Brickbat: You Can't Change Your Mind

Gaurav Masand / Dreamstime.com

The government of the Indian state of Uttarakhand has passed a law that would impose a sentence of up to two years in prison for anyone who helps someone convert to another religion. The law is aimed at preventing Hindus from converting to Christianity, and it would cover not only outright evangelism but faith-based social work and offering to pray for someone. Uttarakhand is the eighth state in the country to pass such a law.

Comments

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

I guess Marxians are off-limits too now.

[Jerryskids]

I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other Gods before me. Sounds like they're already 1/10 of the way toward converting.

[loveconstitution1789]

Jesus Christ....

[SQRLSY One]

Yes, My son?

[loveconstitution1789]

I was not summoning....

[Fist of Etiquette]

Brickbats from the Third World now? This is the American internet. Let's stick with local bats of brick.

Anyway, the Injuns are guaranteeing Christians entrance into heaven by putting consequences to missionary work. They've incentivized it.

[Flinch]

In other news, Macron is playing a little 3 card monte in proposing to do away with the 30% exit tax [for persons investing outside of the country]. But don't worry: the 30% capital gains tax already has that covered. Zero tax relief posing as a 'favor' to his nation.

[Zebra Jr.]

Right-wing Hindus protecting their society from an invasive culture surely you understand.

[Zebra Jr.]

"They took our ... useful idiots."

[Flinch]

Well, looks like the creation of Pakistan is now a proven failure.

[SQRLSY One]

If Vishnu and Bishnu and Shishnu and Shitstorm, Prancer and Madonna, Vattu and Snottu, and Thor and Odin the Elephant-Monkey and ALL of the other Hindu Gods have assigned you to be a lowest-caste shit-eater and wiper of other people's bottoms, I could kinda see why converting to Xtianity might be tempting... Yes, counter-intuitive, perhaps, but possibly, yes!!!!

[SQRLSY One]

Is there any special loopholes in these laws "over there"? If Vishnu and Zebu and Xenu have relegated me and my descendants to permanently dwell, for the next trillion years, in the lower-than-whale-dung caste, can I sign a "billion year contract" for me and mine to REMAIN in the lower-than-whale-dung caste, for the next billion years, despite my new beliefs, and ***THEN*** might I perhaps be allowed to change my religion?

[gaoxiaen]

I worship Robert Oppenheimer, the Destroyer of Worlds. Ganesh, the elephant god is pretty cool, and who couldn't use a woman around the house with a whole bunch of arms?

[Vernon Depner]

The Western idea that religion is a matter of personal choice rather than a fundamental aspect of one's identity, and our concept of evangelism based on that idea, is not shared by most of the world. In most cultures, because religion is so integrated into daily life, trying to change someone's religion amounts to child stealing?changing their faith severs their connection to their families and communities. It is seen as an act of aggression, rather than as an offering.

[Shirley Knott]

Note well that that "Western idea" is distinctly not Christian.
How the West managed to wriggle out of the might-makes-right ethics of the Abrahamic religions is one of the great (suppressed) questions of cultural development.

[colorblindkid]

But Western white guilt will wind up destroying any progress we made.

There's this odd opposite form of American exceptionalism that's even more insidious, where people think everything America does is wrong, white people have done far more evil things than anybody else, and the philosophical developments that got us here are inherently oppressive because they were largely developed by white men.

Americans and white people actually do a better job confronting the atrocities committed in the past by their ancestors than basically anyone else in the world, but this has led to a romanticization of other races and cultures, and a dangerous extent of irrational guilt no different than original sin.

[SQRLSY One]

Original sin... We are to feel guilty for every breathe that we take, right? Except if we kiss the asses of the priests, in exactly THE right way, right? And only THEN we may be permitted brief glimpses of non-guiltiness!!!

It's why I say... Stealing a line from an old geezer friend of mine from ten trillion years ago... "I still believe in God, I just don't believe in His Little Helpers".

[Vernon Depner]

It started when Paul said Greek converts didn't have to get circumcised or keep kosher.

[gaoxiaen]

Just ask the Mormons and the Amish about apostasy.

[SQRLSY One]

I was an Amishman in a past lifetime. They accused me of apostasy...

I held up the plate that I was nibbling off of, and I said... I said, I says...

"It's just a PASTA, see?!?!?!"

[H. Farnham]

What's the penalty if someone's reincarnated as a Christian?

[SQRLSY One]

The penalty in this case is that one has to become a Scientologist (slave caste not Hollyweird caste), and sign the "billion year contract" that ye and yer descendants will serve-serve-serve!!! AND in your future lives also, 1 billion years, Baby!!!

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

A lifelong sense of rejection when your savior never shows up?