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Post by Arlon10 on Jul 29, 2018 13:56:16 GMT
There are people in many disciplines who follow traditions without fully understanding them. It can become more important to them that their tradition is the ultimate arbiter of truth rather than a mere tool to discover the ultimate truth. There are many western Christians like that. Following traditions without understanding them is not usually a bad thing. Many good children do that. It saves a lot of needless repetitive experimentation, heartache and loss. Of course it might become a terrible thing if the people who have charge of the traditions, the adults in the room, fail to understand them and fail to guide the children properly. I suspect the Hare Krishna disciples you met are the novices. I have claimed it before that I believe that all religions have certain common goals. The goal is to drive the adherents towards what they perceive is the ultimate truth or ultimate destination. Even if I do not believe in religions, I do not discriminate between religions (and to be honest even you are fairly respectful of different traditions) and believe whether it is Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism or Zoroastrianism they all mean well. That said there is always a chance that over the years religions will develop traditions that are not so good. Feudalist mentality in medieval Japan, Europe or India were in certain ways (even if indirect ways) encouraged by religions. I would respect religions more if they have ability to re-examine their traditions and customs and constantly search for truth. The Hare Krishna people that I have met are often sure of their stance and unwilling to re-examine their opinions of other faiths. In Sanskrit the word Ishwara has traditionally referred to Shiva. The other meanings of Shiva is the auspicious one or the one that has no birth and no death. There is a misconception that Shiva represents death (as in physical death). According to Upanishads Shiva represents the death of ego and the death of physical form. For that reason Shiva is also the formless one according to Upanishads. The one who has reached the state of consciousness in which one has no ego, greed, desire or lust.
As human civilisation progressed people created gods with physical forms. It was because the Hindu saints thought an illiterate person who works in field all day and has no means to study cannot understand the philosophical depths of teachings of Upanishads. Thus were born the Krishna and Shiva with forms. As you see in pictures. There is nothing wrong in believing in gods with forms. What is wrong is in believing that what you believe is the only truth. This is where HK people and even HK elders make things go wrong. They should at least have courtesy to respect traditional Hinduism. They don't. They even refer to the oldest god of Hinduism (Shiva) as a demi-god. Even though I was born in a Vaishnavite family I find it extremely hypocritical that HK people are so derogatory towards people of other faiths. Almost all other Hindus not only give respects to other sects of Hinduism but also hold religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam in a very high regard. Giving respect to other faiths is the primary Hindu value which people like M.K.Gandhi, Vivekananda and other great people had reiterated time and again. Because HK people do not believe in such values I find it difficult to give them any respect.
It is amazing how much some people seem to need to have an anthropomorphic "god." Some Christians are that way as well as the HK. The similarity is unsettling.
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Post by faustus5 on Jul 29, 2018 18:12:54 GMT
I've met other atheists, intelligent ones, who would be surprised to learn that you are not entirely correct. Produce a few of these atheists saying what you claim they do in their own words or shut the fuck up.
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Eλευθερί
Junior Member
@eleutheri
Posts: 3,710
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Post by Eλευθερί on Jul 29, 2018 19:26:32 GMT
This is one of the reasons why I particularly dislike western people and their stupid condescending attitudes toward Indian or non-western people of Asia and African countries. Sitting on your couch and thinking about state of social justice in India with quick googling of the word dalit is not going to give you any accurate picture. I don't think Arundhati Roy is a Western armchair intellectual who learned everthing she knows about Dalits from google searches. Btw, when I used the term "organized religions," I was including religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. "Organized" in the sense of being elaborate systems of belief, with rules, rituals, and traditions. Unorganized religion might be someone believing that they can help heal sickness by praying to a certain plant on their property, and that their misfortunes are a curse from God or a god. It's a kind of personal superstition not shared by large numbers of people and doesn't involve elaborate rules and traditions.
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Post by Aj_June on Jul 29, 2018 20:57:27 GMT
This is one of the reasons why I particularly dislike western people and their stupid condescending attitudes toward Indian or non-western people of Asia and African countries. Sitting on your couch and thinking about state of social justice in India with quick googling of the word dalit is not going to give you any accurate picture. I don't think Arundhati Roy is a Western armchair intellectual who learned everthing she knows about Dalits from google searches. Btw, when I used the term "organized religions," I was including religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. "Organized" in the sense of being elaborate systems of belief, with rules, rituals, and traditions. Unorganized religion might be someone believing that they can help heal sickness by praying to a certain plant on their property, and that their misfortunes are a curse from God or a god. It's a kind of personal superstition not shared by large numbers of people and doesn't involve elaborate rules and traditions. Arundhati Roy is the spokesperson of 'anti-globalisation' movement and among other things has been constantly crying against any and every thing India has done to improve its economy. She has been batting for moist insurgents and Kashmiri separatists and protesting against building of dams. She is also against the fact that India did a nuclear test and holds nuclear weapons. There is a zone called crazy left.
Your idea of organised religion is pretty different from normal. A religion that is based on an organisation such as Catholic Church or Deobandi school of Islam is usually described as organised religion. People usually follow what religious heads of these organisations say. Hindus and Buddhists have no major religious head or organisation. They mostly believe in whatever suits them or village religion or folk religion or sometimes in whichever guru/charlatan they come under influence of.
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Post by Arlon10 on Jul 30, 2018 7:16:04 GMT
I've met other atheists, intelligent ones, who would be surprised to learn that you are not entirely correct. Produce a few of these atheists saying what you claim they do in their own words or shut the fuck up. I never said intelligent atheists are easy to find.
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Post by faustus5 on Jul 30, 2018 10:40:36 GMT
Produce a few of these atheists saying what you claim they do in their own words or shut the fuck up. I never said intelligent atheists are easy to find. Translation: I was correct, and this notion was pulled right out of your ass.
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Post by Arlon10 on Jul 31, 2018 21:55:42 GMT
I never said intelligent atheists are easy to find. Translation: I was correct, and this notion was pulled right out of your ass. Atheism has been in decline since the 2012 march on Washington. The intelligent atheists are leaving it sooner than the less intelligent ones. I'm sorry I can't help you see that.
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Post by faustus5 on Aug 1, 2018 10:40:15 GMT
Atheism has been in decline since the 2012 march on Washington. The intelligent atheists are leaving it sooner than the less intelligent ones. I'm sorry I can't help you see that. Another lie pulled out of your ass.
Reality is really an inconvenience for you, isn't it?
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Post by Arlon10 on Aug 1, 2018 12:08:23 GMT
Atheism has been in decline since the 2012 march on Washington. The intelligent atheists are leaving it sooner than the less intelligent ones. I'm sorry I can't help you see that. Another lie pulled out of your ass.
Reality is really an inconvenience for you, isn't it?
Has it ever crossed your mind that what you're doing takes no talent at all? You can complain all day that I have no system or data or perception, but you obviously have even less.
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Post by faustus5 on Aug 1, 2018 13:07:09 GMT
Has it ever crossed your mind that what you're doing takes no talent at all? You can complain all day that I have no system or data or perception, but you obviously have even less. Has it ever occurred to you that constant lying is a sign of cognitive malfunction?
Absolutely not. You don't possess that degree of self awareness.
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Post by Arlon10 on Aug 1, 2018 16:32:07 GMT
Has it ever crossed your mind that what you're doing takes no talent at all? You can complain all day that I have no system or data or perception, but you obviously have even less. Has it ever occurred to you that constant lying is a sign of cognitive malfunction?
Absolutely not. You don't possess that degree of self awareness.
I think you still fail to understand how insignificant it is that you call me a liar. You are really not as good at this game as you think.
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Post by faustus5 on Aug 2, 2018 10:51:26 GMT
I think you still fail to understand how insignificant it is that you call me a liar. You are really not as good at this game as you think. You've already established--years ago!--that you have no intellectual standards to speak of. So of course you think it is insignificant that you lie all the time. Par for the course.
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