On Basic Religion Test, Many Doth Not Pass

[rachelbean]

I got 15/15 but I'm gonna try the longer one

[GenesForLife]

The caste system itself isn't a part of Hinduism, Pappa, it is just an extremely illogical social construct that developed from guilds and stuff to the point that there was somehow the idea that what someone can do is imposed by birth, and hence the children of people who did very vital but nonetheless menial jobs were condemned to the same, and so on and so forth.

Do you think a widespread/universal belief in karma and the ideas it supports about being born into a hierarchy of lives (demi-god, prince, noble, tradesman, peasant, etc.) justifies the caste system though?

I mean, the caste system couldn't exists without Hinduism's ideas of karma and rebirth.

Karma and Rebirth are a part of Buddhism and Jainism too, and both of those religions are hippyistic, with ahimsa (or total non-violence/not hurting anything/anyone) being a critical doctrine, I'm going to say here that it wasn't Karma and rebirth that led to the development of the caste system, but the lack of humanistic values and ethics in the religion, which, of course, holds for most religions.

The caste system also seems to have had economic origins, but somewhere down the line people began to make that compulsorily hereditary
, in other words, a case of the is/ought fallacy, and caste based discrimination really involved three of four castes ganging up and oppressing the fourth.

In other words, I'd say that Hinduism allowed social evils to continue because it just wasn't good enough to stop it, it lacked the values of the enlightenment, so to speak.

One social evil Hinduism will have directly contributed to, though, would be the Sati system, wherein a widow would kill herself by jumping into the husband's funeral pyre, which may have been attributable to the idea that husbands and wives would stay together for seven lives, a vow taken at marriage, by the way, and exacerbated by the fact that widows were considered a burden on society since there was no one to support the family.

Bottomline? The failure of religion to prevent its adherents from discriminating among people and to discourage bigotry is as important and vital when considering its negative impact on human progress as is the contribution of doctrines themselves to that...

[Robert_S]

15/15 , all hail the...atheist?!

Did you know about the First "Great Awakening" or did you get it by elimination? Just curious.

[GenesForLife]

15/15 , all hail the...atheist?!

Did you know about the First "Great Awakening" or did you get it by elimination? Just curious.

Elimination...

[Pappa]

I got 15/15 but I'm gonna try the longer one

I don't think you can do it online.

[Tigger]

I got 15/15 but I'm gonna try the longer one

I don't think you can do it online.

You can but you need to mark it manually. I just scored 23/32, which suits me just fine.

[klr]

Our Toastmaster's meeting topic today was Religious Tolerance. As the assigned Thoughtmaster today (you take a minute to express a thought on the subject) I suggested that the more educated we are about all kinds of religions, the more tolerant we might be. So I copied the test and answers as I went along when I took it yesterday and brought it to the meeting for everyone to take today.

The Christian members of our group weren't too happy about being the lower scorers, not to mention the Pew Research results I revealed after.

As for scoring poorly: I thought humility was one of the Christian virtues ...

[Feck]

I love Hinduism (aside from the Indian Nationalist brand). It is so fucking bonkers and pretty harmless for the most part it seems to me.

As long as you like the caste system !

[GenesForLife]

I love Hinduism (aside from the Indian Nationalist brand). It is so fucking bonkers and pretty harmless for the most part it seems to me.

As long as you like the caste system !

Erm, I already went over this, it is prevalent in Hindu society, and prevalent because the religion does nothing to emphasise social equality, but isn't part of the religion itself.

[charlou]

I love Hinduism (aside from the Indian Nationalist brand). It is so fucking bonkers and pretty harmless for the most part it seems to me.

As long as you like the caste system !

Erm, I already went over this, it is prevalent in Hindu society, and prevalent because the religion does nothing to emphasise social equality, but isn't part of the religion itself.

How about the notion of karmic reincarnation .. that people deserve the good fortune or misery of their lives due to shit that happened in a 'previous life', and are treated accordingly?

[GenesForLife]

I love Hinduism (aside from the Indian Nationalist brand). It is so fucking bonkers and pretty harmless for the most part it seems to me.

As long as you like the caste system !

Erm, I already went over this, it is prevalent in Hindu society, and prevalent because the religion does nothing to emphasise social equality, but isn't part of the religion itself.

How about the notion of karmic reincarnation .. that people deserve the good fortune or misery of their lives due to shit that happened in a 'previous life', and are treated accordingly?

I didn't say the religion was flawless in its core doctrine, just that the caste system didn't have its origins in the religion, the fact that some people choose to rationalize discrimination based on religion doesn't make the discrimination itself a part of the religion, it becomes a consequence of it. Karmic reincarnation is also a feature of Buddhism, but I haven't seen discrimination bordering anything close to the caste system resulting from that.

[Trolldor]

The Hindu caste system is like Gential Mutilation in Islam.

It was never part of the scripture, but has become ingrained with it because of the culture it grew up in.

[Robert_S]

The Indian caste system:
So unlike the class system in every other society. [/sarcasm]

[GenesForLife]

The Indian caste system:
So unlike the class system in every other society. [/sarcasm]

Does not make it right, the caste system deserves as much panning as apartheid or any other kind of dicrimination.

[charlou]

I love Hinduism (aside from the Indian Nationalist brand). It is so fucking bonkers and pretty harmless for the most part it seems to me.

As long as you like the caste system !

Erm, I already went over this, it is prevalent in Hindu society, and prevalent because the religion does nothing to emphasise social equality, but isn't part of the religion itself.

How about the notion of karmic reincarnation .. that people deserve the good fortune or misery of their lives due to shit that happened in a 'previous life', and are treated accordingly?

I didn't say the religion was flawless in its core doctrine, just that the caste system didn't have its origins in the religion, the fact that some people choose to rationalize discrimination based on religion doesn't make the discrimination itself a part of the religion, it becomes a consequence of it.

Are you sure? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does it even matter?