He’s not Congressman Sali-ud-din
Congressman Bill Sali (R-Idaho) said yesterday that Hindus should not be allowed to offer the opening prayer in the Senate, via TPM (liberal blog):
“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives… they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers”… [he said] the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. He states when a Hindu prayer is offered, “that’s a different god” and that it “creates problems for the longevity of this country…” [Link]
“What Congressman Sali is saying is that he happens to disagree with the notion of offering a prayer to Hindu gods, plural,” [Sali’s spokesman] said. “Are we going to start our mornings reaching out to the hand of God or spinning the wheel and choosing what god it lands on?” [Link]
An Idaho Christianist chimed in with his belief that ceremonial prayers actually alter geopolitics in favor of the U.S., which makes me wonder why we spend any money on the CIA:
Hindus believe in a virtually infinite number of gods and worship cows, monkeys and snakes… We pledge allegiance to “one nation under God,” not to “one nation under gods.” Quite simply, Hindus, who of course are free in America to worship as many gods and animals as they would like, do not pray to or worship the God who is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.
Rep. Sali recognizes that congressional invocations are not just ceremonial in nature, but substantive. They are one of the crucial ways in which our leaders seek the favor of the same God who granted us such signal blessings at the time of our founding… [Link]
Here’s an idea: instead of wasting time squabbling over whose god is the one true god, a question which has waylaid countless comittees over human history — how about spending your time legislating?
Previously: No rest for the wicked
on Friday, August 10th, 2007, 2:03 pm in Politics, Religion › 
Email this
› 
Facebook this
› 
Reddit this
› Link
› Reader links
ummm, actually manish — with this guy? i’d much prefer that he waste his time blustering about whatever the heck he’d like to bluster about. ;)
You come up with these real wicked titles ;)
i kinda’ echo Anil on this :-D
I am an Indian & a Christian and am proud to be both. An irresponsible comment from a few nuts should not cloud our sentiments of the majority of the American public. Most of us Indians, be it Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists or Muslims live here very comfortably, practicing whatever we believe in with no hindrance from anyone. Thatis why we are still living here. There are some in our country who will give anything to see India as purely a Hindu nation, just as there are Muslims in other parts of the world who will want nobody but Muslims in their part of the world. Just as I pride myself as being an Indian Christian who can live in peace & harmony in India, I equally pride myself to be an American of Indian origin who can live in this country (US) with the same freedom as the rest of the folks in this country. That is what makes a country like India & the US so great.
Jay Kay, please quote a legislature in India who wants India to be a purly Hindu nation or a legislature who uses the kind of language this guys is using to describe non-Hindus.
Some years back, deep in the heart of the Midwest I went with some friends to a hard-core evangelical music concert, which filled the basketball stadium of a large big-ten school. During the concert, a guy stopped to give a spiel about family, love, blah…blah. Then he concluded by saying how “our god Jesus” was great and he was not phony like Krishna or Gandhi. My highly educated friends did not say anything about it. Now, I wasn’t particularly offended, but I couldn’t help but laugh because he couldn’t tell the difference between and Krishna and Gandhi. The awareness level of the hard-core evangelicals is pretty low, but their commitment and passion is rather scary. Besides, the concert was complete crap because after a while they run out of ideas to talk about–oh, I mean sing about.
Bongadi, consider this - a Hindu Senate invocation - I think that is fairly remarkable!
- check out the response of the senate majority leader, Harry Reid. He definitely was not in agreement
with congressman Sali’s comments.
- even fellow republicans have been quoted to call congressman Sali as “an abolute idiot”!!
Let’s not get too caught up & bogged down by some stupid comments by some irresponsible nuts, but rather look at attitudes of the majority of the folks in the US, who I find are not just tolerant, but very accepting of all faiths, color, race, orientation. Which is the reason why we who are here in the US stay on here & freely worship whichever God & practice whatever religion. Let us give credit where credit is due!
I can see the Indians (Native Americans) sitting on Plymouth Rock seeing the first colonial ship and saying, “There goes the neighborhood.” The “originalists” always have a rata-die that conveniently coincides with their narrow view.