Atheism: A cultural Hindu's POV

[InfidelRudy]

Some of the fellow members told me that they know very little about Hinduism or the position of faithless people like me in Hinduism. I wish to touch upon these points in this thread. Feel free to question me on this topic. I will try my best to inform you. But let me put a disclaimer first. I am NOT evangelizing here. Information or my personal opinions regarding Hinduism should not be treated as an apologetic view of a believer. There should be no misunderstanding in this regard.
It is pointless to discuss basics of Hinduism as you can easily wiki or google them out. I will only talk about some of the interesting faith related concepts in Hinduism and Indian society in general.

First, the non-believers.There is a sect recognized in Hinduism known as 'Nastiks'. They are the people who do not accept Veda(a holy scripture in Hinduism) as the final authority. In loose terms, the term means the non-believers or the atheists. If the history books are to be believed, they were recognized in ancient Hindu civilizations and had separate position in the society. 'Cārvāka', a branch of the Hindu philosophy, deals with the question of faith, rituals and the importance of materialistic view over spirituality. There are many school of thoughts in Hindu philosophy with extensive analysis of question of faith. But most importantly, the nastiks were not considered as apostates but as a part of the society. At one point of time, this troubled me a lot. Does that mean i am still a hindu even after a complete rejection of my faith? I pondered over that a lot and came to the conclusion that this is more like "If he is a bastard, at least he is our bastard" attitude. It is more politics than faith in work here. Just confine the loose cannons to the barracks with iron fences. Control the apostates rather than killing them.

Now, monotheism vs polytheism. Hinduism, to most people in the world, is a polytheist religion. They worship idols, pray to deities and believe in numerous gods and goddesses. But, quite surprisingly, there are passages in vedas where the monotheist philosophies are clearly indicated. A number of offshoots of Hindus around India clearly pledge their believes to a single deity and refuse any one else. Hindu concepts of origin of Universe(the usual hocus pocus) quite prominently carry a monotheist theme. On one hand, the numerous gods and goddesses in Hinduism resemble the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, on the other hand, there are enough evidences to prove its monotheist roots.How do you explain this bizarre juxtaposition? I feel the answer lies in the diverse ethnicity of the Indian subcontinent. The ancient pagan tribes combined their distinct culture and rituals with Hinduism
which was really a school of philosophy. This is the reason why you see such a vast difference in rituals and customs in India from region to region. Sometimes you feel they don't follow the same religion at all! A perfect analogy will be the open source software. People take it and modify according to their needs. Following the same process, Hinduism went on to grow into a complex superstructure of intermingling faith, philosophy and rituals as diverse as India itself. Local stories of war and family feud transformed into religious epics, with versions having their own regional flavors. Social hierarchy build for political purposes changed into the evil caste system. When it is true that Hinduism offers a lot of freedom, there has been plenty of instances when this freedom is suitably used to oppress people, legitimizing that as divine throughout the history of India.

Thats all for now. Will post more based on the feedbacks.

[Eilonnwy]

Awesome insight to Hindu culture.

This is the reason why you see such a vast difference in rituals and customs in India from region to region. Sometimes you feel they don't follow the same religion at all!

It's not surprising there might be many variations and sects within Hinduism. You see the same exact thing within Christianity. There are many versions of Christianity, some vastly different from others.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@InfidelRudy

Thank you for a thoughtful and informative post.

I've been fascinated by Indian culture and Hinduism for about 40 years. At university did a couple of year's work specialising in in some aspects of the caste system. I looked at Mohandas Ghandi and the satyagraha movement from this perspective..

These days I'm interested more in the history of India (recently finished interesting but dry history of The Raj)

I look forward to learning from your posts

[InfidelRudy]

Thanks a lot Eilonnwy and padraic for your comments.
Eilonnwy , that is exactly the point on which I had many arguments with the theists, particularly the islamic apologists. A favourite argument of the so called "moderate" muslims is the "wrong interpretation" of koran. The Koran is a 100% pure and innocent book and only the wrong and evil interpretations of it by the terrorists is responsible for all the problems.
My argument is, if some has to be interpreted, then it is inherently ambiguous. And any interpretation of an ambiguous entity cannot be tagged right or wrong from an absolute point of view. Who will attest that the "right" interpretation of the moderates? I studied the other interpretation, the so called "wrong" interpretation of koran by the terrorists. They are as logical as the "moderate" side, with quotes from appropriate passages from the book, making a convincing case in favor of eliminating the infidels and establishing a pan-Islamic empire around the world. Since both sides are as logical, in no way we can chose either as a "better" or correct interpretation. Interpretation is not the problem, problem is the ambiguous source. And this is true for all the religion in the world. What can you expect from 2k-3k years old scriptures and scrolls anyway? When you do cherry picking, it automatically implies that most of them is unpalatable or rotten.

padraic, since you are interested in Indian history, do judge MK Gandhi from a neutral pov. He is perhaps the only person ever in history who consciously, with meticulous measure of every step and elimination(not killing) of every other rival, manufactured himself into an international icon. No doubt the brightest among the Indian politicians, he was easily the greatest ever "politically correct" individual.

[Dotard]

My argument is, if some has to be interpreted, then it is inherently ambiguous. And any interpretation of an ambiguous entity cannot be tagged right or wrong from an absolute point of view.

Since both sides are as logical, in no way we can chose either as a "better" or correct interpretation. Interpretation is not the problem, problem is the ambiguous source. And this is true for all the religion in the world. What can you expect from 2k-3k years old scriptures and scrolls anyway? When you do cherry picking, it automatically implies that most of them is unpalatable or rotten.

As has been my arguement for a long time now. Thank you for sharing that as it reaffirms my belief I am correct in that interpretation of the Bible and Koran. Both books are way to ambiguous to be taken seriously when a theist presents them as the words and instructions of a God.

[Edwardo Piet]

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My argument is, if some has to be interpreted, then it is inherently ambiguous. And any interpretation of an ambiguous entity cannot be tagged right or wrong from an absolute point of view.

Since both sides are as logical, in no way we can chose either as a "better" or correct interpretation. Interpretation is not the problem, problem is the ambiguous source. And this is true for all the religion in the world. What can you expect from 2k-3k years old scriptures and scrolls anyway? When you do cherry picking, it automatically implies that most of them is unpalatable or rotten.

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Very well said InfidelRudy.

EvF

[InfidelRudy]

Dotard, I found many intelligent and knowledgable people, whom otherwise I would have called enlightened, refuse to accept these simple logic.


EvidenceVsFaith, thank you very much.