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I like it better than the last one

It's good, but I don't see the need with the discussion thread

It's not going to go anywhere good, just lock it now.

[Bohandas]

It got shut down because can't deal with dissenting opinions or having people harmlessly poke fun at them because the people on this forum can't deal with a little bit of childish name calling, taking extreme offense and calling for retribution instead of just ignoring it or retorting. Everyone has to be weirdly ceremoniously polite.

[Arx]

No, it got shut down because people were calling other peoples' beliefs aberrant abominations. It's a little different to poking fun or a simple dissenting opinion.

[TD1]

Started getting a little heated, Cryxis put a temp lock on it, Toady decided it should stay that way.

Re: Swinburne, these responses make it seem to me that to a believer it validates their position, but to a non-believer it's meaningless.

Yes. To a believer it validates their religion. Except for the religious experiences that disagree with their one.

So, even believers only believe one, or a certain similar-type of, religious experience is correct.

Furthermore, it's a moot point to say they're spiritual revelations when they can be physically induced.

Also, talking about how an old thread died seems to make another thread-death imminent, so let's leave it at explanation of events, and not discussion of events.

[ggamer]

It got shut down because can't deal with dissenting opinions or having people harmlessly poke fun at them. Everyone has to be weirdly ceremoniously polite.

It was his thread and his decision, and bringing up that drama in other threads'll just open closed wounds. As the great poet Lil' John once said:

"For if there were no transgression from thine house
There would be no transgression from mine"

[Helgoland]

Have I evver told you guys about my grampa's religious dream he had a while ago? It went like this:
So he was at some sort of celebration, like a birthday or something like that, which in our village are usually celebrated by having a big meal in our village pub. So he was sitting at a table, and at the next table God was sitting, and my grampa overheard him saying to the guy next to him, 'You know, I still got some plans for this [lastnameofgrampa]'.
Context: The guy's around ninety-four, and still in good health. His wife passed away around a year before, so that may have been on his mind; my grampa however is planning on celebrating his ninety-fifth birthday bigtime. (I hope he doesn't pull a Bilbo, especially since he loved that book 'The centenniary who climbed out the window and vanished' )
It was rather awkward hearing him tell us about that dream; we later on laughed about it for a bit, which I found rather disrespectful, since he seemed rather convinced. It's such an unusual situation, I really don't know what to make of it...

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I'm throwing this out there and leaving it along
Insulting someone's religion and god isn't just poking fun at it, not when it's a serious and heavy insult
I can get some of them but the ones that got thrown out were too much
It was either I lock the thread or I get pissed and get myself and probably the others banned for continuing arguments.
I chose the one that ended with less punishment on either side


Moving on
Can I ask questions about Hinduism here?

[ggamer]

Can I ask questions about Hinduism here?

Hinduism is a religion, so yes, though your answers would be coming from non hindus

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Unless we have Hindu forumites, I think a couple of them poped up in the Christianity thread....
Or were they just ones that believed in reincarnation.. I forget

Anywho I'm going to ask the same question I did there.
How does reincarnation work in Hinduism for the growing population of humans, especial when, in the cycle of reincarnation, you are supposed to work your way out of it and into some sort of heaven or some other?

[Vilanat]

Hindus believe in reincarnation between all living beings, so there's enough souls to explain human growth.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

....But most animal populations are staying constant if not dropping dramatically and the human population is skyrocketing. How are there enough souls to keep it all balanced out?
I mean there have to be new souls added to it or something... Right?
I dunno, it just confuses me
(Human population skyrocket does not even come close to the plummets we put on other species so it does not balance out the souls problem, just to clarify what I'm trying to say because I'm tired and don't usually speak clearly anyways)

[Frumple]

... do remember that the greatest concentration of macro-scale organisms are still insects by a substantial degree, which outweigh humans, nevermind out number -- and that's not getting into the real organic rulers of earth that are microorganisms, which outweigh the insects, to say nothing of humans. And insofar as I'm aware, we've had several periods over geographic history of greater amounts of biomass, as well. If everything was ensouled at some point, and those souls remained distinct despite not having something to ensoul in (though the latter, particularly, is questionable.), then presumably there's a lot of free floating souls out there waiting for something to get stuck in.

Though from what a little cursory reminding shows, there's not really a soul, exactly, in hinduism. "Souls" are more or less just particular expressions of Brahman (like, y'know, everything else) and as such are eternal and have always been. No creation point. New souls, to the extent that's actually a thing, are just new expressions of the one truth and whatnot. Individuality as a substantial concept, for souls or otherwise, in hindu metaphysics is a fuzzy thing, honestly, last I checked.

It'd be nice if an actual or former practitioner could chime in, though. Most exposure to it I've personally had was a little low-level academic work and some nice chats with someone that had done some considerably higher level academic work related to hindu philosophy, and that was years ago.

[Vilanat]

A) Let's assume there's a constant pool of souls somewhere in another dimension or whatever where they stay before going onto living beings. Let's also assume no new souls gets created.
If more animals die than humans are born, there are no new souls being created and old souls go to that pool of souls where they stay because the sum of all living beings gets dwindled. it doesn't matter that there are more humans now, because in the sum of all, there are less living beings. also, when speaking about the universe as a whole, maybe the number of living beings on earth doesn't even represent a tiny fraction of all life forms.

B) If you go by certain schools of thought the assumption from above is false because the soul, or Atman, is universal and "divides" itself into the living being without actually being divided. so no new souls gets created, they are being "shared" by the universal soul.

Edit: Ninjad by Frumple, who explained it better than me.

[Biowraith]

Unless we have Hindu forumites, I think a couple of them poped up in the Christianity thread....

Poping it up like they're the reincarnation of John Paul 2? 

[TD1]

Hey, I thought reincarnation as an animal was restricted to Buddhism, and wasn't a feature of Hinduism?

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I think in Hinduism you can reincarnate as a cow or other animals