[QUOTE=Quetzalcoatl;60696]Hi vimoh,
actually I did not ask these questions. I didn’t even know you worship stones and drink water from the Ganges. Basically, though, I don’t find these questions retarded per se, so why not discuss?! :lol:
- Whoever asked this, didn’t ask why according to your belief you’re reborn as a beetle, but wether it makes sense. What sense does it make to be reborn as a beetle? Is it a punishment or a reward? Sure, if I think about it now and here, the thought of being a beetle basically is not appealing. And I would fear to become a beetle. So it’s somewhat a threat, so I’d guess that the story is that one will become a beetle if they behave bad, as it’s a lower lifeform, from the perspective of a human. Yet, being a beetle must be quite simple, you don’t reflect much, there is no good and bad, no ethical decisions have to be made. Life should be quite simple, you can’t do anything wrong. So actually being a beetle would unburden the reincarnated soul and be quite a pleasure for it. A relief. Any thoughts on this…?
On the whole ideo of reincarnation and so forth, I wouldn’t see what the point is at all. I have to behave some particular way and then end the cycle of reincarnation? Who planned this? God? What for? Enterntainment? To teach something? What? Why could god not just plant that knowledge into a being? It indeed makes as little sense to me as the Christian version of enforcing behaviour rules.
-
Yeah, why do you worship everything? And do you worship me too? I worship circa nothing, what the point?
-
So you only drink from the Ganges cuz you’re thirsty? Isn’t it actually some kind of worship as well, cuz the river is declared holy, as it makes the crops grow and feeds the people? Not that I’d be an expert on your religion, but sounds like you’d be spreading a misconception here.
For your rebound-questions you have to ask a Christian, I’m none. Why do you assume I am one?
Furthermore, if you’re in the mood to explain stuff, I might ask you my “retarded” questions. Actually, though, they’re more inconvenient than retarded, which - I guess - is why helpless Nietzsche plays his games and lies to his fellow Hindu-friends. Btw, just asking, I don’t know any many Hindus, only those on this forum, is lying big in Hinduism? Is it ok to lie and all? Cuz the Hindus I know really lie a lot. Is it a virtue in Hinduism? :lol:
The questions I have would be these:
Awesome Hindus never get tired to note how superior anything Hinduism/India is, how advanced Hindus/Indians were x-thousand years ago. To some degree I agree, yet two questins concerning this:
-
How come? How could ancient India get so ahead of other cultures? How was it possible for India to come up with sophisticated philosophy, religion, technology, science, math, etc.? What did the people have that others had not?
-
How could it be possible that even though India was superior in so many ways, that it was occupied and under the rule of foreign nations for so many years? The superiority includs it’s wealth (see past GDP of India), with India also being a strong warrior culture, due to their superior science and philosophy surely ahead in warfare-tactics and strategy, probably having better weapons to advanced means of creating metal and such, also having a very large population, etc. etc. Maybe it’s not your opinion, but your fellow Hindu-friends claim that while India was very superior and sophisticated, the nations that conquered it were primitive, barbaric, and even today scientifically and philosophically backwards compared with ancient India. It’s quite hard to understand and has never been explained how Goliath Einstein could’ve been conquered by David Simpson.
-
I don’t yet know what your reply to 1. is, mine has to do with circumstances. What would you think are the reasons that the offenders who conquered and occupied India did that? What led to their crimes? NOte that I’m not interested in justifying obvious crimes, but wish to understand history to learn from it.
-
If you believe in reincarnation, would it not be possible that todays Hindus were British or Moslems in the days when India was occupied, and that the Indians of these times today are British and Moslems? So that reproaches like “you [= todays British or Moslems) hurt us [= todays Hindus]” make no sense from the perspective of Hinduism, cuz it could easily be the sould of a former offender who is now accusing the sould of a former victim? And if Karma exists, wouldn’t it even be plausible to put an offender into the position of the victim so that they experience the other side and learn how miserable it makes one feel? And to give them the chance to grow and not make the same mistakes, while it might be so tempting to become the new offender, become aggressive, attack innocent people, and so forth?
These are some of my “retarded” questions. Any thoughts…? :)[/QUOTE]
I didn’t know you were the one being addressed here. I certainly didn’t address my answers to you. They were general responses.
My answers, as I have said before, were associated to the baity nature of the question. Making sense is a subjective thing. What makes sense to a person from one cultural background may not make sense to another. So the question is moot. To ask if something “makes sense” is pointless when there is not a common standard for assessment of facts. This is why, to point out this asymmetry, I reacted to the question with a counter-question.
Reincarnation, rooted in the idea of Karma is said to be a law of the universe. Who made the law doesn’t concern us here. As it is, Hinduism has many answers to that question. Choose a deity of your choice and go with it. The Vedas themselves take an agnostic view of the matter.
Having said that, Asking “why” reincarnation happens is like “why” gravity exists and for what purpose. It just is. That’s the system we live in. Believing in it or not does not make one whit of a difference. One does not become weightless if he stops believing in gravity. Same goes for Karma and reincarnation. It applies to all beings, and not just to a chosen group of special people who have God’s favour. Hinduism may be seen as being very atheistic in this matter.
Karma is not a set of rules like Biblical guidelines or commandments. You are not expected, by Hindu philosophy, to act a certain way. People do what they do according to their best judgment and the consequences come back to them. Karma isn’t good or bad, it’s just Karma. As one goes through a cycle of lives, one figures out the best path for himself/herself. Scriptures are there to help, but that’s all they are. The end result depends on personal enlightenment.
Regarding the worship of everything: It’s more like acknowledgment of divinity in the whole universe. The Biblical view makes a distinction between between the creator and the creation. Hinduism doesn’t. According to much of Hindu philosophy, the universe IS God and everything in the universe, is divine. So when I say we worship everything, I mean that we do not seek a divine character in something ineffable beyond the known universe, we acknowledge that God is everywhere and everyone.
Yes, that includes you as well. The Indian greeting “Namaste” actually means that I acknowledge the divine in you. So you might say that Hindus carry out practical worship all day long, in their everyday lives.
You say you worship nothing. That’s alright. Zero is also a part of infinity, no? In fact, there is a temple that worships nothingness near my home town. It’s called a Shunya Mandir (temple of zero) and is kept by a sect of hindus who belong to Mahima Dharma. Read this for details: http://www.heritagetoursorissa.com/inspiration/culture-people.php#2
The value called “nothing” is a part of “everything”.
As for the Ganga, it is called holy because it was a giver of life during ancient times. On its banks, many cities and settlements thrived. Especially after the drying up of the Saraswati in the north-west. My answer was in jest, (and not aimed at you personally) but the Ganga really IS clear in early parts and you can actually drink off it. 
Now to answer the questions you asked formally.
How could ancient India get so ahead of other cultures? How was it possible for India to come up with sophisticated philosophy, religion, technology, science, math, etc.? What did the people have that others had not?
I don’t really know. I wasn’t there to see any of it. But what we do know is that they did do all of those things. We have their work with us in the form of treatises, books, spoken knowledge, and scientific applications like Yoga and Ayurveda. All these prove they did those things. As for “how”, The Vedas have accounts of how such knowledge was found by introspection and application of insight.
You ask about others. I don’t understand. What others are you talking about? Contemporary competition? If yes, who exactly. Tell me and I will be happy to answer.
How could it be possible that even though India was superior in so many ways, that it was occupied and under the rule of foreign nations for so many years? The superiority includs it’s wealth (see past GDP of India), with India also being a strong warrior culture, due to their superior science and philosophy surely ahead in warfare-tactics and strategy, probably having better weapons to advanced means of creating metal and such, also having a very large population, etc. etc. Maybe it’s not your opinion, but your fellow Hindu-friends claim that while India was very superior and sophisticated, the nations that conquered it were primitive, barbaric, and even today scientifically and philosophically backwards compared with ancient India. It’s quite hard to understand and has never been explained how Goliath Einstein could’ve been conquered by David Simpson.
It’s complicated. India was never really conquered. Prior to India, the Islamic wave of attacks completely consumed the native cultures of countries like Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, turning them into satellites of the Islamic empire. In India, they had a harder time. Wars were fought for nearly 800 years and the Mughal rule was flimsy. It was only after someone with the will to compromise – Akbar – came on the throne, that some manner of peace prevailed. India was never completely Islamised. India is still more than 80 per cent Hindu. After Akbar, the tumultuous peace faltered again and came to an end when Aurangzeb came to the throne. Battles raged all over India and did much damage. Eventually, Aurangzeb died and many erstwhile allied kingdoms took back their reins into their own hands. But the loot had hurt the atmosphere in India a lot and a general kind of mistrust spread. A united front against Mughals never took shape and things remained that way for many years.
The British East India company entered India during this period of mistrust. Their only interest was thievery and they did all they could do to make these trust divides wider. They spread stealthily, with mercantile interests and gradually started owning more and more land. They started bribing locals rulers for the right to tax people in those lands. Thus their influence started to grow. In due course of time, they became sizable enough to build forts and started carrying out military missions to take over Indian states.
They got a good amount of opposition too. A lot of kings fought and lost their kingdoms. A lot of kings fought and kept their kingdoms too. A united front did come up in 1857. It is called the sepoy mutiny. Some contemporary historians consider the 1857 freedom war one of the causes that started the decline of the British empire. The mutiny was suppressed ruthlessly and a lot of people dies as a result. Even after the mutiny was suppressed, the East India company realised that it could not keep its power through force. Dissatisfaction among the people was growing.
This was when power over India was transferred to the Queen of England and Indians became “her majesty’s subjects”. The new administration came with soft promises, but in the end proved to be as hurtful as the previous one. Indians have never thrown out anyone. India’s way is exemplified by acceptance. But the British empire was not something which came with the intention of mixing. They came for milking. And they did so for many years. They maintained their power by controlling minds. They altered the education system, destroying what India had before they came and replacing it with the British school system. In due course of time, this system spawned a race of Indians who were Indians in blood and colour, but English in thought.
But even this intellectual imperialism did not go unchallenged. Indian history is full of modern sages and thinkers who made the case for the continuation of Indian culture in spite of foreign education. They succeeded too. Even today, in India, after all these years of physical and mental oppression, Indian thought and philosophy is alive and kicking.
India is war-torn, but not defeated. Never defeated. When you say “they” attacked “us” and ruled “us” you make it sound like it was a piece of cake. In reality, it is way more complicated. The end result is here for anyone to see. Hinduism (and by that I mean the ancient Indian way of life) THRIVES all over India even today. The proof of India’s superior culture is that it survives while others didn’t. Ancient Greece is gone. Africa native traditions are all but gone. India, on the other hand, remains the last living (and kicking) strain of an ancient culture that once pervaded almost all parts of the world.
I don’t yet know what your reply to 1. is, mine has to do with circumstances. What would you think are the reasons that the offenders who conquered and occupied India did that? What led to their crimes? NOte that I’m not interested in justifying obvious crimes, but wish to understand history to learn from it.
As I said before, I wasn’t there. But here’s an educated guess nevertheless.
The main difference between the Indian way of thinking and the way of those who invaded India was the concept of groups. Indians do not consider themselves a group chosen by God or destiny. The invaders did. They had in-groups and out-groups. They were religious supremacists who saw the world as being divided into “us” and “them”. “Them” had to be converted or killed.
The British influence began at a time when Christianity had already suffered a loss of power in the west owing to rise of rationalism in the west. But they were still supremacists. Their world view was formed by a very Darwinian view of race science. They considered the “white race” to be superior to other races and they saw the influence of the empire as something of a evolutionary “survival of the fittest” struggle. They stole from India for a reason as simple as greed, but they justified it by saying that it was India’s destiny to suffer as she was inferior and was peopled by an inferior race.
I do not blame you of justifying any of this of course. Just giving you a historical account of events that transpired back then. Sadly, these tendencies have survived till today. They don’t call it race science it anymore, but the intent is still the same. See the wikipedia article called INDOPHOBIA.
If you believe in reincarnation, would it not be possible that todays Hindus were British or Moslems in the days when India was occupied, and that the Indians of these times today are British and Moslems? So that reproaches like “you [= todays British or Moslems) hurt us [= todays Hindus]” make no sense from the perspective of Hinduism, cuz it could easily be the sould of a former offender who is now accusing the sould of a former victim? And if Karma exists, wouldn’t it even be plausible to put an offender into the position of the victim so that they experience the other side and learn how miserable it makes one feel? And to give them the chance to grow and not make the same mistakes, while it might be so tempting to become the new offender, become aggressive, attack innocent people, and so forth?
Reincarnation does not work like that. Karma, the doctrine upon which the idea of reincarnation is based, does not address nations and cultures. It pertains to the individual souls. So India does not have a Karmic record any more than Ethiopia does. An individual has Karmic balance to settle, not a nation and not a group of people.
Using Karma to justify violence on a cultural scale is stupid. It’s like saying gravity killed the man who fell of the building because he didn’t believe in gravity.
That Karma can be used to justify violence is immaterial. Anything can be used to justify violence. One is violent because one’s nature is such. Karma does not come into it. Karma’s effects are experience-based and therefore can’t be verified objectively. So it is pointless to say that it is “plausible to put an offender into the position of the victim so that they experience the other side and learn how miserable it makes one feel”.
Today’s Hindus may indeed have been the British of the past, but we can’t base an argument on conjencture. On a metaphorical level, justice of a Karmic kind does sound good, but it just doesn’t compute when one is dealing with earthly matters like crime and violence.
I have done my best to answer your questions. Let me know if you want me to flesh something out or explain more. I will be happy to do so.
