atheism should be reserved for precocious yet ignorant children and rebellious teens, not adults who should know better

don't criticise a pregnant woman for being a bit tipsy, she's drinking for two..

honestly even the upanishads don't talk about Brahman and yoga enough.

i don't like samkhya, with its tattvas and its dualism, even though its an aid to yoga classically. i agree with the tantrics that the shakti is not insentient, indeed, no part of existence is devoid of Consciousness. i have this complaint with vedanta too. i love vedanta, i love the prasthanatrayi, but i love tantra especially kashmir shaivism even more.

Hinduism isn't the best source for information about Gods character or conduct (certain streams of christianity probably are, though in the vast corpus of Hinduism there are definitely stories about God that rival Christs virtues). also ironically Hinduism is a poor source for information about divine law/dharma (esp compared to the other indian religions which shun casteism, the dharma sutras/shastras were written by brahmins for brahmins and are very casteist. hinduism has a sexism problem too) with the notable exception of its (shared with other indian religions) frequent emphasis on nonviolence, especially uniquely (in world religions) towards animals. furthermore the religion of most of the vedas is not ideal, being so focused on performing often violent sacrifices for and hymning the virtues of the devas instead of extolling/expounding upon Brahman or providing insight into yoga or tantra. the system of sacrifice of the vedas is also quite transactional, it is not nishkama karma. and while one seldom finds a purva-mimamsakan today, the puranas which arguably dominate modern hinduism are also flawed. the "greatest purana", the srimad bhagavatam, has literally thousands of examples of sati.

with all that being said, Hinduism has a monopoly on a supreme truth which is the panentheist monist nature of God, non-dual absolute existence/truth/goodness, consciousness/knowledge, and bliss. hinduism also innovated another truth which is karma and the transmigration of the soul, both key vindications of Gods justice. but probably most importantly, Hinduism has the most developed science of liberation (God realization) of any religion, originating karma yoga in the bhagavad gita, having the most developed brahma-vidya (jnana yoga) of any religion, having the advanced meditative techniques of raja, hatha, and laya yoga, and also having greatly developed (prema)-Bhakti to the high point of any great saint-producing religion.

i mischaracterized this author clearly. what beautiful tolerance! he is correct.

i'm gonna be so sweaty tonight i already know it.

i get why someone would say that grace is dispensed foremostly through sacraments, aka what God has made sacred for our benefit. but the most sacred thing a person can experience is their own divine soul, full of bliss and love.

my dog is yapping at a moth outside like its an intruder

gosh i went from polemics against "impersonalists" to polemics *by* impersonalists. one guy calls jnana "speculative knowledge", the other refers to a "bhakti cult". don't you guys realize you all want the same thing and will achieve it one day???

maybe i'm so mad about the monism-lite view of final beatitude because i desperately want my personality to be annihilated in the Supreme. i don't want to remain an individual soul forever.

if you want to know my position on whether the world is real or unreal, i consider the samsaric existence to be like a dream, which is to say, real because it is a genuine and natural state of being (and all things are Being) but unreal by its transience and lack of universality. a dream appears to be false, but is based in truth.

man i just learned about nimbarka sampradaya, formerly i had never looked into dvaitadvaita merely because it has "dvaita" in it (silly me!). i find it "neat" like the other monism-lite sampradayas i mentioned yesterday.

i don't agree with sankara that Ishvara is a product of maya, or that worship of saguna brahman leads only to gradual liberation (rebirth in the highest abode where one eventually becomes liberated instead of liberation in this lifetime). I believe God is equally personal and impersonal and transcends the duality of both, and that all the major types of yoga can produce immediate or gradual liberation depending on ones degree of success. i'm a monist but i'm much more in line with kashmir shaivism.

now this slaps

i'm gonna stop reading this and read something that i can actually learn something from

in one part he redefines the meaning of nirguna

this guy is *not* a fan of jnana yoga, he calls it "speculative knowledge"

there needs to be a derogatory word for people who believe this crap about God having an essential form and thus they obsess over Gods body. God transcends form and all forms are His. and "see with His ears, hear with His eyes" is just fluff. God is all-perceiving with or without taking a body.

incorrect, and i'm not just talking about how He claims Brahma is higher than Shiva here. anyway, the only being which is VASTLY higher than all other beings is the Supreme Lord. but its convenient for a brahma sampradaya guy to say this.