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Kind of riffing off of that, I think that there would be less atheists in America if more of them were exposed to Hinduism.
by chana_masala 5y ago
Kind of riffing off of that, I think that there would be less atheists in America if more of them were exposed to Hinduism.
- pmoriarty 5y ago...and many more Buddhists if more were exposed to Buddhism. The interesting part about these religions is that unlike two other prominent major religions (Christianity and Islam), they rarely prostelytize or seek converts. If they were as gung-ho about trying to spread their religion as Christianity has, for example, there'd probably be a lot more Hindus and Buddhists. Incidentally, belief in a god is not absolutely necessary for either religion, since both Hinduism and Buddhism have atheistic flavors (and theistic ones too, before someone jumps in and claims that Buddhism is always atheistic).
- chana_masala 5y agoThere is a split in Hindu schools of thought - some do not consider atheism as a valid Hindu path, i.e. that nastika is not part of Hinduism and that the three requirements for any Hindu sect are 1. belief in one supreme God that is immanent and transcendent, 2. belief in reincarnation, 3. belief in karma. Nastika schools like Jain, Buddhism and some Hindu sects believe 2 and 3 but not 1.