Hinduism: A Review
Who wouldn’t like to follow a religion which gives a lot of freedom: freedom of selecting your own God, freedom of the way you worship him, freedom of the book you want to follow. Hinduism is full of gods and all kind of them: animals, birds, trees, mountains, rivers and of course humans. Even list does not stop here, it has got body-part gods, it has eunuch god, it has animal dropping god and so on. If you don’t want to worship the God your neighbor worships you can choose a different one because when counted Hinduism has 330 million gods and goddesses; one God for one family.
People like Gandhi will say, “Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth.” But how that can be accepted, when Hinduism is not just a relentless pursuit after truth, it is in fact a religion. It must have gods, goddesses, mythology, scriptures, temples etc. It gives you so much freedom that you can assume anything as your God, for example: a stone, a picture of a monkey-man flying with a mountain on his hand or a statue of elephant-man sitting on a rat.
Even if it does not attract you much then you should look at the interesting literature it provides: Mahabharata, Ramayana, Upanishads, Vedas, Puranas, Agamas, Gita etc. Every possible genre is available: politics, conspiracies, gambling, cheating, adulteries, wars, massacres, murders, scandals, discriminations, betrayals and the list goes on, you can’t simply escape. If you don’t want to worship a God you’ll be called a Nastik but you’ll still be a Hindu if you believe in Vedas, which describe various ways to worship different gods and goddesses and contain the liturgy needed to perform the rituals and sacrifices. Another major plus point of Hinduism is its in-built caste system. If you are a Brahmin and your son gets failed thousand times in third grade he will still be called a Brahmin (the intellectuals in Hinduism) or if your son poops in his pants with just a thought of a butterfly, he’ll remain a Kshatriya (the warriors in Hinduism) if you are a Kshatriya.
Unlike other religions, Hinduism embraces other religions because there was no other religion at the time when the Hindu God was seducing village girls by playing flute. The Hindus do not offend other religious people; however they do not displease their gods by not letting other people in their kitchens, by not eating at another religion follower’s home, by not touching any food previously touched by another religion person.
In Hinduism God takes birth everyday, like today we can find Sri Sathya Sai Baba with an afro like halo. He does miracles, magic tricks like old Hindu gods used to do. What more can somebody need from a religion? A religion with a living god. Well the greatest advantage of Hinduism is: if you are a great sinner then just take a bath in holy Ganga river and you’ll be ready to commit your remaining sins.
In short Hinduism is a religion you can have it in your own way.
Well, most of your ‘facts’ are correct, although the perspective is well, what you choose to have, but for this – In the original version of Hinduism (when it wasn’t even called Hinduism), the caste system was based on ‘karma’ and NOT on birth. Thus a Brahman would be the same because his actions/style of living deserved him that caste. Likewise for all other castes. But over a period of time, especially since earlier people were far less ambitious, ordinarily sons didn’t have the desire/vision to go beyond what there fathers had been, so it became more like a rule.
Also I did not get no connection between the concepts of ‘Hinduism embracing other religions’ and ‘It being the oldest religion known to mankind, when God according to you had no better thing to do’
I mean ordinarily, if someone has a headstart with something, he/she will try to capitalize on it, and monopolize the market, not be gracious to invite every other competitor to co-exist.