http://freethoughtpedia.com/index.php?title=Hinduism&feed=atom&action=history Hinduism - Revision history 2024-03-29T05:50:10Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.17.5 http://freethoughtpedia.com/index.php?title=Hinduism&diff=7932&oldid=prev Pile: Reverted edits by 76.115.63.120 (Talk); changed back to last version by Pile 2009-06-20T04:16:13Z <p>Reverted edits by <a href="/wiki/Special:Contributions/76.115.63.120" title="Special:Contributions/76.115.63.120">76.115.63.120</a> (<a href="/index.php?title=User_talk:76.115.63.120&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="User talk:76.115.63.120 (page does not exist)">Talk</a>); changed back to last version by <a href="/wiki/User:Pile" title="User:Pile">Pile</a></p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>[[Image:Hindu-shiva.jpg|right]]<br /> <br /> A religion with 648 million followers, '''Hinduism''' developed from indigenous religions of India in combination with Aryan religions brought to India around 1500 BC. It was codified in the Veda and the Upanishads-the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. Hinduism is a broad term used to describe a vast array of sects to which most Indians belong. Although many Hindus reject the caste system-a belief that people are born into a particular subgroup that determines their religious, social, and work-related duties-it is widely accepted. This system classifies society at large into four groups: Brahmins or priests; rulers and warriors; farmers and merchants; and peasants and laborers. The goals of Hinduism are the release from repeated reincarnation through the practice of yoga, adherence to Vedic scriptures, and devotion to a personal guru. Various deities are worshipped at shrines; the Divine Trinity-representing the cyclical nature of the universe-are: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.<br /> <br /> '''Atheism''' ([[Sanskrit language|Sanskrit]]: ''nir-īśvara-vāda'', lit. &quot;statement of no God&quot;, &quot;doctrine of godlessness&quot;) or disbelief in God or gods has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the Hindu philosophies <br /> <br /> There are six schools of thought within Hinduism addressed as the ''Shat (Astik) Darshana'' (''darshana'' meaning &quot;viewpoint.&quot;) Within the Astika schools of Hindu philosophy, the [[Samkhya]] and the early [[Mimamsa]] school did not accept a God in their respective systems. <br /> <br /> The atheistic viewpoint as present in the Samkhya and Mimamsa schools of [[Hindu philosophy]] takes the form of rejecting a creator-God. The [[Samkhya]] school believed in a dual existence of [[Prakriti]] (&quot;nature&quot;) and [[Purusha]] (&quot;spirit&quot;) and had no place for an [[Ishvara]] (&quot;God&quot;) in its system. The early Mimamsakas believed in a ''adrishta'' (&quot;unseen&quot;) that was the result of performing ''[[karma (Hinduism)|karmas]]'' (&quot;works&quot;) and saw no need for an Ishvara in their system. Mimamsa, as a philosophy, deals exclusively with karma and thus is sometimes called ''Karma-Mimamsa''. The karmas dealt with in Mimamsa concern the performance of [[Yajna]]s (&quot;sacrifices to [[deva (Hinduism)|gods]]&quot;) enjoined in the [[Vedas]].<br /> <br /> The [[Vedanta]] philosophy had its practitioners advocating a Nirguna Brahman of which the most prominent example is [[Adi Shankara]].<br /> <br /> ==Nastika Atheism==<br /> In [[Indian philosophy]], three schools of thought are commonly referred to as ''Nastikas'': [[Jainism]], [[Buddhism]] and [[Cārvāka]] for rejecting the doctrine of Vedas. ''Nastika'' refers to the non-belief of Vedas rather than non-belief of God. However, all these schools also rejected a notion of creationist god and so the word Nastik became strongly associated with them. Cārvāka, an atheistic school of Indian philosophy, traces its origins to 600 BCE. It was a hedonistic school of thought, advocating that there is no afterlife. Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400 CE. Buddhism and Jainism also have their origins before 300 BCE but are not hedonistic. It is debated whether the ancient followers of the Jain and Buddha paths were Hindu or non-Hindu because they, like Hinduism, discussed the [[Aryasanga|Arya Sangh]], karma, brahman and [[Moksha]].<br /> <br /> ==Hindu atheists in recent times==<br /> <br /> The [[India]]n [[Nobel Prize|Nobel Prize-winner]] [[Amartya Sen]], in an interview with Pranab Bardhan for the ''California Magazine'' published in the [[July]]-[[August]] [[2006]] edition by the [[University of California, Berkeley]] states:<br /> <br /> &quot;In some ways people had got used to the idea that India was spiritual and religion-oriented. That gave a leg up to the religious interpretation of India, despite the fact that Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than exists in any other classical language. Even within the Hindu tradition, there are many people who were atheist. Madhava Acharya, the remarkable 14th century philosopher, wrote this rather great book called Sarvadarshansamgraha, which discussed all the religious schools of thought within the Hindu structure. The first chapter is &quot;Atheism&quot; - a very strong presentation of the argument in favor of atheism and materialism.<br /> <br /> {{wip}}<br /> <br /> [[category:religion]]<br /> [[category:definitions]]<br /> [[category:theists]]</div> Pile