
Jason Voorhees
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As a Christian I find it interesting. Hinduism has a lot of super interesting ideas stuff like neti neti feels more like a mental workout or deep introspection than anything religious. You're not being told "believe this," but more like "strip away what you're not and see what's left."
There are different sects with completely different beliefs. Some people follow Vedic rituals, others are into philosophical schools like Vedanta or Yoga and many worship local village gods or tribal deities that aren't even mentioned in mainstream scriptures. Many people worship cows, others eat them.Yes there are many Hindus that eat beef. You can even completely reject all the mainstream hindu gods/teachings and maintain a seperate identity as Nastika in Hinduism too.
Kabir and Swami Vivekanda if you want to read about edgy and controversial figures. Kabir openly roasted muslims and hindus. He rejected temple rituals, caste, and scripture-worship. Called out Brahmins, Mullahs and even yogis. Swami Vivekanda attacked caste. Introduced science and rational thought and criticism in Hinduism
But yeah once you go deeper, a lot of it does lean into metaphysical claims you kind of have to just accept like "the self is Brahman" or "the soul reincarnates based on karma." There's no way to prove that stuff, and most of the time it's like "this is true because the Upanishads or Gita say so."
So if you're looking for a reason-only, evidence-based system, it does hit a wall eventual . Still, I think parts of Hindu philosophy and ideas can be applied exploring consciousness and identity without needing to buy into everything. Hinduism has got it's gems, but you gotta sift through a lot of "just take it on faith" stuff too.
There are different sects with completely different beliefs. Some people follow Vedic rituals, others are into philosophical schools like Vedanta or Yoga and many worship local village gods or tribal deities that aren't even mentioned in mainstream scriptures. Many people worship cows, others eat them.Yes there are many Hindus that eat beef. You can even completely reject all the mainstream hindu gods/teachings and maintain a seperate identity as Nastika in Hinduism too.
Kabir and Swami Vivekanda if you want to read about edgy and controversial figures. Kabir openly roasted muslims and hindus. He rejected temple rituals, caste, and scripture-worship. Called out Brahmins, Mullahs and even yogis. Swami Vivekanda attacked caste. Introduced science and rational thought and criticism in Hinduism
But yeah once you go deeper, a lot of it does lean into metaphysical claims you kind of have to just accept like "the self is Brahman" or "the soul reincarnates based on karma." There's no way to prove that stuff, and most of the time it's like "this is true because the Upanishads or Gita say so."
So if you're looking for a reason-only, evidence-based system, it does hit a wall eventual . Still, I think parts of Hindu philosophy and ideas can be applied exploring consciousness and identity without needing to buy into everything. Hinduism has got it's gems, but you gotta sift through a lot of "just take it on faith" stuff too.
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