on tolerance and religion
There was a thing on PBS last night about the long standing animosity between Christians and Jews. They talked about the history of it and such for a while, and towards the end they had video from an exchange program of sorts between a synagogue and church, where the congregations each listened to a sermon in the other house. For the most part the reactions were what you'd hope for, that they realized that their preconceptions were mostly wrong, that they're all worshiping the same god, and so on. One man had the perfect summation: He said that now he sees that when Jesus does come down to Earth and the press conference is called, someone's going to ask if it is his first or second visit, and Jesus will only reply 'no comment'.
HOWEVER there were some people who couldn't have missed the point harder if they tried. One woman from the Christian congregation kept going on about how sad she was that the synagogue didn't know the love of Jesus and such, in that really grating tone of superiority.
There is a point to this besides venting: the Hindus are the ones who've gotten this thing right. I'm not saying that we should all pick up and worship Shiva, but hear me out.
In the Hindu faith there are many gods and many sects dedicated to the gods. Shiva and Vishnu are particularly popular, but there's also the elephant headed god Ganesh and the Shakti followers. It should also be noted that the Hindu gods don't behave how, say, the Greek gods did. If you look at how they are worshiped, their festivals, and so on, they're more similar to Catholic saints. The only real difference between the two is that the saints lived on earth first, and while the Hindu gods might incarnate themselves occasionally they weren't originally human.
Furthermore, the thing that stands above everything is called Brahman. It's what you're supposed to be working towards in the path to enlightenment. It's the source of everything, the truth behind everything. One analogy is that a gold ring and a gold necklace both look very different, but at the most basic level they are both gold. The shape of all things is different, but at their core they are all Brahman. It's also not in the form of a person, but it is present in the gods and it can be worshiped through them, sort of the same way the gods can be worshiped through various statues and tokens. The gods are easier to focus on, basically, so you don't have to be a philosopher to get where you want to go.
Where you find all kinds of animosity between Christians and Jews and Muslims, or even between Protestants and Catholics, the various Hindu sects have never really had a problem.
For example, take two of the most popular sects, those devoted to Shiva and Vishnu. Vishnu is the maintainer of the universe, and Shiva is the destroyer (Brahma is the creator but he doesn't have a big following). Those who follow Vishnu will say of the Shiva worshipers that they've missed the point a bit, and are seeing the portion of Vishnu that is destructive and taking it as the whole when it's not. However, they're still on the right track so it's no big deal, since worshiping a part of Vishnu will still get you closer to enlightenment and the core of all the gods is Brahman anyway. And the Shiva worshipers would say the same of Vishnu.
The thing is that this all encompassing ideal doesn't just apply to the traditional Hindu gods. The Jewish god is also included, as is the Christian god and the Muslim god, and anyone who chose to worship the Greek or Egyptian gods would also be 100% doing all right. Going back to icons, it's similar to the idea that worshiping in any given church is fine because the core of it is the same, no matter what differences there are in the masonry.
This makes sense and there would be a lot less irritation floating around in the religious sphere if it were more widespread outside of India.
HOWEVER there were some people who couldn't have missed the point harder if they tried. One woman from the Christian congregation kept going on about how sad she was that the synagogue didn't know the love of Jesus and such, in that really grating tone of superiority.
There is a point to this besides venting: the Hindus are the ones who've gotten this thing right. I'm not saying that we should all pick up and worship Shiva, but hear me out.
In the Hindu faith there are many gods and many sects dedicated to the gods. Shiva and Vishnu are particularly popular, but there's also the elephant headed god Ganesh and the Shakti followers. It should also be noted that the Hindu gods don't behave how, say, the Greek gods did. If you look at how they are worshiped, their festivals, and so on, they're more similar to Catholic saints. The only real difference between the two is that the saints lived on earth first, and while the Hindu gods might incarnate themselves occasionally they weren't originally human.
Furthermore, the thing that stands above everything is called Brahman. It's what you're supposed to be working towards in the path to enlightenment. It's the source of everything, the truth behind everything. One analogy is that a gold ring and a gold necklace both look very different, but at the most basic level they are both gold. The shape of all things is different, but at their core they are all Brahman. It's also not in the form of a person, but it is present in the gods and it can be worshiped through them, sort of the same way the gods can be worshiped through various statues and tokens. The gods are easier to focus on, basically, so you don't have to be a philosopher to get where you want to go.
Where you find all kinds of animosity between Christians and Jews and Muslims, or even between Protestants and Catholics, the various Hindu sects have never really had a problem.
For example, take two of the most popular sects, those devoted to Shiva and Vishnu. Vishnu is the maintainer of the universe, and Shiva is the destroyer (Brahma is the creator but he doesn't have a big following). Those who follow Vishnu will say of the Shiva worshipers that they've missed the point a bit, and are seeing the portion of Vishnu that is destructive and taking it as the whole when it's not. However, they're still on the right track so it's no big deal, since worshiping a part of Vishnu will still get you closer to enlightenment and the core of all the gods is Brahman anyway. And the Shiva worshipers would say the same of Vishnu.
The thing is that this all encompassing ideal doesn't just apply to the traditional Hindu gods. The Jewish god is also included, as is the Christian god and the Muslim god, and anyone who chose to worship the Greek or Egyptian gods would also be 100% doing all right. Going back to icons, it's similar to the idea that worshiping in any given church is fine because the core of it is the same, no matter what differences there are in the masonry.
This makes sense and there would be a lot less irritation floating around in the religious sphere if it were more widespread outside of India.