"I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???" -- from concession email sent to re-elected MN state Sen. Chatveer Chaudhary, a Hindu, by Christian opponent Rae Hart Anderson
Well I hope Ganesh falls on the idiot's head and makes sure he notices him good and proper... I'm sure an elephant is big enough to get his attention and all those arms should be enough for a good seeing to. And they wonder why some people insist on having a secular state.
That is low. Satveer... I wonder if that is a intentional mispelling to associate Chatveer with the Satan, or am I giving the Hart to much credit. Bring on the elephant god.
Yes, more elephant-gods dropping down on people's heads. That would actually be a great idea. Does anyone have his (the elephant god's) address, I have e few people who are in serious need of devine intervention of the heavier kind.
[quote:8295859837="Garner"]"I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???" -- from concession email sent to re-elected MN state Sen. Chatveer Chaudhary, a Hindu, by Christian opponent Rae Hart Anderson[/quote:8295859837] That is rather entertaining. On the other hand, for Indians in the US, it must be rather difficult. Here's what a second generation American of Indian origins has to say: http://www.palli.ch/~kapeskreyol/ki_nov/schools.html Obviously, I never went to school in America .. is this really what is taught in schools? Here in India I don't really remember being taught about religion at all .. though that's not really a good thing either.
[quote:eb31689913="sampanna"]Obviously, I never went to school in America .. is this really what is taught in schools? Here in India I don't really remember being taught about religion at all .. though that's not really a good thing either.[/quote:eb31689913] Knowledge can never be bad, but it can be applied to bad acts. As long as the schools teach knowledge and are not trying to tell you what to think I don't see anything wrong with teaching religion. Far too often I get the feeling that schools are expected to mould every child into the same shape.
My global studies teacher was wise enough to ask the Hindu (Hindoo?) girl in my class to explain the confusion between mono and polytheism, and anything else she'd care to tell us. Our textbook described the faith in such a way that you'd leave thinking 'they're polytheists and don't know it". Very odd. We didn't devote much time to Christianity at all, just the historical aspects.
In the Religious Education classes I went to, there were descriptions in the textbooks of various religions that were simplistic to the point of being wrong, including the classic misunderstanding of Hinduism as polytheistic. However, other textbooks were much better, and most of my textbooks devoted equal space to all the religions they covered. In the secular schools I was in, there was often a heavy bias [i:8f38ca7b1d]away[/i:8f38ca7b1d] from Christianity, if anything. I don't see what's wrong with asking the girl if she meant Native American Indian or Asian Indian though (unless it's that the teacher said 'Middle Eastern Indian'). And I think if your culture is generally misunderstood, it's great if people are asking questions and trying to find out more. Would this girl rather her classmates didn't ask her and stayed in ignorance? I have a friend on my college course who is a Muslim, and I have been asking her loads of questions and learning a lot about Islam and Muslim culture. Surely it's good to break down barriers of ignorance and prejudice, even if some of my questions are really stupid and based in misinformation.
One thing to consider is that many schools in the US, particularly public schools, don't have money for new textbooks, and teachers often have to teach from outdated textbooks with incorrect information.
At least Ms. Hart Anderson was not elected. Minnesota elected the first Muslim Congressman this past election, He is not fron my district so I don't remember his name,but I hope his presence can make a difference.
When I was going through social studies in middle and high schools we seemed to have gotten some pretty good information on Hinduism. Our teacher even went into the polytheistic trappings with the monotheistic core. Of course though, he was a hippy back in the 60s who was really interested in alternative cultures (ie non Western). And I'm from the east coast. And we didn't have large portions of the book devoted to Christianity, maybe a bit more than to Eastern religions, but then again it has had a greater affect on European culture.
