Believe in God. Believe in the "wrong" God ?

[Aldebaran]

Inspired by this answer


There is, of course, the Tentacle Factor to consider.

1) You believe in God
1a) God exists - Go to heaven
1b) God doesn't exist - Nothing

2) You do not believe in God
2a) God exists - Go to hell. Go directly to hell. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 dollars.
2b) God doesn't exist - Nothing

3) God does exist, but you've been praying to the wrong God.
3a) Be eaten LAST

in this thread

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5648026#post5648026

How can someone who believes in God, can be considered to believe in the "wrong God.


God = God.
religion =/= religion
Still: God = God.

Where is the "wrong" God in all of this?

Salaam. A

[jayjay]

What if the person believes in Jesus Christ all his life, confident he'll get into Heaven, and when he dies comes face to face with Odin? Or Zeus?

That would be really embarrassing, I'd bet...

[Milkman Dan]

There is, of course, the Tentacle Factor to consider.
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fthagn!

[F. U. Shakespeare]

"What if we've picked the wrong church? Then every week, we're just making God madder and madder."

-- Homer Simpson, American theologian

[Stratocaster]

Where is the "wrong" God in all of this?It's the principal flaw with Pascal's Wager (this is a variation of it), which posits that there's no significant downside to blindly believing in God. Well, what if God exists, but instead of being a God who rewards blind faith, he's a God who demands that you use the faculties he gave you to continually pursue truth as it is contained in the physical world he provided? A God who disdains blind acceptance of anything unproven, that is--a God who considers it intellectual laziness, reflective of poor character and unworthy of his respect or attention. Then what?

You will have believed in a God who does not exist, to your own peril.

[Aldebaran]

What you describe is how Muslims are instructed to use their intellect. "Studying is better then praying".

Maybe my OP is not clear enough.
I ask opinions on how people who believe in God can say that others who also believe in God believe in the "wrong" God.

How can this position be defended.

Salaam. A

[jayjay]

What you describe is how Muslims are instructed to use their intellect. "Studying is better then praying".

Maybe my OP is not clear enough.
I ask opinions on how people who believe in God can say that others who also believe in God believe in the "wrong" God.

How can this position be defended.

Salaam. A

I'm still not entirely certain of your meaning, Aldebaran. The piece you quoted in your OP was posted in response to a specific logical fallacy, Pascal's Wager. It was done to point out (in a fairly amusing way) the problem with the construct in question. That problem being: What if you went through life believing in God so you could get to Heaven, and found out when you die that the Man In Charge is actually someone OTHER than Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah?

It's not a claim that people who believe in A/Y/J are worshipping the wrong god, it's an explanation for why Pascal's Wager isn't a valid argument.

[Johanna]

a God who demands that you use the faculties he gave you to continually pursue truth [...] A God who disdains blind acceptance of anything unproven, that is--a God who considers it intellectual laziness, reflective of poor character and unworthy of his respect or attention.
A SUFI FABLE.

A man who had studied much in the schools of wisdom finally died in the fullness of time and found himself at the Gates of Eternity.

An angel of light approached him and said, "Go no further, O mortal, until you have proven to me your worthiness to enter into Paradise!"

But the man answered, "Just a minute, now. First of all, can you prove to me this is a real Heaven and not just the wishful fantasy of my disordered mind undergoing death?"

Before the angel could reply, a voice from inside the gates shouted:

"Let him in—he's one of us!"

[Aldebaran]

Rewriting again the OP:

First Believer in God to Second Believer in God (who follows and other religion to believe in God then First Believer in God): "You believe in the wrong God".

Second Believer in God: "No, YOU believe in the wrong God."

Third Believer in God, who follows an other religion to believe in God then the other two: "No you BOTH" believe in the wrong God".

etc... etc... etc... in the infinite.

Me, to all of them: "God = God. How can any of you say from the other one he believes in the wrong God?"

How can Believers in God answer this question? What is the argument to say to someone who believes in God, that he believes in the "wrong" God, when God = God.


Salaam. A

[Epimetheus]

So you are saying that if you worship one god, you are worshiping your god, no matter how you worship or what you believe? So the christian god is the same as the muslim god is the same as the jewish god? Really? Possible I suppose, but are you saying Odin is really Yaweh? Shiva is really Michael? Prometheus is really Jesus? Are you honestly saying that there is no false relgion, and that everybody that worships somebody is really worshiping your god?

[jayjay]

How can Believers in God answer this question? What is the argument to say to someone who believes in God, that he believes in the "wrong" God, when God = God.

Because the people who actually use Pascal's Wager usually don't believe that the other man's god is the same as their God. Or, to put it more accurately, they don't believe that the other man's god is actually a god.

You're being way too inclusive to understand the American Fundamentalist mindset, sir.

[Aldebaran]

So you are saying that if you worship one god, you are worshiping your god, no matter how you worship or what you believe? So the christian god is the same as the muslim god is the same as the jewish god? Really?

The above is already accepted as being a fact.

Possible I suppose, but are you saying Odin is really Yaweh? Shiva is really Michael? Prometheus is really Jesus? Are you honestly saying that there is no false relgion, and that everybody that worships somebody is really worshiping your god?

I have not much of an idea about the rituals and dogmas of other religions, but I start from the supposition that everyone who believes in God and is convinced that he is worshipping God, can claim he is believing in God and is worshipping God.
How can you, as a human, make a claim that it is otherwise?

Salaam. A

[Ace309]

The gods of different religions are markedly different. Yes, the Muslim, Christian and Jewish gods are generally accepted to be the same, but that's because those religions are, if you accept their dogmas, the products of successive revelations from the God of the Old Testament. Those religions share as a basis the idea that it's the same God.

Other religions aren't. If you're worshipping the God of the Old Testament when in fact Hinduism, Asatru, or any number of other non-Abrahamic religions is the "one true faith," then you're worshipping the wrong god.

Think of it this way. If I started my own religion and declared that the earthly body of Gary Coleman was the highest deity, wouldn't it be consistent with Islam, Christianity or Judaism to call me an idolator and say that I'm worshipping someone I incorrectly believe to be divine? Same difference.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Adebaran, you're approaching the question from a distinctly Islamic perception monotheism. To you "One God" = One God. If you worship one God you are worshipping GOD. It doesn't make sense to you that someone could worship one God that isn't THE God.

In populist western thought, though, two monotheists don't have to worship the same God. Two people can believe that only one God exists but they can have very different ideas and definitions as to who or what that God is. One possibility (which has already been mentioned) is that one or both could worship a human (Jesus) as God and (if Jesus is NOT God) be guilty of Idolotry. Other possibilities would include the worship any of a multiplicity of Gods from other traditions (Zeus, Thor, Mars, Kokopelli) as one God separate and distinct from the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. They might worship God as a Goddess and be in error that way while still being technically monotheists.

It is even rhetorically possible that there exists one God who is not the God of the Bible and the Koran but who has never revealed himself. What if God is an all powerful rabbit who lives on Pluto and eternally punishes anyone who worships Jesus or Allah?

There are many ways to conceive of one God.

None of the above is intended to ridicule monotheism, only to show that pascal's Wager is not a logically convincing argument to believe in the Christian concept of God (which is what it was intended to be).

[rfgdxm]

How can someone who believes in God, can be considered to believe in the "wrong God.
What if there are many gods, some more powerful than others? If that is the case, you need to choose to worship the right god(s), or you're screwed. Consider ancient Greece and Rome. Neither tried to convert those they conquered to worshipping their gods. The reason they didn't is that they attributed their success to worshipping the right gods. By worshipping their gods, these gods blessed them with the ability to conquer other peoples. If these other societies built temples to their gods, and made the right sacrifices to them and worshipped them, then maybe their gods would look favorably on those they had conquered.

[Vlad/Igor]

Maybe my OP is not clear enough.
I ask opinions on how people who believe in God can say that others who also believe in God believe in the "wrong" God.

How can this position be defended.
It can't really be defended because it is an inherently selfish point of view. For Christians, God is or can be an intensely personal and intimate experience, and must be present in the world at all times and all places. There are some Christians who have taken this theology further and believe that God belongs to them alone. This runs counter to Islamic theology that states that Allah is not part of the world at all, and can never be known by humans. Christian fundamentalist theology very often includes the perception and belief that God is exactly as they perceive God, and anyone who perceives or believes differently is worshiping the wrong God, or worse, Satan.

Something I learned in a course on Islam may help if you aren't already aware of it:

Christianity : : Islam
God Allah
Jesus Qu'ran
Bible The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)

In other words, Christians believe that Jesus is God/God's Word in a human form, not to debase or degrade God, but to bring God to the world in a way that can't be ignored. But as with humans and their posessions, they can be selfish, and that is what you see in the statements you hear.

Vlad/Igor

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Think of it this way. If I started my own religion and declared that the earthly body of Gary Coleman was the highest deity, wouldn't it be consistent with Islam, Christianity or Judaism to call me an idolator and say that I'm worshipping someone I incorrectly believe to be divine? Same difference.
Think of the Latin Mass that you could devise:

Quo de loquitas, Willis?

[Epimetheus]

How can you, as a human, make a claim that it is otherwise?

Salaam. A

How can you, as a human, make the claim that it is?

[kniz]

Are you honestly saying that there is no false religion, and that everybody that worships somebody is really worshiping your god?
Saying that "everybody that worships somebody" covers a lot of territory. There would need to be some culling out of people like Rev. Moon, Kool Aid Jones, Gary Coleman and that rabbit on Pluto, but in regards to the accepted major religions of the world, I believe that we all are worshipping the same God. That does not mean that I believe everything connected with how they worship God and many other fine points..

Joseph Campbell wrote about the similarities of religions in all parts of the world. He said they were based on the same principles; including atonement, redemption, resurrection, rebirth, etc. The problem is that they are basically all ancient religions based on an outdated world-view. All religions come from a time when the best view was obtained by climbing the nearest hill. The thing that bothered the Jews in 500 BC was that God was back in Jerusalem and they were in Baghdad. They believed that because of the way they viewed the world. Today, we see the world from satellites and from the moon and even farther out.

In order to conform to the present worldview, religion must be inclusive and not exclusive. The idea that God is on the side of one religion and not that of another is not only outdated, but also terribly misleading. Most of us recognize there is a problem when one team made up of Christians prays for victory over another team made up of Christians. The way we see God must recognize that all of humanity is equal under God. If aliens from other worlds should show up, then our worldview would again require a major tune-up.

My view of God may not be as good as yours, but that could be because I'm seeing Him from a step ladder. ;)

[Mangetout]

What you describe is how Muslims are instructed to use their intellect. "Studying is better then praying".

Maybe my OP is not clear enough.
I ask opinions on how people who believe in God can say that others who also believe in God believe in the "wrong" God.

How can this position be defended.

Salaam. A
The only first-hand experience I have of people talking about others 'believing in the wrong G[/g]od' is fundamentalist Christianity.

In this case, what they usually mean is either:
-The entity the accused believes to be 'God' is real, but is in fact something other than God (and that the accused is being actively deceived)
-The entity the accused believes to be 'God' is imaginary (and that the accused is merely deluded)

In both of these cases, the implication is that the subject of the accused's reverence is [not actually God], as opposed to [the wrong God], but that's possibly to subtle a distinction to cause concern to those making the statements.

[rfgdxm]

Saying that "everybody that worships somebody" covers a lot of territory. There would need to be some culling out of people like Rev. Moon, Kool Aid Jones, Gary Coleman and that rabbit on Pluto, but in regards to the accepted major religions of the world, I believe that we all are worshipping the same God. That does not mean that I believe everything connected with how they worship God and many other fine points..
Some Buddhists, while they believe in an afterlife, don't think there is any god that can be worshipped.

[BrainGlutton]

How can someone who believes in God, can be considered to believe in the "wrong God.


God = God.
religion =/= religion
Still: God = God.

Where is the "wrong" God in all of this?

Salaam. A

There is "God" as a concept severable from any religious or cultural tradition, in which even a skeptical philosopher like Martin Gardner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner) can believe. And then there are gods such as Zeus or Shiva, which are artifacts produced by particular cultures. Yahweh/Allah falls into the latter category, not the former. It makes no difference that he is the God of monotheistic religions. What the ancient Hebrews believed about their tribal god has shaped what the Jews, Christians and Muslims believe about their shared God. It is possible that there is one God in the universe but that He has nothing in common with Yahweh/Allah, did not speak to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed, and pays no attention to the prayers or worship of Jews, Christians or Muslims.

[Johanna]

BrainGlutton: Perhaps your analysis is not quite accurate. Islamic theology represents Allah not as the tribal god of the Israelites or any other tribe, but as the universal God of all peoples. IOW, the Islamic understanding of Allah corresponds to your first description, God-as-such, not an artifact determined by contingent cultural features. You might look at Islamic theology and see the contingency or artifactness of Allah as described there, but just be aware that Muslims themselves understand Allah as that "concept severable from any religious or cultural tradition, in which even a skeptical philosopher [...] can believe." This is what Aldebaran has been trying to say. You should listen to him when he explains his faith, and consider that he actually does know what he's talking about, even if his ability to express himself clearly in English sometimes obscures his meaning a little. Again, you might not think this belief of Muslims is a valid one, but the fact remains that this is what they believe.

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Saying that "everybody that worships somebody" covers a lot of territory. There would need to be some culling out of people like Rev. Moon, Kool Aid Jones, Gary Coleman and that rabbit on Pluto, but in regards to the accepted major religions of the world, I believe that we all are worshipping the same God. Why do some of these Gods need to be culled and not others? And how do you know which ones should be culled?

Some people believe (as I do) that all of these beings need to be culled--that a rabbit on Pluto makes just as much sense as the Abrahamic God (not much).

[kniz]

Why do some of these Gods need to be culled and not others? And how do you know which ones should be culled?
I believe the reason is self-evident.

Some people believe (as I do) that all of these beings need to be culled--that a rabbit on Pluto makes just as much sense as the Abrahamic God (not much).
Whatever floats your boat. If you don't believe in any God, it is not any skin off of my back.

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

I believe the reason is self-evident.It is, in all sincerity, not self-evident to me. Can you tell me how you know which "gods" should be culled and which ones shouldn't?

[EsotericEnigma]

You're debating a semantic point. Use a different vocabulary to ask that same question, and it answers itself.

"Can one person claim that another's belief of the characteristics of God is false?"

The answer is yes, of course. You see it happening every day. One person can easily claim that another person's understanding of God is flawed, and this concept can be easily understood in the abbreviated version of "you worship the wrong God."

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

You're debating a semantic point. Use a different vocabulary to ask that same question, and it answers itself.

"Can one person claim that another's belief of the characteristics of God is false?"I'm not asking if one can conclude that another person's belief in a god is false. What I'm asking is, how does one know which god or gods are false? How does one discern a difference between an invisible pink unicorn, a magical sky pixie, and Allah?

[EsotericEnigma]

I'm not asking if one can conclude that another person's belief in a god is false. What I'm asking is, how does one know which god or gods are false? How does one discern a difference between an invisible pink unicorn, a magical sky pixie, and Allah?

I'm sorry, my post was in response to the original post, not the one above it. I think that was the source of the confusion.

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

I'm sorry, my post was in response to the original post, not the one above it. I think that was the source of the confusion.No problem--- sorry I misunderstood.

[GIGObuster]

Well, happy solstice everyone! :)

Apropos to that: I have to say that I arrived to the conclusion that the current flavor of god has a lot to offer yet. However, the concept of deep time made me doubt on the current mainstream faiths' ideas of what God is:

Consider that 700,000 to 230,000 B.C.: Homo erectus got the Promethean gift: it learned to use fire.

Consider also that 1 million years = 40,000 generations

Then consider the following timeline:
http://www.fsmitha.com/timeline.html
30,000 BCE: In Europe, Neanderthal's have become or are becoming extinct.

20,000 BCE: By now, among other places in the world, humans are in southern Greece.

15,000 BCE: Descendants of people who left Africa have crossed the Bering Straits to North America.

10,000 BCE: .Humans have spread into most habitable places. Sparse populations allow for hunting game, gathering food that grows wild and drifting from campsite to campsite. Storytelling and myth is a major pastime.

8000 BCE:.Hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia begin growing crops to supplement their food supply. A walled settlement exists at Jericho -- near the Dead Sea in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East.

7000 BCE: In the Fertile Crescent, people have begun farming and raising animals. Their farms anchor them to one place. Gods are seen as settled into a temple and place. Still seeing everything as magic and their crops subject to the vicissitudes of weather, people intensify their pleadings to the gods to help their crops grow. They sacrifice humans, sending them as gifts to the gods.
After pondering this subject, IMHO the evidence points to the development of rites to the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon virtually at the same time, (they began to bury their death and left evidence of an early concept of an afterlife and religion) the encounter of those two early humans, mostly in Europe, lead to the demise of the Neanderthal, the result of that struggle is what lead to us (for good or for evil).

But this is important: it was not until around 5000 BCE that we got the Hebrews coming up with the concept of the one current mainstream God, the problem, as anyone that takes time seriously, is this: There was roughly 25,000 years(!!) where the "real" God never bothered to show up (much more than that if one considers fire the item that made us human), then the Son of god appeared around 2000 years ago and a few hundred years later, God showed up to a guy in the Arabian peninsula.

For me, there is a huge and totally unnecessary gap that occurred before and after God bothered to show up.

So unnecessary that I arrived to the conclusion that whatever the Bible or other religious book say, there is no other choice but to realize the books are grossly incomplete. The Bible and other religious books are hitting a cultural “event horizon” of sorts, and this incomplete status is turning into irrelevancy as time goes by.

In conclusion: the probability of the mainstream god being the “wrong God” is very high, so much that I consider it a losing wage.

I cannot advise on who is the right God, I only can say that I don’t know, but by seeing prehistory and history I can say that whatever the right God is, he/she/it is busy elsewhere, or it is evolving with us.

[infamousmom]

Even the god mentioned in the Bible admits there are other gods out there. He doesn't claim to be the only one or that people can't pay tribute to any of the others--just that the people who believe in him gotta put him first in line.

[Johanna]

GIGOBuster, thanks for putting things in chronological perspective. I have often thought that these earliest periods of human prehistory are what's referred to in the Taoist scriptures as "the people of old." Since Taoism dates from the very early period of Chinese history, its reference to people of a far distant past must mean Taoist thought has carried over some continuity from prehistoric shamanism.

[BrainGlutton]

Islamic theology represents Allah not as the tribal god of the Israelites or any other tribe, but as the universal God of all peoples.

So does Christian theology, and Jewish theology. But it doesn't matter. The God they all worship is a cultural artifact. The things they believe about him are determined far more by the purported revelations of ancient prophets than by anything any theologian or philosopher sat down and thought out about what God should be. Yahweh/Allah is no less culture-bound than Rama or Huitzilopochtli.

[EvilHamsterOnCrack]

See, the funny thing is, in many of the cases of people saying that "anyone who worships anything is actually worshipping the same one thing", they believe that that "same one thing" is their God. Now you tell this to the guy worshipping Cthulu (forgive the cliche), that they are actually worshipping Allah, they'd be plenty pissed. Much the same as if the same Cthulu-ist believed that anyone who worships anyone is actually worshipping Cthulu, and then told this to a believer in Allah. And etc..


Get what I mean?

[MEBuckner]

Since I don't believe in any God or gods, the question of whether or not Christians and Muslims and Jews worship the "same God" is a bit academic to me, but it's worth pointing out that there are real differences, especially between the God believed in by Christians and the God believed in by other Western or "Abrahamic" monotheists.

Christians believe in one God who exists in three persons and who was incarnated as a human being. Muslims (and Jews) believe in one God who does not exist in three persons and has not been incarnated as a human being. Different people will characterize those differences in belief variously, from "They are all worshipping the same God in different ways" to "Christians/Muslims are worshipping the true God, but in a better way/in a manner less pleasing to him/in a way which is utterly corrupt and worthless" to "Christians/Muslims are worshipping a false God."

The differences between the God conceived of in Christianity and the God conceived of in Islam strike me as pretty significant, though there is clearly a commonality. I would say there is a closer degree of commonality in some ways between the idea of God in Islam and in Judaism, although in other respects Judaism and Christianity may be a bit closer to each other (sharing a large portion of each other's scriptures, for example).

[Polycarp]

The whole scenario of "same/different god" is based on human conceptions of who/what the deity/-ies in question are like.

My understanding is akin to the views of three people as to the identity and nature of David B: an infrequent long-time poster to Great Debates; the managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer; and a Springfield neighbor with kids who regularly play with his. Each would form a quite different picture of who the man David B is -- each would refer to him by approximately the same name, some using variants on his actual full name and others the handle he uses here. But the person who is their referent is one and the same.

There is agreement among Christians, Muslims, and Jews that the deity they reference by "God" is the same one that revealed Himself to Abraham, who supposedly manifested himself to Moses, through Jesus, and to Muhammad according to their separate traditions. And each conceives of him, as MEB has outlined, in significantly different ways -- but all three claim to have a clearer understanding than the other two of the nature of the Friend of Abraham. That is, they each claim to be explaining, better than the other two, Who it is that Abraham encountered, and Who continued to reveal Himself to others.

[Anaamika]

I don't in any way mean to be offensive, but this is the typical feeling coming from Christianity/Islam/Judaism. If you're worshiping one God, then we're all worshiping the same God, because there is only one God.

Well, when I was Hindu, I didn't in any way feel I could be worshiping any of the Gods from those religions. Hinduism has a very different feel to it, IMHO.

While Hinduism may have one central God at the core of it, it is not so much a God as the physical manifestation of the Universe! That is not comparable to Yahweh or the Trinity or Allah. So the God we worship is not the same.

We also worship hundreds of manifestations of the same God, in His many forms. The method of worshiping is not the same.

The outlook of our religion - reincarnation, karma, dharma, which is all about paying for your sins - is something unheard of in the three major world religions. So the basic tenets of the religion are not the same.

So how can you say we all worship the One God if the One God has a different face every time He turns around?

And this is only one major* religion I've mentioned - this doesn't even go into the dozens of other major religions out there.

*When I say major I'm talking purely in terms of number of followers, nothing else.

[Johanna]

When I'm in philosophical mode, and I contemplate the Deity of the Deists, I am personally convinced that there is a supreme being of all reality. Intellectually I can give assent to this "God of the philosophers." Behind all the various names and faces and attributes seen by different religions, I think there's really a "there" there, but none of the individual versions conceived by humans can completely account for the full reality. Nevertheless, all of them are aiming their devotion in the same direction.

I can understand what Muslims like Aldebaran mean when they identify their Allah with this ultimate, absolute God of the philosophers. Because, looked at objectively, of all the theologies around the world I've studied, the closest match with this God of the philosophers is found in the Islamic theology of Allah and the Vedantic metaphysics of Brahman. (Actually, the Vedantic Brahman is probably an even better match.) This is especially recognizable in the works of Muslim philosophers like Avicenna and Averroes. If you read their accounts of Allah, you will not find any significant difference from the Deists' conceptions of God that our Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence.

Anaamika, your input from a Hindu perspective is valuable, but then remember that Hinduism includes a Vedantic explanation of Brahman which is so universal it can accommodate any other religion's conception of God. In general, I don't think the differences of rituals, dharma, etc. should carry much weight in comparing conceptions of divinity, because those are human processes, and do not say anything about the ultimate nature of divinity, which is the question here.

That's when I'm doing philosophy. When I'm in devotional mode, I am drawn to the Goddess, whether She is conceived as the Shakti Devi of India, or the Maiden-Mother-Crone of modern Celtic Wicca, or Diana-Demeter-Hecate of the Greeks, or Allat-Manat-al-‘Uzza of Arabia, doesn't make much difference to me. Marion Zimmer Bradley, in The Mists of Avalon, kept emphasizing the wisdom of the Druids: "All the gods are one god, and all the goddesses are one goddess."

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I don't in any way mean to be offensive, but this is the typical feeling coming from Christianity/Islam/Judaism. If you're worshiping one God, then we're all worshiping the same God, because there is only one God.

Well, when I was Hindu, I didn't in any way feel I could be worshiping any of the Gods from those religions. Hinduism has a very different feel to it, IMHO.

Heh. More evidence that Hare Krishnas are not like other Hindus :).

Back in my Pagan days, I had a magazine article comparing Paganism to Hinduism and talking about parallels between the two belief systems. I really liked the article, and I naively showed it to a Hare Krishna guy who hung out downtown passing out books.

He read the article, thought about it, nodded, and said, "Yes. I believe this was written by demons."

The idea that there were similarities between (for example) Krishna and Angus Og (an Irish god of love) was utterly repugnant to him. The Hindu Gods were the real ones; all others were false gods or demons.

What fun, what fun!
Daniel

[Johanna]

Left Hand of Dorkness, the Hare Krsna sect (ISKCON) is Vaishnava. Staunchly, uncompromisingly Vaishnava. Whereas the universalist Vedantists and mystics more often tend to follow the Shaiva version of Hinduism. Like Adi Shankaracarya, who taught the definitive Vedantic knowledge of Brahman. He was a Shaiva. In fact, ISKCON refuses to identify as Hindu. Even though they worship Krsna, they reject "Hinduism."

[E-Sabbath]

So, how do you fit Coyote in with this? Not all gods are the Father, after all.

[Loopydude]

Do Muslim philosphers typically operate under the notion that infidels and pagans worship the "right" God, but do so in the "wrong" way? The Jack Chick set seems to regard Allah as an idolatrous phantom, while more sane Christian philosphers tend to simply regard Allah as another name for the Almighty used by folks who aren't Jews, don't think Jesus is an aspect of God, and do think Mohammed was the last of the Prophetic line. It appears to be suggested above that Muslim philosphers might consider Ahura Mazda (or maybe even Zurvan) to be another wrong-headed conceptualization of the Almighty God (and hence Zoroaster a false prophet), while the typical Christian philospher would regard Ahura Mazda as a false god, a sort of Golden Calf, full stop. Hence, to the Muslim, the Christian and Zoroastrian concept of God might be equally inferior, while to the Christian, Zoroastrians strike out, while Muslims connect, but hit a foul, so to speak.