bare

cross

Love the point you raise about Islam relying on the Ummah to establish the personal connection that is hard to have with a formless God. What you say about the ancient Greek religion vs. Hinduism is precisely what I had in mind too coming to this thread – qualitative vs. quantitative supremacy of one deity.

On a somewhat related note to your comment, congregants in one Indian church I know ranged from those who had statues and pictures of Jesus and Mary and had lamps, flowers before them to those who would not allow themselves to even have a bar cross in their home for fear that it would be “idolatry”.

Sorry about the late response. You raised some excellent questions, and I am posting what I think about them below. Most of this is just my personal opinion, and there is a fair amount of generalization.

I’m taking it that everyone agrees that Hinduism fails to meet the simple definition of “belief in multiple Gods” which is a lay Western accepted definition of polytheism. Please correct me if anyone feels that this contradicts what you have said. Venu zeroes in on one issue which is critical to me for polytheism. When are multiple entities really multiple and when are they different aspects of the same? The difference lies in whether they may compete.

IMHO, a relgion should be classified based on the nature of the highest power it recognizes. For example, Hinayana Buddhism is better classified as atheist than polytheistic, even though it may recognize hindu gods. This is because the most powerful ‘entity’ in Buddhism is still the Eternal Cycle, which is not any god but just a ‘law’, and even the gods are seen as subordinate to it, though they may be more powerful than humans. A perfect polytheistic religion, on the other hand, may be the religion of the ancient Greeks, where Zeus was the most powerful god, but the difference was merely quantitative, not qualitative. Zeus was like so many other gods, only more powerful and virile.

Can someone provide an argument about why Catholic (definitely christian no matter what protestants say) worship of Mary and the saints doesn’t put it at the same level of closeness/distance to monotheism as Hinduism where a Vishnu worshipper can have have similar regard for Ganesha, Hanuman?

You raised an extremelyinteresting point there. Religions need to do a constant balancing act between the philosophical/intellectual needs, and the emotional needs, of their followers. From the intellectual point of view, is it satisfying to define God as an ‘unknowable essence’. However, this does not serve the emotional needs of many people; people prefer a personal God who is less distant, looks after them and occasionally grants a favor or two. In christianity, this need is answered by the figure of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Most christians I know are far more passionate when they talk about Jesus than they are about God.

Islam has worked very hard to resist this temptation, by refusing to deify Mohammad, and disallowing all idols. However, I feel, many muslims derive the comfort of a personal god, from the concept of the ummah. Prayer in Islam is a very communal exercise, and they feel a closeness and sense of identity with their muslim brethren during prayer, which helps to make up for the lack of of a less distant god.

Making statements like “Hinduism is monotheistic” that challenge that teacher’s firm beliefs is a great place to get a discussion going on that fact that there is nothing particularly superior about mono and that people like this teacher needn’t be so smug.

I agree with you, that pragmatically it may be a good approach to start a discussion. However, I often find the ‘people of the book’ and little too smug, and it just puts me off all discussion. Maybe its just me .

Just an interesting factoid, I thought I would point out.

Here’s a hopefully much more convincing example with less apocryphal connections to Nazism. (Hint: These trees were planted in Germany.)

Proof positive, here is a picture from a temple in north India, about 3 months ago.

About 6 months ago, I went to a lively debate by a Evengical Christian theologan from a seminary and a Buddhist Professor at OSU sponsored by Socrates Club. In some ways they were unique as both of them practiced religion and were also academic scholars. What came out of discussion were two things:

They are essentially two strands of major religions: dharmic and abrahamic (I haven’t said anything new yet) – the interesting thing that the society at that time plays a major role when that region is born. A shepard like religious leader (Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed) had to take birth in middle east nomadic society with sparse resources at that time. It would have not happened in India at that time. Religions are not born out of vaccuum. Religions from South Asia has lot to do with the way people have lived there.

Another concept, religions are not static constructs. Like Buddhism and Hinduism has centuries of to and fro, they give and take concepts from each other. Also, Buddhism in Japan today is quite different from what is in Sri Lanka – there is strong cultural osmosis. Same for Christianity in Africa, Asia (India), Europe, Middle East are different. Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha is quite different Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series. So, people drum-beating homogenized, neatly-packaged, pristine forms of their religion just crack me up. Triva: There are few well known Catholic Priests (American and Europeans) who profess Christianity as well as Buddhism. They were discussed too. I am forgetting their names right now.

In the end, Buddhist Professor said Buddha would consider Jesus Christ an enlightened one, and the Evengelical theologican was also quite gracious about different ways to wisdom.

It seems you cannot read the whole paper unless u have access to jstor. I am sorry I did not realize this earlier. If you(or anyone else) don’t have access and want a copy, plz let me know and I’ll try to send in a copy. Usually univs have access, I guess.