Americans are adopting a more Hindu Way of Life
Uttara Choudhury / DNATuesday, August 18, 2009 16:04 IST
New York: Americans are becoming more like Hindus in the ways they think about God, themselves, each other, and eternity, according to an article in the upcoming edition of the Newsweek. Written by the magazine's religion editor, Lisa Miller, the article notes that around 65% Americans (according to a 2008 Pew Forum survey) were shifting to the Hindu belief that there are many paths to God.
It says the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is also growing. At least 30% of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious", according to a 2009 Newsweek poll, up from 24% in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism". "You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says.
"It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great -- and if going to Catholic mass works, great," the article quotes Prothero as saying.
Here's another way, the article says, in which Americans are becoming Hindu: 24% of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a Harris poll.
"Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they comprise the 'self', and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection...
Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit--where identity resides--escapes.
In reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies," the Newsweek says.
"So agnostic are we [Americans] about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them -- like Hindus -- after death."
More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6% in 1975, it adds.
Source - http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_americans-are-adopting-a-more-hindu-way-of-life_1283376
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