RE: islamic similarities in christianity
July 30, 2014 at 5:31 pm
(This post was last modified: July 30, 2014 at 6:19 pm by PreethamJD.)
(July 30, 2014 at 5:20 pm)rasetsu Wrote: To give another example, I'm a Shaktah Hindu, which means I follow the Devi or goddess in a tradition known as Shaktism. Within Shaktism itself there are many sub-traditions or sub-religions itself. These traditions are categorically different from those of Hindus who worship Krishna or Vishnu. So Hindu really refers to a diverse group of religious traditions, not a specific religion.
To be quite frank, the words "Hindu" and "Hinduism" refer to "ideas" (for lack of a better term) that are so broad it renders the words meaningless.
I myself am an Indian who was raised Catholic and is now an Atheist. I have never considered myself Hindu but if I claim it, you can't deny it. I only put my religious views as Hindu to stoke debate here and because it is a meaningless word.
I guess it could be described as a construct of Indian nationalists in their fight for freedom against the British to unite the people of India together by claiming that we are all the same. Even then it would only be described as anything non-Muslim and non-Christian but including agnostics and atheists.
It really is something made up out of nothing to describe the wide variety of cultures and ideas in the Indian subcontinent and even then there are many Hindu philosophies that if understood properly would lead you to believe it is a way to describe everything known and even unknown in this universe.
The word "reification" comes to mind.
It could also be described as a construct of the British colonialists for the purpose of census taking to describe the religious views of the population.
