Encounter with a Hindu preacher

[Gooders1002]

Well While I was on my way to post my mums birthday card I was stopped by what I can only perceive to be a Hindu preacher, going on about this book and how it had the original texts in it and a direct translation, and he asked me if I believed in karma and asked me what is was, he wanted to give me a book. So I told him I did not what it then he offered me this other book and I was like again no thanks. lucky he saw me as a lost cause and backed of before I would offer him my boot in his anal region.

[NoMoreFaith]

Technically there are many Hindu Atheists, so its not as completely batshit unreasonable as "some" religions I can think of.

[genkaus]

Well While I was on my way to post my mums birthday card I was stopped by what I can only perceive to be a Hindu preacher, going on about this book and how it had the original texts in it and a direct translation, and he asked me if I believed in karma and asked me what is was, he wanted to give me a book. So I told him I did not what it then he offered me this other book and I was like again no thanks. lucky he saw me as a lost cause and backed of before I would offer him my boot in his anal region.

Where exactly did you meet this guy? In my experience, unlike Christian missionaries, Hindu preachers don't go out of their way to spread their message.

[Gooders1002]

Well While I was on my way to post my mums birthday card I was stopped by what I can only perceive to be a Hindu preacher, going on about this book and how it had the original texts in it and a direct translation, and he asked me if I believed in karma and asked me what is was, he wanted to give me a book. So I told him I did not what it then he offered me this other book and I was like again no thanks. lucky he saw me as a lost cause and backed of before I would offer him my boot in his anal region.

Where exactly did you meet this guy? In my experience, unlike Christian missionaries, Hindu preachers don't go out of their way to spread their message.

In the middal of a street in a town in Buckinghamshire, England

[kılıç_mehmet]

Well While I was on my way to post my mums birthday card I was stopped by what I can only perceive to be a Hindu preacher, going on about this book and how it had the original texts in it and a direct translation, and he asked me if I believed in karma and asked me what is was, he wanted to give me a book. So I told him I did not what it then he offered me this other book and I was like again no thanks. lucky he saw me as a lost cause and backed of before I would offer him my boot in his anal region.

A hare krishna? I never met one, but I would be interested in a book, to read and see what it is all about. Why you're so hostile towards new information is really baffling.

[Anomalocaris]

My experience with buddhist monks (related to hinduism) is they may not be quite as revoltingly upfront as christian morons when they don't know exactly where you stand. But some of them can be every bit as fervent, unscrupulous and aggresively proselytizing as your christian moron if for some reason they perceive you to be even slightly receptive to them. They certainly make no bones about wanting to, in effect, poach souls from competing religions like christianity.

Some of them exihibit a ignorance of science coupled with a wonton greed to misuse it for their proselytizing goals in a way that would do the likes of Wordork or Alter2ego proud.

I met one monk who expelled a huge pile of pseudoscience crap about how buddhist meditation give you access to high truth. When I asked whether he was attempting (unssuccessfully) to put buddhist tradition of meditation on some scientific footing, his answer was refreshingly honest. He said in effect he didn't believe science. He only believed in the wisdom of the living buddha (head of his buddhist sect). But since I seemed to him to respect science, he would use science as tool to bring to on to the true path of wisdom.

[genkaus]

Where exactly did you meet this guy? In my experience, unlike Christian missionaries, Hindu preachers don't go out of their way to spread their message.

In the middal of a street in a town in Buckinghamshire, England

UK, huh? Sounds like one of the Hare Krishna's. They are the Mormons of Hinduism.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Gooders;

Was he wearing a REALLY bad wig?

If so, he may have been a Hare Krsna. If you had accepted a free book,he would have demanded a large donation.

[Angrboda]

It does indeed sound like a Krishna. The tactic of giving you a book or a flower is rooted in marketing psychology. It's known that when people are given something, a gift, regardless of relative value, the person will feel compelled to reciprocate the gesture, which is the point at which they suggest a donation. It's found that even a relatively worthless gift — a flower, or the little Buddhist prayer trivets that I keep receiving in the mail — will increase both the frequency of donations and the magnitude.

Hinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent, and one of its indigenous religions. Hinduism includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Śrauta among numerous other traditions. It also includes historical groups, for example the Kapalikas. Among other practices and philosophies, Hinduism includes a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions of "daily morality" based on the notion of karma, dharma, and societal norms. Hinduism is a conglomeration of distinct intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid common set of beliefs.

Hinduism is formed of diverse traditions and has no single founder. Among its direct roots is the historical Vedic religion of Iron Age India and, as such, Hinduism is often called the "oldest living religion" or the "oldest living major religion" in the world.

Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents. Of the historical division into six darsanas, only two schools, Vedanta and Yoga, survive. The main divisions of Hinduism today are Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Smartism and Shaktism. Hinduism also recognizes numerous divine beings subordinate to the Supreme Being or regards them as lower manifestations of it. Other notable characteristics include a belief in reincarnation and karma, as well as in personal duty, or dharma.

McDaniel (2007) distinguishes six generic "types" of Hinduism, in an attempt to accommodate a variety of views on a rather complex subject:

• Folk Hinduism, as based on local traditions and cults of local deities at a communal level and spanning back to prehistoric times or at least prior to written Vedas.
  
• Śrauta or "Vedic" Hinduism as practiced by traditionalist brahmins (Śrautins).
  
• Vedantic Hinduism, for example Advaita Vedanta (Smartism), as based on the philosophical approach of the Upanishads.
  
• Yogic Hinduism, especially that based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
  
• "Dharmic" Hinduism or "daily morality", based on the notion of Karma, and upon societal norms such as Vivāha (Hindu marriage customs).
  
• Bhakti or devotionalist practices
  

[I'm not sure where my tradition, Shaktism, fits in this list, if at all. There are Bhakti traditions, known as Dakshinamargis Shaktism or the right-handed path, but also Tantric and related Shakta traditions, known as Vamamargis Shaktism or the left-handed path. — apophenia]

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Hinduism does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in declaration of faith or a creed", but is rather an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena originating and based on the Vedic traditions.

The characteristic of comprehensive tolerance to differences in belief, and Hinduism's openness, makes it difficult to define as a religion according to traditional Western conceptions. To its adherents, Hinduism is the traditional way of life, and because of the wide range of traditions and ideas incorporated within or covered by it, arriving at a comprehensive definition of the term is problematic. While sometimes referred to as a religion, Hinduism is more often defined as a religious tradition. It is therefore described as both the oldest of the world's religions, and the most diverse. Most Hindu traditions revere a body of religious or sacred literature, the Vedas, although there are exceptions. Some Hindu religious traditions regard particular rituals as essential for salvation, but a variety of views on this co-exist. Some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic ontology of creation, of sustenance, and of destruction of the universe, yet some Hindus are atheists. Hinduism is sometimes characterized by the belief in reincarnation (samsara), determined by the law of karma, and the idea that salvation is freedom from this cycle of repeated birth and death. However, other religions of the region, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, also believe in karma, outside the scope of Hinduism. Hinduism is therefore viewed as the most complex of all of the living, historical world religions. Despite its complexity, Hinduism is not only one of the numerically largest faiths, but is also the oldest living major tradition on earth, with roots reaching back into prehistory.

[Gooders1002]

He asked if i would give a donation and I told him I had no money, which I don't