Freethought & Rationalism Archive

roshan · 04-25-2002, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sikh:
Yes, this is also something I found very shady. Sikhs are strictly monotheistic. Hindus beleived in polytheism. Sikhism tried very hard not to insult or to degrade or to call any other religion false. There were mention of other Gods, but I beleive they were in a hypothetical sense, or in a connotation of the God. For instance, if there were a God of intellegence, call it BoobyDooby. There might be sayings such as: "Humans are wise and advanced, and know much of BoobyDooby". All of the Gurus were express to say that there is only one God, but never did they say that there are not multiple Gods. You may say that it is implied, but the Sikhs did not want to discourage anyone from practicing freely. This might be confusing, and I don't know all the answers, but if I do say something rediculous, I just want to say in advance that I know not much of Sikhism. I'm 15 years old, and haven't had my ideas fully organized.

hinduism has only one god - we just worship god in many diff forms.

Boro Nut · 04-26-2002, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by roshan:
hinduism has only one god - we just worship god in many different forms.

That's Indian bureaucracy for you.

Boro Nut

hinduwoman · 04-27-2002, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Boro Nut:


That's Indian bureaucracy for you.

Boro Nut

Ron Singh · 05-07-2002, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by roshan:
hinduism has only one god - we just worship god in many diff forms.

This is true, but are there a finite amount of forms for an infinite God?

Ron Singh · 05-07-2002, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by vagrant:


But the existence of god issue is core. The sikh practices are just as pointless as the baptists, JWs, etc. For the discussion to have any true meaning god, specifically the one as defined by sikh faith, must exists. And you know how we feel on that. Its like discussing the morality of the tooth fairy: a pointless and reasonably absurd exercise.

Vagrant, sorry to displease you, but this is a religion. It is based on faith, faith on a first cause, and a creator of the Universe, but more than that, a creator of reality itself. You can not disprove the Sikh God, but quoting Carl Sagan: "Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense." I do not have undeniable evidence for you. But undeniable evidence is not necessary for belief. Any evidence can be. Otherwise, it would be called a Theory of Sikhism. If you really want to disprove my God, you can proceed to the Existence of Gods Forum, prove it there, and show me. I speak not of the Christian God, or any other, but more of non-contingent creator. I don't want this thread to become another Existence of Gods thread. This is about the Sikh Dogma. Thankyou.

krazytamak · 05-22-2002, 07:04 PM

sikh,
here's a problem with sikhism: reincarnation.

it is so far-fetched and does not seem reasonable under some careful scrutiny, however "cool" the idea may sound. the problem with reincarnation is that it assumes a human level of decision making and consciousness in all living things. reincarnation can make sense (doesn't mean it's true) if you look at it from the point of a human, but the theory requires it to work from the point of view of any animal or plant and that's a big problem.

if i do really "bad" this life i go to a much lower life form, say an ant or a bacterium. Now as a bacterium if I do "good" I can move up in my next life. Problem is that I doubt very much that a bacterium or plant(or pick your favorite low life form) is conscious. Not to just talk about the extremes, in case you pick a low life form that is conscious, it does not think about things that don't exist in the here and now- similar to a human in early development. Even a deer, even if a deer does have consciousness (which I'm not sure of), I doubt very much it thinks like a human. I doubt very much that it thinks of its decisions in a moral sense since that would require thinking of things/concepts that are not in the here and now, which is a very advanced level of consciousness that even humans require time to develop during growth. So to repeat my main idea, the problem with sikhism is reincarnation adn the problem with that is that it assumes a human level of thinking in all life forms since without this assumption, promoting a bacterium to a higher life form is meaningless since it hasn't been making moral decisions by which to accumulate karma. Reincarnation seems to be feasible (not necessarily right) when you look at it from the human point of view, but it has to work from any organism's point of view.

By the way, I'm a former Jain which for those who don't know is also a Hindu variant (much older than Sikhism) that believes in reincarnation and karma theory. My argument against reincarnation was originally formulated against the Jain version of reincarnation. I don't think Sikh reincarnation should be much different, but if it is, then please do clarify.

my secular understanding of reincarnation: it is essentially a spiritual theory that was developed to rationalize and maintian the political stability of the caste system in Hinduism. That is, play your role and be a good untouchable and you'll be a higher human in the next life. As Hindu variants such as Jainism and Sikhism dropped the caste system as being wrong or offensive, they still maintained this inoffensive theory of reincarnation even though the main motivation for creating such a radical theory was to support the political stability of a caste system.

also, are you a vegetarian? if yes, then that's the right answer. if not (and I know some Sikhs who aren't), you're inconsistent. believing in reincarnation and meat eating are very inconsistent philosophies.

any thoughts on that?

roshan · 05-23-2002, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sikh:


This is true, but are there a finite amount of forms for an infinite God?

the forms dont show what god looks like, they symbolize aspects of god.

krishnas blue skin symbolizes the infiniteness of god. so, we just need one form to represent that aspect.

roshan · 05-23-2002, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by krazytamak:
sikh,
here's a problem with sikhism: reincarnation.

it is so far-fetched and does not seem reasonable under some careful scrutiny, however "cool" the idea may sound. the problem with reincarnation is that it assumes a human level of decision making and consciousness in all living things. reincarnation can make sense (doesn't mean it's true) if you look at it from the point of a human, but the theory requires it to work from the point of view of any animal or plant and that's a big problem.

if i do really "bad" this life i go to a much lower life form, say an ant or a bacterium. Now as a bacterium if I do "good" I can move up in my next life. Problem is that I doubt very much that a bacterium or plant(or pick your favorite low life form) is conscious. Not to just talk about the extremes, in case you pick a low life form that is conscious, it does not think about things that don't exist in the here and now- similar to a human in early development. Even a deer, even if a deer does have consciousness (which I'm not sure of), I doubt very much it thinks like a human. I doubt very much that it thinks of its decisions in a moral sense since that would require thinking of things/concepts that are not in the here and now, which is a very advanced level of consciousness that even humans require time to develop during growth. So to repeat my main idea, the problem with sikhism is reincarnation adn the problem with that is that it assumes a human level of thinking in all life forms since without this assumption, promoting a bacterium to a higher life form is meaningless since it hasn't been making moral decisions by which to accumulate karma. Reincarnation seems to be feasible (not necessarily right) when you look at it from the human point of view, but it has to work from any organism's point of view.

By the way, I'm a former Jain which for those who don't know is also a Hindu variant (much older than Sikhism) that believes in reincarnation and karma theory. My argument against reincarnation was originally formulated against the Jain version of reincarnation. I don't think Sikh reincarnation should be much different, but if it is, then please do clarify.

my secular understanding of reincarnation: it is essentially a spiritual theory that was developed to rationalize and maintian the political stability of the caste system in Hinduism. That is, play your role and be a good untouchable and you'll be a higher human in the next life. As Hindu variants such as Jainism and Sikhism dropped the caste system as being wrong or offensive, they still maintained this inoffensive theory of reincarnation even though the main motivation for creating such a radical theory was to support the political stability of a caste system.

also, are you a vegetarian? if yes, then that's the right answer. if not (and I know some Sikhs who aren't), you're inconsistent. believing in reincarnation and meat eating are very inconsistent philosophies.

any thoughts on that?

im not sure about jainism or sikhism, so ill answer your questions on reincarnation from a hindu perspective. hindus do not assume a human level thinkin in all life forms... thats why they are sometimes termed as "lower" life forms.

bacteria, plants etc do not think, therefore, they cannot consciously acquire karma. but the reason they incarnate as those things is because they have committed some karmas which they need to be payed back for. so, once they pay for these karmas, then they can be reincarnated as a human or any other intelligent creature that can actually think and perform karma.

the theory of reincarnation was believed by hindus even before the varna system became rigid and turned into a caste system.

krazytamak · 05-23-2002, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by roshan:
[QB]bacteria, plants etc do not think, therefore, they cannot consciously acquire karma. but the reason they incarnate as those things is because they have committed some karmas which they need to be payed back for. so, once they pay for these karmas, then they can be reincarnated as a human or any other intelligent creature that can actually think and perform karma.[QB]

How can they (low life forms) pay for these karmas if they are non-sentient? Isn't karma removed only as a result of suffering? What kind of suffering can an unconscious being go through? Simply being a low life form is not suffering if you aren't aware of your position in the world. Isn't this a big problem for reincarnation?

never been there · 05-23-2002, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by krazytamak:
...also, are you a vegetarian? if yes, then that's the right answer. if not (and I know some Sikhs who aren't), you're inconsistent. believing in reincarnation and meat eating are very inconsistent philosophies.

any thoughts on that?

A Sikh friend feels that, within her faith, mandatory vegetarianism is fundamentalist nonsense. There's plenty of accounts of the Gurus hunting and eating meat. If a tasty animal becomes dinner, it's just getting out of that incarnation with a chance to become something better.

The "official" view of death is supposed to be that a person's death is to be celebrated as an opportunity to advance to ultimate union with godness. So you could be doing that steer a favour.

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05-22-2002, 07:04 PM	#66
krazytamak Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: LA, CA Posts: 26	sikh, here's a problem with sikhism: reincarnation. it is so far-fetched and does not seem reasonable under some careful scrutiny, however "cool" the idea may sound. the problem with reincarnation is that it assumes a human level of decision making and consciousness in all living things. reincarnation can make sense (doesn't mean it's true) if you look at it from the point of a human, but the theory requires it to work from the point of view of any animal or plant and that's a big problem. if i do really "bad" this life i go to a much lower life form, say an ant or a bacterium. Now as a bacterium if I do "good" I can move up in my next life. Problem is that I doubt very much that a bacterium or plant(or pick your favorite low life form) is conscious. Not to just talk about the extremes, in case you pick a low life form that is conscious, it does not think about things that don't exist in the here and now- similar to a human in early development. Even a deer, even if a deer does have consciousness (which I'm not sure of), I doubt very much it thinks like a human. I doubt very much that it thinks of its decisions in a moral sense since that would require thinking of things/concepts that are not in the here and now, which is a very advanced level of consciousness that even humans require time to develop during growth. So to repeat my main idea, the problem with sikhism is reincarnation adn the problem with that is that it assumes a human level of thinking in all life forms since without this assumption, promoting a bacterium to a higher life form is meaningless since it hasn't been making moral decisions by which to accumulate karma. Reincarnation seems to be feasible (not necessarily right) when you look at it from the human point of view, but it has to work from any organism's point of view. By the way, I'm a former Jain which for those who don't know is also a Hindu variant (much older than Sikhism) that believes in reincarnation and karma theory. My argument against reincarnation was originally formulated against the Jain version of reincarnation. I don't think Sikh reincarnation should be much different, but if it is, then please do clarify. my secular understanding of reincarnation: it is essentially a spiritual theory that was developed to rationalize and maintian the political stability of the caste system in Hinduism. That is, play your role and be a good untouchable and you'll be a higher human in the next life. As Hindu variants such as Jainism and Sikhism dropped the caste system as being wrong or offensive, they still maintained this inoffensive theory of reincarnation even though the main motivation for creating such a radical theory was to support the political stability of a caste system. also, are you a vegetarian? if yes, then that's the right answer. if not (and I know some Sikhs who aren't), you're inconsistent. believing in reincarnation and meat eating are very inconsistent philosophies. any thoughts on that?

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