I'm posting this with a disclaimer. Though I no longer consider myself a part of any organized religion (no punch line there), I do know many intelligent, loving, and responsible people who do. It would be a grave mistake to assume that everyone who calls themselves a Christian would approve of what follows.
That being said:
The cries from off-screen were from a right-wing Christian group:
"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight. This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You."
What I find simultaneously amusing and deeply disturbing is the fact that this was in reaction to the Hindu invocation, which ran as follows:
We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds, lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light.
So the question is, what exactly did they object to? Do they not believe in a Supreme Deity? Do they not believe the Supreme Deity is omnipresent? Do they object to God stimulating and illuminating our minds? Or are they against being led from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Religion is about culture, not about facts or beliefs. There wasn't a thing in that prayer that they wouldn't have welcomed and applauded, if only one of them had been saying it.
