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A comment on The two Christian saints who are the Buddha. Parent comment

Re:The two Christian saints who are the Buddha by notahacker on Tuesday September 08, 2026 @05:10PM (#49617114)
I distinctly remember an Indian man on a bus in Kerala striking up a conversation with me (random white obvious tourist) in which he proclaimed both that he considered Jesus his Lord and Saviour and that he considered him to be an avatar of Vishnu. Not an explanation I'd asked him for, but certainly made a change from the standard bus conversation about where I was from and was I married yet and what salary...

I'm sure you are right that many/most Hindus would consider this incompatible with their belief system (and even more sure your average Christian would think he was missing the point of accepting Jesus as his Lord and Saviour), but this sort of syncretism definitely has been attempted and found its converts, probably rather more of them than Akbar's attempts to combine Islam and Hinduism.

I'm also reminded of this mostly unrelated comedy sketch :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tw7LIykvBw

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Re:The two Christian saints who are the Buddha by annzabelle on Tuesday September 08, 2026 @05:48PM (#49617593)
I actually took a whole class in college on syncretic Christianity, and we had a unit on Goa, and there are Catholic shrines in Goa that are also frequented by Hindus, and you can find people there who identify as Christian but say that Vishnu is their favorite saint, and people who identify as Hindu who say that Jesus is their favorite god.

For central authorities of the Catholic Church, and Hindu theologians, this is all heretical, but the Catholic Church allowed for flexibility around traditions as it expanded. One big example is that many of what are considered Christmas traditions in northern Europe (the Christmas tree being an especially prominent one) are hangovers from traditions that predate Christianity.

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Re:The two Christian saints who are the Buddha by dyauspitr on Tuesday September 08, 2026 @08:31PM (#49619146)
> certainly made a change from the standard bus conversation about where I was from and was I married yet and what salary...

This man has definitely been to Kerala.

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Re:The two Christian saints who are the Buddha by kshri24 on Wednesday September 09, 2026 @12:10AM (#49620839)
> but this sort of syncretism definitely has been attempted and found its converts

That's exactly the point of why he even attempted to have this conversation with you. It was to convert you to Hinduism.

I explain it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620794

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