Hindu religion offers many degrees of freedom. It has one God ( I am one, and there is no second one). It has many gods too (I am one, I will become many). God is everywhere and in every living and nonliving thing (He is everywhere). The sentences within parentheses are my poor English translations of some scriptural verses. God lives among the downtrodden ( He lives amongst the poorest of the poor. He lives among those who have lost every thing. These two lines are from Ranindranath. He has used 'sobhara' which is Marxist synonym of proletariat). Those who serve the poor serve God (Vivekananda). There is a concept called 'Daridra Narayan'. There is one revolutionary one also: Man is sovereign("Sobar uporey manush sotya, tahar uporey nai"---Chandidas.) I can go on.
Also Hinduism has casteism. Hinduism treats women differently than men.
You have degrees of freedom. You can worship Niskondho which is a huge giant with no skondho or neck. You can have goddess Laxmi with two hands or four hands. Looks and names of gods and goddesses can vary from place to place. You can be a vegetarian or nonveg. And so on.
Now let me come to the original point: Trinity. Three different manifestations of one God? Why not? I am one, I will become three. I don't see any problem. But there is a mythological story morale of which is that because of highest level of tolerance Visnu is the greatest of all these three lords. Vrigu kicked Visnu in the chest and yet could not evoke anger in Him. The sage Vrigu could easily anger Beahma and Shiva (Mahadev or Maheshwar). Nazrul used this myth in his poem Bidrohee ( I am rebel Vrigu, Ami Bhagwan bukey enke dei pod chinha--- I draw my footprint on the chest of God).
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On Dec 7, 2014, at 5:25 AM, Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Actually, the Trinity is of God, where the idea of God monotheistic. The Trinity is the three expressions of the one God. This idea and the idea of gods and goddesses confuse me too. I am not a believer of any of these. I think the believers are also confused. I also think, when it comes to God, gods and goddesses, confusion makes more sense than certainly. When one does not really know, it is more sensible to be confused than to be sure.Sukhamaya Bain==================================On Saturday, December 6, 2014 10:02 PM, "ANISUR RAHMAN anisur.rahman1@btinternet.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
If Hinduism believes in the trinity of gods, then where does the goddess Durga, who with eight arms defeated the buffalo demon, Mahishura fit in? Surely in Durga Puja, Hindus celebrate this victory of goddess Durga. Then there is goddess Saraswati and many other gods and goddesses. These are all confusing.- AR
From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, 6 December 2014, 16:37
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Hindu trinity Brahma-Visnu-Mahadev includes Brahma who is the creator while Visnu and Mahadev are sustainer and destroyer respectively.
Yes, God (gods, goddesses, demons, etc. included) and religion are inseparable in most cases.Nietzsche said that God was dead. But as we know, He is not. He is still doing and undoing things depending on whose God He is. God will be living until man will live.Shitola Devi is still worshipped maybe not at the same rate as before. I agree, modernization will bring the number of gods and goddesses down.The bottom line is, I agree, lives in the mind of the believer.
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On Dec 5, 2014, at 9:12 PM, Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:God is a creator only in Abrahamic religions. In it, God needs religion and vice versa. God is mortal too, albeit with longer lifespan than human beings. For example, with eradication of small pox virus, Goddess Sheetala has become extinct. Mighty gods like Marduk, Mithra, Wodin, and Zeus are all dead. Presently, God lives only in the mind of devotee. Like demons and ghosts, God has disappeared with the advancement of science.
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On Dec 5, 2014, at 1:16 PM, "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:Jiten, Can any thing live any where without having existence ?If god has only one attribute or characteristic then every individual can claim for him god means XXXX (where XXXX stands for creator, truth, spirit, love, barby doll, some prophet, avtar, saint, big bang, black hole etc. etc. --pick your favourite attribute and put it in place of XXXX as per your liking and ask whether atheist can accept it. Butif you study all the religions, god is not just a single attribute but it is sum total of all supposed attributes of god viz. creator, dispenser of justice, punisher of evil, sustainer of order, capable of bending rules by way of miracles to favour his devotees to answerprayers , sender of messages and prophets and taking birth as avtar to destroy evil,intelligent designer etc. Unless you believe in most of the attributes, you cannot sayyou believe in god.Just believing in spirit, or creator etc. does not make it god in totality. And weatheists do not believe there is any thing in the universe which meet most of thecriteria and supposed attributes. For any thing like this to exist, the universe willhave to violate many laws of nature, which is simply impossible. Nature does notmake exception to its rule no matter how holy the person or entity is.Sanjeev
From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 5 December 2014 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Yes, Sanjeev, you need to define God first. If I say, my God has no existence, He lives in the spirit, then where the question of existence of God come from? Atheists should not have trouble accepting this God. Isn't it?Jiten Roy
From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2014 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Define god ? Poison by any name will kill.Sanjeev
From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2014 9:00 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Excellent points! I have some issue with atheism; it appears to be incomplete idea. Most atheists think they are atheist because they have rejected God, as defined in the religion. Religionists, obviously, have distorted the concept of God; they made it some kind of human-like character. First thing is to define God, then love or hate it.Jiten Roy
From: "Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2014 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
Haven't the Buddhists made Buddha their supreme god? There are Amitava Buddha, the sun god with limitless radiation, Kacchapa Buddha looking like a turtle and representing the sky god, Maitreya Buddha yet to come etc. My atheism sees gods and goddesses everywhere. God, having been derived from Godde, a Persian word meaning leader, leads in every place. Religion, by definition, is something that holds together. Even communism is a religion, but atheism or agnosticism, being glue less, are not.
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On Dec 3, 2014, at 9:13 AM, "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:If Buddhism is considered a religion, surely God is not needed for all religions. But what is this nonsense of what God needs or does not need? The imaginary character needs whatever the believer thinks he needs. To a rational person, there is no such thing as God needing this or that.I find the statement, 'Atheism itself is regarded as a religion. So Subimal Chakrabarty's atheism or my atheism or anybody else's atheism does not mean that we are all clue-less non-sensical people', totally absurd.
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