On Wednesday 23 Jul 2008 5:49:40 am Thaths wrote:
> Is a person who explicitly disowns her Hindu upbringing a Hindu? Is
> Marvin the Martian, or Zaphod Beeblebrox the Betelgeusian a Hindu? Are
> there non-Hindus?
Not unless he wants to be one.
The fundamental error (introduced IMO by people who originally came with their
one god in their minds) and observed Hindus was to assume that the people
they called "Hindus" were all defined by a god or gods (just like the
observers themselves were). Theists who observed Hindus imagined they were
looking at a competing set of theists without having a clue about
what "Hindus" might have been.
And that is how 'Hinduism" was invented and placed artificially and ignorantly
within a group of social systems called "religions". Hinduism is not a
religion in the sense that Islam and Christianity are religions. Religions
require "God". There is no clear word in English that I know of (other
than "Hinduism) to describe a social system that does not place god as the
paramount entity. Religion it is not. Hinduism could be anarchy, But it isn't
anarchy either.
But it is the anarchistic tendencies of "Hinduism" that are the source of its
resistance to change, or for that matter the resistance of its adherents to
conversion to other faiths, and the tendency of Hindu converts to come up
with diluted and corrupted forms of strict monotheistic faiths that they
join. This is always a threat to the high priests of strict monotheistic
faiths insofar as the centralization of monotheism ("You must believe only in
this particular god") is seen as a fundamental behavioral goal to be achieved
by all believers.
shiv
