Green olives.
Now therein lies the problem. The teachings of violence in the bible which tell you to stone and burn to death and kill innocent people are not excusable in any circumstance or any context. So what do I tell a Christian who justifies this?
You won’t find a Christian that justifies this. This is what we have been trying to tell you all along. See the bigger picture Surya Deva! It is there! Christians take away lessons learned from the Bible. What to do and what not to do. Many of the violent stories in the Bible, while talking about inflicting violence, were meant as a means of learning of what not to do against our fellow man. People who took what the Bible said literally, including those in power, are but a select few. Just as you justify some of what is going on in India with Fundamentalists/extremists. Christianity also has them and they distort the teachings to suit their needs.
I like green olives too! Something in common between us! In particular green olives stuffed with Jalapeno peppers or blue cheese. Yum!
I do think we’ve deviated from original thread. My apologies!
Were still somewhat on topic, as the OP also mentioned Abrahamic religions in general.
Now, you see the problem I am having with your claim that the violent stories in the bible are meant to teach moral lessons is that the acts of violence are actually being done by God, prophets and holy men themselves. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, the bible is actually prescribing death punishment to idolators, non believers, witches and sorcerers.
Moreover, you cannot deny that Christianity has a clergy. It is this clergy itself which has ordered inquisitions, crusades, witch burnings. Is it not just the case that they are doing exactly what the bible tells them to do?
This equally applies to the Islam as well. Islam also has a scripture which repeatedly condemns non believers and instructs to kill, slay and behead them. It has a clergy which have carried out exactly what the scripture has said.
Hinduism has no clergy. It is a religion that teaches self-development through knowledge and techniques and leaves the decision of how one wants to practice religion up to the individual. It gives you freedom to choose your own deities, your own means of worship, your own philosophies and your own goals in life. As it is not an organized religion it does not impose any dogma on you. There is no compulsion to attend any temples, read any scripture or do anything. You can do whatever you like, so as long you know there are consequences to your actions.
So then Hinduism says it’s good to worhip Allah if that’s who you choose to worship?
Then it seems all people are Hindus according to your broad definition.
From my perspective, all religions have some truth and all who sincerely practice their religion do so in good faith with a desire to do good.
So I will not be disrespectful to Hindus, Moslems, or Protestants, in spite of the errors I perceive in their faiths.
Yep, Hinduism does not dictate which symbols you adopt. “Allah, Jesus, Shiva and Krishna” are all symbols. However, what Hinduism does dictate that you must have single-minded and one pointed concentration and devotion to your symbol and that is when your practice becomes Yoga and you attain union with the Self eventually.
The basic science is outlined in Patanjali’s Yogasutras. You can use any symbol or any object you please to meditate on. The effect of doing this is that it will cause your mind to just focus on a single thought and as a result of this other thought activity will begin to diminish which causes you to introvert(Pratayhara) into the mind. Eventually, all that will remain is you and your object of meditiation and then eventually both will disappear to reveal the Self. Now of course this does not happen the first time you sit for meditation, it requires several years of intense and dedicated practice.
There are ways of checking how developed your practice is.
I have experienced 1 and 2 with and without yoga in my life.
I don’t think I want to experience number 3 unless I can be certain it is of God, as I believe there are evil spirits who can cause psychic phenonmenon. Can you give an example of what you mean?
A Christian does not see Christ as a symbol, but as God in the flesh–fully man and God, who was born of a Virgin, performed miracles including making a blind man see, raising a man from the dead, was crucified, died, and came back to life by his own power. We don’t see Christ as simply a man, but as God and Savior, and we don’t see him as a character in a story, as a legend or fable, but as someone who truly existed at a particular time and place.
Or did I misunderstand what you mean by “symbol”?
Psychic phenomena that is commonly experienced at a good level of spiritual practice is precognition in the form of regular de ja vu’s, telepathy in the form of unconsciously catching others thoughts, astral traveling in the form of regular lucid dreams, but also occasional spotaneous OBEs, weak clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience and healing, but these will all tend to be spontaneous.
An advanced practitioner will experience spotaneous levitation, spontaneous recall of past life memories, astral travel at will, ability to direct and redirect prana at will, controlled telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience. Regular contact with spirits.
Very advanced practitioners will be able to teleport, levitate, increase and decrease their size and morpth their body into other forms, manipulate matter through telekensis, materialise objects by manipulating astral matter, resurrect the dead, control anothers body, develop extraordinary strength to literally lift mountains, time travel, become invisible, access any knowledge.
In my case I have experienced only some of the first category of psychic phenomenon. A friend of mine who was practicing Buddhist meditation claimed very high degrees of telepathy.
A symbol is anything that is a representation of something else. All language is symbolic. You call god “Jesus” others call god “Allah, Jehova, Shiva, Vishnu, Spirit” As god is infinite being, whenever we render that infinite being into words, we are symbolizing it. As god is the infinite he is all encompassing and thus he encompasses you, me and everything. There is nothing that god does not permeate. Therefore I cannot speak of “god” as separate from me. God cannot be objectified.
So Hindus are simply very honest about this and they admit that their 330 million gods are just made-up. Creative human interpretations of god. The honest concept of god in Hinduism is the absolute reality or pure being. This absolute reality or being can be approached in various ways, and no single approach is better than the another:
Monisim: That absolute reality/being is who I really am
Dualism: That absolute reality/being is worthy of worship
Qualified Monism: I must become one with that absolute reality/being
As a Catholic you subscribe to the dualist perspective and the symbol you use to worship god is Jesus. You are in the same category as Hindu Shivaites, Vaishnavites and Shaktas(their symbol is Shiva, Vishnu and divine mother respectively) I am a Vedantist and I subscribe to qualified monism and thus I have no particular symbol of god, other than as an abstraction. Thus I do not worship any particular symbol. Rather I aim to reconnect to the absolute reality.
Short answer: no, it's not.
Most of the muslims' knowledge about Islam is same as Surya Deva's. They barely understand Quran, most of them don't even read it.
The core philosophy of Quran is panentheism and killing your own ego.
The famous "kill infidels" verses are about those who attack and try to kill you. In Quran, the Creator forbids to attack someone if they didn't attack you before. Eye for an eye. But I guess nobody wants to talk about it.
And contrary to Surya Deva and majority of muslims' belief, the literature called hadiths are just made up stories, which began to written 250 years after death of prophet Muhammad. The cruelty and stupidity you see among the muslims, mainly comes from hadith literature and religious leaders.
As you can see this religion, along with others had been altered by patriarchy. Do not ever look to a self-claimed muslim or a person from another religion to understand Islam. There are so many mistranslation and misinterpretation in the Quran. Like wearing hijab, beating women and etc.
Buddhist texts, old Greek-egyptian philosophies helped me to understand the Quran more.