Religion Behind the News #1 Essays - Religion, Articles,

Religion Behind the News Student Name: Sarah Ballinger Article Title: Indian Polytheists versus Global Monotheists Publication and Date: March 20,2019 Religious Tradition: Hinduism One Sentence Summary of the Article: A critical examination of the history of Hinduism, its culture, and ways in which it similar to and differs from Christianity. Hinduism is a religion that is widely practiced in India and Nepal. It is the oldest religion of the world according to archaeologists. Hinduism has been regarded as a synthesis or fusion because it has a wide foundation with diversified routes and lacks a central founder. In other words, Hinduism emerged as a way of life and a collection of various Indian cultures. From history, Hinduism comprises a wide verity of demonization that has follower mainly from Nepal and India. In addition, the development of the religion history is divided into various period of time, whereby, the first period is the historical Vedic religion, which falls 1900 BCE to 1400 BCE while the second period dated back between 800 BCE and 200 BCE. At the second stage, there was a massive turning of Vedic religion and Hindu religions. Unlike many other religions, Hinduism can be said to be unique for the simple reason that it lacks a common founder or date of origin. Hinduism is a way of life for Indians which has been developing in the past 4000 years. The current Hindu religion traces its roots to about 2000 BC and is the oldest religion in the world. Due to its oldest nature, its history has not been adequately established from artifacts, rather relies on the archaeological as well as contemporary texts. Nevertheless, reliable sources indicate that the roots of Hinduism point to Aryans who migrated to India sub-continent around 1500 BC. The chants and hymns of the Aryans have been gathered in the Rigveda texts which are the earliest existing Hindu texts. Hindu as a religion is literally and way of life, culture. Hindu culture is based on respect, love, humility and honor. Respect for elders is paramount to Hindus. For instance, the younger are expected to always sit to the left of the elders, never sit while elders are standing, not speaking a lot or strongly in front of elders and seeking their advice in all matters. Naming and calling also adhere to respect by encouraging the use of certain names that depict respect and not just calling elders by their names. As a tradition, Hindus are expected to humble themselves so that ego is never exposed, instead allow the inner nature to prevail in its pure and modest form. Hindus observe purity to its highest possible levels. Inner purity is expected t o be protected through wise living and adhering to the codes of Dharma which prohibits harsh, indecent or angered language towards another person and maintaining physical health by not indulging in bodily evils such as adulter y and fornication. Hinduism and Christianity are two different religions, but surprisingly they share some things. First, both Hinduism and Christianity coincide with the birth of Krishna and Christ who are considered as their saviors. Both Krishna and Christ were born from a virgin mother, their spirit is the father, and both were visited by shepherds among many other similarities. Also, both Hindus and Christians learn and emulate similar morals and values such as forgiveness, nonviolence, generosity, self-control, prayer and living without attachment to the world. Moreover, both religions offer sacrifices to repatriate sins and appease to anger God. In both religions, an animal offering is used as a sacrifice. On the other hand, Hinduism equally differs from Christianity in some ways. Hinduism believes in many gods and recognizes many religions as different paths leading to one goal. Many religions are valid according to Hindus. On the contrary, Christians believe in Christ as the sole way to God. Christianity is exclusive and does not recognize many other religions as is the case with Hindus. Also, while Christians reach salvation through Christ passion, death and resurrection, Hindus reach their salvation through achieving enlightenment acquired from good deeds. In matters of marriage, Hindus are polygamous while Christians are monogamous. Lastly, Hindus use scripture from both oral ( smrti and Shruti ) and written (Gita, Vedas, Upanishad and