IS CHRISTIANITY COMING TO THE END IN THE WORLD????

I have no axe to grind with either Hinduism or Zoroastrianism, brahmin - no emotional attachment whatsoever one way or the other; I hold all religions in the same regard. To me, they're a matter of intellectual curiosity, an assortment of specimens to be dissected, examined, and compared.

Your source's questionable, if not fanciful, astronomy notwithstanding, the scholarly consensus with which I am familiar places the Vedas not earlier than 1500 BC and not fully formed untill some 500 years after their beginnings. While the roots of Vedic religion can be traced to oral traditions well developed by the early 2nd/late 3rd millenium BCE, Hinduism itself dates no earlier than the finalization of the Vedas.

Both Hinduism and Zoroastrianism evidence a shared Proto-Indo-Iranian, or Aryan (in the linguistic sense), heritage, with Hinduism as a formed religion being at least a couple centuries, if not five or more, younger than Zoroastrianism's archaeologically established emergence ca. 1750~1700BCE. The astrology of Hinduism shows distinct Zoroastrian influence, as does Hinduism's light/life - darkness/death theme; both archaeology and linguistic studies attribute these shared characteristics, and numerous strikingly similar shared legends/allegories to the direct antecedents of Zoroastrianism, and consider their forms to have been fully expressed first in Zoroastrianism. A major differentiator is Zoroastrianism's monotheism, a concept which the two religions do not share. Regardless all that, the two religions without doubt are among the very oldest of humankind's fully expressed theophilosophic constructs, and have colored human thought for nearly 4 millenia.

The late Dr. N. E. M. Boyce (d. April 3 2006), former Professor Emerita at University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, is regarded to have been the world's leading authority on Zoroastrianism, its precursors, and antecedents. I recommend her mammoth - and as yet unfinished - multi-volume A History of Zoroastrianism, published by Brill Academic Press. The first volume was published in the 1970's, and successive volumes have apeared over time, with a further several volumes completed but for final editing, planned for release over the next couple of years. It should be available through any major university library, and while the entire availble series is in print and orderable through booksellers, the price would run to many, many hundreds of dollars.

While I don't own a set myself, I happen know someone who has access to the series, and who kindly provided and/or verified for me some of the above information. He also informed me of Dame Boyce's passing, which took me by surprise - I'd sorta come to think she'd be around forever. The world of historical research has lost a giant, who's contribution to humankind's knowledge and understanding may be described only as incalculable.

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Your source's questionable, if not fanciful,

my source is neither fanciful not questionable. Dr, Koenraad Elst is extremely well known.

astronomy notwithstanding,

er... astronomy is the clinching evidence of the dates of ancient literature. try refuting Playfair's arguement.

the scholarly consensus with which I am familiar places the Vedas not earlier than 1500 BC and not fully formed untill some 500 years after their beginnings.

a totally euro-centric colonial construct construed by dupes like max muller and monier williams. i doubt you even read the 2 webpages i cited - cos their bluff has been exposed there.

While the roots of Vedic religion can be traced to oral traditions well developed by the early 2nd/late 3rd millenium BCE, Hinduism itself dates no earlier than the finalization of the Vedas.

thats true . hinduism isnt older than the vedas. i never said it was either. only that the date of the writting of the vedas are clearly pointed out by its astronomical allusions. (as is the date fo the bible, by the reference made to the star which the 3 magi followed)
Both Hinduism and Zoroastrianism evidence a shared Proto-Indo-Iranian, or Aryan (in the linguistic sense), heritage, with Hinduism as a formed religion being at least a couple centuries, if not five or more, younger than Zoroastrianism's archaeologically established emergence ca. 1750~1700BCE

nope. the other way round. there is ample evidence from IRANIAN literature that states where the iranians came from
. The astrology of Hinduism shows distinct Zoroastrian influence,
it dont make sense to say that unless you are suggesting they had time machines back then.

as does Hinduism's light/life - darkness/death theme;

again, the older can influence the younger and not the other way round

both archaeology and linguistic studies attribute these shared characteristics, and numerous strikingly similar shared legends/allegories to the direct antecedents of Zoroastrianism, and consider their forms to have been fully expressed first in Zoroastrianism.

the western hard-on for zorastrianism is because it was indeed zorastrianism which introduced the concept of monotheism to the middle east and then the west. only thing is there is no astronomical or linguistic (ie. Avestan is a younger language than vedic sanskrit) evidence to prove that the avesta is older than the Vedas.

A major differentiator is Zoroastrianism's monotheism, a concept which the two religions do not share.

true
Regardless all that, the two religions without doubt are among the very oldest of humankind's fully expressed theophilosophic constructs, and have colored human thought for nearly 4 millenia.
true

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select quotes from the 2 pages -

Back-calculation of planetary positions is a highly complex affair requiring knowledge of a number of physical laws, universal constants and actual measurements of densities, diameters and distances. Though Brahminical astronomy was remarkably sophisticated for its time, it could only back-calculate planetary position of the presumed Vedic age with an inaccuracy margin of at least several degrees of arc. With our modern knowledge, it is easy to determine what the actual positions were, and what the results of back-calculations with the Brahminical formulae would have been, e.g.:

"Aldebaran was therefore 40' before the point of the vernal equinox, according to the Indian astronomy, in the year 3102 before Christ. (...) [Modern astronomy] gives the longitude of that star 13' from the vernal equinox, at the time of the Calyougham, agreeing, witjin 53', with the determination of the Indian astronomy. This agreement is the more remarkable, that the Brahmins, by their own rules for computing the motion of the fixed stars, could not have assigned this place to Aldebaran for the beginning of Calyougham, had they calculated it from a modern observation. For as they make the motion of the fixed stars too great by more than 3'' annually, if they had calculated backward from 1491, they would have placed the fixed stars less advanced by 4�or 5�, at their ancient epoch, than they have actually done."5 So, it turns out that the data given by the Brahmins corresponded not with the results deduced from their formulae, but with the actual positions, and this, according to Playfair, for nine different astronomical parameters. This is a bit much to explain away as coincidence or sheer luck.

That Hindu astronomical lore about ancient tuimes cannot be based on later back-calculation, was also argued by Playfair's contemporary, the French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly: "the motions of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the [modern] tables of Cassini and Meyer. The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as that discovered by Tycho Brahe -- a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also the the Arabs".6

Prof. N.S. Rajaram, a mathematician who has worked for NASA, comments: "fabricating astronomical data going back thousands of years calls for knowledge of Newton's Law of Gravitation and the ability to solve differential equations."7 Failing this advanced knowledge, the data in the Brahminical tables must be based on actual observation. Ergo, the Sanskrit-speaking Vedic seers were present in person to record astronomical observations and preserve them for a full 6,000 years: "The observations on which the astronomy of India is founded, were made more than three thousand years before the Christian era. (...) Two other elements of this astronomy, the equation of the sun's centre and the obliquity of the ecliptic (...) seem to point to a period still more remote, and to fix the origin of this astronomy 1000 or 1200 years earlier, that is, 4300 years before the Christian era".8

Hindu tradition makes mention of the conjunction of the "seven planets" (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, sun and moon) and Ketu (southern lunar node, the northern node/Rahu being by definition in the opposite location) near the fixed star Revati (Zeta Piscium) on 18 February 3102 BC. This date, at which Krishna is supposed to have breathed his last, is conventionally the start of the so-called Kali-Yuga, the "age of strife", the low point in a declining sequence of four ages. However, modern scholars have claimed that the Kali-Yuga system of time-reckoning was a much younger invention, not attested before the 6th century AD.

Against this modernist opinion, Bailly and Playfair had already shown that the position of the moon (the fastest-moving "planet", hence the hardest to back-calculate with precision) at the beginning of Kali-Yuga, 18 February 3102, as given by Hindu tradition, was accurate to 37'.9 Either the Brahmins had made an incredibly lucky guess, or they had recorded an actual observation on Kali Yuga day itself.

Richard L. Thompson claims that in Indian literature and inscriptions, there are a number of datelines expressed in Kali-Yuga which are older than the Christian era (and a fortiori older than the 6th century AD).10 More importantly, Thompson argues that the Jyotisha-shâstras (treatises on astronomy and, increasingly, astrology, starting in the 14th century BC with the Vedanga Jyotisha as per its own astronomical data, but mostly from the first millennium AD) are correct in mentioning this remarkable conjunction on that exact day, for there was indeed a conjunction of sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ketu and Revati.

True, the conjunction was not spectacularly exact, having an orb of 37�between the two most extreme planetary positions. But that exactly supports the hypothesis of an actual observation as opposed to a back-calculation. Indeed, if the Hindu astronomers were able to calculate this position after a lapse of many centuries (when the Jyotisha-Shâstra was written), it is unclear what reason they would have had for picking out that particular conjunction. Surely, such conjunctions are spectacular to those who witness one, and hence worth recording if observed. But they are not that exceptional when considered over millennia: even closer conjunctions of all visible planets do occur (most recently on 5 February 1962).11 If the Hindu astronomers had simply been going over their astronomical tables looking for an exceptional conjunction, they could have found more spectacular ones than the one on 18 February 3102 BC.

In the Shulba Sutra appended to Baudhayana's Shrauta Sutra, mathematical instructions are given for the construction of Vedic altars. One of its remarkable contributions is the theorem usually ascribed to Pythagoras, first for the special case of a square (the form in which it was discovered), then for the general case of the rectangle: "The diagonal of the rectangle produces the combined surface which the length and the breadth produce separately." This and other instances of advanced mathematics presented by Baudhayana have been shown by the American mathematician A. Seidenberg to be the origin of similar mathematical techniques and "discoveries" in Greece and Babylonia, some of which have been securely dated to 1700 BC. So, 1700 BC was a terminus post quem for Baudhayana's mathematics, which would reasonably be dated to the later part of the Harappan period which ended in ca. 1900 BC.

However, Seidenberg was told by the indologists that these Sutras, or any Vedic text for that matter, were definitely written later than 1700 BC. But mathematical data cannot be manipulated just like that, and Seidenberg remained convinced of his case: "Whatever the difficulty there may be [concerning chronology], it is small in comparison with the difficulty of deriving the Vedic ritual application of the theorem from Babylonia. (The reverse derivation is easy)... the application involves geometric algebra, and there is no evidence of geometric algebra from Babylonia. And the geometry of Babylonia is already secondary whereas in India it is primary."18 To satisfy the indologists, he said that the Shulba Sutra had conserved an older tradition, and that it is from this one that the Babylonians had learned their mathematics: "Hence we do not hesitate to place the Vedic (...) rituals, or more exactly, rituals exactly like them, far back of 1700 BC. (...) elements of geometry found in Egypt and Babylonia stem from a ritual system of the kind described in the Sulvasutras".19

18. A. Seidenberg: "The ritual origin of geometry", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 1962, p.488-527, specifically p.515, quoted by N.S. Rajaram and D. Frawley: Vedic 'Aryans' and the Origins of Civilization, WH Press, Québec 1995, p.85.

19. A. Seidenberg: "The ritual origin of geometry", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 1962, p.515, quoted by N.S. Rajaram and D. Frawley: Vedic 'Aryans' and the Origins of Civilization, p.85.

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4.6.6. Iranian Urheimat memory

The one branch of IE which has preserved a relatively unambiguous record of its migration, is Iranian..
.
.
.
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The Iranians are fairly clear about their history of immigration from Hapta-Hendu and Airyanam Vaejo, two of sixteen Iranian lands mentioned in the Zoroastrian scripture Vendidad. To the extent that they are recognizable, all sixteen are in Bactria, Afghanistan or northwestern India.

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I read your web pages, brahmin, and others from the same source - you lose that bet.

Your Dr. Elst certainly is well known, but other than in radical Hindu elitist circles, he is notorious, not respected. He's a johnny-come-lately sensationalist crackpot grinding an ax for Hinduism, irrationally and afoundationally lashing out at anything and anyone inconvenient to his jingoist agenda. Allow me to quote for you an assessment of Dr. Elst and his "work", as viewed by the Indian Graduate Students Association affilliate of the University of Wisconsin:

Quote:

University of Wisconsin-Madison

(October 15, 1996)

What follows is a statement by Chingari, a UW-Madison student group committed to promoting a progressive agenda on issues of concern to South Asians such as gender equality, secularism, and freedom of expression.

We, the members of Chingari, are dismayed and outraged that Koenraad Elst is being taken seriously as a scholar at the upcoming University of Wisconsin South Asian Studies conference. As members of a politically progressive collective, we are wholly committed to individual freedom of expression, no matter how repugnant one may find the ideas expressed. We also recognize that a free discussion of conflicting viewpoints is a healthy and necessary part of any academic conference.

However, support of a person's right to express their ideas is not to be confused with the obligation to extend recognition. We feel that the extremely hateful and vicious views of Koenraad Elst demand closer scrutiny than has obviously been done. Elst's thought is deeply totalitarian. It expresses a profound contempt for humanitarian ideals. No doubt Elst is an intelligent man, and he presents his idea couched in a scholarly style. Malignant ideas with footnotes are, however, still malignant.

We believe that Elst is in no need of a new forum that will help him disseminate his propaganda which would otherwise go unexpressed or unheard. Those who are interested in reading what he has to say regarding religion, history, language, and politics can easily obtain his writings, both here and in India. Published by the Voice of India, Elst's books are marketed by the Hindu right-wing and are available at bookstores throughout India. The University of Wisconsin Memorial library carries four of his publications, as do many other university libraries in this country. We in fact encourage interested people to read his books - it is only by being informed about what people like Elst have to say that those interested in building a democratic, tolerant, and violence-free society in South Asia and elsewhere can be truly effective in response.

Below we have presented just a sampling of Elst's writings to give a sense of the man's ideas. But we encourage everyone interested to read his texts in their entirety, and judge for themselves whether or not Elst is an "intellectual" worth fraternizing with.

Excerpts from the Writings of Koenraad Elst

Koenraad Elst, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1991.
Elst's hatred of Islam and secularists, and championing of the extreme Hindu right-wing agenda, is abundant in his writings. His wild and unsubstantiated contentions make a mockery of reasoned scholarship.

"But the point is, while one cannot blame the Muslim propagandists for painting a rosy picture of the religion they try to sell, we now see eminent historians spreading this untruthful item of propaganda, in books which are required in many universities. They even lecture others and call them communalists if they don't swallow these Islamic-cum-Nehruvian lies." (p. 111-112)
"To sum up, the "communal problem" in India is largely the"muslim problem", or rather, the "Islam problem". Islam is communal through and through, preaching a total abyss between its own community members and the rest of humanity. So, very generally, the cause of communal riots is Islam. The cure is Sanatana Dharma." (p. 194)
"...Islam has to be put ideologically on the defensive....in the public arena, and within non- Muslim communities, there Islam should definitely be put on the defensive." (p. 243)
"Pride in being Indian means, for 99%, pride in Hinduism (unless you are a secularist distorter and consider the Islamic invaders' avowed objective of destroying Hindu culture also as "culture" and as "Indian"). So, this legitimate pride has to be nourished with broad and in-depth knowledge of Hindu culture. the two enemies of this effort are the secularist morbidity that glorifies the destroyers of Hindu culture, and discourages its study altogether..." (p. 356)
Elst titles a section "Islam and Nazism" to make the preposterous and unfounded claim of ideological similarity between Islam and Nazism.
"It may sound shocking to some people that I have compared the Hindu-Muslim relations with the Jewish-German relations of the Nazi period. While in Israel you get to hear more comparisons of Muslims with Nazis, in India it may still be unfashionable... Now, I don't have to distort history in order to make my comparison of Islam with Nazism. In very essential characteristics, the role of Islam in Indian history is the same as the role of Nazism in German-Jewish history." (p. 224)

The following quote targets Ashgar Ali Engineer, a well-known liberal Indian Muslim intellectual. Engineer has worked tirelessly towards eliminating communalism and intolerance from South Asian society and has published numerous books towards that end. The quote is particularly significant for its last sentence: "Defeat him." In the current climate of terror against Muslim artists, intellectuals, and others by the Hindu right-wing, this intentionally vague imperative has a dangerous and threatening ring.

"By no manipulation can Ashgar Ali Engineer recognize [Hindus] as 'people of the Book'. So they are unmitigated Kafirs, and have to be given a choice between Islam and death. That is the true tradition of Islam... Until mr.[sic] Engineer rejects the Islamic division of mankind into Muslims and Kafirs... he is exactly as guilty of communal strife as the worst fundamentalist. Defeat him." (p. 232)

Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992.
The basic argument made by Elst in this book is that Muslims' relationship to Hindus over the past 1000 or so years is closely comparable to the Nazi's attempted genocide against the Jews. Elst attempts to claim that just like pro-Nazi "revisionists" or "negationists" who try to deny the factual history of the Holocaust, pro-Muslim "negationists" (read secular intellectuals) systematically try to conceal what he sees as Muslims' attempts to annihilate the Hindus.

This argument is not only a profound misrepresentation of the history of India, it also serves to radically divest the particular horror that was the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust of its significance for human history.

Some quotes from the book:

"It would be a bit harsh to say it before a Jewish audience, but it is nonetheless an incontrovertible fact: one of the earliest genocides has been described and ideologically motivated in their own [the Jewish] sacred Scripture..." (p. 7)
"... Muslims are the most likely carriers of the Islamic disease called communalism..." (p. 43)
"It is mathematically certain that Islam will disappear." (p. 119)
"It is fashionable to bracket the Hindu awakening with Hitler..., but if any religio-political movement deserves comparison with Nazism, it is definitely Islam." (p. 143)
The ideas expressed by Elst are no mere bombast without any real consequences. To take only the most recent example: according to news reports, the famed Indian artist M.F. Husain has been singled out for attack by elements of the Hindu right-wing. Husain is an acclaimed artist of international repute. In some of his paintings he has depicted Hindu goddesses as partially nude. Claiming that this is somehow an attack on Hindu society (notwithstanding the fact of the temples of Khajurauo), Hindu right-wing spokespeople have called for a ban on Husain's art. These proclamations have been followed by a well-organized attack by their supporters on a state museum in the city of Ahmedabad, where over two dozen of Husain's most treasured works were destroyed. Ironically, there is a striking resemblance of this destruction of artworks to fascist attacks on Jewish art during the Nazi period.

Now, while Elst's message may resonate with you, he is thought of much less highly in legitimate academic circles - something of which he is aware, and something he rails against vigorously - even shrilly. He is taken seriously, however, only by those given to his particular brand of hateful foolishness.

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cool, so elst is jingoistic.

but how do u explain that iranians have 3000 year old literature that clearly mark their origins?? did the iranians know that it would come in handy for a jingoistic and notorious (but not respected) quack called elst, to be born 3000 years after the iranians??

did elst also modify the position of the stars to suit his henious agenda?? or modify the rig veda??

did playfair and sidenberg also come up with hogwash and mathematical manupulations just so elst could use their works for his canards??

what makes the graduate students of wisconsin, whose subjects may range from botany to software bigger experts on indology??

you lose your bet but win the "illogical stand of the year" award.

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let me try and clarify some of the exerpts of Elst's own writting that the "indologists" of wisconsin have cited -

"But the point is, while one cannot blame the Muslim propagandists for painting a rosy picture of the religion they try to sell, we now see eminent historians spreading this untruthful item of propaganda, in books which are required in many universities. They even lecture others and call them communalists if they don't swallow these Islamic-cum-Nehruvian lies." (p. 111-112)

spot on. nehru was the last englishman to rule india, and a complete confused retard who ass licked (the ass in question being gandhi's) to the throne. as for muslims, their crimes in india for 800+ years makes the holocaust seem like a joke and even the carnage in latin america by iberian european christians. this is corroborated by the writtings or the chroniclers of various muslim rulers in india, by indian sources who recorded the barbarity and also external visitors who came to india during the islamic period like tiffenthaler. read what will durant - and now dont call him a jingoistic pro hindu extremist - had to say about the islamic misrule in india or even what francois gautier, ex-india corrospondent of le figaro, france's leading newspaper, has to say. the reason the christian west has chosen to ignore muslim attrocities in all parts of the world, including zorastrian iran - from where zorastrianism has been uprooted, tho zorastrianism survives in "extremist, jingoistic" hindu india, is because westerners only wail whan a 9/11 happens or a madrid bombing but conveniently ignore everything else as long as its not a westerner getting the stick. and also because christianity and islam are the same damn religion, equally "bastard" in their judiaic origins, equally bloodthirsty, retarded and intolerant.

"To sum up, the "communal problem" in India is largely the"muslim problem", or rather, the "Islam problem". Islam is communal through and through, preaching a total abyss between its own community members and the rest of humanity. So, very generally, the cause of communal riots is Islam. The cure is Sanatana Dharma." (p. 194)

again spo on. greater western observers than elst even, like Annie Besant have pointed out the same and thats about a 100 years ago. of late bojil kolarov has again substantiated the same points. islam is a pain in the ass of any society it goes to. you wont agree just yet. wait for the next bombing tho.

http://bojilkolarov.voiceofdharma.com/

"...Islam has to be put ideologically on the defensive....in the public arena, and within non- Muslim communities, there Islam should definitely be put on the defensive." (p. 243)

again spot on. the need of the hour in india and well as the whole world is to expose islam and its heinious agenda. again the west will agree only when the gates of vienna are challenged and not when zorastrianism is wiped off the iranian horizon or when bamian buddhas are broken etc. a more spineless ilk than westerners never walked the earth. btw, the aesop's fables are stolen directly from buddhist jataka tales, as i am sure you were all taught in your colonial schools.

"Pride in being Indian means, for 99%, pride in Hinduism (unless you are a secularist distorter and consider the Islamic invaders' avowed objective of destroying Hindu culture also as "culture" and as "Indian"). So, this legitimate pride has to be nourished with broad and in-depth knowledge of Hindu culture. the two enemies of this effort are the secularist morbidity that glorifies the destroyers of Hindu culture, and discourages its study altogether..." (p. 356)

again correct. india is oneof the few countries which is still a living civilization, despite the 800 year old islamic barbarity. even iran couldnt survive. islam sees india as "unfinished business" and has a one point agenda - to destroy this pagan religion and country. and yes all thats distinctly indian - from our music, to dance, to literature, to cultural norms, to stress on academics, to our values and traditions, to yoga et al, are all identically of hindu construct. even buddhism.

Elst titles a section "Islam and Nazism" to make the preposterous and unfounded claim of ideological similarity between Islam and Nazism.

few movements are more similar. firstly both are cults. both are intolerant of anything that comes in their path. the ideologies may be very different but the ruthlessness and lack of tolerance shown towards others by these 2 are remarkably similar.

"It may sound shocking to some people that I have compared the Hindu-Muslim relations with the Jewish-German relations of the Nazi period. While in Israel you get to hear more comparisons of Muslims with Nazis, in India it may still be unfashionable... Now, I don't have to distort history in order to make my comparison of Islam with Nazism. In very essential characteristics, the role of Islam in Indian history is the same as the role of Nazism in German-Jewish history." (p. 224)

a truer word was never spoken. nazis wanted to uproot jewery from germany and europe even. islam wanted and still tries to uproot and wipe out hinduism from the country of its birth.

The following quote targets Ashgar Ali Engineer, a well-known liberal Indian Muslim intellectual. Engineer has worked tirelessly towards eliminating communalism and intolerance from South Asian society and has published numerous books towards that end. The quote is particularly significant for its last sentence: "Defeat him." In the current climate of terror against Muslim artists, intellectuals, and others by the Hindu right-wing, this intentionally vague imperative has a dangerous and threatening ring.

muslims have not produced intellectuals in india !! funny how pseudo secular muslims who pretend that they dont know of their religions true agenda are called intellectuals while the same sorts in england would be described as a clergy inciting jihad. and before pointing out fingers at the hindu right wing, who have every right to defend whats always been theirs for 5000 years, ty to sort out your own don blacks and ian stuart donaldsons and david dukes and format 18s (as also combat 18s)
"By no manipulation can Ashgar Ali Engineer recognize [Hindus] as 'people of the Book'.

nor can any selfrespecting muslim aka jihadi terrorist
So they are unmitigated Kafirs, and have to be given a choice between Islam and death.
which is precisely the choice indians had durring 800 yeas of camel jockey rule
That is the true tradition of Islam...
yes. "jihad is life, life jihad. thats all you know on earth, all you need to know." in the dna of every camel jockey, starting from the demented paedophille caveman er.. PBUH

Until mr.[sic] Engineer rejects the Islamic division of mankind into Muslims and Kafirs... he is exactly as guilty of communal strife as the worst fundamentalist. Defeat him." (p. 232)
spot on. and we will defea him and all other muslims who pretend to be "liberal". now thats an oxymoron if ever thee was one, a "liberal muslim" - with the possible exception of maybe a "spine-ful westerner"

Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992.
The basic argument made by Elst in this book is that Muslims' relationship to Hindus over the past 1000 or so years is closely comparable to the Nazi's attempted genocide against the Jews.

yes. confirmed by historical, archeological, literrary sources of victors, victims and 3rd party observers. maybe you and the botanist indologists of wisconsin need to brush up your history instead of betraying your inorance. or read up Will Durant.
Elst attempts to claim that just like pro-Nazi "revisionists" or "negationists" who try to deny the factual history of the Holocaust, pro-Muslim "negationists" (read secular intellectuals) systematically try to conceal what he sees as Muslims' attempts to annihilate the Hindus.
yes again true. i have never heard or seen any muslim admit or express any regret for their crimes in india or elsewhere. have seen many trying to brush the crimes under the carpet though, a la the westerners who prefer to call the jewish holocaust, variously the "hollow-cause" or the "holo-hoax".
This argument is not only a profound misrepresentation of the history of India,
aha, really??? so did the muslims court chroniclers cook up fairy tales about the carnages?? did tiffenthaler?? did 1000's of hindu temples get replaced by mosques (in the same way maya temples in mexico and viking temples in scandinavia got replaced by churches) on their own sweet own??
it also serves to radically divest the particular horror that was the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust of its significance for human history.
the nazi holocaust dont hold a candle to what happened in latin american natives and to the aborigines of australia and america. or even, compared to sheer numbers, to the number of hindus put to the sword in 800+ years. no less brutal were the communist genecides on their own people. the only thing is that the nazi terror may have been the most systamatic and overt attempt ever to wipe out a people, even more so than what happened in latin america
Some quotes from the book:

"It would be a bit harsh to say it before a Jewish audience, but it is nonetheless an incontrovertible fact: one of the earliest genocides has been described and ideologically motivated in their own [the Jewish] sacred Scripture..." (p. 7)

yes. no jew would deny that
"... Muslims are the most likely carriers of the Islamic disease called communalism..." (p. 43)
yes and thats where evr in the planet they have gone, ever since their illegitimate birth and continue to do so to this day. dont believe me?? wait for the next bomb!!
"It is mathematically certain that Islam will disappear." (p. 119)
well i dont agree. if anything given the way the islamic screw like rabbits - the average german family has about 1.2 kids while the average muslim family in germany has over 3.5 - islam is set to become the dominant religion in countries like holland in 20 years time
"It is fashionable to bracket the Hindu awakening with Hitler..., but if any religio-political movement deserves comparison with Nazism, it is definitely Islam." (p. 143)
teue. the hindu awakeninng can only be compared to the way the jews started redicovering themselves ever since israel was formed. and islam can give the nazis a run for their money when it comes to ruthlessnessness. dont believe me?? wait for the next nick berg style beheading live on al jazeera tv

The ideas expressed by Elst are no mere bombast without any real consequences. To take only the most recent example: according to news reports, the famed Indian artist M.F. Husain has been singled out for attack by elements of the Hindu right-wing. Husain is an acclaimed artist of international repute. In some of his paintings he has depicted Hindu goddesses as partially nude. Claiming that this is somehow an attack on Hindu society (notwithstanding the fact of the temples of Khajurauo), Hindu right-wing spokespeople have called for a ban on Husain's art. These proclamations have been followed by a well-organized attack by their supporters on a state museum in the city of Ahmedabad, where over two dozen of Husain's most treasured works were destroyed. Ironically, there is a striking resemblance of this destruction of artworks to fascist attacks on Jewish art during the Nazi period.

yes. hussian has been mucking around with hindu sentiments for a long time. the essential difference is that while the khajuraho sculptures show the gods and goddess of love and sex (god of love - krishna, godess of love = radha.... indian parallel of Cupid and Psyche, and god of lust = Madan and godess = rati.. indian equivalent of adonis and venus) in sexual positions, McBull Fidayeen Hussain portays the hindu godess of knowledge (Swaraswati) or mother godess (Bharat mata) in obscene positions. and that from a muslim who's religion forbids him to paint or carve any human or animal form (since thts a pagan thing to do). why doesnt he show muhammed PBUH humping around in his many orgies with friends, family and neighbouring widows??

and now a question - i quoted Koenraad Elst while discussing hindu-zorastrian connections and related stuff - how do you refute Seidenberg's arguement or the astronomical observations of the rig veda, or even the literature of the iranians themselves - with quotations about koenraad elst's views on islam??? how do his view on pornography or the pope or papayas help to prove or disprove the relative chronology of hinduism and zorastrianism??

cant help but give the "illogical stand of the year" award to you again.

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If Elst works for you, fine for you and Elst. Elst has a particular standing in the academic community. I weigh his work in light of that, and I weigh the relative antiquities of fairytales by the archaeologic and linguistic evidence. You take your sources and draw your conclusions, and I'll take my sources and draw my conclusions ... as I said, I have no ax to grind for any religion, no emotional attacment whatsoever; they're all the same to me in the end.

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comming back to the topic, this is what dr. sandhya jain has to say about the two secondary semitic religions -

Atrocities on Hindus by Mahmud Ghaznavi, Mohammad Ghauri, Babar, Aurangzeb and their ilk are too well known to merit a repeat here (ie. in India). However, the history of the Church is as much soaked in blood. An excerpt from the oath administered to Christian missionaries reveals the character of Christianity: "That I will spare neither age, sex nor condition and I will hang waste boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics (non-Christians), rip up the wombs of their women and crush their heads against walls in order to annihilate forever their execrable ranch..." Islam and Christianity both divide humanity into two: Muslims and kafirs (infidels) and Christians and heathens. Also, elimination of people of other faiths is incumbent on Muslims for establishing the kingdom of Allah as it is on Christians to establish the kingdom of God.

meanwhile here is what dr. koenraad elst has to say -

I am no longer a Roman Catholic. I am a secular humanist with an active interest in religions, particularly Taoism and Hinduism, and keeping a close watch on the variegated Pagan revival in Europe. The reason why I became an apostate has nothing to do with revolt against Christian morality, nor with indignation at the inhuman persecutions of unbelievers in various countries and ages, nor with a rejection of the Church's political alliances, Left or Right. The real reason simply is that the basic doctrine of Christianity in all its denominations is untrue. While ultimate truth may elude us, it remains perfectly possible to decide on the untruth of a given doctrine, when it is found to be contrary to reason and to observable facts.

Christianity, a mistake

The essence of Christianity is a belief, a particular truth claim: that Jesus was the sole son of God and that he redeemed mankind from sin by his crucifixion and resurrection. Modern Bible scholarship has made that belief untenable. Jesus was a troubled personality whose beliefs were entirely within the Jewish tradition, at least within its extremist fringe of people who expected Judgment Day to arrive within their own lifetime. He never founded a new religion, Saint Paul being the real inventor of Christianity as a sect separate from Judaism. The Gospels are highly doctored texts, rewritten to suit the theological developments and political needs of the budding Church. Thus, the injunction to pay taxes to the Romans ("give unto Caesar...") and the depiction of Roman governor Pilate as innocent of Jesus' crucifixion were included to mollify the Romans after the defeat of the Jewish revolt in AD 70. Most importantly, Jesus never rose from the dead. The decisive difference between the dead and the living is that the living are someplace in this world, while Jesus, like all dead men, is nowhere to be found in this world. He was spirited away in the "Ascension to Heaven", which amounts to dying: he left this world. Of course you could say that "his spirit lives on", but that is equally true of other inspiring characters, both historical and fictional.

The reason why Christians are a shrinking minority in Europe is that an educated population, which applies its mind to religious questions, cannot keep on managing the contradiction between this faith and reason forever. This is not for want of trying: generations of Christian intellectuals have tried to harmonize faith and reason. The Saint Thomas institute (Leuven, Belgium) where I studied philosophy was founded in 1889 as an instrument to prove the basic unity between Aquinas's Christian philosophy and modern science. But to no avail: most professors teaching there now are no longer practising Catholics themselves. Many moderns including myself have discovered that religion is still relevant, that the religious urge has survived the interiorization of the scientific worldview, that "the 21st century will either be religious or not be at all" (André Malraux); but the Christian belief cannot satisfy that religious need, because we cannot base our lives on fairy-tales anymore.

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very important read about the indo-iranian debate -

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/rig/ch6.htm

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In the "End Times" there will be few true believers. I believe we are in the "End Times" because Christianity is ignored by a majority of people who at another time would have had faith. Also, it is not "politically correct" to be Christian at this time.

The good news is those who have faith have greater faith because of the struggle of this time. I have experienced this. When faith is challenged normally believers become stronger in faith.

If you doubt my words, try saying a prayer in public. Perhaps you are in a restaurant and you want to bless the food you are about to eat, to give thanks to God for your food. Look around, you might see people staring at you. Hopefully you will not.

God protect you if you openly practice Christianity on a university campus, especially if you are an employee of the university. Before you know it, the ACLU and the "Politically Correctness Nazis" will be all over you. Has anyone noticed the hypocrisy in such situations? Christians are singled out while those of all other faiths are free to practice their faith as they wish. For example, a Christian priest may not wear the clothing of his faith while working for a university but any Moslem may wear the clothing of that faith.

Well. I've written too much for now. I like the clatter of the keyboard.