Resources for more information:
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/
- Beliefs about death and dying in Hinduism (for nursing end-of-life care) http://www.nursingcenter.com/prodev/ce_article.asp?tid=1085798
- http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Hinduism.html
Hindus believe in Karma along with reincarnation. Reincarnation is one of the core beliefs of Hinduism.
ReplyDeleteAnd?
DeleteReincarnation makes a lot of sense when viewing nature as a model, because everything happens in a cyclical pattern, with form changes and patterns of evolution. I think of reincarnation as this same idea applied to the human soul as a changeable thing going through phases and patterns. For me that is the most tangible way to approach reincarnation or it becomes too complex and random to take in as an idea.
ReplyDeleteIf Hinduism has no unified beliefs how do they define what is a good life that will ensure one will be reincarnated into something "honorable"?
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing, they don't. They don't have a unified theory of what ensure's a good reincarnation. If I was a Hindu, I would say that just respecting others would be adequate. You don't have to be a Mother Theresa, just make a illegitimate effort to leave the world a little better than you left it, which will in turn make you a better person. This seems to be the bare minimum so I am sure that some Hindu's expect a little more. It's analogous to how Christians don't have a defined theory on just how good you have to be in order to get into heaven. Some believe that it doesn't matter how good you are, if you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior then heaven is not for you.
DeleteIn regards to the question about the number of souls and whether new souls are being added to the mix, I think it is important to not think of time as linear. This is similar to the story that I posted, but if time is more akin to "a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff," reincarnation does not need to happen in any way that humans can understand. Assuming that we do get reincarnated, our next reincarnation could actually happen before our current one. Taking it even further, we could have several reincarnations with overlapping time frames. If this is possible, it could account for there being more people in the world if there is only a finite amount of souls.
ReplyDeleteSince we only had the time to focus on these religions for a brief amount of time, I feel like I do not have a solid understanding of many of the Eastern religions (this applies to the Buddhism post as well). I found that much of the subject matter and dogma of the Hindues and Buddhists makes seems sensible, logical and moral but it is still hard to grasp such a foreign idea having grown up in an almost exclusively Western exposure.
ReplyDeleteI think that the thought of Reincarnation is pretty cool and very interesting. I myself believe that it isn't completely outlandish to think such things. I believe if you can't prove that something exists and you can't prove that something doesn't exist you should keep an open mind about it.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of reincarnation but I do not actually believe in it. I think it was Beth that talked about the reincarnation back into this world as a means of not making it into some version of "heaven" which I guess can change depending on your perception. That kind of makes sense and would be strange/interesting if we sort of had the opportunity to live our lives over again, this time from a different perspective, and once we have "done right" with our lives, we can move onto into a different life (in heaven). Although I find it interesting, I do not believe in it and I think that once we die our soul transcends into heaven and from there I can only guess as to what we do when we are confronted by God and how we spend eternity.
ReplyDeleteChanging the subject to karma; I believe in karma in that someone does something bad to me, eventually something bad will happen to them. I don't necessarily know why, I'm guessing that it just provides some sort of comfort thinking that although I can't get revenge now, ultimately they will have something done to them as a means of payback. When thinking of this in the cosmic aspect of life I only think that karma is a guideline for some to try and continue to do good in life so they aren't rejected in the "afterlife." I don't necessarily run my life based on this thought of karma, I just try to do what is right because that's what I've been taught, and it just seems like what we as humans are supposed to do?
A big subject that has been covered in a previous comment - lightly - is karma. Even though many people look at "Karma" biting you in the rear if you have wronged someone, I do not. Even through personal experience, when peoples beliefs conflict with the view of "Karma" I feel that the belief of Karma seems to eerily always occur. For instance, someone in my grade school whom I had never done anything to decided to pick a fight with me after school was let out. His reasoning for the fight was simply because he did not like that fact that I had a lot of friends. Several days after this occurance, I was eating lunch and watching my class (and the bully) walk through the lunch line while I ate. The dessert for the day was ice cream. The bully was going to sit down with his lunch and ice cream cone when he stumbled and dropped it. Every kid in the lunchroom busted out laughing except for him. I looked at this as a form of "indirect" revenge and can recall thinking to myself "Serves you right."
ReplyDeleteRemove the second sentence from my paragraph. Otherwise none of what I say will make much sense.
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