Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee

[groovedaddy]

BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.

They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.

“ ‘Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,’ ” Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. “ ‘Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.’ ”

India, the world’s most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.

[dmallind]

1. Terrible behavior - but note

This was behavior by a mob, not behavior by teh Indian government or by law. As certain Oklahoma basketball parents among many others can tell you, this mob hatred of those with minority religious opinions is not limited to India or to Hindus. It is wrong and vicious done in the name of any religion against any other group. Religion is one of those rare things that can make otherwise sane and law-abiding people do horrible things to each other, in the company of jigoistic patriotism and and parochial clan/tribalism. The fewer things that people accept as more important than other humans, the less likely they are to engage in such abominable actions.

I will be part of no mob against "the other". not for America, not for atheism, not for the Democratic party, not for the white "race", not for anything in fact except self defense and the preservation of liberty. That's because I think none of those things is more important than humanity. I'm no saint and no altruist, but if more people were thus dispossessed of "greater causes" the world would be a more peaceful place.