Back in my day, we didn't have this newfangled Internet. We had to walk to the library and do our own research. Five miles, uphill, in the snow. Both ways.
Buddism teaching to help sentient beings end their suffering by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth that is, achieving Nirvana.(no God)
Confucianism focuses on human morality and right action. Confucianism is a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, and quasi-religious.(no God)
I am a practicing Hindu by birth and for 42 years now. I can speak for Hinduism.
1. There are no beliefs! Only Experience!
Yes! Hinduism, as a unified religion, was created by the British colonialists when they arrived in India in the garb of traders, eventually enslaving the country for about 200 years. There was no religion called Hinduism before that. The colonizers were staunch Christians and therefore tried to understand the "religion of the colony" through their Christain eyes and ears. They found myriad of practices, and were bewildered by the various assorted pagans and rituals practiced. These pagans and rituals were based on the "Vedas" - for which there was no one printed book! There are 4 Vedas - and people practice any one or all of them or mix of one or two or three of them.
They had a sense of urgency to want to call this whole entire diversified practices by some name. So they called it Hinduism - meaning, practices adopted by people living on the other side of river Indus.
So what are these practices? What is their common root? and What are the beliefs commanded or recommended by this "common root"?
1. The common root are the 4 Vedas, which within themselves are quite contradictory, very diversified, but uphold the whole entire Universe as as the existential Truth. They do not define anything called as God. God is a Christian word, and because the colonizers were looking for God in other parts of the world (perhaps with the intention of discrediting other Gods, and proving that the Christian God was superior to all others!), they invented all the numerous "Hindu Gods." Eventually, in trying to convert Indians to Christianity, they used it as a propaganda that Hindus believe in many Gods. Later Indians who LentNTnglish, learnt this propaganda and started believing that Hinduism indeed, is a religion, and that it believed in many Gods!
The vedas taught people meditation and recommended that they medidate in order to "discover their true self". This art of Self-relization is the core of the teachings of the vedas. Self-Realization requires one to quieten the mind through meditation, and reach the zone of silence within one-self. once you reach this zone of silence - when the chattering mind is no more, you discover yourself. Many people even in modern days manage to get there. But they cannot explain what they perceived or experienced - because the mind which communicates - was not there. This is not sensory experience - but an extra-sensory experience - that is capable of numbing your thought, and senses together. You cannot explain it with words. It is a "state of being" - in which there are no words, no thoughts, no sense organs, etc. When you reach that state, many mystical things start happening. Many great masters have written that you become one with the universal truth, and therefore start understanding the mysteries of the universe, gain the ability to transcendentally communicate with aliens in the other parts of the universe, gain the ability to know the past, present, and the future of earth etc. But in that state, you realize the futility of the everything we hold dear - material possessions, jobs, dollars, etc. that you are totally silenced, and yet totally consumed in happniess that you either start rejoicing and continue living in the happiness, or come back down to earth and describe what happened to you to others. Needless to say, the other dont understand what these great masters said - because without striving for that experience, the common people start interpreting the experience - they start asking the great master whethere he/she has seen God! And the master, in the state of bliss, would answer - if that is what you want to call God, well, yes, I have seen God! The truth is, it is called "Self- Realization" and not God!
This is the experience - a state of total happniess, a state of total knowledge, a state of total silence, a state in which you can only witness but cannot communicate what is going on, an experience of your position in the whole entire universe (not just a country or planet earth) - that resides within every human being that is the core of Hinduism. There are no beliefs. No Gods. Nothing but pure experiential truth. It is there - you want to get it, go get it. you dont think it is there, up to you. You cannot deny that there isn't a universe, can you? you dont have to beleive in the Universe, need you? When you know something is out there, you dont need to believe in it, do you?
You dont have to believe in reincarnation - but in this state you will "know" that it happens. There is no God in Hinduism - only this individual personal experience - you have to do it yourself - somebody else cannot do it for you or experience it for you! To that extent, you may call Hinduism a "DiY" religion. You dont have to beleive in the pagans and rituals. But when you realize this state of being, m
Describe the main religious beliefs of 1 of the 3....Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or
