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  • History and origin of Hinduism

    I would like to start a separate thread to avoid derailing Tronic's excellent effort on the other one.

    Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
    I also don't want to drag this too far off track, but you seem to be debating a point I have not raised. Where at any point did I mention forced conversion? That seems to be the focus of your entire post, yet not only have I neither mentioned nor alluded to it and it is completely & utterly irrelevant to my point.

    I was simply addressing what I see as mythmaking by Indians about the religions that have originated there. Doppelganger seems determined to lengthen that list considerably wiht his '10,000 years' and 'oldest religion' claims. I suspect that if this drags on for a while I'll have quite the set of myths.

    Oh, thanks for making my point about conversions of Javanese, Chapmans, Khmer etc., though your 'Duh' was a lot harsher than my 'lies'. Remember that I am the one pointing out that conversion MUST have taken place in the face of Indians who point blank refuse to concede the possibility. Yes, it is blindngly obvious. The 'Duh' should be directedat your countrymen, not me.

    Given the sort of stuff that has been popping up on this thread I fear derailment may be inevitable.
    You're confusing your Indians here - I've never claimed 10,000 year history or such. I've heard such fantasies all my life, first-hand, and I know them as such.

    As for the forced conversions, that was what I alluded to when I said "traumatic experience", which you promptly dismissed as lies. Hence an entire thread to prove otherwise. To clarify my point, since my verbosity is getting in the way:

    Forced conversions to Christianity and Islam, and the perceived humiliation arising from them, have traumatised the indigenous Indian community in recent history (1000 AD - present).
    The origins and history of Hinduism are a separate topic alltogether.

  • #2
    Originally posted by cataphract View Post
    You're confusing your Indians here - I've never claimed 10,000 year history or such. I've heard such fantasies all my life, first-hand, and I know them as such.
    Not at all. I named the originator of the fantasies clearly and gave a context for doing so.

    As for the forced conversions, that was what I alluded to when I said "traumatic experience", which you promptly dismissed as lies.

    This is the problem with these sort of discussions - talking at cross purposes. My initial statement was about people making innacurate statements about dharmic religions. I didn't mention any other religion. Then you dragged in your christianity & islam, I assumed as some sort of excuse for telling yourselves untrue stories. Go back & read what you wrote in that context - it made no sense to me otherwise. The 'lies' I was referring to were the same ones I was referring to in my first post, not your statements about christianity & islam. I don't have any interest in that discussion & don't see what relevance it has to anything I've been talking about.

    It appears from what you wrote subsequently that we are in furious agreement - hinduism must have allowed for conversion of some sort in order to spread in some areas. We also appear to be in agreement about the absurdity of the 'oldest religion' claim. I also notice now we have ckaim about Hindu Kings 'returning home' and leaving quasi-converts behind. As I said, if this topic goes on for long we will have a very long collection of odd myths.
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    • #3
      Originally posted by doppelganger View Post
      Boss, we have aborigines in the Andamans that are so old, they make yours look like teenagers. Please get serious and dont argue just because you must.
      Irrelevant.

      I mean I can understand an Egyptian, or an Iraqi or Syrian, or an Iranian, or a South American come up to an Indian and at least try to have a measuring contest.
      I'm not you. The only thing I'm 'measuring' is the age of a set of religions. Aboriginies have a group that are older than Hinduism. Perhaps the folk on the Andamans have them too. Perhaps peoples in other regions do too. Not difficult to grasp really.

      Never thought I'd have to battle for the world's oldest religion with an Aussie for crying out loud. Wailing in fact.
      Who says I am 'battling' for anything? Who says I have made a claim for the 'oldest' religion in the world? I haven't. That is you creating some silly contest where there is none.
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      • #4
        Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
        Not at all. I named the originator of the fantasies clearly and gave a context for doing so.

        As for the forced conversions, that was what I alluded to when I said "traumatic experience", which you promptly dismissed as lies.

        This is the problem with these sort of discussions - talking at cross purposes. My initial statement was about people making innacurate statements about dharmic religions. I didn't mention any other religion. Then you dragged in your christianity & islam, I assumed as some sort of excuse for telling yourselves untrue stories. Go back & read what you wrote in that context - it made no sense to me otherwise. The 'lies' I was referring to were the same ones I was referring to in my first post, not your statements about christianity & islam. I don't have any interest in that discussion & don't see what relevance it has to anything I've been talking about.

        It appears from what you wrote subsequently that we are in furious agreement - hinduism must have allowed for conversion of some sort in order to spread in some areas. We also appear to be in agreement about the absurdity of the 'oldest religion' claim. I also notice now we have ckaim about Hindu Kings 'returning home' and leaving quasi-converts behind. As I said, if this topic goes on for long we will have a very long collection of odd myths.
        Spare a thought for this one guy, who has to put up with rants about how Ravan perfected a flying machine 9,000 years ago (the date tends to shift anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 years ago). These myths have been allowed to fester and grown into this ugly negation of Islamic triumphalism - we did this thousands of years ago, we had the first religion, our dick is older than yours, etc.

        The real beauty of Hinduism is lost in all of this.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
          Irrelevant.



          I'm not you. The only thing I'm 'measuring' is the age of a set of religions. Aboriginies have a group that are older than Hinduism. Perhaps the folk on the Andamans have them too. Perhaps peoples in other regions do too. Not difficult to grasp really.



          Who says I am 'battling' for anything? Who says I have made a claim for the 'oldest' religion in the world? I haven't. That is you creating some silly contest where there is none.
          I have no idea why he is conflating Hinduism with aboriginal beliefs. The Jarawas in A&N might have a religion that's 40,000 years old. But it's not Hinduism.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by cataphract View Post
            Spare a thought for this one guy, who has to put up with rants about how Ravan perfected a flying machine 9,000 years ago (the date tends to shift anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 years ago).
            Please watch Ancient Aliens.

            And don't forget, the oldest totem was a cricket bat.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by doppelganger View Post
              Please watch Ancient Aliens.

              And don't forget, the oldest totem was a cricket bat.
              If that was sarcasm, put a "/s" after it. I have no idea if you're being serious or not. :confu:

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              • #8
                Originally posted by cataphract View Post
                If that was sarcasm, put a "/s" after it. I have no idea if you're being serious or not. :confu:
                I will leave all the seriousness to you and BigFella.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by cataphract View Post
                  Spare a thought for this one guy, who has to put up with rants about how Ravan perfected a flying machine 9,000 years ago (the date tends to shift anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 years ago). These myths have been allowed to fester and grown into this ugly negation of Islamic triumphalism - we did this thousands of years ago, we had the first religion, our dick is older than yours, etc.

                  The real beauty of Hinduism is lost in all of this.
                  I think we are talking the same language here. Adolescent nationalist chest beating reduces the beauty & complexity of history& civilizations to chants & checklists of 'we are the greatest' claims. You will notice that when I pointed out to our little friend that there is an older religion in Australia in his mind I was claiming a) we had 'older' aboriginies than India; and b) I was claiming we had the oldest religion. Of course neither is true, I merelyprovided a single example to disprove his claims. In his mind it became some great nationalist chest beating contest to be 'won' or 'lost'.

                  As someone who loves the wonderful complexity of human history & society this sort of stuff doth fairly try my patience.

                  All a bit sad really. I feel for you. I'm afraid all nations & cultures have to put up wiht this sort of thing. The bad news for you is that as India becomes more modern & more powerful you are probably going to have to deal with a lot more. It comes in fits & starts here, but it is relatively contained these days.
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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by cataphract View Post
                    I have no idea why he is conflating Hinduism with aboriginal beliefs. The Jarawas in A&N might have a religion that's 40,000 years old. But it's not Hinduism.
                    You stole my thunder. I was going to bring that up if he decided to join us. Seemed a blindingly obvious point really, but since he was the one who inadvertently brought it up I assumed he hadn't twigged yet.
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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                      As someone who loves the wonderful complexity of human history & society this sort of stuff doth fairly try my patience.

                      All a bit sad really. I feel for you. I'm afraid all nations & cultures have to put up wiht this sort of thing. The bad news for you is that as India becomes more modern & more powerful you are probably going to have to deal with a lot more. It comes in fits & starts here, but it is relatively contained these days.
                      You only need to see the bile Chinese posters spew about how they invented everything worth inventing :insane:

                      IMO this sort of childish chauvinism has less to do with a country being stronger or more modern and more to do with what the school history books teach you as a child. For 99% of the populace, that is all the history they'll every learn in their lifetime. Both Indian and Chinese govts have used the "glorious past" narrative as a glue to hold their nations together and produce a national identity where there was none (esp true for India). I don't say this as a criticism of the Indian govt because the move has worked brilliantly and we for the first time in history have a national identity as Indians. The Pakistani govt tried the same thing and failed miserably.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by cataphract View Post
                        You only need to see the bile Chinese posters spew about how they invented everything worth inventing :insane:

                        IMO this sort of childish chauvinism has less to do with a country being stronger or more modern and more to do with what the school history books teach you as a child. For 99% of the populace, that is all the history they'll every learn in their lifetime. Both Indian and Chinese govts have used the "glorious past" narrative as a glue to hold their nations together and produce a national identity where there was none (esp true for India). I don't say this as a criticism of the Indian govt because the move has worked brilliantly and we for the first time in history have a national identity as Indians. The Pakistani govt tried the same thing and failed miserably.
                        Yes. All a bit sad. In this case it appears that a narrative has been set up whereby Abrahamic/prostheltiyzing religions are 'bad' and therefore hinduism/dharmic religions must be constructed as their mirror opposite. Abrahamic faiths conquer & fight wars of religion, therefore dharmic religions cannot (though they clearly have). Abrahmic faiths grow in part by conversions, therefore hinduism at least, has never done so (though the process by which it spread in SEA is very similar to the way Islam did). Tacked on to this are other claims of exceptionalism and 'we are the first' which, in the case of Doppelganger, he managed to get so tangled up that they ended up contradicting each other.

                        I don't envy you having to deal with stuff like this on a long term basis. I can dip in & out of it at my leisure, you are sort of stuck with it. Good luck.
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                        • #13
                          Yes. All a bit sad. In this case it appears that a narrative has been set up whereby Abrahamic/prostheltiyzing religions are 'bad' and therefore hinduism/dharmic religions must be constructed as their mirror opposite.
                          Just for the record, school history books do not teach any such thing in India. Badmouthing "minority" religions in India is a strict no-no. There would be uproar if anything like that is mentioned in schoolbooks. So if such a narrative has indeed been set up, none of the governments till now have been involved in it to my knowledge.

                          As for the proselytizing bit, Hinduism in its present form, does not proselytize, not counting the Hare-Krishna fellows who seem to have their own distinct religion anyway. There are no Hindu equivalent of Evangelists, Jehova's Witnesses and the like. I have no idea what the situation was hundreds of years ago. The dozens of godmen who seem to have huge followings in India may be mentioned, but they don't really sell Hinduism to the non-Hindus. They are more akin to cults whose endeavors target both Hindus and non-Hindus and are primarily a money-spinning operation not allied to Hindu religious insitutions.

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                          • #14
                            This is great, watching the netizens of the little countries argue about oldest.... Hahaha thats all you've got is old since everything good is American.














































                            trololololololo..... :)

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by zraver View Post
                              This is great, watching the netizens of the little countries argue about oldest.... Hahaha thats all you've got is old since everything good is American.

                              trololololololo..... :)
                              First an Aussie, now a Yank.

                              This thread is now awash in culture and history.



































                              trololololololo..... :)

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