It’s what you must suspect.
Modi is portrayed in Western media as as divisive Hindu nationalist. He was banned from traveling to the UK for many years, and still is banned from the US due to “severe violations of religious freedom.” I’m somewhat open to being convinced this is all unfair, and I do think it should be reversed if he becomes PM. But it doesn’t look good to me.
Modi is portrayed wrongly. There is a definite anti Modi slant among certain sections of Indian intelligentsia, but to a neutral observer it doesn’t make sense. Not only has his complicity in the riots never been established, an Indian supreme court special investigation team recently concluded
There’s a detailed list of steps taken by his government to quell the riots compiled by a Delhi academic here -
http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1688&ptype=&pgno=2#.U0tI2lVdXa5
I have myself seen a number of public statements made by Modi at the time to maintain peace, here’s one with English subtitles
I have seen a number of statements by him in interviews that maintain that riots and violence are a stain on civilised society and should not happen at any cost. I can link to them if you’re interested. His entire campaign to be PM, and his governance for the last 12 years in Gujarat has focused on development, not on being ‘divisive’. He rejects claims of being a religious nationalist, independently accepting both apellations, in that he is religious, and he is a nationalist, but he puts the country’s development before all else. He has gone to the extent of making the statement that ‘toilets are more important than temples’, which is not one I would expect from someone who gives primacy to religion.
As for the bans placed on him by foreign countries, the UK and Europe have recently reversed their ‘bans’, and the US ambassador too went to meet him last month. This is probably motivated by political expedience though. Not that the ban was made through any considered investigation either. Read this article if you’re interested in seeing how it came about
It was a politically convenient ‘judgement from afar’, without any actual evidence.
To me, the most compelling evidence lies in his performance since the riots. In Gujarat, which has had Hindu Muslim riots every decade since independence (including worse ones under the opposition party Congress - where many more people died) there have been none in the last 12 years under Modi’s rule. The only one that happened was 5 months into Modi’s Chief Ministership, when he was new to the job. In the latest assembly and municipal elections in the state, his party won from constituencies where Muslims are in the majority. That last fact is what convinces me more than any other that he is portrayed wrongly.
To prevent this hijack from going further, I’ve opened a thread in Elections. I’d link to it, but I access the board through a proxy, and can’t figure out a good way to do it, so click on over. Sorry!
Children but not married? I knew he had groupies like Martha and Mary, but was there a 1st Century equivalent to those women who try to get knocked up by their celebrity one-night-stands? Were there Plaster Casters back then? Because a cast of the Divine Unit could really draw in the pilgrims.
“People swarm everywhere [in Constantinople], talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and squares, marketplaces and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the Father is greater than the Son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the Son was created out of nothing.”
From Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp (a Connecticut Yankee story – 20th-Century American archaelogist Martin Padway finds himself transported by a bolt of lightning to 6th-Century Rome; in need of money, he has just invented/introduced the process of distilling wine into brandy):
Nitpick: The point of the book is that Jesus was really more of a political than religious zealot, to the extent the two were distinguishable in his time and place. His grudge against the priests was that they were getting rich off what amounted to a Temple-sacrifice racket and working hand-in-glove with the Romans to exploit the Judeans economically.
And like as not to be widowed, too, chancy as life was in those days, which would account for no wife being mentioned in connection with his life after he began to wander and preach. A good Jew has a religious and moral obligation to get married, but not necessarily more than once.
Come to think of it, that would also account for St. Peter having a mother-in-law but no wife being mentioned, etc.
It was also full of wandering wizards/healers/exorcists; in that role, ccording to Aslan, Jesus was unusual only in not charging money.
Well, that’s a bit strict! To most people, a bachelor pastor marrying a parishioner would be heartwarming After School Special material (so long as he ain’t Catholic, of course).
Well, yeah, he was on a tighter schedule.
“A religion is just a fandom that’s gotten really old.” Flamewars are inevitable.
There is no non-biblical evidence of such a custom. And Reza Aslan makes the point that Pilate was a very, very strict governor, who ordered so many crucifixions that the Judeans complained to the Emperor.
He does not say whether it did them any good. It is just conceivable that Augustus wrote Pilate saying, “Cool it! Save crucifixion for the worst cases!” And then Pilate just might have made such an offer to the mob, trying to be reasonable here. But I doubt it. Jesus was one of the worst cases, a direct threat to the state, and no way would a responsible governor, which Pilate also was, have let him out of it alive.
It would be completely insane for a Christian to try to imitate Jesus’ life in any but the vaguest terms.
Headline: “Why did Narendra Modi keep his wife secret for almost 50 years?”
Have you met her, dude?!
[rimshot]
I hope this is not off base.but I have often heard Jesus was like us in all things except sin, but Jesus was in reality nothing like us if the NT is correct.
He had loving parents, no abuse, was never sick, knew nothing about being a woman. never bore a child, when he needed money to pay his taxes he sent Peter to catch a fish with money in it’s mouth to pay for his taxes and Peter’s, He never knew the experience of old age, his sufferings were from a few hours unlike the Challenged who suffered through their entire life. He was said to know that he would come back to life in 3 days, but in reality it was only about 30+hours, his close friends, followers, and relatives didn’t apparently believe he would come back to life or they would not have gone to anoint a dead body, or be surprised to hear the tomb was empty. May M didn’t recognize him, and why he would make a big secret of what he had told people what would happen didn’t make sense nor if he was truly human he could not have gone through the wall to see his Apostles.
It would explain why he didn’t mind dying.
Anyone would mind being crucified. To say it didn’t really hurt Him would be . . . any one of several heresies. But, of course, Jesus had a tombstone disposition and a graveyard mind! He’s a bad motherf***er and He don’t mind dyin’! Tell me, Who do you love?! Oh baby, Who do you love?!
And of course, Jesus is the quintessential motherf***er when we account for the highly unusual circumstances of His conception and Trinitarian doctrine thereupon . . .
I’ve already expressed my take on the theory.
Unlike some Christians, I regarded ***The Last Temptation of Christ ***as a terrible movie but not as a blasphemous or even offensive movie. There’d be absolutely nothing immoral, sinful or distatsteful about Jesus getting married, enjoying sex with his WIFE, and having children. I don’t believe he did, and there’s no evidence (Scriptural or otherwise) to suggest that he did, but as long as we’re playing the “What if” game, I don’t see what would be so terrible about a married Jesus.
In John 10, Jesus quotes the psalmist, and when accused of blasphemy he says: It says in your law I said you are gods, Why do you say I blaspheme because I call god my father when your father’s did." That suggests he did not consider himself any more of a divine person than any of the people who he was speaking to.