Reflecting on Atheism.

[genkaus]

Genkaus:

You have already made up your mind about who I am and where I'm coming from. I'm not an 'apologist', i already told you why i am doing this discussion. its for a purely scientific purpose and a personal interest in a certain kind of research

It doesn't really bother me that you are disagreeing with what I'm saying. I really don't. What bothers me is that you don't understand what I'm saying. I would rather that someone understand what I'm saying and disagree, rather than not understand what I'm saying and agree.

So in some sense, I consider it my failure. Because I have failed to make you understand what I'm saying.

so maybe i'm not explaining it properly. I'll try again.

Don't worry about it, your explanation is quite clear - transparent, in fact.

What your argument boils down to is this:
Christianity is a religion.
Christianity has properties X, Y and Z.
Hinduism does not have properties X, Y and Z.
Therefore, Hinduism is not a religion.

Its a formal logical fallacy called "talking out of your ass". Also, Denying the Antecedent.

Your only failure is the failure to come up with intelligible response to my counter-arguments - and, as a result, you are stuck repeating your position in different ways while pretending I didn't understand it. But that's hardly your fault - intelligible defense to unintelligible position can be pretty hard to come by.

First of all, we can never study beliefs.

Yes, we can. We have a whole branch dedicated to it. Its called "epistemology".

We can only study actions. We infer beliefs from actions. Why do we do this? Because of the idea (in western culture, especially) that actions are expressions of belief or intentional states. Whether they are or not is a discussion for another time. I'm not going to argue about it.

Fine, let's not argue. Let's just accept that yes, actions are expressions of belief or intentional states. And that, as a norm, people do act according to what they believe and that their actions can be regarded as indicators of such. And what makes you think its a western idea?

so when a Christian or Muslim says I go to Church and pray because I believe in God, we don't really know if that particular individual really believes or just says he believes. We don't. There is no way of knowing or affirming an individual's belief state.

It wouldn't make sense for him to do that if he didn't actually believe - so I'd rather take him at his word.

But what we can do is study Christianity. There is a phenomenon in this world called Christianity. There are many aspects to Christianity: bible, prophet, Chruch, certain practices, worship, eschatology, commandments and laws.

But what we can do is study Hinduism. There is a phenomenon in this world called Hinduism. There are many aspects to Hinduism: Vedas, Avatars, temples, certain practices, worship, eschatology, commandments and laws.

See how that works?

and they are not discrete unrelated parts. all of these different parts cohere together to form something called Christianity. that is what i mean by a structure (I will get into what that structure is in the next post, because its too long for this post. It will make things a lot clearer).

and they are not discrete unrelated parts. all of these different parts cohere together to form something called Hinduism. that is what i mean by a structure.

See how that works?

and within the structure of Christianity, throughout history Christians have put lots and lots of emphasis on what to believe, whether that belief is true or false, and they even have means of excommunication based on belief. Only if you believe so and so can you be a Christian otherwise you're not
each of their practices have doctrinal justification based on belief. and there are tracts justifying the belief itself; theological arguments

and within the structure of Hinduism, throughout history Hindus have put lots and lots of emphasis on what to believe, whether that belief is true or false - they just missed out on having means of excommunication based on belief. Only if you believe so and so can you be a Hindu otherwise you're not
each of their practices have doctrinal justification based on belief. and there are tracts justifying the belief itself; theological arguments

This is in stark contrast to the Indian/Asian traditions.

No, it isn't. As demonstrated, all the aspects listed here are present in Indian/Asian traditions as well.

The landscape in the West is littered with the battered corpses of literature dealing with the truth and historicity of the Bible, Biblical events, and its figures. It has always been important that at least some of the Testament ‘stories’ are true, known to be so, and indubitable. This attitude towards the scriptures, and issues generated thereby which grip the intellectuals of the West to this day, hardly disturb or excite their counterparts in India. The questions about the ‘truth’ or ‘falsity’ of their texts are irrelevant within the Indian intellectual tradition.

No, they aren't. They are simply assumed to be true. That's the attitude most Hindus today have about their scriptures - regard them as true and don't think too much about it.

Actually, it is almost fascinating how different levels of beliefs on the veracity of scriptures match up across religions.

On one end, you have the fundamentalists who argue that scriptures are literally true - word for word - and go through all sorts of logical convolutions to justify that.

On the other end, you have the modernists - who say that the scriptures talk about philosophical and moral wisdom of the ancients and that they are true in a metaphorical sense and not a literal one.

Then you have the everyday layman, one who has never read the scripture, but has a general idea what goes on in them and believes that they are true without actually knowing the content and refuses to think any more deeply about it.

And you can find these categories in both Hinduism and Christianity. The only reason why there aren't as many texts and tracts trying to justify the historicity of Vedas is because there aren't that many people questioning it.

there are no doctrines of the sort in Christianity which say that we do this and this practice because of this and this reason/belief. and this is the true belief. this is false etc.

Since you've been arguing the exact opposite so far, I'd say you meant Hinduism there and not Christianity. But, that's wrong as well - there are doctrines of precisely that sort in Hinduism which say that you should do this and this practice for this and this reason/belief and that this is a true belief.

Sure, people come up with all sorts of reasons and beliefs as to why they do a certain practice. But the fact that any reason or no reason at all is equally acceptable is indicative that beliefs aren't important to these traditions. Throughout Indian history, all the intellectual energies went into developing, modifying and creating different rituals and practices, with the focus being on the practice itself, not on the belief or principle behind the practice.

Not only is this demonstrably wrong, it is also callously ignorant of actual Indian History and the formative influence of philosophers through the ages over the core Hindu beliefs. The Smriti texts of Sangam period, identifying the Hindu Darsanas were not about creating different rituals and practices. The Bhakti movement, works of Adi Shankara and the development of Puranic Hinduism are not about developing practices with no rhyme or reason to them. And frankly, saying that Hinduism is about rituals and practices without any need for beliefs behind them would be extremely insulting to any practicing Hindu. And no, people don't come up with "all sorts of reasons" to justify those practices, nor would any arbitrary reason or no reason at all would be acceptable.

infact, the attitude encouraged in such a culture is that if you perform a ritual without desires, goals, or reasons it is exalted and admirable. Detached action is the highest form of action. This attitude is not unique to India, but also found in the Chinese and Japanese traditions.

Its also found in all the other religions as well - detachment from worldly desires is a common theme in many religions. The idea of going through the rituals and practices with no personal agenda and only the goal of pleasing god or gods is considered admirable in Christianity and Islam as well.

Whereas in the Christian and Islamic history, 95% of their effort and energies went into developing theological arguments of the truth of their beliefs, the correct interpretation of beliefs so on and so forth.

And if you look at the actual history of Hinduism - and not your ignorant version of it - you'd find the same effort in developing the justification for their beliefs. Though, I would contest the figure of 95% in both cases.

You talk about the 'fact' that Indians have gods and doctrines and theology and pretty much the same structure as Christianity.

They do. It maybe different in content, but the nature is the same.