In my church class at High Street Unitarian Universalist we are learning about Hinduism. Today the topic was "God and Gods in Hinduism." We learned about how Hinduism started out as a polytheistic religion and as Buddhism and Jainism were branching off of Hinduism it was developing a monotheistic core. India was later conquered by Muslims and Sikhism was formed.
What struck me about Hinduisms history is how as the Hindu population became more diverse and instead of conquering the other tribes, and getting rid of the opposing side’s local gods/goddesses, they absorbed the local gods into Hinduism. This is what was happening during the (at least) 2000 yrs before it started developing its monotheistic core. Monotheism only started to be an idea in Hinduism after it was no longer as beneficial for the survival of the religion for it to absorb local gods in this manner.
So I was wondering about the role that religion plays in shaping the way in which people interact with each other? In the west during the same time that the Hindu’s were peacefully integrating their neighbors into their religion, the Europeans were killing each other over religion. This goes against the Richard Dawkins take on religion, which is that religion is a poison, and instead turns religion into something that unites people. What do you all think religions role in society should be?
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