This is Just Like My Childhood…

Sell him a western-fashioned materialistic value structure?

Wooohoo iPods and Nikes all around!

Here is a man of India.
He is praying to his god.
His god cannot help him.
This man must know about Jesus.
Can you think of some ways to help him?

Ooh, ooh! (raising my hand and waving frantically) Yes! Go to his country uninvited with preachers and priests backed up with lots of soldiers who have weapons far superior to anything the locals have, give them some diseases that they have never been exposed to, show off our technological superiority and wealth, tell the common people that our culture is superior in this way because our god is the right one and theirs is the wrong one, give them food and medicine and selll them junk that they never needed before, make them envy our technology and wealth, in the meantime strike secret deals with their leaders to plunder their natural resources using them as cheap labor, foment enmity between different groups that used to get along, start orphanages where the kids can be indoctrinated into believing in our god and in our superiority, send them out as the second wave of preachers and priests still backed up with plenty of soldiers, obliterate their language, their art, their music, their poetry, their love of their own country, teach them to fear death and feel guilt about sex, and finally praise them for seeing the true way to god even though they can’t be entirely worthy because it took them so long, unlike us who had it right the first time.

Then we will have helped him.

Send the man a free copy of “The God Delusion?”

I like how he starts to dance at the end!

All Praise the Power of Bollywood!

Actually according to Christianity you aren’t supposed to make graven images of any sort. That includes Jesus. While you’ll still see pictures of Jesus you will see very few, if any, Christians actually worshipping the image itself.

I came across this image a long time ago. I can’t remember where, but the source claimed it was a page out of a child’s Christian coloring book.

I’m confused. Is that man’s god really little? It’s just that he’s lying down in front of that cool statue and looking at the ground so I guess his god must be ant sized or something. We could help him by buying a magnifying glass for him but I’d be concerned that he’d use it to direct the suns rays at his god so it bursts into flame.

Maybe Jesus is the name of the local optician. “Hey, short sighted guy, yeah you lying down near that statue. Go see Jesus for a free eye exam. Buy one pair of glasses and get a second one free.” I hope that helped him.

This is a man of India (or so we suppose). He’s not praying to his god. Buddha is not a god. He’s a man who’s supposed to have discovered some great truths, put them into practice and offered them to the world. If he’s done everything right, he’s now in a place called Nirvana. There he can’t hear you, even less answer your prayers. I’m not an expert in Buddhism, but I think this is how it goes.

Now, obviously, the man is misguided. He should definitely pray to Bastet, and perhaps then he’ll be graced with a blessing from her; that is, a cat will come to him and rub its head on his ankles. Which is more than enough to brighten up the day of a poor suffering man.

Ok, I may be wrong about this, but if this man is in India, would he not be much more likely to be worshipping Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva (Hinduism) OR reading the Quran (Islam)?

Not that the producer of this cartoon would care and not that Christian children would know, but does anyone know the actual percentage of Buddhists in India?

Thanks chancelikely….the fact about Christians outnumbering Buddhist in India really hits the nail on the head of the problem: Facts are not important.

Christophe Thill,
Yeah, you have it generally correct. Some Buddhists in various regions in a way worship the Buddha as a deity, but it’s still not exactly the same as the Western notion of a deity.

I’m going to burn some incense for Bastet. Maybe my cat will rub my ankle and cheer me up. She only wants affection when she wants it, not when I want it. But that’s a cat, and that’s why I like them. Freethinkers.

This pic reminds me of a joke I heard:

—
Eskimo: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”
Priest: “No, not if you did not know.”
Eskimo: “Then why did you tell me?”
—

So how can we help that man in front of the statue? Simple. Prevent people from telling him about Jesus

Karen said,

That image looks like something out of a Sunday school lesson book. I read many of them as a kid, and the sentiments were similar: How can we save the heathens who don’t know Jesus?

Answer: give money, pray, give money, grow up and be a missionary. Oh, and don’t forget to give money.

Yep. That’s about right. Even has a section on how to tithe.

Actually…

In Hinduism, Buddha is regarded as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, following Ram and Krishna. (source)

So, just introduce him to Jesus, who is also considered to be an avatar in (some forms of) Hinduism. Problem solved.