Learn from Judaism!

[Guest guest]

I just want to say that I am Jewish (living in the united states), and I have read MANY misconceptions in this thread about Judaism and Jews, including the so-called excerpt from the Torah which actually sounds more like a gross mistranslation. Even the original poster has a misconception that Jews control the media, banks, etc. If Jews controlled the media, how come there are so many unfair things said about Israel, and how come Palestinian terror is often glorified in the media, falsely portraying the Israeli army as the bad guys? If Jews controlled banks, how come certain banks in the US funded Hitler? That there are Jews present in many top positions, as doctors, lawyers, businessmen, politicians (though less than 12% of the US gov't currently), simply speaks to the importance of education in the Jewish culture and religion. I am going to be a physician and I work side-by-side with just as many Hindus every single day. Before I entered medical school, I went to an engineering school with lots of Hindu students.

 

Also I have to say that the majority of Jews I know, including myself, are religious. I personally may not be perfectly observant about some laws and holidays, but I still have a strong belief in God. I also do not flaunt my religion to every person I meet, so some people may not know right away that I'm religious. As someone correctly said in this discussion, Judaism prohibits proselytizing and forcibly converting non-Jews. Furthermore, as in Hinduism, according to Judaism one must be tolerant of different religions.

 

I believe Hindus and Jews have a lot in common, in terms of philosophy of peace, love of fellow man and animal, and tolerance, as well as importance of family and doing good deeds.

 

And it's a blatant lie that Jews consider Hinduism to consist of demons! I have many good Hindu friends, and I have never ever been taught by anyone, not Rabbis, not my parents, that Hindus believe in demons. I had never even heard of such a notion before I saw this discussion.

 

I feel that many of you rely on second-hand information about Jews and Judaism, much of which may unknowingly originate through the anti-semitic Islamic media. I would recommend trying to educate yourselves more about what Judaism is before trying to have a contest between Judaism and Hinduism. There is no need for contests. We can all learn from each other as individuals, and unite together for true peace.

 

p.s.

A good site that I visit to study my religion is www.aish.com. I recommend starting there, if you are interested in being more informed.

[Guest guest]

In hinduism, we have a lot of things figured out before western civilization figure out. For example, Graviy: Hinduis don't wear foot wears in temples, because they believed that earth has a gravity which pulls their sinful thoughts down, and sucked it all up. There are a lot of things like that which are hidden. Too bad, we don't have one book like Bible for Christians, and Quaran for Muslims to read and understand our customs. My mom is so devoted to the religion, she follows every customs, but if you ask her to tell why those customs are followed, she wouldn't be able to give a reason. Because We don't have one organized book to tell us what to do.

 

I agree that we have a lot of books like Srimad Bhagavatam, Vedas and Puranas to give us explanations of our actions. But I really think that our ancestors should've created one book including all these vedas, puranas and Gita. I wonder why our sages didn't do that? Is it because it was too much to be included in one book? Is it because different people believed in different things?

 

And other thing is that because (sorry if I'm offending anyone or my religion) our brahmins determined our caste system into four groups and gave no rights to the 3rd and 4th groups to read vedas or question the religion, now no one reads our vedas or puranas. My friends are hindus, and I've asked every one of them whether they read any of hindu scriptures, the answer is "NO" And when we had a conversation about hinduism, my friends mentioned that the thing they like about hinduism is that We don't have any rules, anyone can come and go, they can do anything they want, and they don't even have to go to temple. That was really offending to me. I was so angry to hear it because if you look deeply into hinduism, you can see that it has a lot of rules and regulations.

 

I'm so desired to know about Hinduism, and I do a lot researches to clear my doubts. But more I go deep, the more I get lost. If our sages had concluded our religion in an organized book, we wouldn't have trouble understanding our religion. And we wouldn't have get more criticism and we won't lose our followers. A lot of people converts themself to other religion because they don't understand Hinduism. If they do understand it, they won't go to other religions.

 

We cannot say that other religions are perfect. Bible states that earth is flat, christians believed that earth was flat in west, and different in east. And Bible also states that Earth is the middle of the universe. And it gives no explanation about other planets in our solar system. But Hinduism does give explanations to other planets.

 

Maybe, our sages had created an organized book about hinduism, but it was lost after Kali Yuga started. Because Kaliyua is supposed to be the yuga of corruptin. Who knows...

[Guest guest]

<< I'm a Westerner, American. I was raised a Christian but am seriously looking at Budhism and Hinduism (probably the former because it's more or less Atheist). >>

 

Dear friend,

 

Buddhism is an atheist religion, hinduism is not.

 

for hindus, dharma is a process of realizing or reaching to god. so, in that sense buddhism (it grew out of hinduism) is not 'dharma' becaues there is not god for buddhists. same for jainism.

 

if you have an atheist mentality/heart, then buddhism would suit you.

 

wishiy you best in your search.

 

jai sri krishna! -madhav

 

 

[Tim 0]

Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam—every true religion, in fact—is no merely cultural phenomenon. It is dedicated to doing the divine will, which is ever to uplift human consciousness. Could any religion take out a divine patent on what simply IS? Humanity has one common Father/Mother, whom it calls variously God, Dio, Dieu, Gott, Bog, Jehovah, Allah, Ishwara, Jagadamba, and by many other names. Universal truths, similarly, are the same everywhere. Religion is no mere ornament of civilization: It is the fundamental need of all human beings. Rightly understood, true religion offers hope and inspiration impartially. Its forms vary with different cultures and different social conditioning, but always its purpose is to raise human consciousness. Truth never endorses any one culture exclusively. People who seek truth earnestly find their understanding becoming ever-increasingly refined.

[Guest guest]

I agree. But religions such as Christianity and Islam fail to understand the fact that there's only one god, and all religions are one. All they want to do is convert people into their religions. I don't understand why though. Why do they want many people in their religion? Probably politics is behind it. I think that it's disparaging to Jesus or Allah because they try to convert people.

 

On the other hand, Sanatana Dharma, doesn't like conversion. And eventhough other religions try criticize it, and kill it, it welcomes other religion and claims they are all same. What other religions failed to understand it that their religion only leads them physically to get attached to the god, but Hinduism wants leads us to attach to the god spiritually. In western media, all they ever do is show Indians, or Hindus to be specific, as weird people who do weird things. By doing that it makes Hindus who lives in western country to deny the fact that they are hindus.

[maadhav 0]

<< But religions such as Christianity and Islam fail to understand the fact that there's only one god, and all religions are one. >>

 

we hindus only know there is only one god.

however, our concept of god (described in gita and the vedic literature) is very different from the god discribed in koran or bible. every hindu should try to understand these different concepts of god, because that concepts motivate the followers to live in certain different ways.

 

all religions are not same.

 

a vedic statement says "all paths lead to the same god."

but remember that "all paths" here means all the vedic paths. when this was stated in the vedas, there was no semetic or any other religion. only sanatana dharma (hinduism) was there with different yoga systems.

 

if the word religion is understood as "a way to realize god or go to god or to haven,", then we can say that there are different religions with the same purpose, but there is not surity that each religion can surely help the follower realize god or take the follower to god or haven.

 

this should be clear from the fact that islam and hinduism are at the opposite poles, totally incompatible with each other. the first produces barbaric invaders and aggresors who kill non belivers, while the hindus never do it. how can both these opposite behaviors lead to the same god or haven? only one of this is religion, the other is irreligion (adharma).

 

all the hindus need to think clear like this.

 

[Guest guest]

remember that "all paths" here means all the vedic paths. when this was stated in the vedas, there was no semetic or any other religion. only sanatana dharma (hinduism) was there with different yoga systems.

•••vedas include everything.. every approach with religion is illustrated by vedas and the advent of all the religions are predicted by vedas..

 

a religious follower can have three behaviours

 

kanista (fanatic.. only my religion has god)

madyam(discriminates between demons, ignorants and innocents)

uttama(he sees everyone as a servant of god and himself as the only sinner in the universe)

 

a religion can believe in god in three ways

 

bhagavan (god is a person, individual, he relationates personally)

paramatma (god is a supersoul who's eternally close to the individual soul)

brahman (god is an energy who pervades all the universe)

 

and there's the mayavadi approach: god does not exist, we do not exist, existence does not exist

 

a religion, any religion in the world can be made also from these elements variously mixed..

 

if one is able to find a religion who is not followed by kanistas, madyams, uttamas and god is not bhagavan, paramatma, bhagavan or there's no god (mayavadi), he has found a religion not listed or prophetized in the vedas... but it is impossible

 

so all is vedic, nothing is out from the vedas

[Guest guest]

One thing that makes Judaism unique is that it percieves God as the universal one God, but He is related to as the God of a particular people (Jews). This is a unique mixture of universality and particularity.

 

According to Judaism it is this one universal God that is accessible to all humanity, however the Torah was given by God to the Jews for a particular relationship between Him and us. Therefore we do not believe in conversion because you don't need to be Jewish to find God. We believe though that all humanity must follow 7 essential laws which were given to Noah :

 

Do not murder.

Do not steal.

Do not worship false gods.

Do not be sexually immoral.

Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed.

Do not curse God.

Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

 

The problem with both Christianity and Islam is that they only understood the universal side of Judaism. And they want to impose the idea of one God = one religion / people onto the whole world. in both Christianity and Islam the ultimate stage is an idea of a 'Christian' or "muslim world' where everyone is the same relgion. The JEwish vision is of a world where people can keep their indigenous cultures and religions, but all people will recognise and KNOW that they worship the same God (but in different ways).

[Guest guest]

the idea of god in judaism is at all non different from the one in christianism... plus, in some christian saints, we have some rare examples of bhakti.. so there's no big doctrinal difference from a sanatana dharmi point of view.

 

The christianism is only more focused on the person of christ, the guru.. and it is good because this makes this religion less impersonalist and mayavadi

.

.

.

 

many hindus have simpathy for hebrews only because they fight (with many injustices) muslim palestinians, not because they find some parallelisms