islamic similarities in christianity

[Crossless2.0]

I'm not even gonna ask.

What, you've never had a fundie try to tell you their Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship [with Christ]?

[PreethamJD]

That's because Western religious scholars have no other way to define it. How would you define a Christian? Or a Muslim? Those aren't rhetorical questions. Once you've answered those, I'd ask you to define a Hindu.

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Strange, whenever I try to find out about Hinduism, this word religion keeps coming up.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hinduism

My previous post was meant to quote this but I forgot. :/

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It's called a religion for lack of a better term.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Why not use a better term?

Also welcome

[PreethamJD]

Why not use a better term?

Also welcome

Because the English language lacks a better term.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Can you give us a rough translation? The English language is pretty versatile.

If the closest translation is religion, then surely calling Hinduism a religion is justified in that context, then?

[FatAndFaithless]

Can you give us a rough translation? The English language is pretty versatile.

If the closest translation is religion, then surely calling Hinduism a religion is justified in that context, then?

Along with the translation, a nice comparison of why Christianity and Islam are religions but Hinduism is not, would be nice.

[StealthySkeptic]

Islam isn't an offshoot of Judaism but Satan's alternative to it. God established the nation of Israel to bring the messiah into the world. Satan started Islam as a way to bring the false messiah, the antichrist, into the world. Here is the explanation:

http://clydeherrin.wordpress.com/2014/04...abraham-2/

In a sense they are siblings. Moses was a descendant of Abraham's son Isaac. Muhammad was a descendant of his other son Ishmael.

Oh boy.

I concur.

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Also PreethamJD isn't technically wrong. Hinduism is more like thousands of different local religions that have an overlapping holy book (the Bhagavad Gita).

[Napoléon]

Can you give us a rough translation? The English language is pretty versatile.

If the closest translation is religion, then surely calling Hinduism a religion is justified in that context, then?

I can give you a translation Fidel, it's called:

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Stupidity

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[PreethamJD]

As much as I love being an obnoxious know-it-all, it's best I get around to explaining why Hinduism isn't a "religion." This is going to be really hard but here goes....

You can be agnostic and still be a Hindu, you can even be an athiest and still be a Hindu and as weird as this is going to sound, you can even be a Christian and still be a Hindu. They aren't mutually exclusive like being an athiest and being a Christian are. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism )

Hinduism isn't organised as most common religions are organised with a head of the faith (for example a Pope). So it is unlike the common perception of what a religion may be.

There is no formal conversion process. You could just decide to one day call yourself a Hindu without even knowing any of many Hindu philosophies and no one would be able to argue with you.

There are no rules. One of the most commonly held beliefs by Westerners is that Hindus can't eat beef because the cow is considered sacred. And while this may be a common practice among the majority of Hindus, beef is a major part of the diet of South Indian Hindus.

There isn't a book (like the Bible or the Quran). There are instead many texts/scriptures that are considered Hindu "religious texts." Some of it isn't even based on fatih/philosophy but instead just poetry, science and even mathematics.

There is no founder of the "religion."

There is no way to define what it is to be a Hindu as you would a Christian (being someone who follows and believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ) or a Muslim (being someone who follows and believes in the teachings of Muhammad).

The best way to understand some of what it constitutes would be to read the Intro and then scroll down and read from the third para under the sub title "Definition" in the wiki for Hindu. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu )

The Supreme Court of India once described it as a "way of life." I think a better way to describe it is that it's a bunch of different ways of life classified as Hinduism and then further misclassified as a religion. And even then that would only describe Modern Post 19th Century Hinduism and nothing more.

[Crossless2.0]

I appreciate your explanation, PreethamJD. The idea that one can be agnostic and atheist and still be a practicing Hindu doesn't strike me as strange because I've long understood that the same can apply to Buddhists. I also did not think that Hinduism is really comparable to the Abrahamic faiths.

If Hinduism is really a kind of spiritual practice (or perhaps I should say, several kinds of spiritual practice) as opposed to an authoritative body of dogma that must be believed, would "yoga" serve as a good catch-all word to denote this? [Note: By yoga, I don't mean only the forms of yoga that have become popular in Western fitness clubs but -- more broadly -- the variety of yogic disciplines I vaguely remember reading about in Iyengar's Light on Yoga, including devotional -- Bhakti? -- yoga.] The goal, after all, is to yoke one's essential nature with Brahman, the unchanging unity-in-diversity, no?

If I've utterly misrepresented Hinduism, please correct me. We have at least one other Hindu at AF, and I'd be interested in her take, too.