yet all 3 pray to the same God of Abraham.
The American attack on the Muslim land of Iraq and Afghanistan is fully supported by all the Muslim countries around them!
One Allah, One Quran, One Nebi....!
Great unity!
All Muslims are not Terrorists, but all Terrorists are Muslims and 60% of all victims of Muslim terrorism are Muslims.

THEY ARE KILLING THEMSELVES IN THE NAME OF RELIGION.

 HINDUISM:

1,280 Religious Books, 10,000 Commentaries, more than one lakh sub-commentaries for these foundation books,
330 million gods, variety of Aacharyas, thousands of Rishies, hundreds of languages... still everyone goes to  the SAME TEMPLE ...
Hindus never quarreled each other for the last ten thousand years in The name of religion.
Only Politicians had tried to divide and rule.

 BUDDHISM:

Buddhism is the world's first religion
Fourth-largest religion behind Christianity, Islam and Hinduism
Buddhism is both a religion and philosophy largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama
Three concepts, Karma, Rebirth, Samsara. They classify themselves as Theravada or Mahayana
Both accept the Buddha as their teacher. Both accept the Middle way, Dependent origination,

Four Noble Truths, Noble Eightfold Path and Three marks of existence
Both accept that members of the laity and of the sangha can pursue the path toward enlightenment (Bodhi)
Both consider Buddha hood to be the highest attainment
They do not believe that this world is created and ruled by a God
They consider that the purpose of life is to develop compassion for all living beings without discrimination and to work for their good, happiness and peace and to develop wisdom leading to the realization of the Ultimate Truth

 The moral is:

KEEP RELIGION OUT OF POLITICS AND POLITICS OUT OF RELIGION

The killing will stop And there will be peace on earth.

 VERY INTERESTING INFORMATIONS, NEED TO READ HOW THE WORLD IS ?

When Germany is Christian, is India Hindu?

By Maria Wirth

May 11, 2013

(Denying One’s Own Roots)

 

Though I live in India since long, there are still some points that I find hard to understand -  for example why many educated Indians become agitated when India is considered as a Hindu country. The majority of Indians are Hindus. India is special because of its ancient Hindu tradition. Westerners are drawn to India because of it. Why then is there this resistance by many Indians to acknowledge the Hindu roots of their country?

 

This attitude is strange for two reasons. First, those educated Indians seem to have a problem only with ‘Hindu’ India, but not with ‘Muslim’ or ‘Christian’ countries. In Germany for example, only 59 percent of the population are registered with the two big Christian Churches (Protestant and Catholic), however, the country is bracketed under ‘Christian countries’. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, stressed recently the Christian roots of Germany and urged the population ‘to go back to Christian values’. In 2012, she postponed her trip to the G-8 summit for a day to address the German Catholic Day. Two major political parties carry ‘Christian’ in their name, including Angela Merkel’s ruling party.

 

Germans are not agitated that Germany is called a Christian country, though I actually would understand if they were. After all, the history of the Church is appalling. The so called success story of Christianity depended greatly on tyranny.  “Convert or die”, were the options given not only to the indigenous population in America some five hundred years ago. In Germany, too, 1200 years ago, the emperor Karl the Great ordered the death sentence for refusal of baptism in his newly conquered realms. It provoked his advisor Alkuin to comment: ‘One can force them to baptism, but how to force them to believe?’

 

Those times, when one’s life was in danger if one dissented with the dogmas of the Church, are thankfully over. And nowadays many in the west do dissent and leave the Church in a steady stream - partly because they are disgusted with the less than holy behavior of Church officials and partly because they can’t believe in the dogmas, for example that ‘Jesus is the only way’ and that God sends all those who don’t accept this to hell.

 

And here comes the second reason why the resistance to associate India with Hinduism by Indians is difficult to understand. Hinduism is in a different category from the Abrahamic religions. Its history, compared to Christianity and Islam was undoubtedly the least violent as it spread in ancient times by convincing arguments and not by force. It is not a belief system that demands blind belief in dogmas and the suspension of one’s intelligence. On the contrary, Hinduism encourages using one’s intelligence to the hilt. It is an enquiry into truth, based on a refined (methods are given) character and intellect. It comprises a huge body of ancient literature, not only regarding Dharma and philosophy, but also regarding music, architecture, dance, science, astronomy, economics, politics, etc.

 

If Germany or any other western country had this kind of literary treasure, it would be so proud and highlight its greatness on every occasion. When I discovered for example the Upanishads,  I was stunned. Here was expressed in clear terms what I intuitively had felt to be true, but could not have expressed clearly. Brahman is not partial; it is the invisible, indivisible essence in everything. Everyone gets again and again a chance to discover the ultimate truth and is free to choose his way back to it. Helpful hints are given but not imposed.

 

In my early days in India, I thought that every Indian knew and valued his tradition. Slowly I realized that I was wrong. The British colonial masters had been successful in not only weaning away many of the elite from their ancient tradition but even making them despise it. It helped that the ‘educated’ class could no longer read the original Sanskrit texts and believed what the British told them. This lack of knowledge and the brainwashing by the British education may be the reason why many ‘modern’ Indians are against anything ‘Hindu’. They don’t realize the difference between western religions that have to be believed (or at least professed) blindly, and which discourage if not forbid their adherents to think on their own and the multi-layered Hindu Dharma which gives freedom and encourages using one’s intelligence.

 

Many of the educated class do not realize that on one hand, westerners, especially those who dream to impose their own religion on this vast country, will applaud them for denigrating Hindu Dharma, because this helps western universalism to spread in India. On the other hand, many westerners, including Church people, very well know the value and surreptitiously appropriate insights from the vast Indian knowledge system, drop the original source and present it either as their own or make it look as if these insights had been known in the west.

 

Rajiv Malhotra of Infinity Foundation has done painstaking research in this field and has documented many cases of “digestion” of Dharma civilization into western universalism. He chose the term digestion, as it implies that that which is being digested (a deer for example) is in the end no longer there, whereas the ‘digester’ (a tiger) becomes stronger. Similarly, Hindu civilization is gradually being depleted of its valuable, exclusive assets and what is left is called inferior.

 

If only missionaries denigrated Hindu Dharma, it would not be so bad, as they clearly have an agenda which discerning Indians would detect. But sadly, Indians with Hindu names assist them because they wrongly believe that Hinduism is inferior to western religions. They belittle everything Hindu instead of getting thorough knowledge. As a rule, they know little about their tradition except what the British told them, i.e. that the major features are caste system and idol worship. They don’t realize that India would gain, not lose, if it solidly backed its profound and all inclusive Hindu tradition. The Dalai Lama said some time ago that already as a youth in Lhasa, he had been deeply impressed by the richness of Indian thought. “India has great potential to help the world,” he added. 

When will the westernized Indian elite realize this truth?