Evidence for God from Science

Christians believe in one God in three "persons."

How is the Christian belief different from the Hindu religion who believe their gods are all manifestations on the one supreme god Brahman. How is that different to three "persons" of a supreme God?

Thank you.

Because Christ and the HS are NOT manifestations.

PaulSacramento wrote:Because Christ and the HS are NOT manifestations.

It sounds like the Hindu belief is along the same lines as Modelism, doesn't it?

Christian2 wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:Because Christ and the HS are NOT manifestations.

It sounds like the Hindu belief is along the same lines as Modelism, doesn't it?

Perhaps.
But it's hard to make a 100% statement to the fact.
Having similar qualities doesn't = the same, right?
God as a Triune unity means that the term "God" is much like the term human, it quanlifies a type of being.
In the case of GOD, He is the ONLY type of being that is GOD and this being we call God is a Triune being, a being NOT of matter, but pure energy/spirit with distinct "personalities" that we have come to know as "Father, Son and HS".
The Son and HS are not simply manifestations of the Father, they are the exact same essences BUT unique in personalities, not just "another way" of seeing the Father.
Time is irrelevant to God but for the sake of discussion:
There was NOT time that Father, Son and HS did NOT exist as one, except when the Son became incarnate as Jesus.

PaulSacramento wrote:

Christian2 wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:Because Christ and the HS are NOT manifestations.

It sounds like the Hindu belief is along the same lines as Modelism, doesn't it?

Perhaps.
But it's hard to make a 100% statement to the fact.
Having similar qualities doesn't = the same, right?
God as a Triune unity means that the term "God" is much like the term human, it quanlifies a type of being.
In the case of GOD, He is the ONLY type of being that is GOD and this being we call God is a Triune being, a being NOT of matter, but pure energy/spirit with distinct "personalities" that we have come to know as "Father, Son and HS".
The Son and HS are not simply manifestations of the Father, they are the exact same essences BUT unique in personalities, not just "another way" of seeing the Father.
Time is irrelevant to God but for the sake of discussion:
There was NOT time that Father, Son and HS did NOT exist as one, except when the Son became incarnate as Jesus.

I understand the Trinity, but I don't know much about Hinduism. Thanks.

Hinduisim is kind of "all over the place".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others;[79][80][81][82] and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.[83]

The Rig Veda, the oldest scripture and the mainstay of Hindu philosophy does not take a restrictive view on the fundamental question of God and the creation of universe. It rather lets the individual seek and discover answers in the quest of life. Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig Veda thus says[84][85]:

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Hinduism

We will find many similarities between Christianity and many other religions in the world and this is to be expected as there is only ONE universal truth, even though that truth may be interpreted in various forms.
Of course there is also the issue of "contamination" in religions, something that was/is caused by various reasons ranging from the imperfection of Man to the influence of demons and the Fallen Ones.

Christian2 wrote:Christians believe in one God in three "persons."

How is the Christian belief different from the Hindu religion who believe their gods are all manifestations on the one supreme god Brahman. How is that different to three "persons" of a supreme God?

Thank you.

Pastor friend of mine from India mentions the extreme persecution his congregation receives from the all loving Hindu religion folk in India. He suffers beatings, so does his wife from the Hindus. A member, new convert to Christ was burned alive to death…recently

So you ask what is in common with Hindu and Christian religion – answer is simple: Nothing…

The differences are startling however – Hindus will kill, maim you in India and Christian just offer the choice to accept the gospel or not and are persecuted for asking.
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BW, you sure your problem has less to do with the religion of Hinduism, and more to do with a corrupt and messed up society that hasn't moved into the modern world yet? This sounds basically the same as when people say that Islam is evil because there are lots of Muslim terrorists in the Middle East, when the issue is more with the powerful people who run society there, not with the religion itself.

There are religions which violently oppose the preaching of any other religion within their vicinity. Take Judaism, in the Law it was commanded that if anyone preched idol worship among Israel, that man was to be punished by death, no margins given. Islam, the hardcore Islam, not the soft core Islam you see in the U.S or turkey and such, actually does dictate that any man preaching any other religion besides Islam is to be punished. There are laws against it, strict laws, sometimes the punishment is even death. Hindus might not have a direct law that states such, may be they do but the point is there are extreme prejudices against minorities.

By the way Ivel,

more to do with a corrupt and messed up society

what did you mean by this?

Hinduism, as Paul mentioned, is "all over the place." It's one of the oldest religions, and its beliefs have evolved over time a great deal. It started polytheistic, but it no longer is, believing in One Supreme G-d (as you mentioned) Who is manifested as many lower gods. I've seen it called polymorphic monotheism, and it seems accurate.

Hinduism itself even has a Trinity, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. They're three manifestations of Ishwara, Who is G-d; Brahman. The difference between Ishwara and Brahman is that Brahman does not act, and cannot be said to create or destroy. It's only when Brahman is united with His POWER, Prakriti, do you have Ishwara. Yet, they're not separate beings. An analogy between Brahman and His Power is a fire and its heat; one CANNOT separate them, even though they aren't the same.

But, the Hindu Trinity differs from the Christian Trinity greatly once you get past the superficial similarities. Each "Person" of the Hindu Trinity has a specific role, a specific function. Brahma is the Creator, Vishnu is the Sustainer, and Shiva is the Dissolver. The Christian Trinity, on the other hand, has all three "Persons" as co-equal, and not just manifestations of a particular function of G-d. Now, the Three Persons of the Christian Trinity DO do different things, and are NOT the same as each other, but, all three have a hand in each other's works. All Three had a hand in creation (Genesis 1:2, John 1:3, Revelation 4:11). All Three sanctify believers (Leviticus 20:8, John 17:19, 2 Thessalonians 2:13). All Three resurrect the dead (John 5:21, 6:40, Romans 8:11). All Three are the Savior (Isaiah 43:11, Luke 2:11, Ephesians 4:30). And yet, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.

I would say that's the most glaring difference between the Trinity of Hinduism and the Trinity of Christianity.

Extreme prejudices might be related to religion, but you can't say that it is strictly caused by or because of a certain religion. You are right; in ancient and medieval times, religions were very prone to attacking one another if they lived in the same place. Many theocratic societies and their leaders used and abused this power to effectively eliminate other religions from the area. In the past, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and pagan religions alike practiced rather barbaric methods of eliminating other religions. But I'll get to that more later.

When I talk about corrupt and messed up societies that contribute to problems in the world today, I am mostly referring to the Middle East and India.

In the Middle East, predominantly Muslim countries have a severe problem with violence. While it is easy to look at the violence issues against Christianity and Judaism (and the violence Jews give back to Muslims), terrorists and their organized groups also indiscriminately harm Muslims as well. In India, there are a host of deplorable social issues, in my opinion.

Now, all I was saying is that I would be careful when looking at problems in a region dominated by one religion and automatically saying that the religion in question is the direct cause, or that it condones such issues. For instance, in India and several surrounding countries, there have been numerous reported cases of wives dying in mysterious fires or under strange circumstances, followed by her ex-husband marrying a new girl. Hinduism certainly does not condone murdering your wife, and yet this seems to happen far to common and with little attention from the government. India also has problems pertaining to infanticide and selective abortions when couples are expecting a daughter. Once again, this is more prevalent in Hindu countries than anywhere else...But I dare say it has nothing to do with Hindu teachings. It's a societal problem, not a strictly religious one.

Take, for instance, the "Bible Belt" in the southern United States. The percentage of conservative Christians in this region is much, much higher than anywhere else in the world. Compared to the rest of the US and most of the industrialized world, this region has absurdly high teen pregnancy rates. It would be illogical to simply draw a conclusion that conservative Christianity must condone or promote unprotected teen sex. Of course that isn't true, but it isn't any more true than saying that Islam and Hinduism teach murder.

Now I must point out your use of the term "soft Islam." Would you classify most Jews today as "soft Jews", because they do not condone murdering all the Islamic people in and around Israel? Pretty much all religions, a I said earlier, originated at a time when killing members of other religions was essentially commonplace. Most of the western world no longer practices this, despite doing so in the past. I concede this: The leaders of Islam in the Middle East have not gotten past this place in their history. There are a variety of reasons for this. But it does seem that most Muslims and Hindus in America and Europe, especially those born and raised in the west, are simply not inclined to practice such violence toward others. at least, no more so than Christians or Jews. Society has changed here. In the Middle East, sadly, it has not in many ways.

But again, I think that this is more of a societal problem than a religious one. Just as religions have shaped society, so too has society changed the attitudes of religion over time, especially in terms of peaceful coexistence. Granted, we still have a long way to go with that even in America, but we've moved farther in that sense. I guess all I'm saying is that just as Jews and Christians have long moved past the era of open religious warfare in the west, so too have the Muslims and Hindus who live among us. To me that says that the religions themselves are very capable of moving past violence against other religions, but the mindset of thousands of years of war in the Middle East has prevented such an evolution in the area so far.

wow, sorry about such a rambling mess of a post...I've been studying organic chemistry nonstop for several 12 hours for my final exam tomorrow and my brain is fried. I'll try to clean up my thoughts later...

Oh, and also, I'm not saying Hinduism is at all like Christianity...I've read their holy book. Very interesting, also very clearly from a different mindset than Judaism or Christianity or Islam for that matter. Frankly, of all the major world religions, I take the most issues with Hinduism. There are lots of moral problems I have with the religion, and while there might be superficial similarities in terms of deity structures and general religious teachings that are almost universal among world religions, the way that Hinduism demands that society operates (i.e. the caste system) is horrible in my opinion. Just saying, I'm not trying to take a pro-Hindu, anti-Christian stance...I'm just trying to avoid lumping unnecessary blame on Hinduism for things I don't think are actually a result of the religion.

Generally I agree with what you say, my only point is that some religions do teach violence. It is irrelevant why religions fight each other or persecute the weaker in numbers. I am talking about official religous position, not what the crowd does.

Now, all I was saying is that I would be careful when looking at problems in a region dominated by one religion and automatically saying that the religion in question is the direct cause, or that it condones such issues. For instance, in India and several surrounding countries, there have been numerous reported cases of wives dying in mysterious fires or under strange circumstances, followed by her ex-husband marrying a new girl. Hinduism certainly does not condone murdering your wife, and yet this seems to happen far to common and with little attention from the government. India also has problems pertaining to infanticide and selective abortions when couples are expecting a daughter. Once again, this is more prevalent in Hindu countries than anywhere else...But I dare say it has nothing to do with Hindu teachings. It's a societal problem, not a strictly religious one.

Are you aware of the ritual of Sati, it is a Hindu religious ritual in which the widow of a deceased is burned alive with the corpse. This of course was banned in India since a couple of decades but in some parts it is still practiced.

Now I must point out your use of the term "soft Islam." Would you classify most Jews today as "soft Jews", because they do not condone murdering all the Islamic people in and around Israel? Pretty much all religions, a I said earlier, originated at a time when killing members of other religions was essentially commonplace. Most of the western world no longer practices this, despite doing so in the past. I concede this: The leaders of Islam in the Middle East have not gotten past this place in their history. There are a variety of reasons for this. But it does seem that most Muslims and Hindus in America and Europe, especially those born and raised in the west, are simply not inclined to practice such violence toward others. at least, no more so than Christians or Jews. Society has changed here. In the Middle East, sadly, it has not in many ways.

Yes I would classify Jews as soft Jews who are not following the law literally. Yes in the middle east and in the far east, societies are still very much are holding on to the long centuries of culturally held traditions. I am first hand witness that not all Muslims are terrorists, not all Hindus are extremists, not all Jews are loan sharks, not all atheists are filled with hatred towards religion and not all Christians are self righteous hypocrites. In Pakistan, we have a lot of extreme fundamentalists but we also have nice loving Muslim people. So no, I am not painting everyone with the same stroke. I was merely pointing out to you that some religions do teach aggressive acts towards minorities. By religion I do not mean the religious institutes but the official religious books.

It is true indeed that we are behind the modern world, Pakistan India and other third world countries. But I wanted to say that I think this is kind of unfair to paint the whole society as corrupt and messed up. Which society isn't? You think the west is absolutely not corrupt or messed up? by someone else's standard it would be, by others it may be not. I know most Americans and europeons think we live in jungles, away form all civilization but that is hardly the case. We just have other problems, unlike yours. And no doubt we need to get up and move on but sadly it is not going like that. Anyway, I felt bad about what you said about societies being corrupt and messed up, I thought it was kinda unfair, though I am certain you did not mean it as such but I would advise to be careful when using such broad terms.

Oh I don't deny that we have political problems, corruption, and so on. Those issues don't typically involve religious wars, though. And I don't mean to paint the whole society as evil or corrupt; that would be like me saying that every American corrupt or unsavory. But I meant to say that in the Middle East and India, the governments and general societal structures (police, military, social infrastructures) are such that even if a good, loving person knows of a gross injustice such as terrorism or wife-burning, it is often the case that they can do nothing about it. Either the leaders don't care enough or they are essentially using religious terrorism to further their own goals. Again, not everybody in Pakistan or Iran wants the terrorists to be there or condone their actions (I would wager that a vast majority oppose such things), but unlike in America or Europe, those kinds of evils are not controlled or effectively stopped, and that's what I mean by the society having issues. It starts at the top in most cases and the commoners are stuck with whatever problems are a result.