Why is Hinduism Hardly discussed in this forum?

[ratikala]

However much the guru's that came to California in the 60's and 70's had to do with anything that resembled a traditional Hindu belief system, I don't know. That is part of what I would like to find out. Having grown up in what seemed like a spiritually dead time in the 50's and early 60's, what happened at the end of the decade did seem like the dawning of a new age, the times were a changing.
As a kid watching my Catholic Christian family light candles and pray to Mary didn't mean anything to me. It didn't fit into my reality. Eastern thought did. I wasn't very healthy on a "normal" American diet of hamburgers, a milk shake and french fries. Eating natural, whole foods "saved" me physically. Those ideas came from the East. I didn't find it in the Christian Bible. And anything to do with food in the Hebrew Bible wasn't followed and deemed no longer important for Christians anyway.
Connecting mind, body and soul--a more holistic way of looking at life made me physically and spiritually stronger. Yoga exercises added to that. Flexibility helped me live a happier and healthier life. Than came Fundamental Christianity.
In the mid-70's when the "Jesus Freak" movement really got going, friends invited me to become a Christian, to get saved from the penalty of original sin. No other way, I was told, could save me, only believing and trusting Jesus. That was fine, but it made everything else not only wrong, but evil, as tricks of the devil to lead me astray. I had to ask myself, does the devil really care if I stretch or not? I don't think so.
I tried the Fundamental version of Christianity, and I know it works for those that believe, but it didn't work for me. Their world view leaves me with way too many questions that just don't add up.
I would rather give all the world's religions a chance to state their case for validity, then to automatically assume they are false. To exclude them without even learning something about them isn't fair to them and to yourself. Overly zealous, overly literal believing people have helped create the mess we're dealing with right now. How can people and their religion fix the problem. I see it as a great big jig-saw puzzle. Without the pieces from India and the Hindu religion, the puzzle will never be complete.

interesting one ! I feel very much that it is now the turn of the traditionalists to put some of the missing peices back in to the picture , the early days painted a general ideal , now we have matured it is time to get realy serious about refining the phylosophy to ensure that it is complete .

 

[CG Didymus]

Thanks for the info. Let me quite beating around the bush and just ask. What is it outside of tradition and preference that you find reliable enough about Hinduism that makes it's selection given the stakes a wise one.

For example when I am asked for evidence of the Bible's reliability. I usually state:

1. It is by many many times over the most reliable text in ancient history.
2. There is more textual evidence for Christ than any other person in antiquity.
3. It has 25,000 verified historical corroberations.
4. It is philisophically consistent.
5. It contains 2,500 detailed prophecies. Not one is known to have been unfulfilled concerning the ones that should have happened at or before this time. Many concern the future.
6. It maintains a perfect internal consistency over 1500 years plus and over 40 authors.
7. It makes accurate scientific claims that were unknown at the time.
8. It is known to be over 95% free of error and the less than 5% scribal error are known and indicated.
9. It has multiple contemporary eye witness testimony concerning it's core events.
10. Simon Greenleaf the greatest expert on evidence in human history said that it's textuall evidence meets every standard of modern law and history.

You get the idea. I was wondering what in those lines is claimed for the texts used in Hinduism. Also is reincarnation an orthedox Hindu belief?

Point 4? How does traditional Judaism line up with traditional Christianity? In Judaism and Christianity--The Differences by Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, in You Take Jesus, I'll Take God by Samuel Levine, and in The Real Messiah by Aryeh Kaplan nothing of Christianity lines up with Judaism. Original sin, the Christian version of hell, the Christian concept of the devil, the trinity, virgin birth are all called into question. I would have loved for Christianity to hold up under scrutiny, but it didn't. My life would have been easier. "Believe on Jesus and be saved!" But, intellectually, I have to close my mind to make Jesus the "only way."
Point 5: One "prophecy," that is more than slightly forced into proving Jesus. The virgin birth is told two different ways by authors who were not eye witnesses. Mathew quotes a Greek translation and gets the word "virgin." One problem that this creates is the dual prophecy situation. If Isaiah 7:14 is talking about a "sign" for the king of Judah and for the coming messiah some 700 years later, who was the first virgin that fulfilled the sign? The obvious problem of the word really meaning "young maiden," not necessarily a virgin.
But the biggest problem is if read in context, it has nothing to do with a prophecy about the messiah and everything to do with a child born in the time of Isaiah. In context, by the time the boy reaches a certain age, the two enemies of the king would be gone.
Did Mathew and Luke make up a birth story? Why not. So with one false, exaggerated prophecy literal, inerrant Christianity crumbles for me. So what am I left with? To search for truth elsewhere. I am not going to write off Hinduism, because Christian preachers told me so. Christians pushed me this way, because so few live their Christianity as if they even believe it.
Unfortunately, all religions have their nominal followers. These people speak loud and clear in their silence and their minimal approach to their religion. It doesn't work for them. They are only going through the motions. So what becomes of the truth of religion? A crutch? An opiate? I think these are legitimate critiques of religion. These people follow out of habit or something. They don't know any better and their religion is so irrelevant in their lives that they don't want to know better. They are comfortable and don't want to be woken up.
All religions have their blind followers. All have their incredible myths and miracles. All have their rituals that seem more superstitious than something a god would ordain. But all of them had important truths to live by mixed in. In spite of themselves, all religions moved society in a better direction.
All of them have had their bad sides also--where some of their followers go to extremes in belief and behavior. Any religion can come up with reasons why they are better than all the others. Any of them can play the debate game and use their little proofs. But my contention will always be: What if all of them have a piece of a greater truth? That's why I'm here. And, you know what? I hope there is reincarnation, because I think this might take more than one life time to sort out.