Quotes about atheist
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Frits Staal photo

“[A Hindu] may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does.”

Frits Staal (1930–2012) Dutch indologist

Ritual and Mantras: Rules without Meaning, quoted in An Introduction to Hinduism https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Introduction_to_Hinduism/KpIWhKnYmF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA12 by Gavin D. Flood, p. 12.