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