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Jainism at a glance





Jainism is an ancient religion from India that teaches that the way to liberation and bliss is to live lives of harmlessness and renunciation.

The essence of Jainism is concern for the welfare of every being in the universe and for the health of the universe itself.

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Jainism and the divine


Jains do not believe in a God or gods in the way that many other religions do, but they do believe in divine (or at least perfect) beings who are worthy of devotion.

This makes it difficult to give a straight answer to the question "is Jainism atheistic?" The scholar Heinrich Zimmer suggested that a new word was needed: transtheistic, meaning "inaccessible by arguments as to whether or not a God exists".

God and the problem of evil

The Jain view of God enables Jainism to explain the evil and suffering that exists in the world without the intellectual difficulties faced by religions that have an omnipotent, wholly good, creator God at their heart.

Where religions such as Christianity find the problem of evil one of their toughest tests, Jains use the existence of evil as a reason for denying the existence of an omnipotent, wholly good, Creator.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/jainism/beliefs/god.shtml

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hear ye, from a son of jains--

The Problems with Jainism

July 3, 2011
by Guest Contributor

I don’t write about my parent’s religion here very often, but since this weekend marks the 16th Biennial Jaina Convention, we might as well discuss Jainism.

For those who don’t know, Jainism’s major tenet is non-violence. If you know anything about Jainism, that’s what you know about it. Unfortunately, that one idea seems to negate all the other nonsense Jainism propagates.

Sam Harris wrote about the non-violence aspect of Jainism in The End of Faith (where he argued that even moderate religions were harmful):

A rise of Jain fundamentalism would endanger no one. In fact, the uncontrollable spread of Jainism throughout the world would improve our situation immensely. We would lose more of our crops to pests, perhaps (observant Jains generally will not kill anything, including insects), but we would not find ourselves surrounded by suicidal terrorists or by a civilization that widely condones their actions.

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While the “non-violence” aspect is admirable, Jains still believe in plenty of b***:

# Jains believe in a never-ending, cyclical time cycle, with phases of “rising” and “falling” happiness. Each phase lasts several thousands of years. This is all fiction, of course.

# Jains believe that they can accumulate and shed karma and this impacts their future lives (reincarnation). There’s no evidence of this.

# Jains support being free of materialism — not because it can be destructive in and of itself, but because it’ll allow you to more easily break free from the cycle of reincarnation. They’re doing a good thing for the wrong reason.

# Jains don’t believe in a god, per se, but they do believe in supernatural beings who have broken free of the reincarnation cycle to attain Nirvana. In fact, there are 24 beings who have done that… and we know their names. We memorized their names as children. Though there’s no evidence any of them ever “attained Nirvana.”

# Jainism encourages an 8-day-long (or worse), unhealthy fasting during the holy time of the year. During the fast, you may only consume water that’s been pre-boiled.

# The Jain rules regarding a vegetarian diet seem like they’re made up on the spot. Eggs are bad, but milk is ok. Potatoes and other food from the ground are bad, but there are exceptions depending on the day. Alcohol is forbidden, but young Jains go to bars all the time. The rules make hypocrisy rampant… but almost unavoidable.

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Demi-gods, nirvana, “next lifetime,” karma? Those beliefs sound like something out of Scientology. But Jains take them very seriously.

The funny thing is that so many Jains go into scientific fields, and yet, I never hear Jains say this stuff is untrue. They find a way to compartmentalize it and ignore it. When you ask them what they believe, they’ll say “Non-violence”… but they won’t mention the several levels of Hell and multiple levels of Heaven.

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It’s always nice to see a religion that advocates kindness and respect, but that shouldn’t make it immune from criticism when it’s warranted. Jains are very bad at being self-critical, and it has plenty of beliefs that are untrue. I’d love to see a Jain organization, or blogger, or adherent offer up the evidence for their supernatural beliefs because I’m convinced there is none.
…
Note to my parents (who’ll probably never see this, anyway):

This is why I never had a desire for you to set me up with a “nice Jain girl.”

http://www.patheos.com/

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