While I don't understand Balagangadhara's denial of us having a 'Religion' either (in any case we <i>do</i> have what Shintos, Taoists, Greco-Roman traditionalists, N American Native Americans have - and just like all theirs, it is something that most certainly IS well-defined; however we absolutely <i>don't</i> have anything like christianism/islamism),
I also don't understand your reference to 'faith' in a recent post. ('Faith' does not mean what you think it means).
That christianism is profoundly different from Hindu Dharma is the same argument that the Greeks and Romans gave to the christianists with respect to the GrecoRoman tradition. This, in spite of christianism <i>outwardly</i> copycatting GrecoRoman Tradition. (E.g. the way the catholic church in India is now promoting 'idolatry' on purpose, pushing Mary as a 'goddess' figure, copying Hindu ritual forms, describing christianism as a 'way of life', and see this latest inculturation).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->how different are Hindus and Christians when it comes to believing in super natural force(s)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Incredibly different. But to get that, you have to stop seeing christianism as a Hindu and start looking at it as a christian: i.e. understand christianism the way they understand it. Then you understand what compels them to do what they do.
That is why you are also wrong in supposing - in another thread that I don't want to interrupt - that any 'christian' who does not accept the historicity of jeebus can possibly be a christian.
No. They cannot be.
Resurrection is the PIVOTAL christian belief. That jeebus saved people for their sins by dying ('he shed his blood for you!' 'Don't you know that? He shed his blood for you!') - for which he had to have lived. And that if you don't <i>accept</i> this, and his sacrifice, you're going straight down the well. I mean, down to hel.
Two things. (2nd point is in the next post)
1. Some of the earliest christians did have jeebus as a non-corporeal entity:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Paul and Hellenism</b>, by the British scholar Hyam Maccoby, discusses how Paul's ideas have much in common with those central to the ancient Hellenic mysteries. The book looks at how Paul's Eucharistic meal is unlike Jewish concepts (where it would be blasphemous) but is instead very like Greek sacramentalism.
The violent death of Paul's Christ (in the spiritual realm) is unrelated to any previous Jewish ideas of God's salvation. However, it matches those of many Greek savior gods who, Maccoby tells us, "are the centers of rites in which their deaths are rehearsed for some salvific purpose".
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1d.htm
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â Christâs features and myths are in many ways similar to those of the Greco-Roman salvation "mystery religions", each having its own savior god or goddess. Most of these (e.g., Dionysos, Mithras, Attis, Isis, Osiris) were part of myths in which the deity had overcome death in some way, or performed some act which conferred benefits and salvation on their devotees. Such activities were viewed as taking place in the upper spirit realm, not on earth or in history. Most of these cults had sacred meals (like Paulâs Lordâs Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23f) and envisioned mystical relationships between the believer and the god similar to what Paul speaks of with Christ. Early Christianity was a Jewish sectarian version of this widespread type of belief system, though with its own strong Jewish features and background.
  -- Earl Doherty, author of The Jesus Puzzle<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2a.htm pointing to
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/jhcjp.htm and http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/puzzle1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"In the first half century of Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other epistles under names like Peter, James and John, the Gospel story cannot be found. When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry, the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him. God himself is often identified as the source of Christian ethics. No one speaks of miracles performed by Jesus, his apocalyptic predictions, his views on any of the great issues of the time. The very fact that he preached in person is never mentioned, his appointment of apostles or his directive to carry the message to the nations of the world is never appealed to. No one looks back to Jesusâ life and ministry as the genesis of the Christian movement, or as the pivot point of salvation history."
-- The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Journal of Higher Criticism, Fall 1997)
  <b>A Conspiracy of Silence</b>
  The Gospel story, with its figure of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot be found before the Gospels. In Christian writings earlier than Mark, including almost all of the New Testament epistles, as well as in many writings from the second century, the object of Christian faith is never spoken of as a human man who had recently lived, taught, performed miracles, suffered and died at the hands of human authorities, or rose from a tomb outside Jerusalem.
  Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in terms of a spiritual, heavenly figure; they never identify this entity called "Christ Jesus" ... as a man who had lived and died in recent history.
  <b>A Sacrifice in the Spiritual Realm</b>
  Paul does not locate the death and resurrection of Christ on earth or in history. According to him, the crucifixion took place in the spiritual world, in a supernatural dimension above the earth, at the hands of the demon spirits (which many scholars agree is the meaning of "rulers of this age" in 1 Corinthians 2:8).
 <b> Jesus becomes History</b>
  Only with Ignatius of Antioch, just after the start of the second century, do we see the first expression in Christian (non-Gospel) writings of a belief that Jesus had lived and died under Pilate, and only toward the middle of that century do we find any familiarity in the wider Christian world with written Gospels and their acceptance as historical accounts. Many Christian apologists, however, even in the latter part of the century, ignore the existence of a human founder in their picture and defense of the faith. By the year 200, a canon of authoritative documents had been formed, reinterpreted to apply to the Jesus of the Gospels, now regarded as a real historical man. Christianity entered a new future founded on a monumental misunderstanding of its own past.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Continued in next post
I also don't understand your reference to 'faith' in a recent post. ('Faith' does not mean what you think it means).
That christianism is profoundly different from Hindu Dharma is the same argument that the Greeks and Romans gave to the christianists with respect to the GrecoRoman tradition. This, in spite of christianism <i>outwardly</i> copycatting GrecoRoman Tradition. (E.g. the way the catholic church in India is now promoting 'idolatry' on purpose, pushing Mary as a 'goddess' figure, copying Hindu ritual forms, describing christianism as a 'way of life', and see this latest inculturation).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->how different are Hindus and Christians when it comes to believing in super natural force(s)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Incredibly different. But to get that, you have to stop seeing christianism as a Hindu and start looking at it as a christian: i.e. understand christianism the way they understand it. Then you understand what compels them to do what they do.
That is why you are also wrong in supposing - in another thread that I don't want to interrupt - that any 'christian' who does not accept the historicity of jeebus can possibly be a christian.
No. They cannot be.
Resurrection is the PIVOTAL christian belief. That jeebus saved people for their sins by dying ('he shed his blood for you!' 'Don't you know that? He shed his blood for you!') - for which he had to have lived. And that if you don't <i>accept</i> this, and his sacrifice, you're going straight down the well. I mean, down to hel.
Two things. (2nd point is in the next post)
1. Some of the earliest christians did have jeebus as a non-corporeal entity:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Paul and Hellenism</b>, by the British scholar Hyam Maccoby, discusses how Paul's ideas have much in common with those central to the ancient Hellenic mysteries. The book looks at how Paul's Eucharistic meal is unlike Jewish concepts (where it would be blasphemous) but is instead very like Greek sacramentalism.
The violent death of Paul's Christ (in the spiritual realm) is unrelated to any previous Jewish ideas of God's salvation. However, it matches those of many Greek savior gods who, Maccoby tells us, "are the centers of rites in which their deaths are rehearsed for some salvific purpose".
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1d.htm
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â Christâs features and myths are in many ways similar to those of the Greco-Roman salvation "mystery religions", each having its own savior god or goddess. Most of these (e.g., Dionysos, Mithras, Attis, Isis, Osiris) were part of myths in which the deity had overcome death in some way, or performed some act which conferred benefits and salvation on their devotees. Such activities were viewed as taking place in the upper spirit realm, not on earth or in history. Most of these cults had sacred meals (like Paulâs Lordâs Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23f) and envisioned mystical relationships between the believer and the god similar to what Paul speaks of with Christ. Early Christianity was a Jewish sectarian version of this widespread type of belief system, though with its own strong Jewish features and background.
  -- Earl Doherty, author of The Jesus Puzzle<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2a.htm pointing to
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/jhcjp.htm and http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/puzzle1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"In the first half century of Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other epistles under names like Peter, James and John, the Gospel story cannot be found. When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry, the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him. God himself is often identified as the source of Christian ethics. No one speaks of miracles performed by Jesus, his apocalyptic predictions, his views on any of the great issues of the time. The very fact that he preached in person is never mentioned, his appointment of apostles or his directive to carry the message to the nations of the world is never appealed to. No one looks back to Jesusâ life and ministry as the genesis of the Christian movement, or as the pivot point of salvation history."
-- The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Journal of Higher Criticism, Fall 1997)
  <b>A Conspiracy of Silence</b>
  The Gospel story, with its figure of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot be found before the Gospels. In Christian writings earlier than Mark, including almost all of the New Testament epistles, as well as in many writings from the second century, the object of Christian faith is never spoken of as a human man who had recently lived, taught, performed miracles, suffered and died at the hands of human authorities, or rose from a tomb outside Jerusalem.
  Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in terms of a spiritual, heavenly figure; they never identify this entity called "Christ Jesus" ... as a man who had lived and died in recent history.
  <b>A Sacrifice in the Spiritual Realm</b>
  Paul does not locate the death and resurrection of Christ on earth or in history. According to him, the crucifixion took place in the spiritual world, in a supernatural dimension above the earth, at the hands of the demon spirits (which many scholars agree is the meaning of "rulers of this age" in 1 Corinthians 2:8).
 <b> Jesus becomes History</b>
  Only with Ignatius of Antioch, just after the start of the second century, do we see the first expression in Christian (non-Gospel) writings of a belief that Jesus had lived and died under Pilate, and only toward the middle of that century do we find any familiarity in the wider Christian world with written Gospels and their acceptance as historical accounts. Many Christian apologists, however, even in the latter part of the century, ignore the existence of a human founder in their picture and defense of the faith. By the year 200, a canon of authoritative documents had been formed, reinterpreted to apply to the Jesus of the Gospels, now regarded as a real historical man. Christianity entered a new future founded on a monumental misunderstanding of its own past.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Continued in next post