Devil worship in ‘Hinduism’
Here goes: that ‘Hindu’ religion is devil’s worship is central, crucial and vital to the religions that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are. ‘Why is that?’, you may ask. It is impossible to cover this question in the space of a post, and with the details the question demands. So, here is what can be done: (a) I will provide a very crude outline with respect to Christianity; (b) reread what I wrote about God and devil .
1. Christian religion claims that Jesus of Nazareth (a human being) is the Christ. (‘Christ’ means ‘the promised one’ or ‘the messiah’, ‘the anointed’; it is not the family name of Jesus.) Who promised what to whom do you think? According to both the Judaic religion and Christianity, God promised to deliver the ‘people of Israel’, under certain conditions, by sending someone (a messenger) down to earth to lead the people of Israel. How to recognize coming of the messiah? According to these two religions, God also would send ‘signs’ which the human beings could interpret.
2. Jesus of Nazareth was proclaimed as this ‘promised one’ (i.e. as the Christ) by the Christians. The Jews, who are still waiting for the messiah to come, considered him as ‘the false messiah’ and not the true one that God has promised. But the early Christians used the ‘book of Daniel’ (from the Old Testament Bible) to ‘prove’ that Jesus was also the Christ. (That is, they claimed that the divine signs, which should help human beings in recognizing the coming of Christ, were fulfilled. For this purpose, they used the book of Daniel.) The Jews refused to accept this claim.
3. The Christians claimed that God would deliver all humankind, if they followed the path and teachings of Christ (‘the gospel’ means the life and teachings of Christ) and that this was the only path to salvation. All other paths led to hell, and they are the lures that the devil has set up.
4. To proselytize means to spread God’s word. Do you know what that word is? That the messiah has come; He, the only son of God, died for our sins; and that, on the third day, He was resurrected. and that those who follow the path, and only those who follow this path, have any chance of salvation.
5. Being ‘saved’ means being saved from the clutches of the devil – i.e. from eternal damnation. You are not ‘saved’ because you are a moral person and an ethical being: you will be saved if, and only if, you follow Christ. (That is why, after all, the messiah came down to earth: to save our souls from the devil.)
6. The Christians are called ‘Christians’ because they believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, i.e. the messiah came to earth some two thousand years ago, died for our sins, etc. A Buddha, a Shankara, for example, will go straight to hell, stay there for eternity because their ‘souls’ are not saved from the clutches of the devil.
7. The Jews are doomed, according to Christians, because they refuse to recognize that the messiah has already come. According to the Jews, Jesus is not the Christ, but a false messiah.
8. To summarize in slightly abstract terms: one worships the true God (this is what true religion is) so that one might be saved from the clutches of the false god (i.e. the devil). So, you see, opposition to the devil and his worship are absolutely crucial to Christianity; the true religion is defined against the false religion, just as the false god is defined against the true God.
9. So, according to them, humankind has only two choices: either go to hell for eternity, or hope that it can be saved from the clutches of the devil. This hope is the realization that God, in His infinite mercy, sent down his only son to lead us away from the devil and his worship. So, if you want to save your soul from the devil (God has given humankind the ‘freedom’ to choose between God and devil), you need to follow the Christ. Otherwise, you have chosen to follow the devil and earned a one way ticket to an eternal residence in hell.
10. Do you see now, why ‘Hinduism’ is necessarily the worship of the devil and why such a claim is crucial and central to Christianity? Mutatis mutandis, this story applies to Judaism and Islam equally.
11. Please keep in mind that I have given a crude outline only. This, however, does not mean that I have distorted their story. It merely means that I have not done justice to the subtlety and richness of their theologies. Regrettable, but unavoidable.
12. This should tell also why formulating their hostility towards ‘Hinduism’ or our responses to them in terms of ‘tolerance’ is hopelessly inadequate. This term is useful if you are talking about ‘heresies’ (i.e. differing accents and claims based on a core of commonly accepted theological beliefs); not when the issue is between the true religion and the false religions. (Take this bald claim for what it is worth: there is no space to argue this out in this context.)