Brainwashing is a domination technique employed by less scrupulous governments and individuals to gain control over people, by eroding away at the ego and destroying free will, replacing it with a belief structure that renders one succeptable to commands. The ego is first destroyed by repeatedly and forcefully informing the subject of one’s guilt for some exaggerated or imaginary crime, and of one’s overall inferiority. Fundamentalist Christians routinely teach this lesson to new converts through the doctrine of Original Sin, holding the person responsible for the mythical crimes that took place in the Garden of Eden, and repeatedly reiterating to the person how he or she is reprehensible and imperfect in the eyes of God, and worthy only of damnation.

Brainwashing techniques require offering the person at the point of a broken will a single exit–one must identify with a heroic lead figure who will deliver that person back to grace. In the case of Fundamentalism, that heroic figure is Jesus Christ. The actual history of Jesus and whatever sort of lessons or intent he had in mind are essentially irrelevant to Fundamentalism today. They have created an image of Christ that is immutable and irrefutable, even by rational biblical scholars willing to question Fundamentalist dogma. It is this imaginary Christ, not the actual historical person, who is put forward as one’s “salvation” from an otherwise infinitely horrific damnation.

The images of Hell are particularly frightening to young children, who have little experience and skill with skepticism or logic, who will most readily convert through these brainwashing techniques. What is most reprehensible about the Fundamentalists within Christianity is that they are well aware of this fact, and that they choose to act on it with full intention even though they themselves are likely motivated by their own indoctrination. They feel it is better to rob people of free will than to allow them to choose to go to Hell.

The spread of viral philosophies is a threat to more peaceful ones. The trend that more aggressive philosophies win and gain ground creates a selective evolutionary advantage that perpetuates war and hostility.

The role that Fundamentalism has played in human history for motivating war and destruction is well documented, and has repeatedly worked against human life and vitality on tribal, national, and even global levels. The solution is obvious; the followers of more peaceful philosophies must make an active stand against the spread of their aggressive competition. It is not sufficient to believe passively; Fundamentalists believe in active recruitment, and will seed the notions of war and destruction into others.

Our duty must be to warn others of the truth of what they represent. We must innoculate them beforehand with the wisdom of objectivity and education. People aware of human history and of the opportunities to believe in other possibilities will be less likely to adopt the notion that there is a God who mandates participation in “spiritual warfare.” The uneducated by comparison readily adopt Fundamentalism, which plays to the emotions through its fear tactics.

There is little we can do at this point to protect children from Fundemantalism, but through awareness and education, more people become aware of the problem and less vulnerable towards buying into Fundamentalist rhetoric. With knowledge and education, people have a better chance of seeing the hypocritic ironies shared between the radical terrorists who corrupt Islam and the fanatics who pervert similarly Christianity. Awareness of the problem is paramount towards ending the problem.

Resisting Fundamentalism is worthwhile, because doing so brings us closer to ending future wars, persecution, violations of fundamental human rights, and loss of irreplacable history.

And what’s even worse than simply USING such woes as conversion tools is ACTIVELY WORKING to bring them upon a region or group in order to create “opportunities” for “harvesting souls”. Or for expediting the arrival of the End Times.

Which brings us to the war in Iraq.

In the 2006 essay below, Charles Marsh lays out statements made by some prominent and highly influential American evangelicals during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Some of these guys seem downright giddy at the prospect war in the Middle East.

For instance, Marsh refers to “an article carried by the [Southern Baptist] convention’s Baptist Press news service, [in which] a missionary wrote that ‘American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’”

Evangelical giants “Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims.”

And on the literary front, “Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular ‘Left Behind’ series, spoke of Iraq as ‘a focal point of end-time events,’ whose special role in the earth’s final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction.” It goes on.

I am by no means anti-Christian. But considering how prevalent this type of Christian presence has become in the world, it is easy to understand Mahatma Gandhi’s view that “Christianity became disfigured when it went to the West.”

http://www.americanbuddhist.net/flashback-wayward-christian-soldiers

Harendra De Silva

The review by Allen Carr of Paul Hattaway’s Christian Evangelist publication ‘Peoples of the Buddhist World’ should be an eye opener to Sri Lankans of all religious persuasions. During the past few years, certain misguided Sri Lankan Christians wrote to the papers declaring the innocence of Evangelical Christians, but this book quite clearly demonstrates the weakness of their claims about the Evangelical agenda. To its credit the Catholic Church in the island has condemned the way the fundamentalists go about their proselytism, but sections of Sri Lanka’s Christian community continue to deny that there is a problem with the worldview of Christian evangelists that is not conducive towards inter-religious harmony in a multi religious country such as Sri Lanka.

What is clear is that Christian evangelists in Sri Lanka and indeed the rest of the world are not interested in dialogue or coexistence. What they desire is to ensure the demise other religions, whether it be Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or Judaism and their replacement with Christianity. Currently in Sri Lanka there are numerous Christian evangelical groups working to “harvest souls for God.” They are represented by the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL). This umbrella group is actively working to convert not only Buddhists, but Hindus and Muslims as well. The Tamils of the upcountry and those in refugee camps, and the Muslims of Puttalam as well as the Malay community are the main minority non-Christian groups targeted for conversion.

The NCEASL must realise that the aggressive and unethical activities of various Christian missionary groups in the island have caused religious tension in areas where previously people of different religions had been living in peace. It must also realise that using poverty, destitution, war and natural disasters as tools for conversion goes against accepted norms of decency and morality. As much as freedom of religion is to be cherished and upheld, it does not include the freedom to refer to other religions in a derogatory manner, divide villages along religious lines and create religious conflict. Such acts are not in the welfare of the Sri Lankan people or the Sri Lankan nation.

Religious harmony requires a healthy respect for others and their freedom to live in a society without religious coercion. It requires a recognition of the fact that whilst we may not agree with other belief systems, they may be equally valid paths to the divine. When one group aggressively targets others for conversion, for “harvesting souls,” and characterizes their relationship with other traditions as a “spiritual battle” the very foundation of religious harmony is destroyed.

The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka needs to re-examine how its member organisations go about spreading the Gospel in Sri Lanka, a country where memories of Christian oppression during the colonial period still remain in the national psyche. The two largest non-Christian traditions in the island, Buddhism and Hinduism, were severely oppressed for close to 500 years at the hands of over zealous Christians with temples destroyed, believers and clergy killed and prohibitions on the practice of Buddhism and Hinduism in areas where Christians ruled. The Muslim community were also not spared as their mosques were demolished and their population expelled from Christian areas to other parts of the island. Many Sri Lankans are worried over the possible return of that aggressive and iconoclastic brand of Christianity that seeks to oppress and destroy rather than coexist in peace and harmony.

A Buddhist’s Guide to Evangelical Christianity

About six months ago there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find two evangelical Christians there. I knew they were evangelicals because they had that fake friendly smile on their faces, which all evangelicals have when they are trying to convert someone.

This was the third time that month that evangelists had come knocking on my door and disturbing me so I decided to teach them a lesson. ‘Good morning’ they said. ‘Good morning’ I replied.

‘Have you heard about the Lord Jesus Christ’? they asked. ‘I know something about him but I am a Buddhist and I’m not really interested in knowing more’ I said. But like all evangelists, they took no notice of my wishes and proceeded to talk about their beliefs.

So I said, ‘I don’t think you are qualified to speak to me about Jesus’. They looked very astonished and asked, ‘Why not’? ‘Because’, I said, ‘you have no faith’. ‘Our faith in Jesus is as strong as a rock’ they insisted. ‘I don’t think it is’ I said with a smile.

‘Please open your Bible and read the Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, verse 16, 17 and 18′ I said and while they flicked through their Bibles I went quickly inside and came out again. One of them found the passage and I asked him to read it out loud. It said, ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved but he who does not believe shall be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They shall cast out devils, they shall speak in tongues, they will handle snakes and if they drink poison it will not hurt them and they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover’.

When he finished I said, ‘In that passage Jesus says that if you have real faith you will be able to drink poison and not die’. I took a bottle of Lankem from behind my back, held it up and said, ‘Here is some poison. Demonstrate to me the strength of your faith and I will listen to anything you have to say about Jesus’.

You should have seen the looks on their faces! They didn’t know what to say. ‘What’s the problem’? I asked. ‘Is your faith not strong enough’? They hesitated for a few moments and then one of them replied, ‘The Bible also says that we must not test God’. ‘I’m not testing God’, I said, ‘I’m testing you. You love to witness for Jesus and now is your big opportunity’. Finally one of then said, ‘We will go and speak to our pastor about this matter and come back and see you. ‘I’ll be waiting for you’ I said as they scurried away. Of course they never came back again.

Here is a bit of advice. Keep a copy of this Bible reference and a bottle of Lankem ready and every time the evangelists come to your door to harass you give them this test. You might like to have a polanga ready as well.

A gist of the book:

The purpose of this book is threefold. Firstly it aims to critically examine Christianity and thereby highlight the logical, philosophical and ethical problems in Christian dogma. In doing this I hope to be able to provide Buddhists with facts which they can use when Christians attempt to evangelize them. This book should make such encounters more fair, and hopefully also make it more likely that Buddhists will remain Buddhists. As it is, many Buddhists know little of their own religion and nothing about Christianity – which makes it difficult for them to answer the questions Christians ask or to rebut the claims they make.

The second aim of this book is to help any Christians who might read it to understand why some people are not, and never will be, Christians. Hopefully, this understanding will help them to develop an acceptance of and thereby genuine friendship with Buddhists, rather than relating to them only as potential converts. In order to do this, I have raised as many difficult questions as possible and not a few home truths. If it appears sometimes that I have been hard on Christianity, I hope this will not be interpreted as being motivated by malice. I was a Christian for many years and I still retain a fond regard, and even admiration, for some aspects of Christianity. For me, Jesus’ teachings were an important step in my becoming a Buddhist and I think I am a better Buddhist as a result. However when Christians claim, as many do with such insistence, that their religion alone is true, then they must be prepared to answer doubts which others might express about their religion.

The third aim of this book is to awaken in Buddhists a deeper appreciation for their own religion. In some Asian countries Buddhism is thought of an out-of-date superstition while Christianity is seen as a religion which has all the answers. As these countries become more Westernized, Christianity with its “modern” image begins to look increasingly attractive. I think this book will amply demonstrate that Buddhism is able to ask questions of Christianity which it has great difficulties in answering, and at the same time to offer explanations to life’s puzzles which make Christian explanations look rather puerile.

Some Buddhists may object to a book like this, believing that such a gentle and tolerant religion as Buddhism should refrain from criticizing other religions. This is certainly not what the Buddha himself taught. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta he said that his disciples should be able to “Teach the Dhamma, declare it, establish it, expound it, analyse it, make it clear, and be able by means of the Dhamma to refute false teachings that have arisen. “Subjecting a point of view to careful scrutiny and criticism has an important part to play in helping to winnow truth from falsehood, so that we can be in a better position to choose between “the two and sixty contending sects. ” Criticism of another religion only becomes inappropriate when it is based on a deliberate misrepresentation of that religion, or when it descends into an exercise in ridicule and name-calling. I hope I have avoided doing this.

I respect Rugger more than religion. I know Rugger is a violent game, but it is not even remotely violent as religion.

Converting Buddhists in to Christians, I don’t think is much of an issue. If one can believe God or Red Riding Hood is true and world is flat and 5000 years old, then philosophy won’t be there favorite subject. So let them follow literature instead. I think even Buddha himself didn’t bother to teach Buddhism to everyone. Some people are not capable of grasp Buddhism.

But we have more dangerous problem in Sri Lanka. They are not converting Buddhists in to Christians. They are converting Buddhism in to Christianity and they are really good at it. Intentionally or unintentionally Nazi ideologists like Henry Olcott started this movement and they shaped Buddhism in to just another religion like Christianity. They knew Buddhism sucks as a religion. It is not organized. It does not have military power. It does not have finical power. It is easy to destroy Buddhism as a religion than a philosophy. They made flags (Where Flags fit inside Dharma), worst of all they started so call Buddhist schools. Now we come a point, monks do jobs, and collect taxes and send people to prison or pass legislation. And parallel to that, not only Christian theories, they even promote Christian culture too. Now we have to dress like the bible say, marry like the bible says, even have haircuts as the bible says. Just look at how our so calls Buddhists are so paranoid about homosexuals. Result of all that is, our Values are now base on Christianity and the bible, instead Buddhism. The best part of it is, they get the monks to do it. They are brilliant. The next stage is quite simple. It started already.

Nihal,
I think if one have to work hard to be a Buddhist, he is most probably doing something wrong.

You’re kidding right? The only call to arms bits I see in the review are the quotes from Hattaway’s book. The whole review ends with “Unless we reform the Sangha, better organize ourselves and make more of an effort to both know and apply our religion the Light of Asia may be snuffed out.” Does that sound like a “call to arms” to you? Because it sounds like introspection to me. You sound just like those Christians who scream “persecution” when someone merely points out their bigotry or resists their proselytism.

If anything, it’s Hattaway’s book that seems like a call to arms; to all the eager “Christian soldiers Marching As To War.” Apparently according to Christian doctrine Buddhists (and of course the Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Taoists, Jews and every other non-Christian community) are somehow destined to burn in hell for eternity. I guess I won’t be taking any winter clothes with me along to my deathbed.

Also I don’t think anyone should use the word “cunts” to describe anyone. Especially when it comes to religion. Everyone, including the most hardcore Christian evangelists deserve our respect too even if we don’t agree with their ways.

In Sri Lanka nearly all the Buddhists are Sinhalese and nearly all the Hindus are Tamils. Nearly all Sri Lankans are religious minded. So it is possible to bring about a better understanding between the Buddhists and Hindus through their religion to the language. In the language sector too there are many similarities. Even in the cultural sector it is very much similar. So what polarises them to this extent of having many a violent death every day.

It is GREED for power and money which is despiced by all religions.

What is the use of the billions of ruppees if you cannot find serenity while you are alive and salvation on death.

Will our so-called religious leaders ponder on this thought to bring serenity and salvation to the people of this country – the bountiful Sri Lanka – to create the Gem of the World from the Tear drop of the Indian Ocean.