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Old 23-04-2019, 08:25 AM
Altair Altair is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
Anyone who acknowledges and worships the gods is a Hindu really, basically anyone who is a polytheist and doesn't believe in the inane idea of "One God".

I don't think being a polytheist makes one a Hindu, because Hinduism has its own distinct gods such as Vishnu and his many incarnations, and also has rather elaborate views on reincarnation that we do not see in European polytheism, if at all. There are polytheisms across the world, present and past, that do not believe or do not mention such things as 'samsara', 'karma', 'moksha', nor by other names. There are cycles, yes, but Hinduism has a distinct character. Though it’s always fascinating to look for similarities!

There are Greek philosophers who believed in reincarnation, but it's not in the cosmology of their ancient culture. There are some loose stories here and there, people mentioning 'reborn'. In any case, it's too little to go by to make a bold claim that Hinduism has the correct answers to the cycle of reincarnation. I think that would be premature. It may also have been brought to Europe through trade. As for those philosophers, I don't recall those philosophers being proper polytheists but I'll have to check that again..

Also.. there are Hindus who are not quite ''polytheist'', Hindus who believe all gods are just different forms of one true god, such as Krishna, or in other belief systems they mention Brahman, usually as an impersonalist ''Force''..


Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
All the murders, bombings, beheadings, etc... we are seeing daily in our world seem to be coming from people who believe their god is better than the gods of others, in fact He (and it's always a He) is the only one in existence.
The strength of Dharmists comes from the fact that they acknowledge the many faces of the divine in all its manifestations and don't try to murder others for their different deity or slightly different interpretation of the same deity.

Yes, it's usually monotheism and a male god..

But there's also Hindu nationalists though who are known to resort to violence..

Last edited by Altair : 23-04-2019 at 04:13 PM.
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