AHC Hindu-Christian relegion

truue but i would like to add that hinduism has similiar viewpoint. Except the only difference is in christianity you are immediatly christian while in hinduism you have to do prayer and get enlightened before becoming a brahmin or work to get into a higher class if you werent born into a brahmin family.

Umm. No.

Caste is an extremely complex issue and varies from place to place but you do not work to become a brahmin. You are irrevocably the caste youre born into. Also class and caste are two completely different things. A lot of brahmins, for example, were cooks (as the food they cooked would be acceptable to all other castes) cooking for richer, lower caste merchants.

Also, as I said, theres no one caste system- it varies hugely in place and time
 
Actual christianity has social class. At the top are the monarchs and later prime ministers and presidents and then it goes down from their.

You see initially the social classes were not meant to be discriminated against in India. Actually the symbolism was that the lower classes were the ones who did all the labour. After all in any society you need to have a bluue collar labour force. Which was excatly what the bottom classes were. Theny ou had the merchants aka the buisnessmen and skilled workers as in any society.
Basically the social class of hinduism was originally meant as a way to classify different social strata and teach them how they should act. In fact nowhere does it say t shun the lbour. Actually they were respected for the work they did. Now you see temples at the time were like monastries.
Basically think of hindu temples as being similiar to mount athos or other holy christian places where really only the preists visit.
This was how temples were created. Now it was possible for a lower class labour person to rise in rank. It was unlikely but it could occur like in any other society. So how can you expect commoners who havent been enlightened or realized to enter these holy places. Look at Valmiki for excample, he was not a brahmin but because he did much hard work and became enlightened he became a great saint. That basically implies that if one achieved realization or mastered the vedas then they would be allowed in the temple grounds.

Thats really the problem with hindu vedas is that in reality all the stories and epics are not true at all, they are just ways in which the yogis explained how the world works through stories so the common people can understand. Every vedic tale has a profound meaning behind it However this get misinterpreted as fact leading to much confusion.

Now over time of ocourse untouchables came to being but they were not their initially. In fact that had to do with sheer haughtiness and ego rather than the vedas.



THe problem is that due to this set in stone social strata the upper classes came to view the lower classes with distaste much like today.

So really you cant say christianity is not a system based on class. It is. As is islam and virtually every relegion. heck the whole world runs on a class pyramid.

Just to give you guys some clarification.

And like I said above, find a way to make reincarnation and god is in yourself and everywhere changed so they can be compatible somhow with christinaty. This IMO is the main problem. '

i am glad of your analysis of hindu society, ancient hindu society there was definetly vertical movement

Sage Valmiki - A guy belonging to tribal caste but is revered with his epic 'Ramayana'. i can tell you he moved from a tribal to a Maharshi (revered by gods and humans alike)

Sage Vyasa - A guy born to a fisherman girl but became the writer of another epic 'Mahabharatha'. They called him Veda Vyasa because he divided Vedas and they called him as none other than god Vishnu ('Veda vyaso bhagavan rishi'). he is revered by gods and humans alike.

Sage Vishwamitra - A guy born in warrior caste but became one of the greatest sages who wrote many stanzas in vedas.

Arundathi - she is born in an untouchable caste but sage Vashista married her and she became a wife of a great sage and she is revered by every caste during marriage ceremony. the hindu trinity of gods (brahma, vishnu, maheshwara) wanted to test her and were so impressed by her and wanted her as their mother and born to her as children.

these are some examples at the top of my head. Hindu society is very simple for followers but very complex for others and there are many misconceptions. Hindu society for it to survive thousands of years there is a simple logic which is misunderstood by one and many, even many hindus does not understand and try to pour oil into fire.
 
i am glad of your analysis of hindu society, ancient hindu society there was definetly vertical movement

Sage Valmiki - A guy belonging to tribal caste but is revered with his epic 'Ramayana'. i can tell you he moved from a tribal to a Maharshi (revered by gods and humans alike)

Sage Vyasa - A guy born to a fisherman girl but became the writer of another epic 'Mahabharatha'. They called him Veda Vyasa because he divided Vedas and they called him as none other than god Vishnu ('Veda vyaso bhagavan rishi'). he is revered by gods and humans alike.

Sage Vishwamitra - A guy born in warrior caste but became one of the greatest sages who wrote many stanzas in vedas.

Arundathi - she is born in an untouchable caste but sage Vashista married her and she became a wife of a great sage and she is revered by every caste during marriage ceremony. the hindu trinity of gods (brahma, vishnu, maheshwara) wanted to test her and were so impressed by her and wanted her as their mother and born to her as children.

these are some examples at the top of my head. Hindu society is very simple for followers but very complex for others and there are many misconceptions. Hindu society for it to survive thousands of years there is a simple logic which is misunderstood by one and many, even many hindus does not understand and try to pour oil into fire.

While these are certainly examples from the Vedas, in historical times there's been no such flexibility. The caste system varies widely from region to region (e.g. In Kerala the Namboothiri Brahmins had the strictest caste rules and considered everyone besides themselves and the Nair caste to be untouchable while this is certainly not the case in neighbouring Tamil Nadu where brahmins were just another caste alongside the others)
 
The caste system has changed and evolved along with the passage of time. Just look at the transformation that took place in Kerala which was called a mental asylum by Vivekananda himself.Even in North India the inter-caste confrontations and competitions are maintained and promoted by the scheming politicians who wish to create vote-banks for their selfish political agenda.Today the castes are not groups prescribed by religious texts but vote-banks manipulated by the politicians and the so-called community leaders.
 
In an incredibly vague sense, Sikhism is that. They took Abrahamic monotheism and grafted it onto a Dharmic culture. OK, it was likely Islam rather than Christianity that supplied the monotheism...

One line is that Sikhism is Hindu Protestantism, which has a core grain of Truth, even if no factual basis. (comparing Truth vs truth, if you will.)
 
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Might be possible from the Hindu end, but unlikely from the Christian point of view. The only possible way might be in the context of an earlier European conquest of India in which the church, eager to convert all those heathens, tacitly allowed some Hindu gods to be reimagined as saints or perhaps angels.
 
Sikhism is not the only religion that can be termed as Hindu Protestantism. Both Buddhism and Jainism came up in protest against the inequalities and superstitions that prevailed in the Brahmanical religion of that period around sixth century B.C. Sikhism was born as a result of the contact of Hinduism with Islam. The birth of Brahmosamaj headed by Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the result of the influence of Christianity and the Western culture on the Hindu elite.The birth of Aryasamaj under Dayanand Saraswathi was a reaction against the intrusion of both Islam and Christianity.Both these cults appeared in the nineteenth century. Several organisations and cults have come up in Hinduism during its long course of history.
 
Might be possible from the Hindu end, but unlikely from the Christian point of view. The only possible way might be in the context of an earlier European conquest of India in which the church, eager to convert all those heathens, tacitly allowed some Hindu gods to be reimagined as saints or perhaps angels.

And, quite frankly, an earlier European conquest of India simply isn't techically feasible.

By the way, I think we're all forgetting the Hare Krishnas who do syncreticise some aspects of Christian theology
 

Winnabago

Banned
Create a strong trading Indian empire during late Roman times.

This empire would trade with Axum heavily, converting lots of people to Hinduism, just as Christians were doing the same.

Both nations being too far apart to have any real fighting in the area, and both nations likely are friendly, as they both dislike the Sassanids. So, the two cultures meld with local traditions, producing a Christian-Hindu nation.
 
A heavy trade did exist between Rome and South India even before the birth of Christ and had continued for centuries.The port of Muziris on the western coast, was the center of spice trade and it is said that Greek and Roman traders came to Muziris frequently and stayed here for months at a time.Large quantities of Roman coins have been obtained from these places during archeological explorations. Muziris is believed to have been destroyed by floods and a change of course of the river Periyar in Central Kerala,by the end of the first millenium.
 
Create a strong trading Indian empire during late Roman times.

This empire would trade with Axum heavily, converting lots of people to Hinduism, just as Christians were doing the same.

Both nations being too far apart to have any real fighting in the area, and both nations likely are friendly, as they both dislike the Sassanids. So, the two cultures meld with local traditions, producing a Christian-Hindu nation.

There was already vast amounts of trade between Rome and India. The trouble is it was mostly Western traders going East.

Conversion to Hinduism is a bit iffy- IOTL in SE Asia it tended to happen during the Buddhist era where Hindu mythology and practice came alongside Buddhist evangelism. This is sort of the right time period for that but the problem is that Indian traders mostly don't seem to have made the journey West. It's quite evident why- their ports act as spice entrepots for the West so merchants from the Middle East were going to come there anyway while Indian merchants went East to the Indies for other spices and trade goods. This is evident from the spread of South Indian culture- Eastward across the Bay of Bengal to SE Asia while a similar distance to the West in Axum there's nothing.

Thus to get Indian cultural influences really spreading West you're going to have to have some sort of incentive for Indian cultural agents (i.e. traders and their ancillary communities) to go that way.
 
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