In this essay I compare the differences between monotheism and polytheism and how they affect the world. I am sick and tired of hearing that monotheism is better than polytheism. It is like a born blind man asserting that there is only one true color. None of us can know how many gods are there but we still fight over how many are there. For the record I am atheist and think the universe is the ultimate god which created itself.
| Monotheism - Notably Christianity and Islam | Polytheism - Notably Hinduism. | |
|---|---|---|
| Dark Ages | These are the religions of the dark ages. Christianity led to the dark ages of europe and only after its break up was europe able to come out of the dark ages. Islam led to the dark ages of arabia and africa. It still has not come out of its dark ages. | There is no dark ages or light ages that correspond to polytheism. |
| Science | The followers of these religions believe that the bible/koran contains the one and only truth. This leads to banning of all other books on the premise that if the book says what the bible/koran says then it is repetitive and useless. If it doesn't say what the bible/koran says then it is false. This leads to banning of all books other than the bible/koran and this leads to the dark ages becoming inevitable in these religions. These religions set back the progress of science and mankind by two thousand years by their ignorant attitude. | Since there is no single holey book these religions live in harmony with science and give way to science when there is a conflict between science and what any holey book says. So dark ages is not possible with these religions. |
| Darkness and light | These are the religions of darkness. Its symbols are the symbols of the night, stars and moon. Christianity - the star of david. Islam - The crescent of the night. | These are the religions of the day and light. Its primary symbol is the symbol of light and day, the sun. |
| Karma vs. Grace | These religions are built on the basis of grace of god. Its followers are taught that they can do anything (even murder) and then if they ask the forgiveness of god and manage to get HIS grace then they can escape their actions. | These religions are built based on karma and not grace. Karma is a sanskrit word meaning action or work. Karma doesn't mean reincarnation necessarily. It means that you cant escape your actions. If you do good actions you will get good results. If you do bad then you will get bad. You can't escape your actions and thoughts through the grace of god. |
| Male Chauvinistic | These religions refer to god as HE 99.99% of the time. | These religions worship gods and goddesses equally. |
| White Chauvinistic | These religions esp christianity pict god as a white eurpoean male. | These religions have gods in all colors, white, black, green, red, blue. |
| Corpse worshipping | These religions teach you bury your dead and visit them every now and then. The symbol of christianity is a stinking rotting naked bloody corpse hanging on a cross. Though they cover it with a loin cloth to hide the fact that the corpse is that of a jew, everyone knows that criminals were crucified stark raving naked two thousand years ago. In Islam the corpse of muhammad is worshipped at the tomb of the prophet by the millions visiting Medina. | These religions predominantly burn their dead and forget them. No corpse worshipping needed. |
| Tolerance | These religions are totally intolerant of other religions whether mono or poly. Almost all the persecutions, murder, mayhem of all religious battles of the past can be traced back to these religions. These religions though they worship corpses and the darkness potray the polytheistic religions as demon/devil worshipping, when in fact they are the worshippers of the one true satan. How do I know they worship satan? I know because both the bible and the koran advocate murder. Any book that advocates murder is satanic, is that not so? | Not just tolerant but accepting of all faiths. They have to be accepting as they have to accomodate a diverse set of gods and beliefs without conflict. Conflict between polytheistic and monotheistic religions can be traced back to the monotheistic intolerance and demonizing of polytheistic gods. |
| Atheism | The followers of these religions cant be atheistic. | Followers of polytheism can be atheistic, all they have to believe is in karma (cause/effect not reincarnation) not in any god or gods. |
| Sadistic God | The followers of these religions believe that god is a sadistic scum who will relish burning disbelievers in hell. Punishment in hell is tied not to whether you are a good human or bad but on whether you believe in the one true (satanic) god. Hitler is blessed with heaven for believing in christ while gandhi is supposed to be burning in hell for not believing in christ. | God is mostly irrelevant, as karma is a natural concept that takes care of all actions good or bad. Karmic balance is solely determined by your actions not by your belief in any particular god. |
| Blsaphemy | The followers of these religions have no choice other than to revere jesus/mohammed. So they feel threatened if someone talks bad about their sacred idol. So blasphemy and apostasy is outlawed and punishable with lashings and death. | Since both gods and goddesses are worshipped there is no single person to revere. You have a choice of persons to revere, so you can readily blaspheme against any god because it is not the only god or prophet. |
| Royalty | Both Christianity and Islam are royal diseases. They spread first to the ruling class of a land and later on the converted rulers use their armies to harass and harass their citizens to convert to their rulers religion. | Polytheistic Indians have no problems with selecting/electing a muslim president, a sikh prime minister and a catholic leader of opposition. A non-christian can't become the ruler of christian USA and a non-muslim can't become the ruler of muslim countries. |
| Form | These religions result in totalitarian governments. These religions are like single person dictatorships allowing for no criticism by the citizens. Only because of the separation of the church and state they are forced to be civil. | These religions are like a multi party democracy where everything is subject to scrutiny and change. There are 4 vedas all of them criticizing each other. There are 18 upanishads criticizing all the 4 vedas and each other. |
| Culture | These religions wiped out the original cultures of Europe, Arabia, Africa, North and South America and Australia. They now seek to wipe out the original cultures of the Asia. Monocultures are dangerous and are very prone to stagnation. | These religions absorb other cultures instead of seeking to obiliterate them. They even absorb from the monocultures of Christianity and Islam. Diversity is the way of nature and polycultures are natural. |
| Blood shed | The followers of these religions are authorized by their butcher holy books to shed the blood of disbelievers. | 90% of world's vegetarians are hindus. They are vegetarians because they abhor blood shed. |
| Festivals | The festivals of these religions are marked by blood shed. Millions of turkeys are killed to celeberate christmas. Millions of goats are killed to celeberate bakrid. | Even non-veg Hindus celeberate their festivals by abstaining from shedding the blood of animals on festival days. |
| Eco friendliness | Millions of perfectly good trees are cut down and covered with crap to celeberate christmas. | Polytheism reveres all life. By making a god out of elephants and monkeys and most other plants and animals, polytheism protects the environment because people will protect things that they worship. Ordinary villagers are known to step in front of poacher bullets to protect wild elephants and deers etc. |
| Suicidal | By glorifying heaven and denigrating earth life, these religions produce a strong urge among its followers to die and reach heaven soon. Though Christianity calls suicide a sin, it still glorifies martyrdom and the suicide of jesus. Islam glorifies dying in the name of allah. Do you then wonder why 99% of suicide bombers in the world are muslims? Do you still fail to see the link between monotheism and terror? | Because of belief in reincarnation, a person who commits suicide is thought to be reborn right here on earth (probably as a lesser animal like donkey), so whats the point of committing suicide to become a lesser animal? So these religions discourage suicidal tendencies in man. |
On an unrelated note, 'Caste' is like a huge endogamous family with millions of members. It is a phenomenon unique to the east but is not necessarily a part of hinduism. Indian christians and muslims also follow the caste system. So you don't have to follow the caste system in order to be/become a hindu. Unlike what most hindus believe, hinduism can be exported to outside of india. Once it was exported to almost all of the east, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Africa, China and Japan (in the form of Buddhism). Whereas monotheism thrives in the absence of knowledge and by the banning of knowledge, Hinduism thrives in the presence of knowledge and access to knowledge. The prolification of the internet that threatens christianity and islam, is actually a blessing for hinduism. Now that makes it sound like I am a hindu, but I am not. I don't worship anything. In fact I advise you to not have any religion at all, but if that is too much for you and you really do need some religion, I am speaking up for hinduism because it is much better than Christianity or Islam. It is much better than monotheism.
List of Indian Religions, all living peacefully with each other.
The following religions are monotheistic but still live peacefully without any persecution from the above religions because they don't exhibit intolerance of polytheistic gods. For thousands of years not a single Jew or Parsi have been killed by hindus in the name of religion. Only when monotheism is mixed with conversion practices does it become intolerant and invites intolerance from polytheism.
Assorted thoughts on Hinduism:
Not driven by a book. One of the stumbling blocks for people of other religions when they look at hinduism is the fact that hinduism is not driven by a holy book. Since they come from a religion that follows a holy book they think that ALL religions have to follow some book. Though hinduism has thousands of holy books, it is not driven by any of them. Most hindus (99% of them) have never even seen a holy book. Holy books are mind numbingly boring, who wants to read them? Hinduism is driven by people. It is not a religion for children where you need a list of dos and don'ts. It is a religion for adults where the said adults decide for themselves what is good, what is bad, what to worship and the mode of worship.
Temples are for praying. Hindu temples unlike temples of other religions is not a place for preaching. People come to the temple, pray, go around the temple a few times and depart. No one has to listen to brain washing preachers in a hindu temple.
Mountains move faith. This is a parody on the phrase "Faith moves mountains". In hinduism it seems to be the opposite. Hindus have a habit of plonking a temple on top of whatever mountains they come across and temples on top of a mountain seems to attract more devotion than those on the plains. So in hinduism mountains move faith.
Worshipping Cows, Rats and Monkeys. One of the favorite ways of Christians and Muslims to ridicule Hinduism is to call Hindus worshippers of nature, cows, rats and monkeys. But they miss the fact that Hinduism protects the environment by making a god out of animals and trees. Without Hinduism the Indian elephant and many other species would have become extinct thousands of years ago. Another thing. Science asserts that monkeys created man, so if we must worship our creators, what is more logical than worshiping monkey gods. This logic can be stretched to 'Nature created man, so whats wrong with worshiping nature?'.
This site was last modified on Sunday 07th of December 2008 10:09:46 PM Copyright © 2007 G.Shankaranarayanan. All rights reserved. |