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The Pros And Cons Of Hinduism A Religion

Decent Essays

The Supreme Court, in its judgement delivered in 1995, maintained that Hinduism is a way of life rather than just a religion. Many political pundits opine that the verdict has empowered Hindu religious parties such as the BJP to exploit Hindutva to garner votes. Social activist Teesta Setalwad, who is the most vocal proponent of anti-Hindutva, urged the Supreme Court to step in to ensure that politicians don’t misuse religion in political speeches to garner votes in the name of faith.

Notwithstanding all the politics surrounding the issue, I would like to put across my views on Hinduism and why it is not a religion per se and just a paganism.

Religions mean Abrahamic religions i.e., Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are considered to be the true religions by their followers. They all have …show more content…

If we take Christianity as an example, they have only one god called Jehovah, one prophet called Jesus Christ, one book called the Holy Bible, one pilgrimage place called Jerusalem and one method of worship. Though there are sects such as catholic and protestant, they are only doctrinal differences which arose during the process of the reformation of the Church. The same is the case with the other two Abrahamic religions i.e., the Judaism and the Islam.

As far as Hinduism is concerned it does not have any of the above-mentioned qualities to qualify itself to be called as a religion. It is completely polytheistic and idol worship is widely prevalent. In fact, believe it or not, Hindus are busy adding new gods and goddesses to their pantheon. As if the number of gods and goddesses they have already been worshipping is not enough, they even started worshipping Saibaba of Shirdi, a Muslim Fakir and Mary Mata, the mother of Jesus Christ.

They have a variety of scriptural literature such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharatha, the Bhagavatha, the Vedas and the Upanishads. In fact, the ‘Bhagavad-Gita’ is actually a small part of the

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