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Re: ARTICLE: About Hinduism
: Thank you for article n soc.religion.hindu explaining Hinduism. I used
: the material to explain Hinduism to a friend of mine.
: However, I was not able to answer one of his queries; He wanted
: to know the fundamental difference between Hinduism and Buddhism. All
: I could tell him was that they are very similar and that Buddha was
: born a Hindu and derived many of his teachings from Hinduism. But
: are there any stark differences between the two religions? If you
: happen to know, or could point out a source where I could dig it up,
: I would be gratetful.
A common parallel that is drawn in Christianity is the Judaism as Buddhism
is to Hinduism. This is not quite correct, but to most Americans it
suffices. While Judaism and Hinduism are the parent faiths to
Christianity and Buddhism, the similarity doen't go much futher.
Both Christianity and Buddhism "preach" the necessity of kindness
and have a merciful and compassionate god. While in Judaism and Hinduim
the god is not necessarily infinitely kind, infinitly compassionate, and
infinitly charitable.
Both Judaism and Hinduism include a great deal of written text and
a comparitively larger quantity of dogma. One of the purposes of both
Christianity and Buddhism was to remove the overbearing written
information and to "clean-up" the faiths, especially in reference to
dogma. Now, two-thousand or twenty-five-hundred years later, both
Christianity have again produces vast volumes of textual information and
dogma. (IMO: Buddhism is now worse the Hinduism and both are worse that
Christianity in this reguard.)
Hinduism and Buddhism do appear to have many similarities and many
differences, and this is the case. Theravada (Hinayana) and Vajrayana are
closer to traditional Buddhism that the much more popular Mahayana (60-65%
of adhereants). Mahayana, not dissimilar to Vaishnava, has opted to make
its rules. Like Hari Krishnas worship Krishna, Vaishnavas worship the
Maha-Vishnu, and Christians worship Yahweh Elohim through Christ, the
Mahayana Buddhists choose (largely) to worship Buddha exclusively.
I'll clarify my answer(s) or answer new questions if needed.
Bests,
Jay
P.S.
: The more time you spend watching TV, the less you will
: accomplish in life.
Pay attention to .sig files, its hard to say what you might come across.
I've always said television is a giant waste of time and, in the
twentieth century, the opiate of the masses. I don't even own a TV and if
I did I wouldn't have time to watch it.
