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Over the years, I have never been able to fundamentally reconsile the differences between western religion and eastern religion - between Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, on one side, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc, on the other. I.E. Abrahamic religion and Dharmic religion.
Abrahamic religion teaches concepts which I find I cannot accept as a free thinking human - concepts such as a supposedly perfect and omnipotent god who punishes those who disagree with 'his' opinion, rather than respecting those opinions, as even a human is capable of. The idea of an infinite abyss of hell, from which no condemned soul can return speaks to me of infinite punishment for a finite amount of bad deeds. The idea that a supernatural force such as the Abrahamic devil is responsible for evil, and not human ignorances and predjudices as in Dharmic religion, dosent stand up to basic logic.
In comparison to these religions, which play on the nationalism of humans, and convert with imperialistic proficiency - spreading their followers and franchise across the planet, Dharmic religion appeals to the human intellect which every person possesses, and does not forcefully propogate its views - thus while both Dharmic religion and Abrahamic religion have large numbers of followers, Dharmic religion is confined to the far east, where it has spread through inquiry and tradition alone, and Abrahamic religion occupies the vast geographical majority of the planet, having spread through conquest and conversion.
As it happens, many of the concepts which define Abrahamic religion, such as revelation, prophets, divine wars of simplified monolithic 'good vs evil', etc, come from the ancient Persian religion - Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism, Asuras (known as Ahuras) were considered to be good gods, and Devas bad gods - the opposite of the Dharmic foundation. So, while I do not believe that there is any spiritual connection between this and the current situation (i.e. that Iranians literally woshipped the morally ambigious Asuras), I do at least believe that 'Asuric' religion is a good description (and a poetic one) of what Abrahamic religion is - it spreads through 'Asuric' traits such as ignorance.
I firmly believe in non-violence, modernism (the embrace of pluralism, science, globalisation etc), but I believe that for the Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and Jains of the world, converting converts back into the Dhramic path of the Devas in our own countries, is a justified cause.
I believe that eastern countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, should be converted back to their ancestor's religions, else the prudish and dogmatic religions of Christianity and Islam forever deprive them of their heritage - but this must be done through peace and intellect, not violence and deception that was employed by conqueres and missionaries. Countries like India, Korea, Sri Lanka, and others should also, for their own development and peace, peacefull engage in similar efforts, to bring back forced Christian and Muslim converts.
Nationalistic orginisations, whom I dare say have taken in a number of Asuric qualities (as seen by how sometimes activist orginisations attack cinemas, if a film they dont like is shown), should redirect their efforts away from un-Dharmic supression of opinion and culture (i.e. sexuality in films - liberalism is infact a virtue, as is modern useage of ancient culture in games, cartoons, etc), and into more usefull causes, such as re-conversion, and patronising culutral developments that would influence many.
All these Asuric orginisations currently do is make Dharmic religion look as bad as Abrahamic religion, to the free-thinking youngsters of today, when in reality, they are liberal religions.
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Yep! Am not against one line of this post :P
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No im not a girl 
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You are absolutely right about the fundamental difference between Abhramic and Dharmic religions. I too have given this deep thought, but I do not agree with your conclusions.
Conversion is not in our blood. Especially Hinduism, it kind of considers everybody as one world family. If you listen to the Hindu Gurus, they talk with reverence regarding Jesus and Mohamed, but say their teaching has not been interpreted correctly.
If you look at the places where Jesus and Mohammed started their religion, they were very violent places. Essentially they were barbarians. If you read the Roman history, you would agree. These people have to be uplifted in the language they understand. As the Indian people were far more calm and evolved they could appreciate the finer aspects of spirituality. Not that there were no disagreements, but structured debates were the techniques used to settle differences. This simply would not have worked in the west.
But now that major regions of the world has become more civilised, they will automatically drop either the religion, or will reinterpret it to suit the times. Rather than go out and change them, which always will result in a backlash, we should continue to develop ourselves, as individuals and as a culture. There is lot of depth in our systems of dharma and yoga and most of the people are ignorant about it. So we should foremost convert the converted, ie use the knowledge to make better Hindus, Sikhs etc. Sooner or later, inspite of the negativity and hostility, their religios followers will see through all that and then begin changing on their own.
At the end of the day, there are two fundamental pursuits common to every human on earth. The pursuit of happiness and the need to know the "Truth". Luckily they result in the same end. And we have 'that' in our pocket.
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Just to highlight the difference even more, in Zoroastrainism, the Asuras vs Devas were considered a pure Christian/Muslim-style conflict of good vs evil.
In comparison, the Dharmic religions say the Devas and Asuras both had good qualities and bad qualities - this further highlights how eastern religion deals with morality in a realistic way, while western religion sees the world in 'black and white'.
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Oasis
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stranger
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Reged: 07/21/06
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Posts: 4
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Religions of the world can be broadly categorized into Semitic religions and non-Semitic religions. Non-Semitic religions can be divided into Aryan religions and non-Aryan religions.
Semitic religions
Semitic religions arereligions that originated among the Semites. According to the Bible, Prophet Noah (pbuh) had a son called Shem.
The descendents of Shem areknown as Semites. Therefore, Semitic religions are the religions that originated among the Jews, Arabs, Assyrians, Phoenicians, etc. Major Semitic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All these religions are Prophetic religions that believe in Divine Guidance sent through prophets of God.
Non-Semitic religions
The non-Semitic religions are further subdivided into Aryan and non-Aryan religions:
Aryan Religions
Aryan religions are the religions that originated among the Aryans, a powerful group of Indo-European speaking people that spread through Iran and Northern India in the first half of the second Millenium BC (2000 to 1500 BC).
The Aryan Religions are further sub divided into Vedic and non-Vedic religions.
The Vedic Religionis given the misnomer of Hinduism or Brahminism. The non-Vedic Religions are Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.
Almost all Aryan religions are non-Prophetic religions.
Zoroastrianism is an Aryan, non-Vedic religion, which is not associated with Hinduism. It claims to be a prophetic religion.
Non-Aryan Religions
The non-Aryan religions have diverse origins. Confucianism and Taoism are of Chinese origin while Shintoism is of Japanese origin.
Many of these non-Aryan religions do not have a concept of God. They are better referred to as ethical systems rather than as religions.
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>>Just to highlight the difference even more, in Zoroastrainism, the Asuras vs Devas were considered a pure Christian/Muslim-style conflict of good vs evil. <<
Actually, it is totally different in case of zoroastrianism.
The original form of zoroastrianism i.e., as it is in gathas has no dualistic conflict - it speaks only of ONE god, and of two paths - the right one(good words, good deeds, good thoughts) and the wrong one (vice versa...)
Later part of the gathas i.e., the avesta involve personalisation of the "good path" and "wrong path" as personalities, both of them in a conflict with each other. These are however described as the same god, his two selves - as creation and destruction are same aspects of one brahman.
Jews were later influenced by their ideas during the babylonian captivity and changed the satan who is supposed to be an agent of god, into his arch nemesis in the later texts.
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No im not a girl
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Quote:
Aryan religions are the religions that originated among the Aryans, a powerful group of Indo-European speaking people that spread through Iran and Northern India in the first half of the second Millenium BC (2000 to 1500 BC).
Hinduism speaks of krishna who is thus classified as a prophet if not god - Thus it is partly prophetic. Their origins are well debated upon, the dates have been safely put to a minimum period of 3000 BC. The origins are however much earlier, this notion gaining support from mentions of various astrological positions and geographical landscapes and rivers - almost going to as early as 40,000 B.C.
Aryans are not a race either, arya means 'noble'. There is no difference in these perceived dravidian and aryan races according to recent DNA studies that imply non-difference of genetic makeup.
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Almost all Aryan religions are non-Prophetic religions.
you're wrong here...
sikhism has the ten gurus
jainism has mahavir jain
buddhism has gautam buddha
ayyavazhi has ayya vaikundar
bhagavat geeta has krishna
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Zoroastrianism is an Aryan, non-Vedic religion, which is not associated with Hinduism. It claims to be a prophetic religion.
You cannot say one *claims* to be prophetic, while the other really is prophetic..
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No im not a girl
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One of the confusions regarding Aryan and far eastern religions, is to classify it under "religion" What do you define under religion.
The way I understand it, there are two key words to understanding Hinduism (or whatever is understood by it). One is Dharma which can be loosely translated as code of ethics as you mentioned and yoga, which is your personal path to God. Thus Santana Dharma is Eternal principles of living and need not be associated as a religion per se.
Also, this Aryan/Dravidian concept itself is shaky. Its more preferrable to call them as Indian (originated on Indian/ South Asian subcontinent) and Far Eastern.
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Well, there are many different ways that one could classify something like religion - irrelevent of how Vedic they are, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, share much commonality, and the same underlying priciples.
Whereas Aryan religions like ancient Greek religion and Hinduism share little in common apart from the Vedic gods - because philosophy developed further.
Also, even Zoroastrianism contained passages from the Vedas, yet could not have been more different from Hinduism - one laying the foundations for many western religious principles, like monolithic good vs evil interpretations of the universe, while the other laying the foundation of Dharmic religion, with the Vedas even displaying advanced agnostic charecteristics.
It is on this principle that I classify the two major world religious families as diametric opposites - their philosophy as opposed to scholary origin.
Shintoism, etc, share a lot in common with Dharmic religion, partly because they already resembled Vedic religion for whatever reason, and partly because both Chinese and Japanese folk religion were combined with Buddhist principles.
I would say out of all the countries in the world today, Japan, with its Shinto/Buddhist combination of beliefs, most resembles the ancient Buddhist/Vedic beliefs of India. Their culture is indeed very close - Samurai resembling Kshatriya, etc. I see them as a role model in terms of economic development, and cultural development - where Japan has popularised its vast traditional culture through modern media such as film, 'anime' and 'manga', India could easily do the same.
Unfortunatly, many Abrahamic concepts have been introduced into both countries, to the extent that in India today, I am afraid many Indians who dont look into ancient philosophy, instead see the monolithic black and white worldview of the Europeans and Arabs.
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dhruva
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stranger
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Reged: 06/11/06
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Posts: 18
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Loc: US
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Hinduism speaks of krishna who is thus classified as a prophet if not god - Thus it is partly prophetic.
Pranah Dhanika, having avatars does not mean a religion is "prophetic" at all. The prophet (which is not the same as what Krishna is) needs to be central to the religion, and this is not the case. Krishna is simply a deity in human form. Do not be so misled to think that this means Hinduism is remotely "prophetic".
bhagavat geeta has krishna
The Gita "has Krishna", but the Gita is not an Aryan religion, now, is it?
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