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I am reading Shashi Tharoor's take on Hinduism, the following is written:

There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu, not even a belief in God.

Could the truth or falsity of this statement be justified with reference to scriptures?

I am surprised this voted as dupe because the answer here itself puts belief in God as disjoint property to being Hindu...

tryst with freedom
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    Belief in Vedas is required. Anyone who doesn't believe in Vedas is not a Hindu. – river Aug 22 '22 at 22:49
  • hmm but does belief in veda= belief in god..? – tryst with freedom Aug 22 '22 at 22:49
  • since we have not seen god, and vedas are the only source of knowledge that says god exists, it is more important to believe in vedas. it's like saying, believe in lamp first, then you can believe in the room (cos u can only see the room with the lamp). – ram Aug 23 '22 at 17:03
  • see https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/brahma-sutras/d/doc62756.html – Swami Vishwananda Aug 24 '22 at 08:56
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    Does this answer your question? When is someone a Hindu? – Swami Vishwananda Aug 24 '22 at 08:57
  • to know more about hinduism, you should read work of any authentic person. Someone taken path to spiritual journey or read some authentic books prescribed like bhagvad geeta. He might be a good at english but everyone has their own expertiese. – Prateek Jain Aug 24 '22 at 11:23
  • Who decides who is authentic? What basis you say Shashi is not @PrateekJain – tryst with freedom Aug 24 '22 at 12:25
  • Well, as I mentioned in my comment earlier; for me authentic person in this scenario would be someone who has spent some time on spiritual journey. He doesnt fullfill this criteria at all. I would recommend books by swami shivanand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivananda_Saraswati. FYI, I am not his student or follower. But I read his books and for me he is reasonable and authentic. – Prateek Jain Aug 24 '22 at 15:13

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No, belief in God is not a requirement. The Samkhya darsana has a branch that is atheistic.

Vijnan Bhiksu, the great expounder of Samkhya, says in many places of his work Vijnanamrta Bhasya that Samkhya was originally theistic, and that the atheistic Samkhya is only a praudhivada (an exaggerated attempt to show that no supposition of Isvara is necessary to explain the world process) though the Mahabharata points out that the difference between Samkhya and Yoga is this, that the former is atheistic, while the latter is theistic.

A History of India Philosophy, Volume 1, Chapter VII, An Early School of Samkhya by Surendranath Dasgupta

Pradip Gangopadhyay
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