Zardoz
Posts: 20
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (Chris Hyland @ Feb. 12 2006,10:31) | | Quote | | Then there are also the heavenly planets where we will also find many of the same life forms of humans, animals, plants etc, except without anything imperfect e.g no disease, no growing old, no death, nothing bad going on at all, simply the enjoyment of pleasures by perfected people on into eternity. |
Do hindus believe that this will eventually happen on earth, if so hinduism and futuirism have more incommon than i would have guessed.
I think a creationist once said, "If there is no creation story then there is no origional sin, therefore no need for christ to come to earth". I dont claim to be an expert on the bible, but this seems fairly sensible to me. Evolution says that their was no adam and eve (see above), and that man is not created in the image of god, and was unplanned. This seems pretty incompatible with christianity, if im wrong could someone explain it to me.
Having said that i used to work with someone who did a degree in phylogenetics and was a creationist. She didnt belive in evolution in any form, but it formed the entire basis of her work, and didnt affect how well she worked at all. I think perhaps that is easier for scientists, especially biologists to reconcile evolution with faith, as it is easier to ignore philosophical and theological implications, and therefore seperate the two. |
Hindus do not believe that earth will ever become a "heavenly planet". Planets like earth are believed to go through 4 stages of time called yugas. We are presently in Kali Yuga which according to traditional hinduism started around 5000 years ago and will go for another 432,000 years. Kali Yuga is the last of the 4 ages in the cycle, after Kali Yuga the cycle starts again with Satya or Krita Yuga which will last around 1.7 million years, then Treta Yuga which is shorter, then Dwapara which is shorter still, then Kali yuga which is the shortest. There are many varied beliefs and interpretations for these ideas found within the diverse hindu theological landscape. But the accepted idea amongst all is that each Yuga is characterized by how spiritually, ethically and morally evolved society and humanity is in general. The highest or most evolved time is the Satya or Krita Yuga where humanity is in a golden age, people have much longer lives then today etc. The Yugas following Satya become less and less perfect until we reach Kali Yuga which is the lowest point in human existence and society for earth.
To say "hindus believe this or that" needs to be understood in the context of "most" hindus believe what I am writing, probably around 85% of hindus belong to the Vaishnava group of religions and these are their beliefs. The other major religions of Hinduism i.e Shaivism, Shaktism, and Advaita, have slightly different beliefs to very different beliefs on the following topic of heavenly planets.
The "heavenly planets" are different then earth type planets. There are 2 categories of heavenly planets. The first type is where humans who by dint of their good karma on planets like earth are reincarnated on paradisical planets. They live extremely long lives of pleasurable pursuits without aging, but they do not remain there forever. They can gain good or bad karma there as well and take a lower birth or a higher birth still. The other "heaven" of hinduism i.e the real heaven, is called Vaikuntha.
Vaikuntha planets are eternal. That is where God lives and enjoys life and relationships with eternally perfected people. They are similar to earth in that there is vegetation, animals, human society etc. There is no chance of ever leaving Vaikuntha due to bad karma and taking birth in a lower sphere. Everyone is eternally youthful, life is nothing but pleasure, and it is lived in association with God who also has a human form. It is the ultimate goal of life to attain to life in Vaikuntha for most hindus. With there being trillions of people living there, you could ask how could God live and have relationships with all of those people? In hinduism it is taught that God takes on an unlimited number of human forms (male and female) in Vaikuntha so that he/she can be with everyone. There are also different types of Vaikuntha planets where different types of things are going on. It's a bit more complex but that's the basic run through.
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When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy. Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, "WooHoo, we're rich!" It turns out he meant something different. -Jack Handey
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. Many of these same people also believe that if they woke up tomorrow morning having lost their belief in God, they would all be raping and pillaging by lunchtime.
