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Vance Blasted as ‘Hindu-Phobic’ for Wanting Usha to Convert to Christianity
(www.thedailybeast.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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So I'm going to make this point just for educational purposes but Hinduism is quite sophisticated and you can be atheist / agnostic while still being Hindu ie. believing in concepts like karma, samsara, moksha, and advaita.
In fact India's first prime minister who was a key figure in India's independence movement and also key in establishing India as a secular nation with parliamentary democracy was a Hindu atheist. His name was Jawaharlal Nehru.
Now I know JD Vance doesnt know this when he describes her as agnostic and the Hindu rebutting him is a reasonable defense of her religious beliefs in total. But for those with the spiritual sophistication to understand it, it should be understood that Hinduism and Atheism/Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.
Lol how does Christianity and Hindu/atheist combo fair?
I don't know about Usha, but I've known a couple of atheist-Hindu-Christians that viewed the pantheon like a list of aspirational metaphorical figures, and they just added Jesus to the pantheon.
Which is actually really, really funny the more you know about the Canaanite pantheon and how modern Christiana cope about its existence.
Indeed, most xtianity sub-sects tend to hold to being exclusionary of anything else. So, while agnosticism and Hinduism might be accommodating, xtianity tends not to be. I'm pretty sure the Kirk kind of xtianity would be.
You're right that Christianity is exclusionary at the institutional level. Its a part of why the church has generally lost favor in society over time (in addition to rationalism etc.)
But individual Christians can be accommodating so in a universe where JD Vance isn't trying to turn the US into a white nationalist "utopia" it could work.
One of the core tenets of Christianity is that the only path to salvation is through Christ. That means non Christians are going to hell. That must be hard to accept (that your spouse cannot be heaven bound) but I think many Christians individually try not to think about this too much as they meet good non Christian people while living in pluralistic societies.
There are theological frameworks within Catholicism that seek to be more inclusive (implicit faith, anonymous Christians) but they are not widely accepted within Christianity (or even within Catholicism for that matter).
This isn't universally true (and is often a byproduct of most people thinking that the claims of Evangelicals are true; to be fair, it's in part because they're so loud and won't shut up).
Catholicism believes it's very well possible for non-Christians to go to Heaven (JD Vance, I'm sure, doesn't but there's a reason he's had to've been corrected by the Vatican multiple times).
+1 for "to've". It's a good word.
You're absolutely right I was able to find this 2021 data from Pew:
collapsed inline media
Its certainly more than just Evangelicals and even within Catholicism there isn't broad agreement (even though it is more open to the idea of implicit faith).
Generally speaking its a minority of Christians that believe non Christians can go to heaven, especially among Protestants.
Not using poll data from over a decade ago may help with that: https://www.pewresearch.org/. PEW's 2021 study found that 34% of Protestants believed only those who believed would go to Heaven though that's largely due to 21% of Evangelicals and 31% of historically black churches: 56% of Mainline Protestants believe people who don't believe can go Heaven.
And what individual Catholics believe doesn't matter because Catholics aren't Protestants; the Magisterium of the Church teaches – multiple times, stretching back to at least the beginning of the last century – that those who don't believe are capable of going to Heaven. Anyone can believe otherwise but that's, definitionally, not a Catholic belief (though, for the sake of completeness, it's 68% of individual Catholics who believe non-believers can go to Heaven, as of 2021).
Again, there's no way you can say this is true universally and, for neither Catholics nor Mainline Protestants, it's not a minority who believe it.
EDIT: this would be the second time, in the last 2 days, someone provided updated information that I didn't see because I was in the middle of writing a reply; looks like you found the same source as I had
Catholicism disagrees with that though! In Catholicism christ is necessary for salvation, and accepting him is the only revealed path to salvation but there is reasonable hope for the salvation of non-believers. That's why pope Francis was comfortable saying that he hopes hell is empty. The hope that through good works and changes in purgatory all people can be saved.
You're absolutely right! I was surprised to learn two in three Catholics believe non Christians can go to heaven (see the link to 2021 Pew data in my other reply).
Yes. I've run across many tolerant xtians (many in my own family) during my life and you are not wrong.
Now I know that some xtians would definitely say other xtians are not "real" xtians unless they believe certain things, but there are definitely xtian denominations that don't think the only way to salvation is through Jesus, so it's not just down to individuals.
Thats really a socially dependent statement. Historically when catholicism and protestantism were being forced on people during historical periods of colonialism, they were very concessionary if it ultimately adopted people into the faith that they were trying to push. They really let plenty of things go in terms of merging Christianity with indigenous belief systems and cosmologies. Just look at sanataria or the merging of voodoo with Christianity in the Caribbean and the southern US as one example. These are mixed belief systems, that are technically primarily Christianity, that are still often practiced today
European hard exclusion of various Christian perspectives from one another I think served as an example to later Europeans that just wanted to broadly legitimize their particular strain as easily as possible. It was easier to bend the religion than try to get people to give up on their already held beliefs. Especially when were talking about an era when Catholicism and Protestantism were large parts of the political justification for ruling monarchs. Jesus being “king of kings” said just as much to legitimize earthly kings as it did about revering Jesus. It’s a vast departure from the modern situation, but back then if too many people under a Catholic monarch suddenly agreed more with this Martin Luther guy or whoever, that could be the end of that monarch
The RC church is a hungry amoeba.
Yes, all true. I think the syncretism that both the Catholic church seems to have done/permitted and those that took it and blended it into other systems (with or without the blessing of the authorities) is partly why the evangelicals react so much to Catholicism. It is quite easy to understand their objections if you see where they are coming from (my/my pastor's reading of the NT is the only true path to divinity; the Catholic church just added on extra-biblical ritual, dogma, etc.), when you see Mary given almost a similar reverence to their dying-and-rising god. Not to mention that all the saints seem to smack just a little bit of polytheism...
Although the evangelicals reacting to the "paganism" of Catholicism and how it has ruined the purity of the original Word, and so on is just a bit rich, esp. if they are celebrating things like Easter and Christmas. At least to someone not as emotionally attached. :)
Anyway, I think the strain of xtianity that would be affiliated with the likes of Kirk and "JD" "Vance" would not be all that interested in syncretism with anything, really, if I understand them correctly. I've certainly known evangelicals that are 100% certain they have it right, most other Protestants have it wrong, the Catholics most definitely have it wrong, and everyone else, including the OG religions that they forked from (the part I find the most hilarious of all), is certainly going to hell. And they have exactly zero interest in blending in anything else; if anything they are obsessed with rooting out and removing any "New Age" influences in what they think is their pure and correct interpretation of religion.
Name checks out.
I’m butchering a 2 millennia story, but it illustrates how christianity fares in hinduism, and it even has some evidentiary support, so…
When the apostle Thomas was sent to India, he wound up in Cochin and began establishing a ministry or fellowship there.
He was frustrated by the lack of convincing required, or resistance to his ideas, without singular devotion.
The creator instantiating one more avatar is no stretch as Hinduism is pretty sophisticated in narratives, so Issa/Jesus just got added to the list that includes Krishna, and to this day you can buy hindu iconography with Jesus teaching compassion.
(Dude did succeed in forming a strictly Christian community though, and so arguably the oldest Christian sect is there.)
There's some speculation that early Christian philosophy (as in direct from Jesus early) was influenced by Jainism, which makes this situation even funnier.
Oh it gets funnier!
Kashmiris believe Jesus is entombed in Srinigar, and died an old man there after a career preaching incognito in Rome.
There is a tomb there, Buddhist style with footprints carved on the lid... but with odd slightly asymmetrical scars in the metatarsal area. Apparently. You can visit the building but the old tomb is inaccessible due to an important muslim tomb above it.
Another rumour there is that a temple was being renovated around 60CE and a persian stoneworker left graffiti on the back of a step that had local news including 'the prophet 'Issa' has come healing and teaching from the West'. Roughly in time for a major Buddhist conclave.
There's more local legend about it. Fun alternative narrative. Would be a nice place to retire anyway.
Isn't the oldest Christian sect in Palestine?
The oldest surviving one is more probably the Copts, depending on how much credence you give to St Thomas being the actual founder of the church in India.
You’d think. Maybe. We don’t know for sure. Thomas was a contemporary so same generation.
If you believe in Karma you are, per definition, not an atheist.
Karma isn't a god
Only a theist thinks of atheism as strictly the rejection of god. Karma is non falsifiable thus incompatible with atheism.
Falsifiability is a methodological preference for many atheists but not a requirement since, at its core, atheism is the lack of belief in deities rather than a comprehensive epistemological doctrine.
The takeaway being you may define atheism in a more narrow sense but its not wrong to define it more broadly.
Karma and Samsara are indissociable from a higher power, regardless how anyone decides to portray it. That is incompatible with atheism. Agnosticism, totally, atheism, absolutely not.
If one believes in the supernatural (which I don't) Karma and Samsara don't stricly need agency. They could be emergent properties of underlying supernatural laws/processes.
They absolutely are incompatible with a rejection of the supernatural, but not with the simple rejection of the existence of a god (as in: a supernatural force with agency)
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. You can believe in these concepts without believing in a God.
You have your own definition of atheism and that's fine but its just not broadly accepted. You seem to be following a specific sect or denomination of atheism that not only rejects god but all conceptualizations of spirituality or the soul. Which is totally fine but not the definition is broader than you portray it.
This is false. It's precisely my point. A god like power is indistinguishable from the concept of god, the rest is semantics.
I think we can agree that this comes down to semantics but yours is a Western centric point of view. In Hindu philosophy one can believe in Karma and Samsara while ascribing to Advaita Vedanta which treats Brahman (the ultimate, infinite reality underlying everything) as impersonal and not tied to a deity. These individuals refer to themselves as Hindu Atheists and have so for thousands of years. You can No True Scotsman it as much as you'd like but atheism is defined as not believing in a deity and those that ascribe to this worldview do not believe in a deity.
I think the major semantic holdup here is due to a Western centric equivocation of higher power with God due Abrahamic monotheism. Does a higher power / laws of the universe have to be or come from a God? Several conceptualizations in Eastern religious philosophy would answer no to that question.
I think its best that we leave it at your perspective on atheism being specifically exclusivist/Western centric.
No, in human philosophy, if one believes in karma and samsara, one believes in non human agency, which is believing in god with extra steps. You're welcome to do so, you just can't have your cake and eat it too, by calling yourself atheist. It's quite simple.
Also, calling me a "western settler colonialist" (as you did in your mod removed reply) because your arguments hold no water is tantamount to your acceptance of that lack of substance.
You're welcome to hold onto whatever belief system you choose. Hindu atheists have referred to themselves as such for a very long time and if you want to gatekeep the term in whatever corner of the world you happen to be in, you're free to do so. Just dont falsely hold onto to the idea that your belief system is universal.
Using phrasing like "primitive" (which is western colonial-settler terminology intended for dehumanization) warrants being called out I'm afraid. I deleted the comment as I felt yours did not warrant a thoughtful response.
Non human agency concepts like god or other supernatural events have existed since the dawn of time. Primitive humans had these concepts, thusly, it's not out of place to call these concepts primitive, because they are. What's out of place are misplaced accusations of settler colonialism, especially when these colonialists used primitive concepts, like god, to justify their barbarism.
Regarding holding on to belief systems, it appears you're projecting, it's not me trying to turn mysticism into secularism/atheism.
Dude. No. My atheism is a rejection of a proposition that god exists. Nothing more and nothing less.
My strong/gnostic atheism is a rejection of the concept that gods could exist, based on my rejection of the concept of the supernatural based on my conviction of the intellectual importance of methodological materialism and scepticism in everyday epistemology.
But atheism does not have to include ANY of the second paragraph, it is NOT identical with scepticism, nor with the rejection of everything supernatural, even if those often coincide.
And you are muddying and diminishing atheism by "no true scotsman"ing it here.
Whatever man I'm not arguing with reddit atheism dogma, someday you'll grow up
Yes, believing in Karma is very grown up and not primitive at all, it's everyone else who is wrong.
r/atheism is leaking..
I'm having a hard time understanding what's so sophisticated about it. Isn't it the same with a lot of other religions? I've met a lot of people who say they are culturally catholic and participate in the celebrations, etc but are atheists. The same happens with Jewish people.
That often means they take part in rituals without having any other beliefs. This is different from that since, in a Western framework, spirituality is often defined by a devotion to a specific God. It can be tough to understand spirituality in the absence of God though that conceptualization has existed for millennia in other cultures.