[lit-ideas] Re: Comparative religion
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:28:56 -0500
>
> Many of the institutions of Christianity as we know it, on the
> other hand, like rosaries and monasticism, can be traced to
> Buddhist (or Jain) sources.
>
Christianity has borrowed extensively from many religions. Even the
backbone of Christianity, Easter, is essentially a spring follows winter
resurrection festival. I'm not familiar with the Jewish religion but no
doubt it has its collection of idolatrous borrowings. The angels are
lesser gods, for example. The only thing distinguishing the three, I would
say four, major religions from paganism is that in monotheistic religions
there is one god with lots of mini gods, and in pagan religions there is
one head god among many gods.
Now for the purpose of my post. No one has mentioned Mormons. Mormons are
in fact, the world's third largest religion and the fastest growing,
possibly soon to outstrip even Christianity in numbers. I don't quite
understand the Mormons other than that they are not Christians. They are,
as I understand or misunderstand it, closer to Islam than to Christianity
in their acceptance of Joseph Smith as a prophet who directly descended
from the prophet Christ. Mohammed, of course, is also a prophet, not a
god. Neither Islam nor Mormonism believes in a son of God. Because of my
general disinterest in religion, it was only within the last week that I
learned, was surprised to learn, that Mormons are not Christians. If
anyone knows anything about Mormonism and cares to correct my
misperceptions, I would be much obliged. I would also be appreciative of a
quick rundown of Jewish iconography and symbols. I see a resemblance of
Judaism to Islam in that the Jews also worship one God instead of a
trinity. Instead of Mohammed, they have David, Abraham, etc.
>Of course there are the Western Zen types who
> might claim that the practice of "just sitting" is a philosophy,
> but that would turn every bullfrog in the world into a
> philosopher.
>
A.A. Except that the bullfrog, as far as we know, is not concentrating on
focusing on his breathing. There's a lot to be said for just sitting in
any case. Imagine how much better off the world would be if people would
just sit instead of killing each other and the like.
> The trouble is, I think, that religion is a Western category
> which is defined by the degree that a set of beliefs and
> practies resembles those of Christianity. There are scholars
> who think that only Christianity can be called a religion.
>
>
A.A. The scholars in the red states are certain of this.
Andy Amago
> --
> Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
> EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
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