what is hinduism ?

[shivalinga]

hinduism is a word created from sindhu,meaning river
in sanskrit.

in the olden times the persians called India Sind,later Hindustan,
Sind was short for sindhu, in India civilization was centered
around the great rivers,Indus,Ganges,Sarasvati,Yamuna,Brahmaputra,
etc.

so the persians called them the river people,or sindhus,
and india sind, later that became hindu and hindustan.

there are other theories about the origin of
the word hindu,but i like that one .

there is no one religion called hinduism,it was coined by the British
as a generic term for the various religions of india that used
mostly common ancient texts,but interpreted differently.

this site gives an overview of the major schools
of hinduism and the various books, and philosophies.

http://www.hinduism.co.za/schools.htm

[premjan]

I suppose this term was coined by the Persians much before the British. The Persian lack of 's' which seems very artificial to me, was probably an attempt to distinguish themselves from the Vedic Hindus (much like modern Bengalis also deliberately mispronounce s as sh). There are Zoroastrians who believe Zoroaster to predate the Vedas and Rama (although I consider this to be Persian propaganda). Zoroaster could have existed anywhere from 1750 BC to 600 BC and the ancient Greeks in fact dated him to 6000 BC (probably false I suppose??).

's' vs 'h' may also indicate precision/focus of sibilants in the language (much like German or Arabic/Urdu).

It is believed that much of Christ mythology owes itself to the cult of Mithras, son of Ahura Mazda and the virgin mother Anahita. There was a habit of eating his body and blood and he was said to have had a last supper too. Apparently the teachings of the Rabbi Jesus were superimposed on top of the legend of Mithras.

Since the Zoroastrians place Zoroaster in comparison with Rama, I think Rama probably was historical (or I am led to such a suspicion).

[shivalinga]

i don't know if the persians called the indian religions
hinduism, as they were (pre-zoro) also followers aryan
beliefs.

the term Vedanta,or Dharma, or even the name of the specific
faith's like Vaishnava,Shaivite,shakta, etc were probably used
until the British, i haven't come across anything that dates
"hinduism" to pre -british, but that may be true.

also Christ as an actual historical figure is under
question by many scholars, try these,

http://www.konformist.com/blasphemy/piso.htm

http://www.fargonasphere.com/piso/

http://www.truthbeknown.com/christcon.htm

[premjan]

The word "hindu" was in use, probably as a secular term, but it got converted to a religous term under the british. that may be all that happened.

I'm pretty sure post the Arab occupation of Sindh, the Muslims also had a word to describe Indians, other than "kafir". It was probably "hindu".

[hinduwoman]

I believe that originally Europeans described us as 'Gentoos' or heathens.

[premjan]

This scholarship sounds pretty silly to me. One of them is obviously anti-semitic in nature: Jesus was invented by the Romans to keep the Jews in check and so on.

Jesus makes very good internal sense from the Judaic point of view, so there is no need to subscribe to these external points of view.

The Jewish Talmud has records of Jesus (they hated him because he "hijacked" their religion). The stuff you have posted (should I say "as usual") is a bunch of crap.

[Kruger]

Jesus a myth? Jesus is more believeable then hinduism to much myth. The existence of Bactria make me to speculate the hindus adopted the so call myth as their own. I guess the lingam is more believeable then Jesus???

[premjan]

What was that about Bactria?

[Opera Nut]

Isn't that a place where they grow camels? Bactrian camels?

[shivalinga]

there is a big difference between historicity in
hindusim and christianity.

Hans kung,prominent theologin has said that
Christianity is a historicaly based theology,
everything is based on God creating the universe
at a certain time, then Jesus coming at a certain
time to redeem humanity for those who follow him,
then the world ends ,those who are redeemed
live in eternity and bliss,those who are not
are damned.

where as he compares that to hindu theology which
is cyclical, there is no specific time that is important,
god incarnates regularly throughout all time,
either redeeming souls, destroying evil,
or other activities, the theology is not based
on a historical view of reality and God but on
a philosophical or eternal reality that is
repeating over and over in the "mundane realm",
therefore the historicity of hinduism is non essential
and in many schools all the stories are seen metaphoricaly anyways,or a combination of literal and metaphorical
writings.



all of the so called proofs of Jesus recorded by Jews
have been studyed and can be shown to be either
a reaction to christian claims,or refering to other people.

http://www.truthbeknown.com/cutner.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html

[quartodeciman]

I would suppose those britannic rulers would need a convenient term to distinguish the majority population from muslims and others.

[premjan]

I find your insistence that Jesus is a sun God to be totally baffling. What is the basis for questioning the historicity of Jesus, other than a general peevishness on the part of pseudo-scientific folk who want to debunk all of religion? Philosophy forums, I would assume, would be composed of such skeptics, so I am not surprised. Such a pervasive myth coming from completely ahistorical roots, when, for example, St. Thomas the apostle is even said to be buried in India (Chennai St. Thomas Mount) is a conspiracy theory of gigantic proportions.

You don't like Jesus and Christians so you are trying to do away with him (as are many). There is just as much reason to believe Jesus was historical as there is to believe that Alexander the Great was historical. Although parts of his story may be mythologized, as it is with all religious figures.

[shivalinga]

It's an axiom that in the ancient past
history was written by the victors or ruling class
not to present an accurate picture of history
but for propaganda purposes.

your incredulity that anyone could find the history
of jesus presented in the gospels or elsewhere
as fabrications for political purposes seems a bit overwrought
and unscientific in it's emotioanl approach.

the facts are the facts, if they lead to a history
that is different then the one presented as factual by interested
or propagandized parties then we should let the fact speak for themselves.

what is the use of sentimental attachments to histories
that cannot be proven ?

it only causes unfailing devotion to ideas created by propagandists to control and exploit ignorant people
in the name of God, how many people have been tortured,
raped,killed all in the name of Jesus ?

is it so unreasonable to give credence to a better historical
understanding or to give into false history that has led
so many times to violence against women,children and
"heretics" or heathens all in the quest for power
using Jesus as a the damoclesian threat to those
who do not submit to the "empowered representatives
of Jesus" ?

is that such a spiritual beneficial thing ?
has it been in the past ?
how about the millions of people enslaved to
propagandized versions of psuedo spirituality
living lives of biblical bondage under tyrants
all in the name of Jesus ?

is that the beautiful thing that Blind Faith in
religion and history leads to ?

no thanks, this heathen will make up his
own mind.

[hinduwoman]

Originally posted by premjan
This scholarship sounds pretty silly to me. One of them is obviously anti-semitic in nature: Jesus was invented by the Romans to keep the Jews in check and so on.

Jesus makes very good internal sense from the Judaic point of view, so there is no need to subscribe to these external points of view.

The Jewish Talmud has records of Jesus (they hated him because he "hijacked" their religion). The stuff you have posted (should I say "as usual") is a bunch of crap.

ACtually internet infidels itself have lively debates going on about whether Jesus really existed. I must say that the contention he was a made up character from previous myths have been made convincing.

[hinduwoman]

Originally posted by Kruger
Jesus a myth? Jesus is more believeable then hinduism to much myth. The existence of Bactria make me to speculate the hindus adopted the so call myth as their own. I guess the lingam is more believeable then Jesus???

Hit and run post I guess.

lingam certainly is more believable than Jesus; men have them. ;)

[premjan]

Many religions are pretty bloody and gory in nature. Are you going to claim that Islam is also a myth and that Muhammad was also an ahistorical person? Probably you would. There are people who do not believe Moses to be historical either.

I believe most of these stories are historical and people embroider them to suit their beliefs.

I am not a Christian crusading to defend my beliefs. There is nothing in Jesus Christ that happens to be that unbelievable according to me (or Muhammad for that matter). These are radically different types of religious beliefs from Hinduism et. al. For one thing, there was a belief that the world was going to end soon, and that it had been created in 6000 BC.

The mythology surrounding Jesus being borrowed does not detract from the historicity of the person Jesus. You are engaged in jealous religion-baiting not in scholarship. Especially the tone of your posts would suggest so.

Religions are embroidered for the purpose of spreading them. It may have been embroidered even by St. Peter. So what? Do you believe that Krishna really lifted Govardhan mountain? Get real buster.

[shivalinga]

when you say many religions are bloody and gory in nature
you are really refering to biblical religions.

islam,christianity and judaism accept the torah,christianity
goes onto say that the "new testament" of jesus trumps
the "old testament", and likewise muhammed claims
that El quran trumps them both,but both trumpeters claim
the torah as their starting point and that the "god" of the
torah to be the same god they worship, yahweh or elohim
is equal to jesus and allah they claim, same god ,
new revelations.

so who is this yahweh or elohim ?

why in the torah we find him to be a violent,sadistic,women hating
combination of attila the hun ,joseph stalin,and adolph hitler.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm
http://www.geocities.com/nincenevin/evil.html


so the fact is the violence and hatred breeds more of the
same, we see that in the history of islam and christianity,
while Muhammed probably existed the proof of Jesus
existing is not very well presented,
all of the "facts concerning his life told in the gospels
have correlating stories that seem to have been plagarized
by the authors form other sources.

so whether or not he existed still judeo-christian and islamic
"values" are born of the same source, an extremely violent
sadistic depiction of god, if this sits well with you,
so be it.

while all religions(or most older ones)have violence
in their past or present, the bible is unique in that it presents
violence and cruelity and repression as being intrinsic
to their concept of god ,those religions that use the bible
as their base starting point are different then say buddhism,
hinduism, or confucianism in that the biblical religions
are based on cruelty,violence and sadistic behavior
and their history reflects that, while the other faiths
may have some bad things in their history their actual
faith is based on a loving compassionate diety,
and teachings that are based on that, unlike
biblical dogma which is based on do or die,accept
or be punished, heaven or hell for eternity etc.

[shivalinga]

sorry wrong thread.

[premjan]

that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have led to lots of bloodshed. However, I think that some people would claim that rigid Christian values (and to some extent Islamic values) have led to some advancements also. E.g. economic progress, the abolition of slavery and so on are innovations partially attributable to religious beliefs.

For one thing, the level of equality among people was greater among Jews, Muslims and Christians due to the democratic nature of their beliefs (and their tribal nomadic rather than philosophical settled origins). However they did have a tendency to kill and murder and persecute non-believers. On the other hand, you must observe that Hinduism has tolerated a variety of abuses through its rather philosophical stance: namely untouchability, and indifference to things such as child labor, prostitution, bonded labor and so on. Hindus have a tendency to be more indifferent to other Hindus. While Christians and Jews and Muslims have a tendency to be more indifferent to non-believers of their own faith. Moreover, it is the Christian civilizations which have achieved greater things in recent times (and, in earlier times, the Islamic ones too). So you have to give credit where it is due. Sometimes a stronger, albeit barbaric, belief system works better for the mass of humanity who are not tuned to philosophical musings. Moreover, there may be one or two spiritual insights in these Abrahamic religions that have escaped Hinduism and other more naturally spiritually oriented faiths. I don't doubt that there are at least one or two such things anyway. If pressed I might be able to point them out.

The fact of the matter is that the Jews were just nomads who were abused and kicked around a great deal in their day. They have gone on to create a jealous religion that does a good job about preserving the internal integrity while wreaking havoc on the ouside world to some extent. The Muslims have pretty much copied them (and maybe also copied the Greeks) on a larger scale. Christians have borrowed a good deal from other religions like Mithraism, while retaining the jealous core of the Semitic faiths. Yahweh is described even by Moses as a jealous God. Probably this jealousy is not all to the bad. For a society or individual to jealously guard their own self-preservation is not a bad thing, in fact, the primary objective of any living creature is that, while remaining within some sort of ethical framework. Where Hinduism sought to erase the self, Judaism sought to enshrine it (in the notion of being "chosen"). In this sense, you must remember that the Eastern faiths already existed when the semitic faiths arose, and hence, they may have been addressing some sort spiritual balance in this regard. Not me, not me, not me, becomes counteracted by me-me-me.

The "experience of God" is of course a real thing and a great thing for humanity. However, I do not believe that it counts as good science. Religious belief and science are fine each in their place. Mixing them can cause confusion: bad science and bad religion in my opinion. Trying to be objective about quantum mind concepts is impossible, it is a subjective experience. There is a natural boundary between subjective and objective reality and I don't think it can be crossed rationally since there is a radical shift in viewpoint (me-centered vs. all-centered). Probably advanced spiritual people can cross it more easily than others.

[premjan]

I have seen that there is a "yahvah" in the Rig Veda which has something to do with tree branches shooting up into flower.

I have also heard that Yahweh was originally the volcano god of the Midianites. This would account for the earth-centric rather than solar-centric nature of semitic beliefs.

It could be that the "yahvah" of the Rig Veda has been mistranslated and is actually also a description of a volcano.

Having a volcano as God rather than the Sun makes sense. It is an inversion of the sun-centered religion of other cultures (e.g. Egyptian). This sort of inversion is precisely the way many religions are born, as a sort of theological split. In fact, "Lucifer" (the lord of light) or the Devil is very much a reference to Persian and Indian notions of "enlightenment". The Devil in the semitic faiths represents a rejection of the Eastern notion that man can achieve God on his own. He needs the help of God at every step as a crutch. This is the theological basis of semitic belief. God is terrible and must be obeyed lest he wreak vengeance at any moment.

It is a valid personification of the most terrible aspects of nature. To the extent that religions owe their effect to human fear, the semitic creeds have succeeded magnificently through a suitable choice of imagery.