Immigrants to UK will be told it is a `Christian country`

parijataka

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Theresa May 'planning changes to immigrant test'

The home secretary said it was difficult to say how migration would develop in the coming weeks Continue reading the main story
Home Secretary Theresa May is reported to be planning changes to the test taken by foreign nationals who wish to become British citizens.

The Life in the United Kingdom test was introduced by Labour in 2005.The Sunday Times says immigrants will be told "historically the UK is a Christian country."
The revised version will focus less on the practicalities of daily living in Britain and require more knowledge of British history and achievements.

The paper says immigrants will also have to learn the first verse of the national anthem before they can become UK citizens. Mrs May is understood to have scrapped sections of the test which dealt with claiming benefits and the Human Rights Act.....:laugh:

Instead potential immigrants will be expected to learn about Byron, the Duke of Wellington, Shakespeare and other historical and cultural figures.The new handbook, expected to be issued in the autumn, will include sections about key battles, such as Trafalgar, and British inventions and discoveries.

A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC: "Putting our culture and history at the heart of the citizenship test will help ensure those permanently settling can understand British life allowing them to properly integrate into our society." The handbook, currently in draft form, is the basis of a 45-minute test which potential citizens can take at one of 90 centres around the UK.
 

balai_c

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Now begins the real fun, what will our self-styled champions of secularism say? A real western country becomes communal, this is really fun!
 

Galaxy

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Good decision. UK is not like India where secularism has some weird, illogical and absurd definition.

UK is a Christian country like Turkey is Islamic, India is Hindu, Japan is Buddhist, Israel is Jew. Most of them aren't religious state but Secularism doesn't mean the culture of the country should be compromised just because some section of the society doesn't respect the culture of the nation. The one (Read Muslims) are migrating to UK should respect and assimilate in society by accepting the culture of the country. Non-Muslims do the same everywhere. If anyone has problem, They should live in 50+ Islamic La la land! No one is inviting. They are getting the privilege and shouldn't be misused.
 
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Cliff@sea

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Now begins the real fun, what will our self-styled champions of secularism say? A real western country becomes communal, this is really fun!
I am afraid i can't see anything overty communal here

Calling a spade a spade is not communal AFAIK
All through the middle ages England was as christian a country in the world as there can be
and it did shape their culture to a large extent .....

and i Think this piece of Information is quiet vital to understanding the cultural backdrop of UK

anyway ...as a "self-styled champions of secularism" i seek to defend only secularism as laid down in Indian Constituion

what UK does is none of my business really ....!
 
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Cliff@sea

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Good decision. UK is not like India where secularism has some weird, illogical and absurd definition.

UK is a Christian country like Turkey is Islamic, India is Hindu, Japan is Buddhist, Israel is Jew............................

i seek to differ here .....

Untill the 19th century

the Population and ruler in Uk was almost completely Christian so yes it can claim to be Historically a Christian Country
same's true about Turkey in regards to Islam ....


Japan ....is a much more complicated case ...with shinto etc ..

and Israel didnt even exist

But India has always had Sizeable non Hindu Population ....
and also Non Hindu rulers for large swathes of time ....
actually until the arab Invaders came ....there wasn't any single faith that could have been called Hindu

so no ...IMHO India was not a Hindu country in the same vein as Uk being Christian...
 

Dovah

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Now begins the real fun, what will our self-styled champions of secularism say? A real western country becomes communal, this is really fun!
Actually Britain was never Secular constitutionally to begin with. However, I like how conservatism is gaining a foothold in Britain. The more they regress into their past glory the sooner their decline would come.
 

balai_c

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i seek to differ here .....

Untill the 19th century

the Population and ruler in Uk was almost completely Christian so yes it can claim to be Historically a Christian Country
same's true about Turkey in regards to Islam ....


Japan ....is a much more complicated case ...with shinto etc ..

and Israel didnt even exist

But India has always had Sizeable non Hindu Population ....
and also Non Hindu rulers for large swathes of time ....
actually until the arab Invaders came ....there wasn't any single faith that could have been called Hindu

so no ...IMHO India was not a Hindu country in the same vein as Uk being Christian...
Indian non Hindu population was non-exiastant before the Islamic invasion at the beginning of the first millenium. As far as "Hindu" identity, the very name is non-Indian to begin.Hindu comes from the word "Hind" which is Arabic for Sindh- it meant the teaming humanity east of sindhu river. The idea of Sanatana Dharma got morphed to the strange word "hinduism" during British Raj era. India never had a religion , but it always had Dharma. So if you have a problem of calling India Hindu, may I suggest Dharmic? It has benn said many many times that it is Dharma that is keeping India what it is. So, let´s call India a Dharmic country.

All through the middle ages England was as christian a country in the world as there can be
and it did shape their culture to a large extent ....
India similarly can be call India Dhamic, since Dharma is the bedrock of the Indian identity,the very idea of India.
 
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Yusuf

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Galaxy, I think the comparison between UK and India is wrong. UK never had any other religion in their country for 1000 years. Migration to Britain especially from outside Europe with other religion particularly Islam is more of a post world war II phenomenon.

The choice of working is "politically correct" as in it says that immigrants will be taught that Britain has been a Christian country. It's like informing the immigrant rather than telling them we are a Christian country and you better follow it so something. I don't see anything "unsecular" about this. They are just trying to tell immigrants about their country, history and culture.
 

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The English are scared that their Country might be overtaken by Pakistanies for whom religion is more precious than life and then declare that UK is an Islamic country (Darul Ul Islam).

The effects of population pyramid in UK have started showing. The aged population is scared. the young whites are hopelessly minority and the majority amongst the young would be Pakistanies.
 
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Cliff@sea

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Indian non Hindu population was non-exiastant before the Islamic invasion at the beginning of the first millenium......
...so was Hindu Population . . . . . .since Hindu as religion didnt exist ..... and u're conveniently forgetting Budhdhists and Budhdhist Rulers ....

India similarly can be call India Dhamic, since Dharma is the bedrock of the Indian identity,the very idea of India.
you can keep inventing terms ....but there's no real boundary ...for wht these terms may or may not include ....

India was Very Secular in its soul then as it is now ....ready to assimilate new thought and culture as and when they came
 

Armand2REP

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Hey you... who me? Yeah you... this is a Christian country and you don't have any rights until you get that. Got it? Nope... i'm going back home.
 

balai_c

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...so was Hindu Population . . . . . .since Hindu as religion didnt exist ..... and u're conveniently forgetting Budhdhists and Budhdhist Rulers ....



you can keep inventing terms ....but there's no real boundary ...for wht these terms may or may not include ....

India was Very Secular in its soul then as it is now ....ready to assimilate new thought and culture as and when they came
I did not invent the term, dude. Many people have done it before. Buddhism is not an ism either- it is also a Dharma.

India - A sacred geography bound by Dharma

Allright, you may not agree with my assertion, will a white lady´s view conform to your standards?

Washington: Can geography be imagined in the mind and enacted? By billions of feet trekking to sacred rivers and mountain tops over thousands of years?

Diana Eck, an eminent scholar of Hinduism, says this is the real idea behind India or Bharat, a geography carried in the imagination over generations and one that lived much before invading armies or British colonialists tried to define it. Mythology and geography were married in the Hindu imagination, conceiving as it were the land of India. The marriage has lasted for millennia.


The pilgrims' map largely resembles the borders of the modern Indian state. They "knew" the geography from the frozen peaks of the Himalayas in the north where Shiva resided to the four "dhams" threading the east, west, north and south. The seven sacred rivers, the many "sangams" and the veneration of every spot where the gods touched ground created a unity, a map.

India, thus defined, stays bound despite the unimaginable diversity of language and culture, defying the dire predictions of many westerners. British civil servants of the colonial era believed and haughtily declared there was no India. As they understood it, perhaps. The narrative of India having been a jumble of kingdoms, until the British beat it into a united country, survives. Until the 1980s, British and American diplomats would frequently refer to the possibility of India's breakup. It was just plain logic since the country was an artificial union, they would say earnestly.

Eck has challenged the dominant narrative in a way that may disturb the left-leaning historians and will warm the right-leaning ones. She says a certain glue holds India together and that glue is Hinduism. India is an integrated space of culturally diverse Hindus who have a spiritual relationship with the land. So deep is this feeling that other religions of India have absorbed the idea and have their own string of sacred sights – the many dargahs – and their own pilgrimages.

Listening to Eck trace her journey and talk about her latest book India: A Sacred Geography was a rare pleasure. She was a little apprehensive while writing it because her ideas could be used to bolster exclusivist thinking about a "Hindu India," providing fodder to the wrong set of people. Fortunately, no frenzy has developed since the book's publication earlier this year and she has continued to travel to India unhindered to pursue her research. The book is about the "practical everyday pluralism" of Indians and the thrust is not political.

(As an aside, Eck was among those who initiated the effort last year to get Harvard University to discontinue two of Subramanian Swamy's economics courses at the university in response to his op-ed in DNA that, she argued, "demonised an entire religious community". More on that here.)

Eck says that India in the end is "more than a map" and it lives as a "three-dimensional sacred landscape, linked by its storylines." Every place has a story, and every story a god. The temples to Devi are scattered around 108 sites, where parts of Sati fell as a grief-stricken Shiva carried her body back. Most of these temples are rocks covered in sindoor and decorated with flowers but the presence of the devi is felt deeply by the faithful.

Shiva's 12 jyotirlingas knit the length and breadth of this space. The sacred rivers provide the background and life-blood to the cosmic game. The Ganga, the most sacred of them all, is believed to feed many other rivers and water bodies. In a sense it may begin at Gangotri but it is everywhere. Millions of pilgrims have visited the sacred spaces over centuries and created the geography.

It is a lived landscape. And was lived centuries before Google Earth came along. Eck's argument about Hinduism as a binding force is made after a lifetime of scholarship and formidable research on India's myths and rituals. She illustrates her thesis with numerous examples and stories, connecting the multi-layered argument into a seamless whole. All through India, the divine is felt and received by the local, accepted and renewed over the ages by everyday people, not necessarily the pundits and the official keepers of the faith.
 

balai_c

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I am quoting one of my posts in the rajiv malhotra thread, appears germane here:

The second way would be that of respecting and cherishing difference. This is where the Indian experience comes in. India has the unique distinction of being the world's most heterogeneous country. Now how did this happen? One word: Dharma. Dharma allows one to experience divinity in any way they can, without interference of one's basic rights in the quest. This freedom also extended to language, arts, and any other social faculty. Difference is respected, because nature allows difference, hence the bewildering diversity of culture.No one needs to conform to any overarching plenary religious dictates, no persecution because of faith or language, or any other perceived dissimilarities.
This is what I meant by the Dharmic way. I you have an alternate view, please do say it.
 
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Cliff@sea

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I did not invent the term, dude. Many people have done it before. Buddhism is not an ism either- it is also a Dharma.

India - A sacred geography bound by Dharma

Allright, you may not agree with my assertion, will a white lady´s view conform to your standards?

I have already read this very celebrated post already made in this forum some time ago ...
and i compltely agree with the opinions in the article

They however do nothing to change what i have said earlier

'Dharma' as a term can be loosely defined as Righteous Nature
and is not Limited to any single religion .......
 

balai_c

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I have already read this very celebrated post already made in this forum some time ago ...
and i compltely agree with the opinions in the article

They however do nothing to change what i have said earlier

'Dharma' as a term can be loosely defined as Righteous Nature
and is not Limited to any single religion .......
Yes, and no. Dharma does mean what you said. But it also means property, spiritual path(that can be construed as religion), duty, along with many other meanings. All you have to do is to pick up an Indian language, and an English dictionary, and compare the meanings of the words Dharma and religion, side by side. Any Indian language would do, be it Hindi,bangla, Oriya.

Let me quote from one my old posts:

Dharmic worldview allows integral unity(a term coined by sri Aurobindo) , which proposes that all of creation are naturally united,without a divine intervention necessary at specific periods of history. As far as the "only true path" is concerned, that had never occurred at any point as far as I have read. Because of the existence of the ideas of "Swadharma", one can view his/ her ishtadevata(i.e personal deity) any way they want. Had this not been so, they would not have been such a breathtaking scale of diversity of Sampradayas throughout the country. No one has heard of any inter-sectarian conflicts(for example among shaivas, shaktas, or vaishnavas) like one hears among Shias , Sunnis or Ahmadis, or among Catholics and Protestants in the middle ages.
 

KS

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Well done --

One must not be ashamed of his identity --
 

Cliff@sea

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Yes, and no. Dharma does mean what you said. But it also means property, spiritual path(that can be construed as religion), duty, along with many other meanings. . . .
the two Things you name here namely

Property (i m not very sure what u mean by this )
Spiritual Path

Apply to all religions .....
care to show me how Dharma is exclusive to Hinduism ??

. No one has heard of any inter-sectarian conflicts(for example among shaivas, shaktas, or vaishnavas) ....
I dont know what to say ..... medieval History is full of Bloody Conflicts between Shaivas and Vaishnavas ....

even in contemporary India ....You only need to visit Kumbh mela for yourself once ...where all the
Akhadas meet each other ...and Skirmishes that follow over ...who has more right, authority ...and whose views are more correct ...etc etc
 

KS

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India's cultural heritage and civilization identity is Dharmic in nature --

If the Abrahamiac religions had not been there, still this land, Bharatvarsh would have been the same..I dare say it would have been more peaceful...but if Sanatan Dharma -- Hinduism and its sister religions -- had not been there, then there is no Bharat.

India may be politically secular -- but its culturally and civilizationally Dharmic. That was,is and will be our identity.
 

balai_c

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he two Things you name here namely

Property (i m not very sure what u mean by this )
Spiritual Path

Apply to all religions .....
care to show me how Dharma is exclusive to Hinduism ??
I never said it is exclusive to Hinduism. I said it includes any faith that embraces the Dharmik worldview - meaning also Buddhism , jainism and sikhisism.

dont know what to say ..... medieval History is full of Bloody Conflicts between Shaivas and Vaishnavas ....

even in contemporary India ....You only need to visit Kumbh mela for yourself once ...where all the
Akhadas meet each other ...and Skirmishes that follow over ...who has more right, authority ...and whose views are more correct ...etc etc
Have you ever heard a war between two kingdoms of different sampradays-like Shaivas and vaishnavas trying to wipe out the existance of the other, like you see Ahmadis being hunted to extinction in ancient or medieval India? You are comparing apples and oranges! The first wave of settlers came to America to escape from religious persecution in England (watch shekhar kapoor´s ELIZABETH to understand what I am talking about). Do you see vaishnavs burning shaiva temples? Religious riots among Hindus? What you said before were wars between Empires, which never had a religious undertone, unlike the Islamic conquests in India.

As far as kumbhmela is concerned , yes such fights do happen, but they always personal conflicts, never institutionalised.
 

Cliff@sea

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ndia's cultural heritage and civilization identity is Dharmic in nature --
Dharma is supposed to be an all encompassing thought ......
So i wonder why this all encompassing thought cannot encompass these Abrahmical thoughts as it did with every thing else
e.g Budhdha's teachings ...which were on many counts in direct contrast to existing Brahiminical teachings ....but later they were assimilated too

so why this strange resistance to Abrahamiac thought ......
Why does it fail in its all All encompassing ability here ....



I If the Abrahamiac religions had not been there, still this land, Bharatvarsh would have been the same.....I dare say it would have been more peaceful...but if Sanatan Dharma -- Hinduism and its sister religions -- had not been there, then there is no Bharat.
Mere speculations ...we cannot limit our identity on mere speculations
 
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