Comparative Religions and Philosophies : Anthropomorphism and Divinity

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgement. 1. Constituents of religion. 2. Vedic philosophy. 3. Hindu Dharma. 4. Jain Dharma. 5. The first world-religion: Buddha Dharma. 6. Chinese ancient religions. 7. World's youngest religion: Sikhism. 8. Inca religion. 9. Sufism. Bibliography. Index. "God did not make the man in his own image; it is the man who cast God in his image. Anthropomorphism is the new mantra. Since the Divine has been clothed in the attributes of the human, and man is a bundle of attributes of imperfections, religion and spiritualism have been relegated to the back seat, contra-dogmas rule the roost. Every faith claims that the best religion is one whose God is superior to every other God, as if God could be divided and dished out to various claimants. Humanity has landed itself in a quagmire of mutual attrition, all in the name of Gods representing the nirguna God who seems to have been reduced to a mere spectator of his creation going hay while man has overpowered God and is intent on destroying the divinity of the human race. The concept of superiority of one religion over the other, of one spiritual dogma being more divine than all others, ethics and moral values of one group following a faster path to Nirvana, to a higher grade of heavenly bliss and the like are the short-cuts to fratricidal decimation of not only the human race but of the planet earth too. The universe evolved consequent of a cosmic explosion and is fast heading to an equally powerful explosion to self-destruction. The author has not allocated separate chapters to Christianity and Islam since it would not have been possible to do even minimal justice to these great religions in a few pages of a chapter. Some omissions would have been inevitable. And these could have possibly led to controversies. Moreover, his emphasis has been on the home grown religions borne out of Indian soil. Nonetheless, certain Christian and Islamic theological concepts like birth-rebirth, incarnation, life after death, resurrection, Universal soul, day of judgment, heaven and hell, sin and virtue, confessionals, et al. have been appropriately covered in the text. This book lays emphasis on the congruence of different religious philosophical schools of thought so as to inculcate some sanity to the world at large in the hope that the intellectual elite may restore spiritualism to the pinnacle of human values.