Sunday, January 16, 2011

Key differences between Indian religions and Abrahamic faith: Challenges to the concept of the 'religion' paradigm.

This article was written as an assignment for the degree of 'Theology and Religious studies' By me, Jessi Walker.

All religion is centralized around the idea of ‘human condition’. This is where we see key differences distinctive between Abrahamic faiths and those of India, most importantly the views of human condition through observation of human place in time. Time within Abrahamic faiths is a linear one. Each of us has one beginning, a fixed period of existence with an end and an eternal future that is fixed. In comparison Indian faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism have a cyclical view on time. The human condition for Hinduism and Buddhism is a continual one, which is eternal with multiple beginnings and endings. This is best illustrated in the Buddhist ‘Wheel of life’.

In both Indian faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism there is one ultimate goal of extinction; to end the cycle of rebirth through breaking the chains of time; Samsara. They differ in their view of the path to do so and theistic Hinduism is similar to the Abrahamic faiths in the fact that they feel their salvation is best sought after through the pleasing of a personal God(s)/Goddess.

Religion as a term for doctrines of Indian faiths can be a label wrongly used. As Hinduism doesn’t hold any core characteristics that we can measure by and even using the term Hinduism as a blanket term for the ideas found within it can be suffocating and oppressive to its diversity, imposing the conformity of Western religion. Similarly for Buddhism, Indian religions challenge the way we think about the constitution of religion although in a different light in the fact that it is the vacancy of a God/Gods and is replaced with a concentration of the teachings of an enlightened human. This causes us to re-evaluate it as a religion and can be viewed as a school of philosophy/psychology? The distinctions of which are questioned.

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