roshan

Advaitic(monist) atheist Hindus do accept the idea of a universal principle called Brahman. Consciousness is said to be a property of this universal principle. The physical universe is relatively real, superimposed on Brahman, the absolute reality. The soul is regarded as the consciousness within us. However the individuality of the soul is illusory. Actually all souls are non different from Brahman.

Ok, I have a question, explain being an athiest hindu. I don't know much about hinduism, but from my understanding its a polytheist religion. How can you be an athiest and a polytheist at the same time? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hinduism is a bit of a mess really. Historically there have been sects promoting atheism, monism, pantheism, monotheism, polytheism and pretty much every combination of every shade of the above beliefs. The earliest Hindus, during Indias Vedic civilization, used to believe in a large pantheon of polytheist gods. These gods were basically deified forces of nature. However, they also recognized that these gods all had the same essence, that they all came from "one soul" - and that everything came from this same source. So basically, in addition to believing in a pantheon of personal gods they also believed in an impersonal supersoul. These are the beleifs of the early portion of the Vedas. The later portions of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Aranyakas focus on this impersonal soul, and in these texts it seems to have developed into some sort of abstract monistic universal principle, Brahman. This monistic universal principle is the focus of atheistic/agnostic Hinduism. Later on interpreters of Hindu scriptures began to assign personal attributes to the impersonal supersoul of the early Vedas. This supersoul was developed into a pantheistic god. Most modern sects of Hinduism are variations of pantheism. And even later on some philosophers came up with completely baseless monotheistic interpretations of Hindu scriptures. So, Hinduism covers or has covered pretty much ever shade of philosophy out there!

No. At about the time that Buddhism and Jainism was founded, most Hindu philosophies were atheistic, such as Sankhya, Vaiseshika and Vedanta in its original form. Jainism and Buddhism borrowed most of their teachings from the Hinduism of the time, and were particularly influenced by Sankhya, and they have retained their atheist teachings to this day. Jainism from what Ive read stays quite close to its roots in Sankhya. However during the middle ages Hindu philosophies gradually degenerated towards theism. Today, pure atheism doesnt really exist amongst Hindus, although Advaita is almost atheist since it considers both the pantheistic god and the physical universe to be unreal compared to brahman, the monistic absolute reality. However amongst the educated Hindus of today there is a resurgence of interest in earlier atheist sects.

I am roshan and I am an atheist Hindu. Discuss Hinduism and ask questions about it here!

Not only that, Christ spoke in parables so that those who arent supposed to be saved wont understand him. Christianity doesnt work unless the Christian God is assumed to be a sadist who does these things for his own perverse pleasure. Although, once more, paradoxically, he is a God of love! (w00t)

correction: sacrifice of yourself for the community <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Christ agreed to be sacrificed - but Christians need to accept this human sacrifice to be saved! Thus, human sacrifice is the basis of Christianity.

Dont care much about Lost anymore.

Ive realized something very interesting about Christianity - human sacrifice is the foundation of Christianity. The premise of Christianity is that man is born condemned by sin passed down from the first two human beings. Now, God sent us the greatest human being, Jesus, his son, and had him sacrificed for the sins of humanity. Now, if Christians accept this sacrifice, they are forgiven for their sins and many be admitted to heaven. Those who do not accept this human sacrifice are condemned to eternal suffering. So Christianity can basically be summed up as human sacrifice.

I didnt think of it until posted here, but now, yes, it makes sense that Hiro is the legendary Japanese hero. The sword (the real one when it is found) could be some sort of technology from the future which would explain its magical properties.

Ah yes. Thats where Ive seen her. But I do remember that Jack got involved with a woman that he saved in season 2(they mentioned it in season 3). Im sure that woman was a caucasian with black hair too.

Ah yes, I remember now. Quite interesting indeed. But was the woman the person jack met in season 2, as I speculated earlier?

Americans are hypocrites, they want to protect their copyrights and patents while freely ripping off people from all over the world. In India various traditional remedies including those of tribal peoples have been patented by Japanese and American firms. Thats why I fully support the violation of all American and Japanese copyrights and patents except for good CRPGs.

It might as well be. Ive almost stopped caring about the show. Its ridiculous the way they keep creating mysteries and leaving them unanswered for so long that everyone forgets about them completely.

Flashback episodes? I hope this show doesnt turn into Lost, because Lost is turning into crap. I suppose they need to delay the finding of Earth for as long as they can.

Ando is damn cool unlike the idiot Hiro. They better not kill him!

OK now season 6 has started. Have we seen this brother of Jack before? Who is his wife? I am sure I have seen her before, but I cant remember where. Was she the woman that Jack saved in the second season during the nuclear bomb thing?

I havent read the comics but know the answer to most of the things you have asked. Mindreader started dogging cheerleaders dad after he asked him to wipe her memories. I also remember cheerleader discovering that her father faked the visit of her real parents, she must have overheard something. The strange dude with the fiery fingers is the radioactive guy, but last I remember he was in custody. Are there two unexplained escapes in the show?

Yes, the only resolution to the Balthar-cylon thingy is him figuring out that he is just a normal human. Wasnt number 3 on the Galactica as a reporter in Season 1? Maybe it was someone that she wronged then, not back in the planet?

I too enjoy it more than BSG. The last minutes were just too predictable. But I didnt expect to see Octavians family bitch fighting. I guess they really want to emphasize Mark Antonys brutish nature.

When did that happen? I thought it must have been .

Yes, but the story of the two soldiers isnt historical.

Hmmm...

So the show truly isnt about defying predictability. This episode was not that interesting.

Damn, I bought a bunch of Tesco DVDs, which now contain lots of important data that I have nowhere else to store. Ive bought a case for them though, so scratches shouldnt be a problem. Is there any chance of DVDs just randomly losing data?

Over the past few days Ive been burning lots of files on to DVDS. Yesterday I popped some old CDs that I had burned into my DVD drive, however, all of them are empty! I could have sworn that 2 years ago, there was something on those CDs. What is the reason that my CDs have become empty? Could they have been ruined by heat or magnetism, or do CDs naturally lose their data after a year or so? Do DVDs have the same problem?