hinduism

It's all about GOD. The generator the operator and the director.

please elaborate about that - generator operator etc.


what about the caste system - how can a school of thought where such a bad concept is central - be called a religion ?

sorry that is just what the word breaks dowm to them means.The holy trinity.

i know about the trinity of hinduism.


but is hinduism paganism? - they have tons of gods, including monkey gods, snake gods and elephant headed gods - and they idol worship too.


is hinduism a religion at all?

No, it's not considered Paganism. Different orgins...

And yes, it is a religion, but a very strict one. Like you mentioned, the caste. Traditions and beliefs are usually more of a cultural thing rather than a personal opinion, but there are many non-Indians who practice Hindu.

I suggest you go here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hinduism.htm for a quick run down, it will help you find other links aswell.

less of a strict religion there never was !!!


they have no tenets whatsoever.

you dont have to pray 5 times a day though you may choose to pray anything between 1 to 1 millions times a day.


all the rules of hinduism are optional.

hindus can choose to worship one god & not to worship another. they can choose to worship one or 1000 or no gods too.


there's almost nothing they can do that can make a person a non hindu, once he has been born one.

orgies by day and gang bangs by night dont disqualify him. they have a god of fcuking as well.


webster dictionary definition of paganism = worship of more than one god.
so how come hinduism is not paganism ??




and the caste is an attempt ot classifying people according to their jobs - that went wrong - horibbly wrong - like the attempt to convert people / get rid of heretics often spiralled into institutions like the inquisition.


and just like the spanish managed to get rid of the inqusition without chucking christianity alltogether, hindus too can manage to get rid of caste withouht getting rid of hinduism.


cutting off the head, isn't one of the solutions of getting rid of a headache.




as for "being a hindu, whilst being a non indian" - you can be in 3 of the 4 ways. never in the 4th way.

If you know so much about the religion, then why did you start this thread? I'm truly confused..you asked for help but wind up correcting those who do (which is fine, I am just not seeing where you lack knowledge on Hinduisum?).

i started the thread cos i am confused.

i know about hinduism yes - i know that worship many gods.

i know about the dictionary meaning of paganism too.


which is why i want to know if the world oldest surviving school of thought/philosophy, can be classified with the somewhat derogatory description of paganism.



btw... do you know what was meant by "3 out of 4 ways" ??

They do not worship many gods, that is a fallacy and an uneducated statement.

There is an ultimate reality, Brahman. brahman is like a lake from which all energy and life flows.

Each god may be in a different form, but all are of the same essence.

The main Trinity:

Brahma
vishnu
Shiva

the individual soul is atman, which is of the same flame as Brahman, but seperated from Brahman trapped in our form, and the Maya, which is the illusion of this reality.

Samsara is the cycle of life death and rebirth, which can only be ended by Moksha, when the atman reunites with Brahman.

In order to move up the caste system, on must preform their dharma (duty) and have good karma (right action). Karma is the central belief of doing good for others, so that you may be rewarded in the next life.

The religion is not paganism, by any stretch,, but it is the oldest structured religion on earth.

and where did you learn the above from? are you indian? because you know the right meaning of the word dharma - there is no indian word that means religion.



hinduism is not the religion of hindus - its their duty.


dharma doesnt exactly mean religion (it means duty), just like maya doesnt really mean illusion. it means roughly, "the attraction that one feels for an illusion".



why i started the thread ?

abrahamic religions (judaism, christianity and islam) describe any religion with more than one god and/or idol worship as paganism.


so i was wandering where that placed hindus.



i am opposed to the caste system "in toto".


and yes i know the lake concept.

seen carefully hinduism is a religion/way of life, with just one god in many forms/manifestations.

So you if know the lake concept, then why even the need for this thread, asking whether hinduism is polytheistic, since it is clearly not, as there is only one ultimate reality.

I dont know where i ever said dharma meant religion, i said it meant duty.

The word religion means - to bind - Hinduism binds people of similar beliefs together, and in that way it is a religion.

The caste system is cruel i admit, with all the discrimination that occurs. It really is meant to explain why people are in the situations they are, saying that if they preform theyre duty in this lifetime, and have good karma, they will be more prosperous, and in a higher caste in the next life.

No i am not Indian, just educated.

if you read my post carefully, then you will notice that i congratulated you for knowing that dharma meant duty not religion. (the exact pronounciation is "dharm" though and i havent the foggiest idea where the "a" suffixed at the end came from)


i didnt want to cross check about whether hiunduism is polytheistic -i know the answer to that.

i wanted to know is it considered paganism.


from a distance hinduism is not only polytheistic, but probably has the bigger pantheon of gods then all the faiths put together.

and idol worship, though in no way central to the religion and though never ever mentioned in the slightest in any of hinduism's scriptures, is very much commonplace in hindu culture/way of life (though its never the idol itself thats worshipped, but the god which the idol is supposed to represent)


so where does that place hinduism ??


i'd like to hear an answer from a jew as regards this one.

do they think hinduism is paganism?
can any religion, ANY, dont have to be the one in question, be branded with a derogatory term as paganism, just because they arnt monotheistic? who's to prove that there is one god and not 3.5 or 400000 of them? no one's seen or counted the number, and we are all in the "6 blind men and the elephant" territory here.

there is as much a probablity that the martian/alien who is yet to make contact with the planet has 1 eye as there is that he has 8 eyes.

there is as much a chance of there being 0, 1, 24 or 3000000 gods.


what if a faith with exactly 32.345 gods declared that all other faiths were paganism?




the concept of caste shows how something started with a perfectly good intention often goes wrong and spirals out of hand and assumes alarming proportions.
it needs to be done away with - and will be too in another 50 years. completely. and that will be a significant achievement, to correct the wrong that took thousands years to bloom, in a matter of 100 years or so.



and yes i can see you are educated. being non indian, makes your achievement that much more - cos even indians dont know some of the stuff you do. and westerners who can rival you, are real rare - not that they dont exist.



but back to the topic - despite outwardly believing that there are more than one god (and maintaining deep inside that they are the same - only with many manifestations) and despite the practise of idol worship (though its no where mentioned in scripture, and nor is the "idol" itself ever worshipped) - does hinduism qualify as paganism or not?

i do know and dont mind sharing that, its not really a "religion" as we know and understand it - founder - getting message from god - strict tenets - etc. hinduism has none of these. so whats its true classification?

It is a religion, on the basis that the word religion means to bind, and that similar beliefs bind people. In this case though, religion is more like popular belief, or a cultural heritage

Pagan used to mean rustic, and christians used it to describe people who were to rustic or "wild" to be christian.

the term Paganism isnt really used by Jews, its more of a christian term used to clump preceding western religions which worshipped more than one god, or were animistic into one category.

Since Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma) , was only recently introduced to the west, it really cannot be called paganism because it is not in the context of christian imperialism.

oh ok.


i singled out jews, because according to my meagre knowledge, they are the parent religion of christianity. so i figured that the derogatory use of "paganism" probably also stems from them. i didnt know it was extra-judiac.


and ok i get your point - that though not a religion that "fits the formula" (founder - receive message from above - tenets- the works) it still fullfills the other definations of what a religion is and ought to be - and hence is/should be considered one.

as for rustic, thats one thing hinduism certainly isnt. a more complex (rustic things/concepts are plain and simple) set of instructions/teachings one will hardly ever find. in fact though its possible to describe hinduism, its impossible to define it.

ty for all the clarification.