My new Twitter handle is now live - check me out at @jackiewgibson!
CNN has posted a history of bias against Sikhs - more reason for people to learn about religions before they attack anyone:...
Sikh temple shooting unfolding, learn about Sikhism here: http://t.co/A0ltLLIm
Sikh temple shooting unfolding, learn about Sikhism here: http://t.co/l3KrAJZf
Hackers group Anonymous takes down Vatican website: http://t.co/B6lbGAVp
WGN-TV calls doomsday prophecies "an illusion": http://t.co/mv8Gzyw7
RT @graceishuman: Really,? Asking people JUST LEAVING the service how they felt about it? Tacky, tacky, inappropriate
Whitney Houston's funeral service really took the world to church. Love Pastor Winans' honesty, very moving.
#teacher ? Here are appropriate responses to situations with your Jehovah's Witness student: http://t.co/A6UfqcgH
#Teachers: Want to know why your Jehovah's Witness student won't say the pledge and how to respond? http://t.co/EIdlgDwW
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Hinduism
Last Monday, political parties in India called for the Indian government to hold a nationwide caste census.
In 2011, the government will already be holding a nationwide population census; adding a caste census would mean adding an extra line to the population census.
Among the parties calling for action was PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi), a Tamil political party founded by Dr. S. Ramadoss. At the meeting, Ramadoss said:
“We ask the Central Government to launch a nation-wide caste-wise census in the forthcoming population census of 2011. The Centre need not strain too much on this, but only has to add one column to the census questionnaire prepared for the purpose… If the caste-wise census is undertaken, the data will help us to form an idea about the level of development, backwardness, poverty level of different castes.”
Ramadoss seeks to gain information about jobs and education to bring social justice to all castes.
What are castes?
Castes are similar to forms of social stratification (like classes). India’s castes have consisted of priests, nobles/warriors, commoners, and servants. Until reformers began to call for change to the caste system, most Hindu Indians believed they were meant to be born into their specific caste – and that they could not and should not belong to another caste.
If you’re a student at Massena High School in New York, you can take yoga in school.
Just don’t call it yoga.
The school recently sought to introduce a yoga program, citing the benefits relaxation can have on students’ stress levels. But parents complained that a yoga program would promote Hinduism, the religion that introduced the practice, thereby conflicting with the separation of church and state.
The solution?
Let’s have yoga and not call it yoga. Officials are now calling the program “Raider Relaxation” instead and are offering it as part of an after-school club. (Their school mascot is the raider.)
According to the International Herald Tribune, 100 schools in 26 states use yoga to relieve stress.
In case you missed it, Hindus and Christians are violently fighting in east India. It all goes back to Christians converting Hindus and non-religious tribes…and the Hindus saying it’s not ok. For a review of how it all started and the murder of Swami Saraswati that made everything worse, check out this post.
Now, journalist Francois Gautier is upset at the one-sided coverage and is standing up for the Hindu side of the story. Here is an excerpt from his recent article in ExpressBuzz:
I am also aghast at the one-sided coverage by the Indian media of the Christian- Hindu problem: blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus in Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbai train blasts, Jaipur, etc. Yet, neither Manmohan Singh nor Sonia Gandhi have pronounced once the word ‘Islamic terrorism.’ But when furious Hindus, tired of being made fun of, of witnessing their brothers and sisters converted by financials traps, of seeing a 84-year-old swami and his Mataji brutally murdered, of reading blasphemy about their Gods, vent their anger against churches, many of them makeshifts, the Indian government goes after the soft target which the Hindus are. The same thing applies to the United States: they never warned Muslim organisations in India about the killing of Hindus, but when dollars are used to buy new converts and it angers the majority community of India, Washington has the arrogance to issue a warning, and Manmohan Singh does not have the pride to tell the US to mind its own business.
Neither the Indian press nor the western correspondents bothered to write about what made Hindus angry in Karnataka: Newlife, one important westernfunded missionary centre ( http://www.newlifevoice.org), began making conversions in and around Mangalore by accosting poor people in market areas, or in bus stands, befriending them and then taking them to churches to introduce them to the father.
Upon introduction they were paid Rs 2,500 per person and then taken to the Velankanni shrine, in Tamil Nadu, where they would get another Rs. 3,000.
When they finally converted to Christianity by changing the name, they got an incentive of Rs 10,000 onwards.
Newlife would then give them instructions to abandon wearing tilak on forehead, not to visit and offer prayers at the Hindu temples, replacing the photos and idols of Hindu gods and goddesses with a Cross, etc.
For the full article, visit ExpressBuzz.
Now it’s your turn. What do you think? Are the Christians in India wrong for their conversions? Are the Hindus wrong for their retaliation? Is it so black and white?
The California Department of Education (CDE) has been sued for misrepresenting Hinduism in its textbooks.
According to Hinduism Today, the California Association of Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM) sued CDE and members of the State Board of Education for adopting textbooks that:
1. included gross inaccuracies in sixth-grade textbooks;
2. taught religious concepts from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, while slighting Hinduism and eastern religious concepts; and
3. were illegally adopted, since CDE held secret meetings to discriminate against Hindus and avoid opposition while adopting the textbooks.
Secret meetings? Yes. According to CAPEEM, they have e-mail proof that CDE held secret meetings with anti-Hindu groups while upholding church ideals.
Learn more at www.capeem.org.