Can someone with knowledge on Hinduism explain a bit?
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Hindus believe in a universal consciousness, of which there are many facets which manifest deities such as Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva, but there are dozens, and their wives. People pray to one for financial matters, another for health, and another for happiness.
Ultimately though, the peak of divinity is not asking for anything, but contemplating the divine spirit, the universal consciousness and accepting that he is within uus, and we are within him, and that our lives are karma-bound, and benevolence towards others regardless of our station in life is the only goal and the only way to move up the karmic ladder towards eventual oneness with the UC. Yogis believe they can speedrun the karmic ladder, for want of a better term.
Full disclosure, I'm a hon-hindu white boy
Edit: The audiobook Everyday Gita, by Sunita Pant Bansal is an excellent, down to earth, non-preachy guide to Hinduism and my main source for this description. I don't agree with everything in it, as it defends the indian caste system and seems to defend capitalism and tolerates billionaires, but it's still a useful text/audiobook
The way that someone explained it to be once is that if we think about the typical monotheistic, omnipotent, omniscient God — surely a God would be far more than what humans can comprehend at all, right? So any single characterisation of God is going to seem weirdly limited, because it'll be grounded in our human perspective. So the idea is sort of like God(TM) is like a diamond, and each of the Hindu Gods is like a facet of that gem. The problem is that our human perspectives can't understand the diamond (similar to how visualising 4D shapes like a tesseract is trippy and hard) so we have to try to understand the diamond by looking at each of its facets and trying to imagine an entity that can be all of those things at once.
As someone who is neither Hindu or Christian, it reminds me of the Holy Trinity: that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Hindu lore hosts many characters, but in actuality they believe in only one god, the godhead that you are i.e. the universe, man, life, existence is all one thing and you're it.
Not just Catholics. Father, son, holy spirit, Satan, but just one god, amirite?
One god, multiple personalities. They didn't have schizophrenia medication back then.
I’m guessing you don’t come from a region that has been historically Abrahamic. I’m secular myself but it’s interesting that you would throw Satan in there with the rest.
I do, and I'm not sure why what I said would make you think otherwise. The way Satan is popularly depicted today makes him indistinguishable from the "evil gods" of other religions.
Well, the way Satan is depicted in pop culture has little to do with actual christianity, and I am not sure why you felt the need to include him, despite the fact he is a very minor character in christianity, and also even in the popular depiction he is not nearly on the same level, as he was created by God, is not omnipotent, omniscient, unlike God, etc.
Listen to Evangelicals rant about Satan. They won't say he's on the same level,. but they act like he is.
Back when I still went to (Catholic) Church I don't remember ever hearing about Satan/the devil/Lucifer/whatever
Catholics don't tend to obsess over him like Evengelicals, that's for sure.
Older versions of the Bible contain references to "Hades" which was changed to "hell" in the King James Version.
True if all of your knowledge of religion comes from pop culture I can see how someone might see it that way.
Like in Family Guy or other Seth Rogan shows Satan, Jesus and “God” are all depicted as equals bickering.
Thanks for your thoughts here. They’re interesting.
Yes yes, it's actually a fallen angel, servant of god. Same animal, different cloth.
No pop culture needed, just listen to Evangelicals. To hear them tell it, Satan is this huge powerful force that meddles in human affairs constantly.
American Christianity has very little to do with the Bible.
I mean Americans do a lot of dumb stuff. And I don’t think we need to make every thread American centric.
American christianity is basically zoroastrianism
Maybe that one god is just plural
Imagine religious people realizing God's pronouns are actually they/them
I do know an Anglican priest-in-training who refers to God with They/Them pronouns because thinking of God in a monogender way is weird to them. This apparently isn't particularly controversial within their mini community, although there was a big argument once when someone suggested that capitalised pronouns (such as He/Him or They/Them) technically means God uses neopronouns
And a few dotzen tin gods and holy requisites.
no ; its just satan
I'm not catholic, but I do like the fact that artillery has its own patron saint.
I'll tell you the same thing I told a friend that was too deep into W40K: you can enjoy the characters without making the lore a central part of your life!
I want you to know that I'm screenshotting this comment (and the one you're replying to) to send to a friend, who will find it very funny.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
For all Protestants bang on about hell and the devil, they are well on their way to paganism too.
We all just want cool lore
Too bad it was stolen from Greek lore
All religions steal from prior religions, it's all about who makes up the best story. The best religious memes survive and spread.
An all-loving god sentencing sinners to eternal damnation is bad writing. Plus it ethically justifies ANY atrocity if the atrocity is done in service of converting ONE sinner. One person going to hell is worse than a million holocausts. A Christian who believes in hell can justify doing anything to "save souls". Conversion therapy, witch burnings, crusades... If it keeps one person out of hell, it was worth it. That's not a good mindset.
It's about conversion, control, and propagation of religious ideas. It isn't about making the nicest fairytale.
This is so true! There was a true Cambrian explosion of holy men and mystics in the first century in the eastern Roman Empire. Christianity was the one that out-competed them all. The best brain worm. The two thousand year meme.
That the Greeks stole from Egyptians and Phoenicians.
Hey they impressed the west early. No hope or chance when we're trying to aspire to Olympus
Hinduism is a very diverse religion. There are polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheism and many more under that umbrella
Choose your own deity kinda situation
Not exactly. For some yes but that's the polytheistic part. Different from (early) Judaism, monotheistic Hinduism isn't "my God is the only one" but more like "the god we already agreed to be one of the main gods is actually the only one and the others are expressions of this one or lesser beings". There are 2 or 3 candidates for that but all are very canonically important in all of Hinduism. There is still a lot of diversity and it's more about which school you belong to. I think some have a more abstract way where it's not a specific god but more the dualistic idea of a Big Other if that makes sense. There are also non dualistic schools which fit more into pantheism (god=universe). I simply a lot and I'm already no expert. Let's Talk Religion has a good series on YouTube about Hinduism.
There are 2 or 3 candidates for that
I've never heard that. I've always heard that Brahman = God, the Trimurti (Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma) are the three main "aspects", and every other "god" is a further "subdivision" thereof.
But if you choose wrong you get beaten. Religion is cool like that.