“But when I do think about religious problems, I think in Hindu categories. When my father died, it was the first time something really terrible happened to me-and Christianity and Judaism were of absolutely no use to me. My Jewish and Christian friends would take me to synagogues and churches, and it didn't help at all. And then I started thinking about the myths I was translating at the time, which were about death-why there is death, how death came into the world, what happens when we die, speculations about karma and rebirth. The Hindu version of it made more sense to me than anything. It just seemed like Shiva as a god was more likely to be responsible for the world the way I knew it than the gods of Judaism and Christianity. Capricious, beautiful, violent, it just made more sense.”

— Wendy Doniger

About her intent to practice Hinduism.
Q&A with Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Hindus

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "But when I do think about religious problems, I think in Hindu categories. When my father died, it was the first time s…" by Wendy Doniger?

Wendy Doniger25

American Indologist 1940

Related quotes

“As young people, my generation would see a lot of death. I don't think I ever grew accustomed to it. It came in darkness and fervor, by our airplanes, rifles, parachutes, and tanks. But there was something about that first death I experienced the summer of 1939 when I was just eighteen, years before the war, that stayed with me so strongly. Those first few seasons after my father died were dark indeed.”

Lynn Compton (1921–2012) Easy Company soldier turned noted jurist

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 54

“And when I'm lying in my bed, I think about life and I think about death.
And neither one particularly appeals to me.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the song "Nowhere Fast"
From songs

“The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn't know what all the yelling was about.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Interview (March/April 1972), as quoted in The Leading Men of MGM (2006) by Jane Ellen Wayne, p. 406
Context: The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn't know what all the yelling was about. I didn't realize that my body was moving. It's a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, "What'd I do? What'd I do?" And he said, "Whatever it is, go back and do it again."

“I don’t fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, "You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me." It makes me weepy … but I don’t think it can happen unless God wants it to happen because so many people have tried to kill me.”

Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan

Destiny’s daughter (2007)

“I grew up very Christian … My family are still very Christian. I am in no way disrespecting them when I say this: it was overbearing. I believed I was touched by Jesus, and I prayed all the time. I was still very Christian when I left the Marines. I would tell everyone about Jesus — it was almost evangelical. I thought all the good things in my life were because of my faith.
When I came back from expeditions, I had some experiences that made me readdress all that. I'd pretty much known all along that Christianity wasn't for me. Ever since then, I've been on my own quest to find another truth. I can't read novels, but I do read books about cosmology, about astrophysics, about genetics. I'm interested in altered states of mind, and creation myths. It's all part of the same thing — I want to know why we think what we think. Now, I'd describe myself as pan-deist, reluctantly verging on atheist.”

Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian

As quoted in "Bruce almighty: What drives Tribe's presenter-explorer Bruce Parry?" by Ed Caesar in The Independent (11 August 2007) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/bruce-almighty-what-drives-tribes-presenterexplorer-bruce-parry-461007.html

“I was thinking about Casagemas's death that started me painting in blue.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in Pierre Daix, La Vie de Peintre de Pablo Picasso, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977.
Picasso explained his friend Pierre Daix (around 1965), why he started painting in blue early around 1905. Picasso had made a portrait of Carles Casagemas in 1899.
1970s
Original: C’est en passant que Casagemas était mort que je me suis mis à piendre en bleu