21. Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You Free
21. Know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free
�������� The struggle against Islamic aggression
cannot be won without taking issue with the basic doctrines of Islam, i.e.
explaining to the Muslims that they have no reason to stay with the refuted
dogmas of Islam.� The same is true for
Christianity.� The Sangh Parivar has
made much ado about the Christian demand for reservations for "Christian
Dalits", and about continuing Christian proselytization in tribal
areas.� It is, however, impossible to
sustain this objection against the strategies of evangelization as long as
Christianity is accepted as a valid religion qualified to enjoy the Hindus' sarva-dharma-samabhava.� Why in the world should Indian citizens not
embrace Christianity if it is true, at least "equally true" with
Hinduism?� Especially now that
Christianity in India has largely "indianized" itself in its cultural
expressions (e.g. by giving Hindu first names to their children), the Sangh
should not object to conversions to Christianity.��
�������� Being a Christian implies accepting a creed,
i.e. an unprovable truth claim.� The
Christian denominations differ on some points of detail, but crucial to any
criterion for being a Christian is the acceptance of the following item of
belief: Jesus was the Christ/Messiah and saved mankind from original sin
through his death and resurrection.�
To my knowledge, all denominations with active missions in India also
teach that Jesus Christ was God's only-begotten son, both human and divine
in nature.� However,
modern Bible scholarship, much of it carried out by Christians, has
conclusively refuted all the Christian fairy-tales about Jesus.� For
example:
�������� * Contrary to his own self-image, Jesus
was not the messiah in the original sense of the term, i.e. a scion of King
David's clan who restores the Davidic kingdom.�
He never scored any political or military victory for his country, and
by the end of his career, Israel was still under foreign domination.� For all we know, Jesus did not even belong
to the House of David; if he did, it is a mystery why the evangelists had to
indulge in such demonstrably false and contradictory stories about Jesus'
genealogy and birth.
�������� * Jesus was not executed by the Jews
but by the Romans because of his entirely hollow but strictly speaking
seditious claim that he was the "messiah", i.e. the new king of the
Jews, intrinsically a challenge to Roman rule in his country (but not an act of
blasphemy liable to the death sentence under Jewish law, as wrongly alleged in
the Gospel).� The Gospel version that
the Jews wanted him dead (when in fact they merely held him in contempt as a
useless and self-centred eccentric) was invented when the Christians tried to
be on the winning side during the Roman crackdown on the Jewish revolt of ca.
70 AD.� This move set the trend of two
millennia of Church opportunism and it off-hand initiated Christian
antisemitism with its numerous pogroms culminating in the Holocaust.
�������� * Jesus was not the messiah in the
Christian-theological sense, i.e. the redeemer of mankind from original sin and
from its punishments (as per Genesis), viz. mortality, the need to work,
and painful childbirth.� Anyone can see
that people have gone on sinning, giving birth in agony, eating the fruit of
their labour in the sweat of their brows, and dying; just like they did before
Jesus.
�������� * Jesus was not resurrected, for if he
had really "conquered death", he would still be with us.� The apostles tried to get around this simple
logic by inventing his direct ascension to heaven, an imaginary event totally
incoherent with the whole narrative, rendered necessary only by the fact that
Jesus proved mortal like the rest of us.�
Fact is that the stories about the resurrection in the Gospels are full
of contradictions and absurdities, like most of the theologically crucial
episodes.
�������� * Jesus was not God's only-begotten
son, and for all his megalomania, he never even claimed to be that.� The whole notion is a mix-up of the worst in
Hebrew monotheism (exclusivism) and Greek paganism (idolizing of human beings
as divine), and is absurd from the viewpoint of both these traditions in their
pure forms.� Like the crucifixion, it
was "a scandal to Jews, a nonsense to Greeks", and an invention of
the Church Fathers.
�������� * Jesus was not even a prophet, in the sense
of being able to predict the future.�
Like his follower Paul, he predicted the impending end of the world
(even within the lifetime of his listeners),-- surely a failed prophecy.�
�������� * Jesus' ethics were mostly not his, but
included classical Jewish lore ("love thy neighbour") and general
proverbs ("to him who hath, shall be given").� Some of "his" words were put into
his mouth retrospectively by the evangelists, e.g. "Give unto Caesar what
is Caesar's", a diplomatic kowtow to the Romans.� The words which he really spoke himself are either not original
or not commendable.� Thus, the humane
doctrine of the relativity of the Law (i.e. that the need to save a human life
can overrule a commandment), always presented as a revolutionary innovation,
was taught by the very Pharisees against whom Jesus is reported to have
preached this doctrine.� As against the
Pharisees' balanced view of the Law, Jesus vacillated between a pseudo-noble
but inhuman hyper-adherence to the law ("even a man who mentally lusts
after a woman is guilty of adultery") and a nihilistic dismissal of the
Law and even of sheer common sense as having become irrelevant in view of the
impending Doomsday ("don't plan for the morrow", like the lilies in
the field).� Jesus' original
contribution lies mostly in the least commendable injunctions, e.g. in his very
un-Jewish anti-family and anti-sexuality statements, in the commandment of
surrender to the aggressor ("when slapped, turn the other cheek"),
and in the morbid Sermon on the Mount ("the meek shall inherit the
earth"), which teaches the weak to exult in their weakness instead of
exhorting them to become strong.
�������� This was merely a brief survey of the
case against Christianity, but Hindutva activists who are serious about
countering Christian subversion ought to familiarize themselves more throughly
with these findings.� Similarly, the
case against Islam as marshalled in a number of quality books is required
reading for anyone who prefers India not to become an Islamic state.� Hindus
may rightly feel more drawn to critiques of Christianity and Islam from a
spiritual viewpoint, as those by Ram Swarup, than to purely rationalistic
critiques; yet, I feel that taking cognizance of the latter's very thorough and
comprehensive analysis of these religions would certainly be worth the
effort.� After properly digesting the
hard scholarly facts, they may add something which most scholars may be unaware
of, and which Hinduism offers: a comprehensive vision which allows for a meaningful
type of ritual and spiritual practice to continue after the creedal religions
have been discarded.
�������� If the Sangh is serious about saving
Hinduism, it should make sure that from now on, no one can get away with pious
nonsense like Jesus' Resurrection or Quranic Revelation.� Every time a wily secularist or sentimental
Ramakrishnaist stands up to praise Jesus or Mohammed, every time an Indian
President or Minister opens a Christian or Islamic function with the injunction
that "we should all put Jesus' (c.q. Mohammed's) message of peace and
tolerance into practice", Hindus should push the facts under his nose.