Is Hinduism Really a Religion?

Comments on article "Is Hinduism Really a Religion?"
Name Views and CommentsDate
Sriya According the the Oxford dictionary the definition of a religion is:

noun
[mass noun]
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods:
ideas about the relationship between science and religion
[count noun] a particular system of faith and worship:
the world’s great religions
[count noun] a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:
consumerism is the new religion

I don't think I have to say anymore...		 2/6/2012
Mia K Faith is different to religion 11/10/2011
venkat i have a doubt.. why did God is having many forms... and why did he took different avtaar to come to earth.. are the avatars really the God or its creations?/ BIG Q 10/2/2011
A HIDNU SINU, unlike you, as a hindu I see your religon as right as well. Your views are incorrect . Hinduism is not idol worship it is the belief of one entity in which we use the many idols to explain this one entity. Not many hindus actually believe there is a city of gods. We are not the greeks. The stories of christianity have people in your religon actually believe in angels and demons and the flood. That i see is irationall 7/11/2011
Praveen P P Religion is address to society and faith provides an internal strength to do our karma.
You would attain no advantage joining other religion unless You have faith in your work.Religion protects you to do karma.		 7/3/2011
Madhavan I am a Tamilian and I firmly believe that Hinduism, especially in india includes everybody who dont follow christianity, islam,Buddhism or Jainism. For example a forest tribe, Fisher men will be considered a Hindu, if they dont believe in other sects. It is not correct to call everybody as Hindu, as they are not believers of other sects. The Indian rules are like that. There is Hindu marriage act in India.It doesn't mean that everybody under hindu marriage go through hindu customs. Basically there is no standard Hindu custom that is followed by Hindus Uniformly. Every (hindu) caste follws its own tradiations.There are few fundamental doubts.
Especially in Rural Tamil nadu, there are nunber of village gods and their temples. These gods are not worshipped by the so called high class Brahmans. All Brahmans will do puja only for high level hindu Gods in big temples. They want to be in the top of the Hindu Pyramid. The people(Hindu), who worship Village (Hindu) Gods are considered less superior than brahmans. It is well known that the Brahmans refuse to even use tamil Hymns to praise the God in big temples. After great struggle, the TN Govt has put an order that, the archana (Puja) will also be performed in Tamil, but this is also not widely practiced. This is because, Brahmans consider tamil as "Neesa" worst language and Sanskrit as "Deva" heaven language. They consider the Hindu vedas are in sanskrit and that is language to be used in Hinduism and in temples. Even in Chidambaram Natraja Big Temple, With great fight and court ruling the dikars are still not allowing the tamil hymns to be sung in the Temple. What a pity ?. Earlier religions of Tamils include worshipping of hero stone, the stone remembrance of dead warriors. Many Hindu customs are totally different in rural tamil nadu. But still , these people are called Hindus. Ancient tamil religion was simple as seen from the tamil literatures, whereas the Hindu (aryan) customs and religion was very complex. The best thing is that Hinduism was able to assimilate every other sect and bring to its fold to only enable to show a massive hindu population with brahmans leading the top with all privilages for centuries together.		 3/9/2011
Sinu Can any one tell me , why all hindu god has has several hands ?,don't you fell it unusual.Where is the concept of 1 god in hindusim. In hindusim there are many department and each department is handled by a group or single god like the indan democracy which has its own flaws. All the stories in hindusim are only animated stories written by a single author with no witness for the same .if we find out the root for the hindusim stories you may find something similar to that of Babylion stories .hindusim basiclly belives on idol worship which can be anything any object ,Is it rational ... Think simply don't follow blind religion There is only one god and that is Jesus Christ if you belive in him you will be saved and that's the truth and every tounge will confess at the end . if not you can carry on with your false / blind belief ... 1/23/2011
Eric Lawrence cool 11/23/2010
pooran proud to be a Hindu. 11/17/2010
Brijendra Patha for any further discussion on the same nyone who wants can contact me on brijendra95 AT GMAIL 10/18/2010
Brijendra Patha religion and faith are two diferent things. they should never be considered as the same ..none of he hindu books which i have ever read, have tried to communicate it . RAMCHARITMANAS one of the holy books considered by hindus, is in itself not a religious books every verse in itself is a code of conduct , it only states what a man shuold have and posses as a daily routine so that he can be relaxed in his daily life and he finds himself the mental satisfaction and piece... 10/18/2010
nayan joshi Hiiiiiiiiii
u all are correct according to Hinduism whatever faith u have let it be the respect 2 each other.
In this religion in geeta it taught one special thing that as god is everywhere so itis according to the faith of that person whether it is a statue,stone,tree,history books,Rome Juliet,king anything where person see his /her god which don't affects any problems to others right.		 11/14/2009
truth seeker shiva being a god could not identify his son ganesha and he chopped off his head how do you think he'll identify the humans from the begining of the earth & uptill the last day of the earth, it doesn't makes sense, the god is he who does not require a father to born or a son to succeed, you people got such a extreme machine called brain & you people blindly believe what ancient people told, lord is he who is not needy example clothes to hide his or her parts flowers & other ornaments to look beautiful or a crown, hands like us to hold a rat to travel on it a flower bed to rest, if you believe that god with the human forms provides us all we need then who provides them what they need? use your brains for god's sake.. 9/14/2009
human if krishna flirts with the girls & if its not a sin being a god then we as human being flirting & enjoying with girls is also not a sin isn't it ? and if parvati being a god dies & takes a rebirth, then who is the person who srewed her mother made her to come into life? 9/14/2009
Arjuna Hinduism is beyond religion. It's a way of life,science,philosophy,psychology...etc. It's like a deep ocean and to discover hinduism is like unleashing the mighty power of the tiny atom...Aum Shanti 4/18/2009
Umesh- A Hindu Hi, I think Knaika got carried away in thought of imphasisng one fact that hinduism is not a religion and its a way of life. while her point was true her writeup was not. and may be a proof reading by her self was needed.
I do agree on her point that Hinduism offers much more flexiblity and freedom and much more choice, it also have too deep knowledge shared in terms of Vedas, upnishadas, puranas and then Gita and Ramayan and Mahabharat this are main sources of knowledge in additions there are lot from individual saints, philosophers Gurus etc.
one thing I know about my belifs which world calls (Hindu religion) is Religion or Dharma as we call is not a some rituals or practice instead it is details of your responsiblities, for example
if you are a son you are obliged to follow religion of a son (Putra dharma)
if you are a king, follow raj dharma (religion of a king)
if you are a servant follow religion of servent (sevak)
if you are a guest follow religion that of a Guest (Atithi dharma)
there is long list of such dharmas (religion as english dictionary translates it) but I will say its about your duties or obligations. so a individual has to go through many religions (Dharmas) even with in a day.
Also ther is a mis-belif about hindus have many gods/ daities on contarary any one who have gone through Hindu scriptures will agree that it conveyes about one and only god a god whose discription is said as the one which has no begining and no end it is a power or energy which was there even before the univerce came to existance and will be there even after its end. kanika has mentioned some lines for shiva hich actually reflects the theory of "The ultimate one" but what she didn,t mentioned is Brahma Vishnu and Shiva are one and the same the ultimate God took three easy to understand forms and took ownership to establish, maintain and distroy the univerce which gose beyond the Earth, and one Galaxy.
My sharing is limited to best of my knowledge because even going through single veda is a years and years long excercise and to understand Hinduisam just reading one Veda is not at all enough.		 11/18/2008
enzyme I was going to correct your fact about Lord Shiva's eldest son but it seems that others share my insight as well, to be frank, I'm too late.

Anyway, I could not truly comprehend which side your general message was leaning towards. I just don't get it. I connect with your article for a few sentences and the next moment, I find a statement with comprimising truth content.

Maybe you should really check your facts, if you get all your facts right, then people can respect you as a person who understand what you are saying. Because now, you appear to have offended some Hindus and earned disrespect as a reliable writer.

Well, at the end of my comment, I still don't get you. Ah... one suggestion, you should label your articles as "My opinions and mine only, disagree or hate it if you want to, I'm just expressing my thoughts." That would be a wee bit more polite. You can choose to say "no offence, mates"

By the way, to me, religion is my culture. The way I live. Religion is a philosophy. All religions are. What are religions but ways to live a better life? To make people happy. To be happy.		 4/15/2008
i fool u if a peice of cake is 8000 feet tall and the titanic is driving at it at 1999 miles per hour, how many seconds did it tack for the moon to crash into the sun, if the earth is in between them heading toward the moon at 1500000000 mile, and hour and a mouse dressed up like a knight and stopped lord voldemort from killing mario after mario killed voldemorts best freind , the pied piper. And you have to remember that mario and the pied piper had fought for over 6hours before mario finally stabbed him in his hand, and the piper bled to death 3/27/2008
Kamal nice writing 5/29/2007
Rosewealth The author of the article 'Is Hinduism Really a Religion?' seems to have written the script without any deep understanding of the Indian Culture. It will be bettter not to propagate such type of half baked essays on topics that are sensitive like 'Religion'. My humble sugggestion to the author is to remove the article from the web site. This is the greatest HELP the author can do. 'Help Ever Hurt Never' is the essense of all the mythological stories of India. Anyone who like to discuss further on this can contact me on my yahooID - rosewealth 10/5/2006
Vishal n o yea...i also forgot to mention....wat proof do u hav tat krishna was greedy...?or tat radha was married...?or tat brahma is never worshipped....?
how many pujas hav u performed to know that brahmas presence is always recognised with the presence of a lotus...?
neither do u notice tat buddha dint found buddhism...it was his followers who started preaching wat buddha taught in the FORM of buddhism....
n y hav u forgot to mention tat we hindus associate each DAY in the week with a certain god...n tat...we r obliged to go the temple of tat god if we r their devotee...?
tuesday is for godess durga...sat for hanuman......?		 5/23/2006
Vishal well frankly speaking....every religion has its flaws....i hope kanika goswami has read the da vinci code....wich destroys the very foundation of christianity....nothing is flawless in the world...n religion being a so fickle an issue...tat its only a matter of faith...n faith alone...
shes got many points correct in her article....but she fails to mention the other relevant points which GO with the points she has laid down...like for example...she emphasizes on rivers, lake, ponds, seas...well...frankly...its only one element in various forms...the element being water...n yea...u can be a hindu by choice....nothing wrong in tat...but then u got to follow the hindu rituals to actually BE a hindu....tomorrow i can be a christian...tell people tat iam a christian...but wats the point if i don behave like one....or BE like one...?
i don think ms goswami has taken into account all the facts....tho yea...i found her article interesting...		 5/23/2006
Akshay What evidence do you have when you say that Radha was married? And Lord Krishna, who has a very large number of followers, was by no means greedy like you have mentioned in your write-up. 5/23/2006
Dilip "Krishna is the God of all things worldly. He was a greedy, naughty and extremely pampered child, who started flirting with the milkmaids of his village while still a toddler. He is the biggest anathema of Hinduism, he is not perfect, he is completely immersed in worldly pleasures, and indeed there are dances devoted entirely to his flirtations with an older and married woman, Radha. The tolerance and indulgence that Hindus show to their Gods is reflected here, in abundance. "
-- Utter BALDERDASH, this article isn't worth a pinch of sea-salt. It masquerades as a scholarly article whereas the write-up makes the ignoramus behind the article abundantly clear.
Just one of those cheap, rotten tirades against Hindu Gods with no real substance.		 4/5/2006
Krishna Christianity is Not the only way to reach God -like it or not! Hinduism knew the science of God before Jesus appeared. 2/20/2006
swamiji@tm.net. Your facts about the sons of Siva is wrong .Please rectify. The eldest son is Ganesha .The younger one Karthigaya.

Well you cant say a Hindu does not have to follow the nyama( practical system). It may be because the Hindus are not controlled institutionally.But self controlled in this era.A Hindu has to maintain his atmartha puja (puja for self ) & Parartha Puja for all living souls.
Well we will suggest that you should write the facts after a clear picture of Hindus in practical, not the lay ones who are poor in Divine activities and struglying for daily chores.		 12/17/2004
cool Polytheism is religion. 2/22/2004
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