So a few days back i had posted a question that my hindu friend had asked me. This is a continuation of that. I would love for you guys to give your t

[Kaninchen]

whereas Judaism keeps them at arm’s length.

We tend to be more law and ethics than belief and epistemology.

 

[MNathaniel]

How do i refute them?

Personally I might take a different tack here, and not go through trying line-by-line to ‘refute’ everything in your friend’s religion (which will of course be internally coherent as most long stable religious traditions are).

If your goal here is evangelization, don’t focus on tearing down your friend’s religion. Focus on attracting him to yours. He’s told you his religion. Now you tell him yours, and your reasons for it.

Personally I’d go with historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, and the authority the Catholic Church consequently has to teach what’s true. If your friend can come to a place where he believes that God as Israel understands God (non-pantheistically) incarnated in a unique way in the human person of Jesus Christ, in a historical and geographical place, and this person who was fully God and fully man verified his claims by his miracles (especially his resurrection from the dead, which witnesses were willing to die under torture rather than deny, which is not what liars do), and that this all-powerful God-man personally taught truths in a revelatory fashion (as opposed to religions founded by mere humans who report their dreams, intuition, or theories), this God-man founded an identifiable Church on Earth to which He personally promised supernatural protection to teach truth and offer the privileged means of Reconciliation with Him…

… then your friend can suddenly change a whole bunch of his beliefs on the basis of accepting the authority of the Catholic Church in this sphere.

Basically I’d avoid trying to disprove his religion as ‘illogical’ though; like most man-made philosophies (and as GK Chesterton points out, madmen’s delusions, though that wouldn’t be a kind comparison in this context so perhaps don’t point it out), it’s probably ‘logical’. Humans are pretty good at constructing grand explanatory theories for things and plugging holes with what intuitively ‘makes sense’ to them. And certain spiritual intuitions are common across humanity and correspond to some degree with truth, even if lacking the revelatory fullness of truth, so your friend may perfectly legitimately sense certain things in his religion which we’d agree are ‘true’ (like the goodness of doing good works, and an ultimate goal of being reconciled to God in some way, even if we think pantheists are confused about exactly what this means), so he’d probably justifiably sense on an intuitive level that there’s something worthwhile in his religion beyond just the ‘ideas’ of it, and trying to drag him away without showing him the alternate and much greater and fuller goodness and truth probably won’t be fruitful.

Anyway again, remember that your friend’s religion is probably perfectly logical in terms of internal ideological conference… just lacking the external coherence of accurately corresponding to the fullness of truth. So don’t go trying to refute specific elements of his religion so much as show him the positive reasons for specifically believing yours. And then pray for him. And let God do the work, as He will; you’re just a helper.

 

[vsedriver]

Couldn’t that claim be made about any religion?

no, there is substantial proof for Jesus Christ. There is no proof for anything Hindu.

 

[Peaceable]

got the impression that the OP’s Hindu friend “started it”, meaning by making the claim that Hinduism couldn’t be debunked or whatever? That was my takeaway but I may have misunderstood.

I’ve only known a few Hindus, and they never attempted to evangelize me. I got the impression Hinduism doesn’t work that way.

Yeah, I couldn’t tell either. You’re right, if he ended up attempting to evangelize, this wouldn’t be particularly Hindu at all…

 

[Peaceable]

A Hindu religious leader once said the experience of God is the best proof of God, and essentially said that this experience transcends our senses, and is felt inwardly in a spiritual kind of way. (my paraphrase).

They also said:

“We have to sense God to be convinced that there is a God. We must sense the facts of religion to know that they are facts. Nothing else, and no amount of reasoning, but our own perceptions can make these things real to us, can make my belief firm as a rock.”

So Hindus are not from their perspective “making stuff up.” As seems to be the thinking for many people, when they see the multiplicity of deities and images.

 

[Peaceable]

Should qualify here, evangelizing is not a quality of postcolonial Hinduism. Prior to the colonial era there may have been not quite evangelizing,l per se, but active disseminating of Hinduism. To be fair, there has been plenty of missionary work since the colonial era, but not necessarily evangelical in nature.

 

[BT3241]

The difference is in the definition of God - its completely different from one to the other.
God is the life force that is a part of everything in Hinduism
The Christian God is a father figure with a distinct identity.

The body is a vessel in both but the Hindu soul has no identity without a body and gains a new identity on reincarnation in a different body - the christian soul retains the identity of its body after death and never returns.

 

[Peaceable]

God is the life force that is a part of everything in Hinduism
The Christian God is a father figure with a distinct identity

Not sure about this. My understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) in Catholicism is that God is the Trinity, and thus not only A father figure. In Hinduism, you have a concept of god that is a spirit, but also one that is more personal with a distinct identity, which can be (and often is) a father figure.

Not sure about the identity issue either. I think your point is correct about the lack of a risen/resurrected body after death in Hinduism. However, this doesn’t mean that the individual soul doesn’t have its own identity that persists after death.

 

[BT3241]

In Hinduism the body is the identity - all bodies have different filters on how they see the world none are the same - once they leave the body they no longer have those filters making them who they are and no longer have that identity - the come into a new body with different filters giving them a new identity that is completely different then what it was in the previous life.
Hey I’m just explaining it.

 

[Peaceable]

I’m not sure that’s correct. There is the idea that there are filters that continue across episodes of reincarnation that are attached to the soul, some thing called “vasana”. These are aspects of identity and personality, sometimes even memories that stick with the soul across recarnation episodes in Hinduism. This is a very crude explanation or description, some of these concepts don’t translate well across traditions.

I get that you’re trying to explain it, but there might be some nuances there that are missing.

 

[BT3241]

I agree there there are lingering things - the soul is considered to be information and experience of all lives with out identity which would be hard to imagine for a christian.

 

[BT3241]

I tried to make it as simple as possible with out going into the details or complicating it - I am not going to do that.

 

[CRM_Brother]

How do i refute them?

In all honesty, there is nothing to actually refute in this list. It isn’t actually a system of belief. The ‘Hinduism’ described above pretty much just says that everyone is a Hindu because we say that they are and as long as there is anyone around to say that everyone is Hindu, then Hinduism is eternal. Even within what your friend said, there are contradictions: there is no mathematics (which is logical abstraction of reality) but Hinduism is logical; there is no concept of sin, but there is a negative aspect to their moral system which is the equivalent of sin (doing deeds which accrue bad Karma); there is no relationship with God in Hinduism, but the ultimate goal of Sanatan Dharam is a reconciliation (renewal of relationship) with God.

The so-called ‘vastness of Sanatan Dharam’ pretty much boils down to ‘just do your own thing’, but only do that thing our way. Catholics do #15, but we are rejected because we don’t follow their specific philosophy. The same for #s 1, 4, 5, 10, 19, 22, 25 (Catholics believe that God is existence itself and constantly causes us to exist, but refuse to accept that our essences are a portion of God).

If your friend truly rejects Catholicism as a valid system of beliefs, then that actually goes against Hinduism. When I was a brother with a religious community in the Philippines, we had brothers studying at our seminary from India. They said that, in most areas of India, Catholicism is considered a Hindu path by Hindus themselves (outside of the BJP). The brothers said that in many cases, the Hindus were more respectful of the Eucharist than some Catholics.

 

[Peaceable]

Sure, no problem.

 

[Peaceable]

The so-called ‘vastness of Sanatan Dharam’ pretty much boils down to ‘just do your own thing’, but only do that thing our way. Catholics do #15, but we are rejected because we don’t follow their specific philosophy

Is this what you think the Hindu person talking to the OP thinks or what Hindus in general think?

The vastness that most Hindus believe in Is pluralistic, not “everything goes“.

This is because most Hindus nowadays (post neovedantic revival) emphasize the primacy of intention in seeking the truth / divine. Spiritual practice and an attitude of devotion over belief/dogma is emphasized which is what the OP is getting at if interpreted in the best possible light. All the different approach he outlines suggest different modes of seeking/engaging the divine.

On this view, It’s more important that you’re sincerely seeking God, and doing this with good intention, and engaging in a sincere religious practice, rather then ensuring one’s beliefs about the metaphysical nature of God correct.

Partly this is because Hindus believe God is not fully knowable by humans and that we all make mistakes in understanding God. There are even famous religious composers, who build into their religious songs/prayers songs/prayers “ Please fix/forgive any errors I make in praying to you” routinely.

(It should be noted here also that Hindus believe that God is highly interventionist, and actively intervenes with the worshiper to fix their erroneous beliefs. Another way to put it, is that you learn the truth about God through prayer and meditation and through an authentic experience with God, because God interacts back with you).

Now, OP’s friend suggests that having a relationship with God doesn’t make sense because one is part of the same substance is God. However he should have also noted that Hindus have a concept of levels of enlightenment, and that for most people at their level of enlightenment, they should engage at least partially dualistically (with non-dualistic thinking largely reserved for monastic practices, and even then, only sparingly).

Also I didn’t take that the OP is rejecting Catholicism outright. Maybe I misinterpreted, but it sounded like the OP tried to evangelize the Hindu, the Hindu responded with the reply that essentially says that he believes there are multiple ways and not just one way to have a valid relationship with God. Now the OP is wondering how to respond to this response. I didn’t think that the OP‘s friend is saying “ Hey, don’t believe in Catholicism.“ Or “Catholicism is wrong.”

Also the OP’s friend doesn’t seem to have English as a first language, so it’s a little unclear what he saying some of the time. I took the “Mathematics“ Comment to refer to what I mentioned above about the primacy of practice and intent over belief. In other words it’s not necessary to get the logical calculus of one’s belief and metaphysics correct, so long as one is practicing with sincere devotion.

 

[Hume]

@rossum would probably have some good insight. He’s not a Hindu, but rather one of their younger “cousins” - a Buddhist.

To your main point, you generally can’t refute belief systems. They’re generally accept-or-reject.

I’d probably go on being a Catholic and let him go on being a Hindu.

 

[openmind77]

@rossum would probably have some good insight. He’s not a Hindu, but rather one of their younger “cousins” - a Buddhist.

To your main point, you generally can’t refute belief systems. They’re generally accept-or-reject.

I’d probably go on being a Catholic and let him go on being a Hindu.

Exactly. Hinduism believes that there are many paths to God (or salvation or liberation) and each person can choose their own. God or Gods or Goddesses don’t really mind which path you choose. However, if you prefer to believe that your own path/religion is the only ‘true’ one that is OK tool

How do i refute them?

There is really no need to ‘refute’ other beliefs.

This differences among different religions will soon be reconciled when the Christ Returns. There will need to be changes made to everyone’s beliefs when the Christ returns and reveals more of the truth, but that will not invalidate your current path. If you prefer to believe that your religion is already perfect and your religion already knows everything there is to know about God and salvation - that is OK too. Just don’t be too disappointed if you have to change some beliefs when the Christ returns.

 

[Peaceable]

Not a BJP supporter personally, but I don’t think they object to Catholicism on theological grounds. They do object to the political behavior, including misrepresentation of Hinduism, by multiple non-Hindu groups as detrimental to the polity, and feel, rightly or wrongly, that nonHindu religious leaders should not be involved in politics.

However, see this news link from Catholic News Agency. The president is a BJP member. They do appear to support the Catholic church’s humanitarian efforts.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...aises-church-for-assistance-to-the-poor-28520