PartSkeptic, thanks for pointing out
that particular bit of mind-boggling weirdness about Islamic teachings. I mean their idea that everyone is born a Muslim, the so-called “Fitrah” thing, and that when they embrace Islam they’re merely “reverting”. I hadn’t been aware of this particular bit of madness, and a quick online check (which is how I came to know of the term “Fitrah”) bears you out fully. The author (no, I suppose not “author”, per some more madness that these people believe in, but literally the “writer”, the first scribe) of the Koran -- Peace Be Unto Him, even as large numbers of his dupes systematically go around doing their best to take away what little peace there is in this world -- was nothing if not supremely self-confident, and nothing if not ambitious on a global scale!
About what you say about Christianity being comparatively less violent in its proselytizing zeal than Islam :
first, while Islam is no doubt more inherently violent as well as more inherently resistant to change than Christianity, going by the respective scriptures I mean, in practice and across the years/centuries both have been equally violent. Christianity’s relative mildness today when compared with Islam is more a function of greater “progress” and rationality in general within the individuals/societies that practice these religions. And
secondly, although I may have phrased it badly and not expressed myself clearly, when I spoke of “catching people by their necks and getting them to convert”, what I had in mind was violence in general and not just physical violence -- a violence that would include coercion, that would include forcing others to conform to one’s ways and beliefs by means of the imposition of partisan laws, a violence that would sometimes find expression in missionaries devoting themselves to setting up and running hospitals and hospices and schools on the one hand, but on the other hand using these apparently beneficent projects as direct or indirect means of proselytization and conversion. No doubt I hadn’t expressed myself very clearly in my original comment. But this was the context basis which I then went on (in my post that you quote) to speculate about whether it might be “good” to have delusional beliefs if those delusions got you to do “good” things like volunteering time and money to look after the poor and ill, and so on.
Hokulele, you
talk about Buddhism being a rejection of some aspects of Hinduism. “Buddhism was a response to and rejection of many Hindu ideas and how they were put into practice”, is how you phrase it. Phrased thus, I agree with you completely. And since you take the trouble to phrase it thus, you probably understand (or can guess) the context basis which I bring this up now. Although like I said you probably know this and are perhaps in agreement, nevertheless I’d like to briefly talk about this idea of mine, since you go on to compare that rejection with Taoism’s rejection of Confucianism.
Hinduism isn’t really a single homogeneous religion at all. Unlike the Abrahamic relgions, and unlike even other Eastern religions like Confucianism and Taoism and Shintoism. Hinduism is simply a collection of the many diverse religious and spiritual thoughts and philosophies and practices that emerged in and around India. It is only when Islam, with its proselytizing and rather brutish (and brutal) close-mindedness made its presence felt that this collection of very diverse thoughts and ideas and practices started to be thought of as one single system, as one single “religion”.
We (humans) are now beginning to outgrow religion, but if a few hundred years ago, before rationalism became (more or less) mainstream, if back then we on Earth had ended up being colonized by some alien civilization who believed zealously in some monolithic religion of their own -- and especially a religion with proselytizing overtones -- then we (humans) might conceivably, in reaction, have started thinking in terms of our own ‘Earth-Religion’ in response and reaction to this alien impetus. We’d then have ended up with this composite “religion” (this “Earth-Religion”) that was not at all homogeneous, just an amalgam of many different and diverse strands of thought. That is exactly what Hinduism actually is. (Although as I’d pointed out in an earlier post, there are those within Hinduism itself who, either out of ignorance or to further vested interests, try to flog a monolithic and authoritarian version of Hinduism, and at times find more success in so doing than at other, happier times.)
It is probably because Buddhism spread outside of India (and at the same time gradually died out within India) -- and in coming in contact with other ideas like Taoism and Shamanism, etc, absorbed some of the characteristics of those other faiths and philosophies and practices -- that it came to be thought of as a whole different religion. Otherwise the Buddha’s innovations (in terms of meditation techniques as well as philosophy) would probably be in line with very many other reformist/parallel movements within Hinduism -- and the Buddha’s teachings no more and no less than, simply, yet another strand within Hinduism.
