Sirona
Hindu Wannabe
During most of my childhood I believed in Catholicism, but at 18 I started practicing Hinduism. I was happy with Hinduism for years. This year I bought a greeting card showing Vishnu and Lakshmi wearing Santa Claus caps, featuring the line "We Vishnu a Merry Christmas" and put it on my altar. I thought it would be funny but it had an unexpected effect on me. I became aware that to my knowledge Vishnu and Lakshmi never had kids together. Vishnu incarnates in his avatars, and there is Janmashtami, Krishna's birthday, but I started missing the religious "message" of Christmas. I had never expected that I would. On the other hand, a committed Christian can't "cherrypick" the aspects of Jesus. If you're a serious Christian you have to take the whole package, the crucified martyr together with the cute little baby in the manger. I don't feel like taking up Christianity again because in my eyes Christianity essentially fails to give a satisfying answer to the question "Why we suffer" (I spent my afternoon reading on that). The spectrum of answers goes from "offering your suffering to God" which to me feels very similar to the concept of taking somebody else's negative karma and, it and ends in describing an unpredictable, erratic god who hides himself for no reason. I always felt that Krishna, though not a god of my culture, is described as overall more friendly and more balanced than the god described in the of the Bible. I am fine with this 364 days of the year, but this Christmas it's weird. Maybe it is just nostalgia, but if I decided reconverting to Christianity the first act I'd have to do would be discarding all of my Hinduism books, pictures and statues I collected over the years. Apart from the fact that these objects have a certain material value, I think it would be sort of destabilizing to to this as they are a part of my life and I treat them respectfully. Maybe I shouldn't take up a religion if I can't respect its First Commandment. You can be a murderer and still be a Christian but you can't be a Christian / Catholic if you believe in "gods" not sanctioned by the Church. There are probably more Catholic saints than Hindu gods, one for every thinkable problem, disease or life situation under the sun. Apart from this, New Age followers worship their own versions of Jesus, Mary and the angels, so probably I just shouldn't worry so much.