All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/
News

Hindu nationalists, led by Narendra Modi, crack down on religious liberty

1 Comment
Map of India
Map of India

This was reported by the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

In a sad development, the government of India is clamping down on religious liberty, and impoverished children stand to lose the most.

Compassion International, a Christian organization that partners with local churches around the world to improve the lives of children in poverty, began shutting down its operations in India due to financial restrictions imposed on them by the Indian government. This will leave an estimated 145,000 children worse off.

The shutdown comes after months of attempts to convince the Indian government to reverse its decision, and the clampdown on Compassion International comes amid other government actions against nearly 11,000 faith-based and secular organizations operating in India.

Compassion International is a faith-based aid organization that provides humanitarian assistance for underprivileged children around the world, and has operated in India since 1968. The group is the largest single foreign provider of assistance in India, contributing around $45 million in humanitarian aid annually.

Stephen Oakley, general counsel for Compassion International, testified that the organization hosts programs that run five to six days a week, and provides meals, medical treatment, and tutoring, as well as financial assistance for school tuition.

While these programs are run out of the local Christian churches, Compassion International denies that any forced conversions take place and does not use adherence to Christianity as a condition for providing assistance. The aid is purely based on need.

[…]Nooruddin estimates that about half of the foreign aid organizations in India have been pushed out since 2012 due to an inability to renew their licenses—something the government has made more difficult in an attempt to reduce the influence of outside organizations in India.

The concept of charity is foreign to Hinduism in particular (but not Islam), simply because if a person is poor, this is seen as a result of bad karma that they have collected because of misdeeds in past lives. It’s nothing for anyone to fix, in short, and it’s seen as best to concentrate on one’s one’s grades and one’s own wealth-building. Although most Hindus don’t want to be bothered taking care of the poor themselves, they also don’t want Christians getting the credit for doing it. So, the easiest way to stop Christians getting credit with the poor for helping the poor is to stop Christians from helping the poor – leveling the playing field between the two religions.

Evangelism and Hindu tolerance

I come from a partially Hindu background, and I have to work with a lot of Indian people in my current job as a software engineer. And I have indeed noticed an aversion to Christianity from them. it’s actually very strange. When I ask them about religion, they can talk passionately about religious diversity and how tolerant their Hinduism is. But if you dig a little more under the surface, not only do they disagree with everything I believe, but they also don’t think I should allowed to express my views in public to anyone who doesn’t already agree with me.

So why is that? Well, although many East Indian people that I speak to know a great deal about computer science and making money, they actually know almost nothing about religions other than their own. For them, religion isn’t an area for investigation about what’s true or false. For them, religion is like their nationality or race or family or community. It’s beyond logic and evidence, it’s just design for social cohesion. So, if, for example, you tell a Hindu that their oscillating eternal cosmology is factually false, they get angry because that’s not religion is for them. They don’t care whether what they believe is true or false, so long as it helps them get along with their families and communities. And since Christianity would cause a break up in their families and communities (should anyone convert), they want to stop all logical and evidential discussions of it. For a Hindu, not eating meat is more important than how the universe began, because not eating meat is social, and how the universe began is factual. Bring up facts to people who are looking for social cohesion and unity gets you the kind of response that you see from Modi and the Hindu nationalists.

News

Border security union blames rape of teen by illegals on Obama policies

1 Comment
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

The Washington Examiner reports:

Open door immigration policies put in place by the Obama administration were cited a cause for the alleged rape of a 14-year-old student inside Maryland high school by two illegals, according to the head of the Border Patrol union.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, cited the former administration’s “catch and release” program for letting the two illegals charged in the rape into the United States.

In Senate testimony, he said, “Had we done our job that 14-year-old girl would never have been raped. Period. That’s all there is to it.”

Two illegal immigrants have been charged in the rape that occurred a week ago in the Rockville, Md., high school. A lawyer for the oldest, 18-year-old Henry Sanchez-Milian, of Guatemala, claimed that the sex was consensual, but police claim they have a “strong case” for rape. Jose Montano, 17 of El Salvador, was also charged. Because he is a minor, no other details of his case have been released.

Homeland Security officials said that Sanchez-Milian crossed the Texas border, was caught, and released. They have released little other information, including if the two were allowed in under the Obama unaccompanied minor program or why Sanchez-Milian was released.

Now, no one has been convicted yet in this case, so it’s premature to draw any conclusions. If this case does pan out, though, it will b e interesting for me to ask my evangelical friends what they think of the results of the open borders policies that they favor. Two of my open borders evangelical friends are university professors, and both of them are paid because of government grants and other redistributions of taxpayer money. It’s natural for them to think that taking money from taxpayers is fine and good. But they often haven’t thought far enough ahead about things like this rape. What would well meaning evangelical pastors and professors say about the victims of crime by illegal immigrants? After all, if those illegal immigrants had been deported after serving their convictions, then there would be fewer victims of crime here. I don’t think that pious pastors and erudite professors have much understanding about what taxpayer money is supposed to be for – it’s for the government to protect the taxpayers by enforcing the law. One can certainly be in favor of skilled immigration, while still being opposed to illegal immigration – especially the ones who commit crimes and then are released to commit more crimes.

That rape case is still up in the air, but there is another case where the facts are more settled.

Consider this story from the Washington Free Beacon.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration began the process last year of granting legal status to an adult illegal immigrant from Mexico with a criminal background who federal agents tried deporting twice and is now accused of killing his 15-year-old girlfriend.

Armando Garcia-Ramirez, 36, has been charged with murdering his teenage girlfriend from Texas, who local reporters identified as Jennifer Delgado, theWashington Times reported Tuesday.

The ex-couple had a one-year-old child and Delgado was nine months pregnant with another when she was killed. Garcia-Ramirez was reportedly Delgado’s stepfather at one time and may have been when he impregnated her.

Federal authorities apparently missed this relationship last year when Garcia-Ramirez was arrested for smuggling five other illegal immigrants into the United States. Prosecutors did not pursue the case, according to the Times, and Garcia-Ramirez went free after making bond. He was approved for a worker permit months later, which made him eligible for taxpayer benefits.

I’m very much in favor of legal immigration, especially skilled legal immigration. my great concern is that people come into the country who cannot make their own way, and want to survive by depending on the government – by taking from taxpaying businesses and workers. What’s amazing to me is the people who are actively trying to prevent the deportation of convicted criminals who should not even be in the country. Unfortunately, everyone who voted for Obama voted for criminals to remain in the United States.

The case of Kate Steinle was another example of compassionate liberals killing another innocent victim. It happens more than you think.

News

Free Speech bus vandalized by LGBT activists

3 Comments
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

Is the tolerance and diversity crowd really as tolerant and diverse as they claim?

Consider this story from the Washington Free Beacon about the Free Speech bus created by the National Organization for Marriage.

Excerpt:

A bus with social conservative slogans denouncing transgenderism was vandalized Thursday in New York City by trans activists.

[…][T]he bus never left New York. The National Organization for Marriage announced Thursday that the bus had been defaced by angry activists wielding hammers.

Oh, such hate speech! Much offended. Only hammers could fix this problem of other people having different opinions than the secular left extremists.

They even attacked the driver:

National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown told USA Today that the driver of the bus tried to stop the vandals, but was tackled by one of the activists.

Newsbusters also reported on the mainstream media’s coverage of the attack:

If you’re not convinced the media is on board with the LGBT agenda, think again.

On the evening of March 23, NYC vandals damaged a bus displaying a conservative message about gender, and even tackled the vehicle’s driver. Although liberal media outlets condemned the bus’s message prior to the incident, few reported on the vandalism and its ironic assault on free speech. And if they did, biased headlines labelled the vehicle “transphobic” or “anti-transgender.”

However, the #FreeSpeechBus doesn’t promote hate; it promotes science. A joint effort between the National Organization for Marriage, the International Organization for the Family and conservative activist group Citizen Go, the bus and its activists are holding rallies and press conferences in key East Coast cities. Their message — and the words emblazoned on the bright orange vehicle — are simple: “It’s biology: Boys are boys … and always will be. Girls are girls … and always will be. You can’t change sex. Respect all.”

Nevertheless, USA Today writer Melanie Eversley headlined her piece: “Bus with anti-transgender message is vandalized in NYC.” Fusion reporter Rafi Schwartz took the same track, writing: “A transphobic ‘free speech’ bus hit the streets of New York — and was immediately vandalized.”

Huffington Post Trends Reporter Elyse Wanshel reported on the bus before it was defaced, condemning its “transphobic message of hate.” So far, Huff Post has not published any stories about the vandalism.

Now might be a good time to remind everyone about the attack on the Family Research Council building.

The attacker in that case, a gay rights activist, was later convicted of domestic terrorism.