People who claim orthodoxy in religion usually accuse others who claim the same roots but have different rituals or tenets of heterodoxy or apostasy. No religion is immune. Religions founded by absolute pacifists are far from immune to spectacular bloodletting. Often they butcher each other until one side triumphs and the "true faith" is restore. In my own religious tradition, the holiest text is full of examples of that behavior. People of faith study these conflicts in hopes of discerning the intent of God. Maybe they do descern the mind or will of God, and more power to them. Just not too much power or they'll go all bloody again.

B

Nicely put, my point was that a general proclamation is being made that the particular followers of this faith all follow the practice of Devadasi or at least condone it. Point being when you deal with a sub-continent where language changes every 10km, people are ethnically and culturally different in each and every state, its hard to make a broad based statement and a general assessment made on that statement in particular. Since there are huge cultural differences, over the period of time, they have all accumulated their own local practices and termed it into religion. If its not in the ancient texts, its culture for me and not philosophy.

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Religion is culture and prostitution and masturbation and authority and superstition and subservience and philosophy and slavery and murder and law and on and on and on... It is an extremely versatile tool, used and abused by both good and wicked men to attain a wide variety of goals throughout our brief history.

Part of the problem in the discussion is to identify what is 'religion' and what is 'culture' or 'ethnic practice'. Anyone want to make a stab at it? I've seen people use the distinction utilizing the content of a 'text' as the 'real' religion and any non-textually sanctioned practice as 'culture'. Also seen the same thing with 'law' in the place of 'text'. Neither of those seem completely satisfactory to me.
Part of the problem in my view is that people use a modern (Western?) experience of religion and project it onto all religion. The modern experience makes religion private, individual, and a non-legal component of society. This doesn't fit cultures which had very little private, individual, non-legally regulated space for 'religion'.
So, we can look at Lamas and say, that is culture and not religion or we can look at Bishops in medieval Europe and say their political power was cultural and not religious, but I don't think it's very helpful because it assumes that our experience of 'religion' is definitive. It might be more helpful to start out by saying that religion does not exist any more and what we call 'religion' is just an ersatz private indulgence tolerated in modern society in a similar way that black powder pistols are unregulated. They're both outdated and inaccurate, so useless in achieving power in modern cultural combat, that they can be functionally ignored.

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Are you excluding the muslim world when considering 'modern cultural combat'?

If the purpose of any religion or religious group can be accurately identified and quantified, how is it useful to separate the goal from the vehicle? That strikes me as a dangerous inoculation that perpetuates the vehicle and even holds it above scrutiny.

I consider myself to be very tolerant of other religions and given that each religion has some pretty fcuked up stuff in it, Hinduism by far is the most (for a lack of a better word) FCUKED up in my opinion. Religion is a way of life. With that said, there are so many different factions in Hinduism also but they all practice under the umbrella of Hinduism. Could you please explain the Goddess KAALIMA who requires the sacrifices of children and although it is against the law in India, thousands are sacrificed each year and pretty much all of them end up being girls.
Girls have never enjoyed an equality under the Indian culture as well as the religion of Hinduism. To prove her innocence, Seeta herself had to walk on burning coals as her word as a woman was not enough when questions about her purity came into being after she had been abducted by a rival God. This practice is STILL practiced all over India. Woman whose honor or purity has been questioned has to walk on fire to prove herself and her innocense. All that is required is for a man to question her purity. Countless women are subjected to this barbarism by the society. You wanna know what the deciding factor is whether as to her innocence or guilt? LISTEN TO THIS...... If the woman's feet show absolutely no burns or signs of burns AFTER he walks through the pit of fire ONLY THEN is she considered to be telling the truth! Good luck!
Dowry is another evil that plagues ALL OF INDIA. Women are forced by her in laws to get pretty much everything including furniture, cars, homes, cash from her parents in order to get married. Most in-laws require even more after the marriage has taken place. Those families that can't do any more for their daughters are helpless. The punishment for refusal in most cases is NOT a divorce but their daughter being BURNED ALIVE!
India has the highest female infanticide rate in the world! This has been going on for centuries. Before the advent of the ultrasound, if a girl was born to a middle class or a lower socioeconomic class family, she was usually either sold into slavery, sexual slavery, or killed. The method of killing a newborn was and still is to feed the new baby some rice which obviously gets stuck thereby suffocating the infant. After the advent of the ultrasound, things have become a little more "humane" as the sex of the child can be identified while the fetus is still in the womb and if it is found to be a girl then an abortion takes place. People who can't afford the ultrasound still "take care of it" the old fashioned way by using rice. Dues to these practices of selective abortions and female infanticide, the demographics of the Indian population is been severely affected. There are now more boys than girls in India. What is an Indian boy to do? Either he will get lucky and find a mate or he will partake in homosexual activities. This is being seen currently and the numbers of homosexual crimes have increased not in the recent years but have been steadily increasing for hundreds of years. I could go on and on..........
Now let come to the religious leaders called "swami-jees". Many of these SWAMIs have the cure for infertility. Many women who do not produce a child within the first year of marriage are shunned and looked down upon and are considered a curse. In may cases it is the husband who is the cause of the infertility but this can NEVER be discussed in the Indian society for the male is always superior! Therefore many families will take these women to the SWAMI-Jees so that he may "cure" their infertilities. We all know what happens behind the closed doors while the all powerful SWAMI-JEE is "curing' her. I would not be surprised to learn that each "SWAMI_JEE" has fathered ten of 1000s of babies in India's HINDU population.
Could someone also tell me the reasoning behind the drinking of fresh cow urine ritual? People actually wait right behind the cow in anticipation that that cow will void. As the cow is urinating, the fresh warm urine as it is coming out is drank, used to wash the faces, heads and hands , and sprinkled over the body for purity.
Could you also explain the worship of Penis in Hinduism and contrast that with the lord Shiva (who him self is actually a penis, no joking he is a penis)
What about that girl who had a wedding complete with a ceremony with a cobra snake. What about the girl who was married off to a dog (A CANINE!)
I could go on and on, but all of these evils have been adopted by the Indian Hindus as not only a part of the religion but it is now a way of life. Some of these acts are illegal now which have only become illegal in the past 50 years but these are still being practiced as part of HINDUISM under the umbrella of the religion.
When we see info about India their powerful media conveniently leaves out the "real India" and shows us the "other side" that deals with business and commerce. But we need to realize that all of the above mentioned things also go hand in hand with their society. We just don't get exposed to them. Should the rest of the world do any sort of business with a stone age people who can be so cruel to their other halves of their own people?
Furthermore, In every other major religion, there is always a concept of invitation to the other religions and invitations for people to convert. Christians have missionaries, Muslims have what is called a "tabligues", and Jews also accept conversions whether it be from active conversions or through marriages. Hinduism has no such thing but after all, who would convert?

Yes, I was excluding much of the Muslim world. I think part of the conflict between Islam and the west is over precisely the death of religion in the West and the life of religion in Islam. Is religion in the Muslim world just on life support, extending its life beyond its natural limit, or is it really a viable modern social, political, legal, scientific, metaphysical institution?

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1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I think Islam is really a viable modern social, political, legal, scientific, metaphysical institution. Let's looks BEYOND what we see on TV today for a minute. Islam in the past really dominated everything and was an extremely dynamic and a positive change that changed the face of the world especially in the pagan Arabia. Same things were being practiced in Arabia 1300 years ago that are being practiced in the HINDU region/society today, IE female infanticide, slavery, etc. Islam put an end to it and the RELIGION actually was the first and ONLY religion to have women's rights! (Hard to believe it because of what's going on today! It is too bad that it has been hijacked by some lunatics but I believe that time has come to an end for the lunatics and the REAL "infidels" who happen to be the terrorists who have hijacked a great religion). Islam Dominated pretty much everything up until recently, such as Algebra, Physics, Sciences, Astronomy, Medicine, Architecture. I believe the decline of the Religion of Islam began when people no longer practiced the true religion anymore which has led to these terrorists hijacking it as well.
I believe it will be ONLY become a viable modern social, political, legal, scientific, metaphysical institution WHEN the majority of Muslims, thereal Muslims, the moderates, take their religion back from the "TRUE INFIDELS" who have hijacked it and commit crimes against humanity in the name of this religion.

I'd say that depends on one's perspective. My perspective is that all religious institution falls beyond those bounds, but I don't think that's a very important point. Since when was religion held up to a litmus test of legal and scientific scrutiny? If enough practitioners participate and believe it is viable, then it's viable to them. The rest of the world be damned.

Yep.

Couple of responses. Religion was held to those standards in medieval Christian and Islamic societies. Religion and intellectual/scientific life were united. Perhaps the same thing could be said of Buddhism.

Sure religion is viable for specific individuals. Lots of things can be believed by specific individuals for any reason they want. What I meant by 'viable' was whether religion is appealing enough to sieze the hearts, minds, universities, corporations, banks, legal systems, and governments to the extent that it could drive a culture.
Capitalism seems to have outgunned religion in the west. Can it do the same thing with Islam? One advantage that capitalism had in Europe, was a separation of law and religion pushed by Protestants who believed in salvation by grace thru faith, outside of the law. Islam never really developed this idea.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I think it's a very important point. It's what Nietzsche meant when he said God was dead. He meant that people viewed religion the way that you do. Religion can no longer serve as a cultural focal point the way it did in medieval Europe or Baghdad.
Religion has become like Coke or Pepsi. It's an individual choice based on one's tastes.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

In regard to medieval Christianity, what claim can be made regarding the independent development of science and law? It seems to me that the church was not united with science, it obscured and suppressed science to such an extent, that contradiction was joined with heresy. Eventually science found it's way and broke off from christianity just as protestantism would later do. That is hardly real scrutiny.

It is enough to seize the hearts and minds, and if it seizes enough hearts and minds, governments and legal systems will follow. Universities, banks and corporations are ancillary and not required to drive culture, they are only required to drive our culture.

I don't see why not. How about Bosnia and Turkey?

Does it seize hearts and minds or is it programmed into the young and looks like it seizes heart and mind?

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Looks like some Indian Hindu really ticked you off, probably took your job, you sound like Pat Robertson and his CBN club broadcasts. You really have no idea about Hindu philosophy or its way of life, you don't want me to start about other religions like Christianity with its papaldom or Islam with its Bin Laadens of Islam world or for that matter Judaism etc. Are you aware that its in India for centuries has given refuge to all sorts of religions escaping from persecution, Jews, Parsis etc.

Yes Hindus worship Shiva's Linga, any idea why, did you read the mythology or you are just putting across your limited views spewing out of your bigoted mind.

As for conversion, don't see any reason for you to ***** about it, Hindus don't proselytize and coerce people from other religions into theirs, they don't assume others are lacking light and knowledge, plus as you say, since its so bad, why even consider converting to it.

Now seriously, did you get rejected by a Indian Hindu girl as well


By the way, you have posted this kind of venom against Indians and Hindus in past as well so its apparent that there is some deep seated prejudices going on inside you, I am sure the mod would seriously have to take a look at this. When Botnst posted this write up, I was truly afraid that it might end up ugly, well so far its one bad apple and before it makes the entire core rotten, time for that applet to be cleaned up with some Hindu Holy water from the Ganges.

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2015 Gurkha with OM616 DI turbo

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