World Religions report

World Religions Report

Introduction

Many view religion in general as fundamentally the same . It worships a god or gods it believes in good and evil , and hopes that eventually good will triumph in the end . While there are probably innumerable religions existing today , each of these are different only and somehow in certain aspects , as they are presented by their followers Nevertheless , in spite of these seeming differences , the purposes and uses of religions are the same . Religions exist to answer the same existential questions such as : Why am I here

? What is the purpose of my existence ? Is there life after death ? What happens when a man dies ? How should I conduct my life here and now ? These are some important questions that religion somehow pacifies inside a person who seeks to quiet down the turbulence of conscience if these queries aren 't addressed (Wenner , 2001 . Although , as stated , religion basically is held by many as serving the same existential purposes , this is an attempt to delineate certain foundational differences between Christianity and Hinduism

Hinduism : Its Origins

Hinduism , as a word , did not start as a name for a religion but was used to mark a specific geographical location . The word hindu was taken from the Sanskrit word sindhu . It was the Persians who originally coined the name hindu ' to allocate the surrounding area of land around Indus River . The Persians mispronounced the Sanskrit word sindhu ' as hindu ' and from then on the area , as well as its inhabitants , were called hindus . Invaders like the Muslims around A .D . 712 , trying to distinguish themselves from the non-muslim inhabitants of the land called the people of that geographic location around the Indus Valley Hindus . Unfortunately , it was an indiscriminate . All the people and their religions , regardless of how diverse those religions might be at that time , all were named after hindu (Bass , 2008 . The same mistake was committed by Christians who upon entering the area found the inhabitants having their own respective religions were provoked and as a result a moniker on them calling the people gentoo , a combination of two words - gentile ' and hindu . The name was actually a derogatory label , much the same as when the disciples of Jesus Christ were first called Christians at Anthioch (Acts 11 :26 . It was to disparage the group . Apparently , the name that stuck was that which the Persians and Muslims called them - Hindus . Thus , the name as it came to be signified originally a region which covers all religious groups and all the natives in a certain area of South East Asia Therefore , to rightly understand Hinduism , it is helpful to trace the etymology of the name . Contrary to common impressions , Hinduism encompasses varied religions . Today , it is primarily found in India

Basic Beliefs of Hinduism

The diversity of Hinduism lies in the fact that its adherents are free to worship their deities in their localities . In spite of this multiplicity in practice and of deities , Hinduism...