Blind belief is not satisfying

Shefali Vaidya, herself from Goa, has done a lot of research on Goan history under Portuguese rule and has several eye-opening videos on the net.
Recently she spoke on Sangam Talks on the horrifying brutalities of the Christian Inquisition in Goa. A short clip of her talk was posted on X.

I commented:
So true. The Church has a horrifying history.
I find it hard to understand that Indian Christians who know this history still identify as Christians.
By all means, worship God and love Jesus but ‘being Christian’ means to accept the irrational Church dogmas which have nothing to do with “salvation” but with division and power. They want converts to Christianity believe that God loves only Christians and sends Hindus to eternal damnation.
Can anyone believe this??

One Rudy Torres commented to my tweet:
‘Anyone who doesn’t believe this is saying that Jesus was lying when he clearly stated: “John14:6 KJV [6] Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. ”
Pardon me if I take the Son of God’s word over modernity.’ (end quote)

It too me some time to realise that he meant that of course one needs to believe that Hindus are sent to eternal damnation.

My reaction to him:
Just reflect: there was no tape recorder. How to know what Jesus really said? Blind belief is needed.
But let’s take his words for true and see if they make sense:
What if he didn’t say “I am the way…” but said “I AM” is the way, truth, life? I AM (pure, thought-free consciousness) is the truth and leads to the truth says Vedanta. This makes sense. (I have in earlier articles written extensively about Vedanta and won’t repeat myself here).
There are claims that Jesus was in India during his missing years between 12-30 and learnt about Advaita Vedanta philosophy.

He also said “I and my Father are one”,
Now, did he mean ONLY himself, as the Church claims, or humans generally, as Advaita Vedanta says: Aham Brahmasmi?.
Of course it makes more sense if he meant humans generally because we all are made from the same intangible, invisible, eternal ‘stuff’ (which is of course no ‘stuff’ or object, but the one subject – consciousness.

Or what did Jesus mean when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you”?
Did he mean the Mahavakya (great saying) of the Upanishad: Atman = Brahman (the individual consciousness is one with the universal consciousness)? Or what else could he have meant?

And of course one more question: why were the Church officials so incredibly brutal to Hindus and even to Christians, who were caught practising part of their old tradition?
They were brutal not only to Hindus. All over the world they left a bloody trail. All this in the name of a loving God?

I know, indoctrination in childhood is tough to overcome, but blind belief is not satisfying either. It’s actually a relief to get out of blind belief. I speak from experience.
Please ask questions and try to find answers in yourself.

By Maria Wirth