Can The World Survive Without Religion (Yes or No) A Hindu P (General)

by satyansh , Friday, December 03, 2010, 08:09 (4914 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Its never too late my friend. Infact this forum has been a refreshing change from the normal bashing that happens almost on all the other forums. I find people here genuinely interested in solving the mysteries that life has presented.-"There was something in your post here that struck a chord with me. First the quote "Atman is Brahman" is very resonate with the much later catch phrase of popular science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, "Thou art God", and represents I think one of the key pieces missing from the Abrahamic religions, namely the oneness of everything."-Well honestly if you look back at the history of India and if you do research on the Sanskrit language and Hindi language there isn't any word in Sanskrit or Hindi that actually describe the word religion. People often use the word "Dharma" for religion but Dharma in it's true form actually means righteousness or one's duty and it has nothing to do with explaining religion as it is defined in the English language.-I often wonder at times that what we know as Hinduism the religion was it really a religion or it became a religion in the process when we were invaded first by Mughals(Muslims) and than by the British because before that it was just us eastern philosophies namely Hinduism( Sanatana Dharma which means eternal law is the true name) along with Jainism and Buddhism. I almost feel at times when we got attacked by the Muslims, the origin of Hinduism as a religion seems to be a response of a identity threat posed to our civilization. because we were called Hindus by them because we lived by the Indus river and the people who we thought were visitors but actually they wanted to kick our asses and rule us couldn't call us sindhus hence they called us Hindus. so if u think like that, actually it never really was a religion. it was a culmination of many people sitting down and just jotting down philosophies in the Vedas followed by the Upanishads/puranas/geeta/mahabharata.-I think the abrahamic religions have a very different thought process because they were presented to mankind as a word of god but eastern philosophies were not actually written to be a word of god but just words of wise men who thought they could contribute to the society at large. hence i feel at times they aren't really religions if you go by the actual English definition of religions.-"The other thing that caught my attention, is the word Maya. The obvious connection would be to the Mayan population of the central/south Americas. Normally I would dismiss such a thing as coincidence of language. However, based on my admittedly limited study of the Vedas, there was some mention of odd flying contraptions in their text. What is strange about that is that there were necklaces found in Mayan/Aztec ruins that seem to depict such flying contraptions, right down to having the symbols for rise and descend engraved on them. One thing might be coincidence, but two? Makes me wonder if there is any link between ancient Mayans and the Ancient Indians."-well Maya in sanskrit and hindi means something that could be broadly included in the things that come under dream or illusion. i dont know the mayan connection. i have to research that.-Last but not the least thank you for welcoming me to the forum. it is indeed a great pleasure talking to you. as far as rationality goes. i know being rational isn't the most important thing. but i guess at that point of time i felt like writing that post so i mentioned that point in the post.