From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!hou5f!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn Newsgroups: net.religion,net.philosophy Title: Re: What would you rather believe? Article-I.D.: sdchema.412 Posted: Sun Feb 13 01:31:04 1983 Received: Fri Feb 18 06:51:15 1983 References: floyd.1174 I for one would not discount the views represented in your list of alternatives to belief in the Christian god. I have had the benefit of seeing other belief systems first-hand in other countries, and of studying them in my anthropology courses, and many of them seem like very interesting and worthwhile alternatives to Christian tradition. For example, the notion of universal consciousness or universal divinity is common to many faiths; there are many ways to practice a religion with this characteristic, including (besides simple animism) Taoism and Javanese religion. The "gods" of such a religion are not omnipotent and hence it may be necessary to render respect to more than one, but they are not usually regarded as throwers of lightning bolts. Every human being has the potential to become divine, in these religions, so they teach that one should behave in this life in such a way as to deserve respect in the next; and later in return for this respect you should bestow such favors as you are able. Other systems permit the belief in "true" divinity, that is to say, the omnipotent kind. The three main branches of Hinduism each have an omnipotent god (Visnu, Siva or Prajnapati (?-my memory fails me)) whose power and deeds are reflected in the behavior of lesser deities and (mortal?) avatars. As I understand it all deities are really variations on the theme of the one god, and hence the system parallels Judaism, Christianity and Islam in some ways. These latter three have demons and angels instead of minor gods, and prophets rather than avatars, but they amount to the same thing. There are also "charismatic" varieties of Hinduism just like Christian kind (or the Muslim kind, for that matter). No religion has a patent on such practices. I guess I want to say that you shouldn't knock it if you haven't tried it. And if you are choosing your religion on the basis of aesthetics then you should be prepared to accept that others may have different tastes. If you chose your religion from the fear of being damned to hell for all eternity then none of this should matter to you and there isn't any sense in discussing it. And here I thought I'd never read this junk -- now I'm actually writing it! Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn