The First Vice President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, said: "Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition which cannot be defined but must only be experienced. Evil and error are not definitive. There is no Hell, because that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins that surpass his love." (Hinduism, 2008). The Hindu religion focuses on four key elements that lead to salvation: personal deities, karma, reincarnation, and moksha (spiritual liberation). In this article I will demonstrate how Hinduism is a plausible religion and how it compares and contrasts with the Christian faith in which I was raised. Hindus believe that there is not one God, but many. It is estimated that there are 333 million deities in the Hindu faith. (Fisher, 2003, 79). The reason there are so many gods is because those of the Hindu faith worship divinity in everything. As Christians, we believe that the world was created by God and that everything in it was developed by Him according to a master plan. We are taught to believe in one God and not to worship false idols or other gods. In contrast, Hindus believe that every living being deserves its own worship. Ramanuja, a Hindu dualist, believed that there was always a difference between human beings and God. However, he believed that we are all bodies of God and therefore are guardians of the world. (Carruthera, 2008). I was recently talking to a person I know of the Hindu faith, wondering how it is possible to have so many gods, and how anyone could ever be expected to know or even be aware of so many gods. He told me that Hindus are not expected to know all the gods: no one knows them. For me it made the Hindu perspective of God into a much simpler form. For example, a Hindu person might walk along the road and see a rock. It might be the most beautiful rock that person has ever seen. Then, that person will take the rock and take it home to place it on his altar. The person will then pray to that rock, considering it a personal god that must be worshiped.
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