From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: Polytheism
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<1992Aug5.170223.13932@oclc.org> <12776@inews.intel.com> 
	<1992Aug11.115707.12671@phillip.edu.au> 
	<1992Aug11.171145.8583@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <12903@inews.intel.com> 
	<l8io0pINN8es@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 21:52:40 GMT

So, is Hinduism with it's one transcendent and three aspects called Brahma,
Vishnu, Shiva, polytheism or monotheism? Is there really a difference
between monotheism and polytheism or have these words only served to try
to make one religion better or more valid that all others?
 
In article <l8io0pINN8es@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> 
danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes:
>Yes there is a difference. Many were murdered by the catholic church
>for not accepting the trinity. And even more have been killed over
>monotheism vs. polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, etcetra. It was
>monotheism that most vehemently proclaimed it was right and everyone
>else was wrong. 
>If you prayed more to Athena, and I to Venus, we probably wouldn't
>try and kill each other; historically monotheism has not been so
>benign.

Well said, well said. It is interesting to speculate on how Christianity
became aligned with the conversion Devil. After all, conversion is evil, we
do agree on that don't we? Assuming a creator of all humans, and assuming
that only that creator can be the judge, then no human can be in the position
of judging whether another's beliefs are correct or not, unless that mortal
judge is aligned with the Christian Devil. Ignoring the dogmatic case of
society judging a psychopathic mass killer, it should be clear that all
beliefs are valid, after all they were created. There is only one who can
judge another. Any human being who tries to force a single belief onto persons
who hold unique beliefs is quite clearly aligned with the Christian Devil.

But, assuming that conversion is evil, how did Christianity get diverted onto
this path? After all, Judaism is not a conversion religion. Why Christianity?
If a system of beliefs is so good, so valuable, why is it necessary to
force it onto non-believers? How did the salesman, the fisher of men, the
seller of free gifts become part of Christianity? I do have some ideas, as I'm
sure you've suspected. I think part of it comes from Judaism. In Judaism, there
is one tribal God for the chosen people or the tribe. This one God says that
He is the only God for the chosen people, all other Gods are not the Gods of
the chosen people. Now we see some problems already, but at least it is
acceptable that other tribes will have other beliefs. In fact, it may actually
be unacceptable for other tribes to believe in this one tribal God, unless
they become part of the tribe, at their own initiative. Anyway, from this
Jewish God of the Jews alone, we go to Christianity which now asserts that this
one tribal God is the only valid God for all people, no matter what tribe they
may belong to. And this in itself is not necessarily bad, but we can see how
that would justify conversion of all non-believers and it quite conveniently
explains why the Europeans felt they were better than all other non-Europeans
and were justified in "discovering" the "New World" and populating it with
"settlers" to work the "virgin" ground. Any native peoples were sub-human as
they were pagans and could be viewed as "noble savages". These "savages" 
could be used as slaves, as justified by the Bible, or they could be converted
to Christianity on the belief that the more souls one converted to the cause,
the better one's chances of getting into Heaven. It should be quite clear
that all this was the work of the Christian Devil. And the conversion work
that continues today, in Africa and other places where people are too poor to
afford maintaining their beliefs against the attack of missionaries. The only
question is how was an entire religion sidetracked into alligence with the 
Devil?