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From: pez@pyuxn.UUCP (Paul Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Damager-God = Shiva/Yin ?
Message-ID: <352@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 16:56:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.352
Posted: Fri Sep 20 16:56:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 06:06:12 EDT
References: <-145727676@sysvis>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway, N.J.
Lines: 20

George,

	You attempt to relate concepts from eastern religions (Shiva from
Buddhism and Yin from Yin/Yang) to the nature of the Damager God Himself.
What you seem to miss is the erroneous assumption that evil is ``naturally''
coupled with good, that for every evil force there is a natural equal
opposing good force. Rosen has beaten to death the term ``wishful thinking.''
But it certainly applies when we see people looking at the willful evil
present in the world, and hypothesizing not only that there is another
willful force respresenting good, but also that that good force is the
``God'' that they whorship. You ask if my ideas are basically rehashes
of old ones. In a way, they are, as you have pointed out by showing examples
of evil deities and forces. The big difference between my ideas and theirs
(and also gnosticism) is that I choose not to make the assumption about
the existence of a benevolent God that others do.

Be well,
-- 
Paul Zimmerman - AT&T Bell Laboratories
pyuxn!pez