Polytheism = multiculturalism = moral relativism.

Ned Flanders has a line when he's trying to convert Apu: "You might a well be worshipping Hawkman!"

Orrin, if all polytheistic societies are immoral, what does that say about our new bestest buddy India?

OJ:

Divine Command Theory is just as illusory for you as it is for them.

Ah yes, and having only one god provides such a clear cut and unambiguous moral code. That's why there has never, ever been a dispute among Christians, Jews or Muslims about what constitutes moral behavior. Right?

My (admittedly limited and poorly educated) understanding of Hinduism is that in its more sophisticated forms it ultimately holds that all of the however many gods there are are just different manifestations of one big God.

Brandon:

We all know the morality--we argue over whether to hold ourselves to it.

Jeff:

No, it isn't. The Divine commanded.

Mike:

And atheism is just Strong Polytheism.

Mr. Samson:

India has huge advantages because it was Anglified, but Hinduism will have to be Reformed just as surely as Islam.

OJ:

How do you reform pantheism?

Make it monotheistic.

With over 490 million (and counting) deities in Hinduism, you've got a long way to go.

The advantage Hinduism has over Christianity and Islam is that the content of the belief is less important than the observations. So you don't have to worry about Inquisitions and so forth.

Yet a billion Hindus have still managed to organise themselves morally, and live with the concept of dharma.

How can this be?

Brit:

They didn't. Christians organized them. Absence of inquisition is a weakness.

Dharma preceded the British Empire.

Where was a decent Hindu state?

Ah, you mean secularism organised them, then.

Don't forget the caste system and the racism in India. No one from the (dark) south is going to be President any time soon. No Disraelis here.

We recall that Hindu clerics condemned Miother Theresa of Calcutta for succoring the poor, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to elevate their places on the wheel of rebirth by suffering patiently.

Obviously, India has benefitted by exposure to the Christian values transmitted through British law and culture.

An observation from one who has worn his country's coat somewhere east of Suez: when we judge a non-Western religion by its "more sophisticated forms," as Mike M. comments we grossly fail to understand the Orient. It is a though a foreigner studied Thomas Merton and John Paul II and ignored the practice and beliefs of the unschooled masses.

My time in Bhuddist countries tells me that the common run of humanity in those places engages in a frank polytheism and practices what we would call magic. Myriad spirits, both malignant and benign, are bribed with offerings of all kinds. Readings on India indicate that the same situation obtains there.

The highest monks and theologians from that side may claim that these institutions are merely sacramentals, but that is not what the people say when one speaks to them.

Lou:

Hindu clerics weren't the only ones to condemn Mother Theresa.

Brit: The Slate article you kindly linked criticizes Mother Theresa for disliking abortion, which is sort of like criticizing the NRA for disliking the Assault Weapons Ban, and points out, failrly, this time, examples of her faults of parisanship and vanity.

That is not my point. A devout Hindu, throrougly grounded in the doctrines of karma and reincarnation, holds that relieving the suffering of the afflicted is harmful to them. This is their faith and one supposes that it makes perfect sense to them. To an unbeliever in the wheel of rebirth it looks suspiciously like a cynical justification for the privileges of the traditional ruling class.

Brit:

No, Victorianism.

Lou:

Just thought you'd be interested in a bit of iconoclasm.

I think Hitchens's main accusation is not the anti-abortion stance, but that, as puts it, she "was not a friend of the poor, but a friend of poverty."

Brit:

Hitchens is just rebelling against his Father before accepting Him.