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Samudra Manthan said:
Animism is integral to Hinduism. A religion which worships rivers, mountains, forests, trees, animals cannot claim otherwise.
Click to expand...

No. It is not.And sooner Hindus realize it, the better it would be.

Just because a religion worships nature ,or a village diety does not make that religion Hinduism. This is a false equivalence drawn by some Hindus to claim that every Pagan religion is/was Hinduism.

A common religion is defined by common consciousness.If a tribal group worships nature, but their dieties are not integrated theologically in Hinduism as some avatara, or recognised specifically as Vedic Indra, Vayu, akash, with those groups self identifying themselves as Hindus, then that animism is not Hinduism; and only thing a pastor has do to wean that animist towards Christianity is to propagate that the village diety is just a saint with there being only one God and his Jesus being his son.Over generations, that diety would be relegated to secondary status.This is most popular way of religious propagation when state support is absent.

Now to the question of why Animism is such an easy prey for soul hunters, the answer to that lies in how "cultural knowledge" is passed down the generations. Religion works like Languages. If they are not codified and with all its Philosophy and rituals present in written form, it would be lost if a generational break occurs.Animist do not have elaborate philosophy and they do not even have codified rituals thus they could do not have a chance against an organized religion with a rounded Philosophy.


Thus Hindus should not be complacent that since tribals worship natural elements and local dieties, they are Hindu and nothing need to be done. Unless those tribals identify themselves as Hindu and consider their dieties as avataras or vedic gods like Indra, Vayu etc, they are not Hindus; and mainstream Hindus would need to work to either incorporate their dieties in Hindu Pantheon or convert them to traditional Vaishnavism or Shaivism. In their current status, they would be as willing to become lamb of Jesus as they would be willing to become Hindus. Though structure of Hinduism make it easier for Hindus compared to Christian to incorporate Tribals, but that incorporation need to be done.

Another characteristic of organized religion (Hinduism is a semi-Organized religion) is that it has low superstition than animism. It may have few big centralized superstition but its Philosophy is not dependent on retail level superstition. It only employs superstition like "faith healing" as a conversion ploy to convert those people who believe that "Jesus" or a "baba" could heal their diseases.

When I say that Southern Hinduism is highly animistic , what I mean is that though some south Indian dieties have been seamlessly incorporated in Hindu theology, there are a lot of dieties which only have nominal and weak relation to Hinduism. It allows missionaries to separate those from mainstream and incorporate them piecemeal.


There are some other popular misconceptions about religions which I would clear in rest of the post.

First, One should understand how religions divide and the danger dhongi Babas pose to Hinduism. When a religious figure want to form a separate religion, he has three choices: either kill everyone like muhammad did, refute philosophy of prevalent religion like Buddha did, or nominally associate yourself with that said religion to gain followers and gradually wean them away from their parent religion. This is most popular method when state support is not available and nearly everyone who formed a new religion including but not limited to Jesus has adopted this tactic. Though this tactic has low probability of working today (Science had weakened every religion and stymied chance of emergence of any new popular religion), there is always a chance of a baba/godman may try to break from Hinduism. I think that even higher ups in government/RSS/VHP know this and constant scripture bashing and generally denigration of Vedas by Rampal played a role in BJP government showing such an alacrity in executing court's summons and subsequent imposition of harsh sections of IPC on Rampal. @ranjeet may elaborate on this part as Rampal is from Haryana.


Second is related to role of oppression in conversion. Though genocidal oppression as done by Muslims in Kashmir and Levant, or the one done by Catholic Church in Europe and South America could wipe out even strongest of religion, mild oppression does not lead to largescale change in faith where that religion is strong and entrenched in masses. Demography of Gandhara and Baluchistan was changed by genocide (Pashtuns have no history in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are originally from Suleiman range area and settled in Afghanistan and Pakistan after original inhabitants of these areas were massacred by Ghaznavi. Similarly Baloch migrated to Baluchistan just 500 year ago), demography of Punjab was changed by force but that application of force was not much more severe than one that Uttar Pradesh or Bihar and was not as extreme as that of Kashmir as Aurangzeb never had enough force to spare to persecute Hindus much severely (due to his incessent warring in South) and older pure Ghazi kingdoms of Delhi sultanate were shortlived. The reason that UP did not convert while Punjab converted on application of force was due to less Penetration of Hinduism in Punjab compared to UP. UP has muslim population of 18%, but 40% of them are of foreign origin as counted by British in 1931 census, UP was a cul-de-sac for Islamic invaders looking for land. Islam ,even after 500 year of rule in UP could only convert 8-9% of local population and most of converts are from professions like butchers which were completely dependent on muslims for survival. I have touched upon this earlier and would elaborate in next point.West Pakistan was practically an uncivilized desert before British brought Irrigation there.

I have provided example of Kazakhstan in earlier post. Another one ,this time from History, would that of Zorastarianism from Persia. People make a mistake of assuming that penetration of Buddhism in India and Central Asia was of similar level as that of Hinduism or Islam today. It was not. Zoroastrianism barely touched lives of common people and was heavily dependent on state patronage for survival.Similarly Buddhism in India and Central Asia was followed by monks who kept to themselves in their monasteries and were dependent on state patronage.Zoroastrianism and Buddhism fell like Nine Pins when Islam rolled in with unsheathed sword and killed all its religious leaders. Muslims killed both Hindu and Buddhist scholars but reason why Hinduism rebounded while Buddhism cannot is due to Buddhism had a no popular following among general population.Hinduism ,even in Afghanistan, resisted Islam more than Buddhism and it took 300 year long incessant warfare for Turks to reduce KabulShahis.


Third; Caste system ,contrary to popular belief, actually conserved Hinduism rather making people leave. The most common mistake that people make while evaluation historical phenomenons is that they apply prevalent morality on that historical phenomenon. Caste system may look oppressive from POV of today, but historically when Muslims and Christians were outright slavers and rapists; caste system which limited socialization was the most benign of system in existence.In pre-modern era, People were taken as slaves and sold against their will, women could be raped at will of their master, and whole children of whole ethnicities molested and raped for amusement.Abbasid Arabs recruited Turkish sexual slave boys called Ghilman. When the ghilman ghaznavids inturn Islamized Afghans, they introduced this custom into Pashtunwali. When turkic people like khilji(ghilzai) assimilated into pashtuns, they also introduced these practices.The Turks took a lot of Afghan "bachas". Of course, khilji kept 4000 slave boys in his court.Khilji loved Malik kaffur the most and in the words of Ferishtah "tied the sacred thread (zunnar) of his love in his own waist". Even muhammad himself indulged in this practice and sucked penis of his newborn Nephew.If someone wants further information on this, he could browse through this thread. Bizarre Pashtun Tradition of Bacha Bazi - Historum - History Forums .In such a scenario, caste system was not oppressive and was actually most benign one in existence. Also conversion never led to improvement in social position so converting was moot.

More detailed discussion this point has been done on this thread: Why did Christianity fail horribly in getting converts in North India? - Historum - History Forums

Anyone interested could browse through it ( @SarthakGanguly @magudi @ranjeet @doppelganger @Echo_419 @Tridibans and other interested posters).


Caste system was not strong in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but still they converted while Caste system was very strong in UP but still UP did not.




Fourth; Though bribes could convert some people, it could never lead to mass conversion. The threat that foreign funding of missionaries pose in not that they would be able to bribe poor people (they would but numbers would never be high enough to warrant any attention) , but that the foreign flow of money would finance evangelist industry which would expand by Church planting and thus would have infrastructure in place to take advantage of any crisis which presents them with an opportunity to snare some converts. Existence of evangelist infrastructure would present constant chronic danger, but not acute one.


Thus I think I have cleared some misconception held by a lot of posters towards held towards religions. I could further elaborate how religions function on Psychological level but do not have time to type mountain of text.
 
What's wrong with this picture?
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magudi said:
Because Modi wants to pay back his crony capitalist friends who bought him to power by snatching poor farmer's land in the name of debalopmant but thanks to timely intervention of Rahulji & soniaji his evil designs have been defeated :tup:
Click to expand...

Ok whatever. Bjp looks like totally lost the plot. They were opposing the same bill till 2013 and now begging congress to pass it. They should call for a joint session and pass the bill in original form.

Maybe it's too much to ask from bjp anyway, they should stick to **** ban, beef ban, censoring stuffs , hounding NGOs, slapstick one liners, yoga celebrations, sachh bharat photo ops etc, after all this is the minimum governance everyone talked about.

Only congress was this clueless during last 3 years of its rule, bjp seems to be giving congress a run for its money when it comes to governance.
 
temp1994 said:
No. It is not.And sooner Hindus realize it, the better it would be.

Just because a religion worships nature ,or a village diety does not make that religion Hinduism. This is a false equivalence drawn by some Hindus to claim that every Pagan religion is/was Hinduism.

A common religion is defined by common consciousness.If a tribal group worships nature, but their dieties are not integrated theologically in Hinduism as some avatara, or recognised specifically as Vedic Indra, Vayu, akash, with those groups self identifying themselves as Hindus, then that animism is not Hinduism; and only thing a pastor has do to wean that animist towards Christianity is to propagate that the village diety is just a saint with there being only one God and his Jesus being his son.Over generations, that diety would be relegated to secondary status.This is most popular way of religious propagation when state support is absent.

Now to the question of why Animism is such an easy prey for soul hunters, the answer to that lies in how "cultural knowledge" is passed down the generations. Religion works like Languages. If they are not codified and with all its Philosophy and rituals present in written form, it would be lost if a generational break occurs.Animist do not have elaborate philosophy and they do not even have codified rituals thus they could do not have a chance against an organized religion with a rounded Philosophy.


Thus Hindus should not be complacent that since tribals worship natural elements and local dieties, they are Hindu and nothing need to be done. Unless those tribals identify themselves as Hindu and consider their dieties as avataras or vedic gods like Indra, Vayu etc, they are not Hindus; and mainstream Hindus would need to work to either incorporate their dieties in Hindu Pantheon or convert them to traditional Vaishnavism or Shaivism. In their current status, they would be as willing to become lamb of Jesus as they would be willing to become Hindus. Though structure of Hinduism make it easier for Hindus compared to Christian to incorporate Tribals, but that incorporation need to be done.

Another characteristic of organized religion (Hinduism is a semi-Organized religion) is that it has low superstition than animism. It may have few big centralized superstition but its Philosophy is not dependent on retail level superstition. It only employs superstition like "faith healing" as a conversion ploy to convert those people who believe that "Jesus" or a "baba" could heal their diseases.

When I say that Southern Hinduism is highly animistic , what I mean is that though some south Indian dieties have been seamlessly incorporated in Hindu theology, there are a lot of dieties which only have nominal and weak relation to Hinduism. It allows missionaries to separate those from mainstream and incorporate them piecemeal.


There are some other popular misconceptions about religions which I would clear in rest of the post.

First, One should understand how religions divide and the danger dhongi Babas pose to Hinduism. When a religious figure want to form a separate religion, he has three choices: either kill everyone like muhammad did, refute philosophy of prevalent religion like Buddha did, or nominally associate yourself with that said religion to gain followers and gradually wean them away from their parent religion. This is most popular method when state support is not available and nearly everyone who formed a new religion including but not limited to Jesus has adopted this tactic. Though this tactic has low probability of working today (Science had weakened every religion and stymied chance of emergence of any new popular religion), there is always a chance of a baba/godman may try to break from Hinduism. I think that even higher ups in government/RSS/VHP know this and constant scripture bashing and generally denigration of Vedas by Rampal played a role in BJP government showing such an alacrity in executing court's summons and subsequent imposition of harsh sections of IPC on Rampal. @ranjeet may elaborate on this part as Rampal is from Haryana.


Second is related to role of oppression in conversion. Though genocidal oppression as done by Muslims in Kashmir and Levant, or the one done by Catholic Church in Europe and South America could wipe out even strongest of religion, mild oppression does not lead to largescale change in faith where that religion is strong and entrenched in masses. Demography of Gandhara and Baluchistan was changed by genocide (Pashtuns have no history in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are originally from Suleiman range area and settled in Afghanistan and Pakistan after original inhabitants of these areas were massacred by Ghaznavi. Similarly Baloch migrated to Baluchistan just 500 year ago), demography of Punjab was changed by force but that application of force was not much more severe than one that Uttar Pradesh or Bihar and was not as extreme as that of Kashmir as Aurangzeb never had enough force to spare to persecute Hindus much severely (due to his incessent warring in South) and older pure Ghazi kingdoms of Delhi sultanate were shortlived. The reason that UP did not convert while Punjab converted on application of force was due to less Penetration of Hinduism in Punjab compared to UP. UP has muslim population of 18%, but 40% of them are of foreign origin as counted by British in 1931 census, UP was a cul-de-sac for Islamic invaders looking for land. Islam ,even after 500 year of rule in UP could only convert 8-9% of local population and most of converts are from professions like butchers which were completely dependent on muslims for survival. I have touched upon this earlier and would elaborate in next point.West Pakistan was practically an uncivilized desert before British brought Irrigation there.

I have provided example of Kazakhstan in earlier post. Another one ,this time from History, would that of Zorastarianism from Persia. People make a mistake of assuming that penetration of Buddhism in India and Central Asia was of similar level as that of Hinduism or Islam today. It was not. Zoroastrianism barely touched lives of common people and was heavily dependent on state patronage for survival.Similarly Buddhism in India and Central Asia was followed by monks who kept to themselves in their monasteries and were dependent on state patronage.Zoroastrianism and Buddhism fell like Nine Pins when Islam rolled in with unsheathed sword and killed all its religious leaders. Muslims killed both Hindu and Buddhist scholars but reason why Hinduism rebounded while Buddhism cannot is due to Buddhism had a no popular following among general population.Hinduism ,even in Afghanistan, resisted Islam more than Buddhism and it took 300 year long incessant warfare for Turks to reduce KabulShahis.


Third; Caste system ,contrary to popular belief, actually conserved Hinduism rather making people leave. The most common mistake that people make while evaluation historical phenomenons is that they apply prevalent morality on that historical phenomenon. Caste system may look oppressive from POV of today, but historically when Muslims and Christians were outright slavers and rapists; caste system which limited socialization was the most benign of system in existence.In pre-modern era, People were taken as slaves and sold against their will, women could be raped at will of their master, and whole children of whole ethnicities molested and raped for amusement.Abbasid Arabs recruited Turkish sexual slave boys called Ghilman. When the ghilman ghaznavids inturn Islamized Afghans, they introduced this custom into Pashtunwali. When turkic people like khilji(ghilzai) assimilated into pashtuns, they also introduced these practices.The Turks took a lot of Afghan "bachas". Of course, khilji kept 4000 slave boys in his court.Khilji loved Malik kaffur the most and in the words of Ferishtah "tied the sacred thread (zunnar) of his love in his own waist". Even muhammad himself indulged in this practice and sucked penis of his newborn Nephew.If someone wants further information on this, he could browse through this thread. Bizarre Pashtun Tradition of Bacha Bazi - Historum - History Forums .In such a scenario, caste system was not oppressive and was actually most benign one in existence. Also conversion never led to improvement in social position so converting was moot.

More detailed discussion this point has been done on this thread: Why did Christianity fail horribly in getting converts in North India? - Historum - History Forums

Anyone interested could browse through it ( @SarthakGanguly @magudi @ranjeet @doppelganger @Echo_419 @Tridibans and other interested posters).


Caste system was not strong in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but still they converted while Caste system was very strong in UP but still UP did not.




Fourth; Though bribes could convert some people, it could never lead to mass conversion. The threat that foreign funding of missionaries pose in not that they would be able to bribe poor people (they would but numbers would never be high enough to warrant any attention) , but that the foreign flow of money would finance evangelist industry which would expand by Church planting and thus would have infrastructure in place to take advantage of any crisis which presents them with an opportunity to snare some converts. Existence of evangelist infrastructure would present constant chronic danger, but not acute one.


Thus I think I have cleared some misconception held by a lot of posters towards held towards religions. I could further elaborate how religions function on Psychological level but do not have time to type mountain of text.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Hinduism is not built like other religions and all you are trying to do is mold it like one of the Abrahamic religions with strict codes which is not at all recognizable as Hinduism. The fact that Hinduism is not codified is what has kept it alive because there is no one way to snuff it out.

Here is a better and most articulate explanation of Hinduism by Tamil writer Jeyamohan’s exchange with a reader over what makes a Hindu, Hindu; and Hinduism, Hinduism.

Am I A Hindu? | Swarajya

What weaned people off Hinduism was the false narrative of aryan/dravidian divide and the secular poison Indian intellectuals have been feeding people about the horrors of caste system and categorizing SC/ST as non-Hindus. It was a state hostile to Hinduism and supportive of Abrahamic faiths that prepared the ground for the missionaries to plant their churches and reap the souls. Otherwise, during the entire period of British rule the missionaries could hardly manage to convert any tribals or lower castes to Christianity. The spurt in conversions happened only under Congress' watch.
 
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