(September 21, 2012 at 4:55 am)greneknight Wrote:(September 21, 2012 at 4:48 am)Tobie Wrote: Seeming as Hinduism and Taoism can be atheist religions, there is nothing stopping her being all 3. Christianity, however, has no atheist option.
And why would Hinduism be atheistic? What happened to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu? What about the Taoist gods and goddesses? How does one read these gods and goddesses? Would apophenia step into a Hindu temple and tell the priests there that the Hindu gods and goddesses didn't exist?
Obviously, you can be atheistic about Hinduism by looking at the gods and goddesses as mere representation of something else - maybe goodness or truth. You look at Hinduism through a metaphorical lens. If you can do that to Hinduism, why can't you do that to Christianity? The church disallows that? But so do Hindu temples, I'm sure. Which church disallows that? That depends on the church, surely?
No I'm not looking at hinduism/taoism through a metaphorical lens. Stop putting words in my mouth and consider that I have actually looked into this. Hinduism isn't a unified religion - there is no single theology that all hindus agree upon. Some hindu schools, such as Samkhya hold that the existence of god cannot be proven, therefore god cannot be admitted to exist, and also that god cannot be the source of an ever changing world. Likewise, some hindu schools are polytheistic, some monotheistic and some henotheistic. Atheist hindus see hinduism as a way of life - they observe the cultural and moral values - not the theistic ones.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R Tolkien
