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Hindu Religious Critiques
The Hindu view is that there should be peace and good will to all people and all religions, that no one should be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. Therefore no one should fear that a true Hindu would interfere with their political or social rights, or their religious freedom. However Hindus should not press this tolerance so far that they fail to defend their own rights or allow distortions of their religion to go on unquestioned by others.
On a religious level, Hindus must employ a
different strategy than in the political sphere. While the political
sphere demands avoidance of religious issues unless political in
nature, in the religious sphere Hindus cannot forget that their
religion is under attack and fail to vigorously defend it. They must
be aware of religious issues and their social ramifications and not
ignore them under the guise of political tolerance.
Hinduism is a pluralistic tradition that contains
many different teachers, teachings, and scriptures, and various
names and forms for Divine. It states that though there is One Truth
there are many paths, which it represents by different Gods and
Goddesses, and various yogic approaches. This is a different
approach than Western monotheistic religions that are prone to an
exclusivism of One God and his only or final representative. To such
exclusive monotheistic beliefs pluralistic traditions like the Hindu
are polytheist, pagan and heathen, the enemy that has to be
converted if not destroyed.
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