> --- Madhu Menon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > There are also the "Hinduism is a way of life" > > people
I find it sometimes nice that Hinduism seems so all-embracing and sometimes stifling...I too am working out whether I am really a Hindu or not. But going by the responses on this thread, unless I actively "embaras Islam" (as the conversion certificate of a friend said) rind called myself Salima Bano or something like that, I guess I am a Hindu for a lifetime...and even then, am likely to be regarded as a straying Hindu for the rest of my life. This feeling is further reinforced by the fact that many Christian families who converted any time between a few to a few hundred years ago, still mainitaining their Hindu names and some of the religious customs too...many Indian Christian weddings include the "thali" or "mangal sutra' amongst the wedding ceremonies, apart from the wedding ring. Deepa. On 8/5/07, Shyam Visweswaran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- Madhu Menon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > There are also the "Hinduism is a way of life" > > people who tell me that I > > can be a Hindu despite my atheism, but I've > > never been able to get a > > straight answer from anyone about what exactly > > that way of life entails. > > Atheism and religious membership need not be > mutually exclusive. It depends on how atheism is > defined; a common definition is non-belief in a > personal god. The Advaita vedanta school of > Hinduism, IMO, for all practical purposes > espouses athesim. So does Zen Buddhism. So, an > Advitan could be considered as both a hindu and > an atheist. > > shyam > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Luggage? GPS? Comic books? > Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search > http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=graduation+gifts&cs=bz > >
