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From: tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A Call to Religious Unity   -   The Baha'i Faith
Message-ID: <20980015@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 03:52:50 EST
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-k.20980015
Posted: Thu Dec  6 03:52:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Dec-84 03:35:08 EST
References: <248@mhuxh.UUCP> <20980004@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>, <1417@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 32

> >Fine, I'm glad you want religious unity.  You can start by throwing off the
> >explicitly monotheistic paradigm.  It is a very strong barrier to any sort
> >of authentic eclecticism.
> 
> How do you propose to fit explicitly monotheistic religions into a
> polytheistic framework?  In comparison, it's simple to resolve polytheisms
> into a single deity through a number of different methods (e.g. the way
> Christianity deals with the Trinity).
> 
> Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe

Monotheistic religions tend to be more superstitious than polytheistic, in
that they tend to consider their absurd models as literal fact, whereas
polytheistic religions often have a far more symbolic approach to their
absurd models.  It is perfectly easy to reconcile the two in a variety of
ways: (1) Monotheism is a variant of polytheism in which the ruler god
(Zeus, etc.) has come to dominate the religion and drive out other symbols.
(2) Polytheism is a variant of monotheism in which the various aspects of
divinity are given independent existence.  (3) "God" is a symbol of the
underlying unity and motive force of the universe, whereas polytheistic
deities are symbols for other parts of experience.  Others may be devised at
will, including the Baha'i: but to insist that a religion must serve a
monotheistic, polytheistic, or atheistic underlying model (as the Baha'is
do) is not real eclecticism.
-=-
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center
ARPA:	Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K	uucp:	seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim
CompuServe:	74176,1360	audio:	shout "Hey, Tim!"

"Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are
but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains."
Liber AL, II:9.