I don't want to go too far off topic here but,
Battlehymn Republic wrote:
However, what this leads to is a discussion of comparing Hinduism and Sikhism to the Abrahamic religions in seeing how many of the same idiotic values (or at least different values that are as idiotic). wolveraptor is the only one so far who have actually gone into detail about what Hindus believe in.
I can speak as a former believer in hinduism. Now I am a happy deist/athest.
Most of my family are quite fundamentalist in the sense of the word. I have seen several similarities to faiths such as Christianity especially in the subjects of sex and homosexuality. It is considered proper only after marriage and even then only for procreation. I have indeed read that very idea it in the holy book the Gita. Also another thing is the ridiculous amount of rituals. There are fucking rituals for every damn thing you can think of. All in all my family is somewhat tolerant of other religions and ideas (except those that don't recongnize a god, big surprize
) Hindus don't believe in hell so there's none of that fire and brimstone schtick. However there is the idea of karma and reincarnation that is used to pressure those who don't conform. Finally the idea of not eating beef or meat in general is quite stupid. It may have made sense in ancient times when cows were an important source for milk, maybe not even then. People still follow these and other pointless religious customs because it says so in ancient texts.
There are also several modern sects that several friends I know belong to that have tried to espuse the idea of intellectual faith (an oxymoron if I've ever see one!). The idea behind this is to spead the Hindu faith through intellectual discourse and reason. They have revisionist views of ancient religious texts. These guys are fairly new and have a following of several million in India. But the thing about them that makes me mad is that they are like goddammed evangelists in that they active spread their version of the faith by actively seeking out new followers. The thing about this group is that they try to dominate the lives of their followers. Each and every moment must be devoted to swadhyay. (thats their name) Normally I wouldn't be concerned about them, but unfortunenately several friends and family members are members. They have tried several times to convert me to their way of religion But I keep feigning interest and avoiding them. I have though off telling them to simply fuck off, but then I risk hurting their feelings.
Right, I'm just questioning if Hinduism or Sikhism epouse less religious violence. But that would go into specifics, and in retrospect I guess we should just do a different thread about that. Sometime later, after I read more on the specifics. I'm not exactly sure of the current status of Hinduism, but
I can tell you about blind hatred towards muslims many of the more fundie Hindus have. much of my family members and friends of my parents (mostly the older generation) here in the U.S. and back in India have a mistrust towards muslims in general. I'm thinking that it may have been passed on through the generations. Now my mother is as extreme as they come. She does believe and has told me so on numerous occasion that all Muslims should be killed or sterilized because its in their nature to be evil and terrorists. However the younger generations are much more tolerant and understanding.
Back in India the Hindu extremists and the political parties such as the BJP they sponsor do have and active dislike Muslims. They do all they can to flame this hatred. I do remember reading about the government of Gujarat being under the administration of such hatemongerers for the past few years. under the leadership of Modi. However recently elections in India have put a new government into place. So hopefully things will change. (On the national level at least if not rural areas of which much of India still is comprised of.)
