Being a Muslim born, i personally feel krsna consciousness as a logical concept of god.
@samjames3363 Why does Hinduism have so many contradictions in its scriptures?
A very good and appropriate question.
ALL Scriptures contain contradictions - but the problem for those texts is they are allegedly the product of one omniscient author — God. Any contradictions would cast doubt on their validity and demolish their status as Divine Revelation. The adherents of those texts are thus compelled to deny that contradictions exist or to deploy interpretive gymnastics to explain them away.
The Hindu scriptures constitute a whole LIBRARY with thousands of human authors — even a text written by a single author is likely to carry contradictions what to say of a huge number of different authors addressing different topics.
Hindu scriptures - apart from the Vedas – have been heavily interpolated by different scribes and transcribers. So hence a single text has many contradictions which are not necessarily by the original author.
The target audience of the texts determines the content of the text addressed to them - the aims and objectives differ and therefore may appear contradictory. For example the teaching to householders will contradict the teaching given to renunciates. Instructions given to children will contradict that given to adults. Students will be given contradictory instructions and guidance and rules to those given to graduates.
When reading Hindu scriptures one has to taken into account the Filters of Comprehension.
Svabhāva — the personality and character of the person reading and the type of person to whom the text is addressed.
Bhūmika — the level of development of the reader and the target audience of the text.
Adhikāra — the capacity of the reader to understand and apply the teaching as will as the capability of the person being addressed in the text.
And then one must consider:–
deśa — place where the teaching is being delivered
kāla — time in which the teaching was given - times change and so does the teaching. What was valid 2000 years ago is not necessarily valid in 2019.
paristhiti — conditions in which the teaching is being delivered.
Because of the multiple contradictions found in the Scriptures the ancients have developed a comprehensive set of rules and regulations for interpreting them — these rules are found in the corpus of the Mīmāṁsa.
According to Mīmāṁsa when you encounter a contradiction you have three options.
bādhaka - they both cancelled each other out.
vikalpa – choose one option and go with that.
samucchaya – merge them together in a compromise.
So for example. In the Veda there are three kinds of philosophical statements - dvaita - texts declaring duality and those affirming advaita – non-duality. Madhvacharya and Shankaracharya went with the second option - vikalpa - and chose only those texts which supported their philosophy and rejected the others.
Rāmānujacharya on the other hand went with option three - samucchaya and chose those texts (ghaṭaka śruti) which reconciled the two extremes and propagated the philosophical system known as qualified non-dualism.
But at the end , classified for us kaliyuga souls is the srimad bhagvatam.
A very good and appropriate question.
ALL Scriptures contain contradictions - but the problem for those texts is they are allegedly the product of one omniscient author — God. Any contradictions would cast doubt on their validity and demolish their status as Divine Revelation. The adherents of those texts are thus compelled to deny that contradictions exist or to deploy interpretive gymnastics to explain them away.
The Hindu scriptures constitute a whole LIBRARY with thousands of human authors — even a text written by a single author is likely to carry contradictions what to say of a huge number of different authors addressing different topics.
Hindu scriptures - apart from the Vedas – have been heavily interpolated by different scribes and transcribers. So hence a single text has many contradictions which are not necessarily by the original author.
The target audience of the texts determines the content of the text addressed to them - the aims and objectives differ and therefore may appear contradictory. For example the teaching to householders will contradict the teaching given to renunciates. Instructions given to children will contradict that given to adults. Students will be given contradictory instructions and guidance and rules to those given to graduates.
When reading Hindu scriptures one has to taken into account the Filters of Comprehension.
Svabhāva — the personality and character of the person reading and the type of person to whom the text is addressed.
Bhūmika — the level of development of the reader and the target audience of the text.
Adhikāra — the capacity of the reader to understand and apply the teaching as will as the capability of the person being addressed in the text.
And then one must consider:–
deśa — place where the teaching is being delivered
kāla — time in which the teaching was given - times change and so does the teaching. What was valid 2000 years ago is not necessarily valid in 2019.
paristhiti — conditions in which the teaching is being delivered.
Because of the multiple contradictions found in the Scriptures the ancients have developed a comprehensive set of rules and regulations for interpreting them — these rules are found in the corpus of the Mīmāṁsa.
According to Mīmāṁsa when you encounter a contradiction you have three options.
bādhaka - they both cancelled each other out.
vikalpa – choose one option and go with that.
samucchaya – merge them together in a compromise.
So for example. In the Veda there are three kinds of philosophical statements - dvaita - texts declaring duality and those affirming advaita – non-duality. Madhvacharya and Shankaracharya went with the second option - vikalpa - and chose only those texts which supported their philosophy and rejected the others.
Rāmānujacharya on the other hand went with option three - samucchaya and chose those texts (ghaṭaka śruti) which reconciled the two extremes and propagated the philosophical system known as qualified non-dualism.
But at the end , classified for us kaliyuga souls is the srimad bhagvatam.