Originally Posted by
Jeffery D. Long
Namaste, Paijavanaji,
If there is proselytizing going on, it's a weird, sneaky kind of proselytizing. Most Christian proselytizers would not want us worshiping their deity alongside our Hindu deities, but would want us instead to worship him exclusively. Most Christians, I think, would react to "mixing" deities exactly as many Hindus do--with outrage--but from the opposite direction, as it were.
But maybe it is proselytizing. As one of our members recently said in another context, who knows why irrational people do what they do?
A couple of years ago, there was a Christian church that had a website in which they were attacking Hindu Dharma. It really upset me and I began arguing with them in their comment section. Pretty soon, another Hindu guy, a Shaiva going by the screen name Tandava, joined me. (Maybe he's also on HDF.) We pretty quickly demolished the Christians' arguments, but in the course of things, we also struck up an online friendship. We started using the comment section of the Christian website to chat about Vedanta philosophy, our sadhana experiences, temples we had visited, and so on. Soon, that church website looked like a miniature HDF! After a few weeks, the church took it down. Tandava and I had more or less hijacked it for Hindu Dharma.
I believe our moderators want to prevent something similar from happening to HDF, but from the other direction. And they are wise to do so.
HDF is for internal Hindu conversation on Hindu matters. There are plenty of other venues for inter-religious dialogue, alternative theologies, and so on. That is where those conversations should occur.
Pranam.
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