zezt a dit:
So just for convenience let me make a list of belief systems as I understand them, and how looking at this may help us understand Islam and what it means in this world, where we are at etc?:
followers of Shiva (shaivites) ~~ Shiva himself abandoned the sexist and racist varnashrama system, yet was a great lover to his devoted wife. Worshippers of Shiva smoke ganja and are generally not aggressive.
followers of Vishnu (vaishnavas) ~~ Krishna, the avatar or source of Vishnu, says in the Bhagavad-gita that he created the varnashram system, based on a person's nature (guna) and work (karma),
not birth. So vaishnavas are generally not racist, but they do live a life that is dominated by all kinds of rules and regulations, determined by ancient and recent scriptures. At least the founder of the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON, a prominent branch of the gaudiya-vaishnava tradition) did make statements that could be considered sexist and to some extent intolerant of homosexuals, and there are many more in the Purana's (~1000 BC - 600 AD), his favorite scriptures. The founder died in 1977. Much has changed since then. Women have equal rights in all matters, are considered equally intelligent, and it's ok to be gay. Vaishnava scripture doesn't encourage violence.
polytheistic hinduism ~~There may be an authoritarian structure of pandits, and the varnas: different ranks of society, the highest being the brahmanas and the lowest the sudras (untouchables). Lots of Hindu scriptures describe epic battles, but they are very old stories (predating the tension in the Middle-East), and there are no orders to the reader to take up the sword or anything. An important group of scriptures, the Upanishads, were written in forests by people who had renounced city life. They are not concerned with war or politics at all, but deal only with the nature of reality.
Zezt, I know there are lots of Hindu's in the UK. How are they integrating into Western society? Are there fundamentalist groups?
I do remember one case of religious intolerance: Hindus sued the makers of the first Lara Croft movie, because her jumping on top of the giant Goddess statue and blowing living Hanuman statues to pieces was considered offensive to them.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200112/s434734.htm
Oh, they were actually vaishnavas, not ISKCON though. And no threats of physical violence:
If the film maker does not apologise and remove these scenes from the film immediately, we will have no choice but to seek legal redress," he said, adding that the group was "very serious" about the threat of a law suit.