Intellectuals, Philosopher and Scientists on Hinduism

And if I die - will it be cool for them to burn themselfs? :bugeye:

 

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No, not all of the herd! Why destroy so much beauty!

I am disappointed you don't clarify my doubts above. But I really hope you will. More doubts here:
Three: If your father steals your wife, what will your mother call your ex-wife? And what do you call your father?- father or brother?

Thanks.

 

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It is quite funny that you mention that Hindus have killed "many" muslims.

Because, Muslims have killed MILLIONS of Hindus, in fact a mountain range in Eastern Afghanistan is called the Hindu Kush (meaning "Hindu Slaughter"). Even so the Muslim Invaders proudly recorded the killings of "non-believers" and "infidels", but who can blaim them, Allah instructs them to kill the non-believers.

Also before the Islamic invasion into India, historians recorded Buddhists, Hindus, and even atheists living peacefully in India without much if any violence or prosecution. India was known as a peaceful land, never waging any type of holy war against other nations.

You talk about the caste system, however there is Slavery in Islam, in Islam a non-believer is despicable, looked down upon, if one tries to convert from Islam into another religion by Islamic law they should be killed. In Islam it is only thought of as bad deed to kill a believer, where as killing a non-believer is not a big deal nor bad because Allah has already sentenced them to death according to the Quran.

 

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Talking of Sikhs, better read some sikh history. When hindus were converted by force into islam by the fanatical muslim rulers, Nineth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur challenged that he should be converted first into islam before hindus were converted. The fanatic ruler could not suceed in converting the guru into islam even by torture so finally he beheaded the guru. The 10th guru Gobind Singh formed Khalsa Panth and changed the sikhs into warriors to oppose the tyranny of fanatical moghul ruler. Hindus rever these Gurus till date. In India, sikhs are respected for their valour. Indian armed forces have plenty of them. The current indian prime minister and the army chief are sikhs.

 

right kamguru...
We should ignore idiots and discuss the philospphy....
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Today , i revisited this forum after 3 years and 4 months. :m:

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You seem to not actually be discussing any philosophy and have returned only to post something negative about poeple you didn't like over 3 years ago...

That's a long time to hold a grudge.

What should I think about that?

 

I visited the Ramkrishna Mission yesterday and picked up some good books on religion by Swami Vivekanand. The Mission has an astonishing array of books on Hinduism which I will be looking into as time permits

I have also been recommended "The Hindu View of life" by Dr S Radhakrishnan

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6604838

 

Could someone recommend me a good text/starting point in order to learn about hindu philosophy? Thanks

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Edit: woops, looks like someone already did. Any others to recommend?

 

Nietzsche on all religions and dogmas including philosophical ones......

 

^

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Are you sure of all that in Gita?

 

What your own self? Alla made you from DUST!!

 

Why do people always assume, the most horrible religion on earth is the one for thinkers?

Look at india, and tell us why it would be considered worthy of being compared to what christianity has done? Christianity has stood the test of time, and without it the whole world would be like india and africa, and you people still look upto this horrible religion, that tells people its alright to be worthless rubbish.

Anyone who claims to be a thinker and follower of the hindu religion, i would not even bother listening to his or her words. Look what that country of india is like, and tell me why you would think that is a thinkers persons religion.

Out of all the major religions the hindu religion is the worst one for good of people, and that is shown in peoples lifes over there. Telling people that they are worthless rubbish because of past lifes, and they need do nothing to try and live some sort of decent life. How the hell did that ever catch on?

 

My, my aren't we the bigot!

 

It is about Intellectuals, Philosopher and Scientists. What are you?

 

The original post in this thread (made way back in 2006) was a little over-the-top. And certainly the recent rejoinder (made in just the last few days) is at least equally so (in the opposite direction).

I wouldn't call Hinduism "the most horrible religion on earth". I like it.

It's probably the major religion that's most continuous with, and best preserves, the religions of antiquity. That makes it historically interesting at the very least.

As far as thinking goes, I think that Indian (broadly speaking Hindu, Buddhist and Jain) speculation, philosophy and religious psychology are easily the equal (and probably in some areas in advance of) anything that western (Jewish, Christian or Islamic) theology has ever produced.

What has Christianity done?

It's true that the Europeans gave the world the scientific and industrial revolutions. Those led to a rapid improvement of living standards.

But I don't think that Christian religion had very much to do with that transformation. In fact, the scientific revolution didn't occur until after the renaissance, until European civilization had begun to think in new and creative ways, ways that weren't derived from late antique and medieval religious tradition. One could almost say that Europe made the scientific and industrial revolutions in spite of the continent's Christian heritage.

Christianity tells us that we are all "sinners", and that there's nothing that human beings can possibly do about that. There's no path that we can follow in hopes of becoming any better than we already are. All that Christianity offers humanity is the promise that its God has forgiven us for what he views as our inadequacies and has promised us eternal life in heaven anyway. Provided that we accept Jesus as our lord and savior, etc.

The Indian religions offer people a lot more than that. They offer people a whole variety of paths of inner spiritual transformation. People might argue about whether those paths work, but my point is that India does offer them.

That's your choice. The question I'm asking is why other people should pay attention to your words. (Right now, I'm just using your words as an occasion to present what I think is a better-informed and more nuanced view of Hinduism and Indian thought.)

The theory of karma doesn't tell people that they are "worthless rubbish because of past lifes" (that should be 'lives'). It tells them that the seemingly-fortuitous aspects of each of our lives, the circumstances of our births, who our parents are, the accidents that befall us, are the result of past actions.

And it doesn't tell people that "they need do nothing". Just as the circumstances of people's lives right now is the causal result of things that happened previously, the circumstances of people's lives in the future is going to be the causal result of things that they do right now. So if people hope to improve their future circumstances, they will have to behave appropriately now.

The theory of karma is basically an ethical theory.

It provides rather neat answers to the annoying problems of thriving sinners (they did good deeds in past lives, but will inevitably suffer for their current bad deeds in the future) and suffering saints (they are suffering for past misdeeds, but will indeed receive the rewards for their present good deeds sometime in the future).

Karma also provides a solution to the so-called "problem of evil" that bedevils Christian theology. If God is all-powerful and all-good, then where does all the evil come from? Why does God permit it to continue? Many Indians would probably be more inclined to say that it's just the fruit of everyone's past deeds. The way to get rid of it is to perform better deeds.

 

Reincarnation can be viewed as the intuitive precursor of the genetic theory. Your genes (soul) are preserved within your children and will appear again and again through many generations. But since genes are subject to change, reincarnation also has a randomness to it. There is no definitive critter you will always reincarnate into, just like genes will tweak with time; randomizer.

Karma is an intuitive precursor of the theory of action and reaction, common in physics. A particular action will cause a particular reaction. Karma was not based on random walk, throwing dice or chaos, but a world of cause and effect. Reincarnation, on the other hand, does contain have a mutation randomizer like the DNA; come back as a bug.

Enlightenment ends the cycle of reincarnation. This is analogous to the brain/mind able to make changes apart from the genetics (free will). One has separated from biology, only. A naturally skinny boy, with skinny genes, can still become a large body builder using his mind/will power to train with weights and by eating a high protein diet. Karma is connected to that brain/mind aspect where cause and effect (weight training) begin to supersede the randomness of genes.

Often Karma and reincarnation combine. If we continue the parallel, then willower would have an impact on the DNA, which would appear in the offspring. If common parents have a child who practices the violin, his/her child may have that talent. Or if average adults eat too much and start to alter the genes toward diabetes, this can transfer forward.