C is for Comparative Religions

It's nice to compare and contrast. It's popular amongst university lecturers to request papers that compare and contrast (just so that you get the idea that comparison differs from contrasting, if nothing else) and it's very popular amongst those of religious faith. Sometimes it's simply an enquiring mind at work, othertimes it's someone seeking to 'prove' something. Well nothing outside of mathematics can be proven at this point, so it's just interesting, isn't it?

Check these sites out: Comparativereligion.com, a really good, detailed site; Islam 101, for a fascinating perspective; and Virtualreligion.net, another deep pool of reading.

From my own perspective, stumbling over the Greek myths and legends as a kid loose in a library was a great way to get perspective on the world. I wandered from Babylon to the Bible, looking for clues as to the reality of much of this fascinating, otherworldly mythology. The stories get spoken, written and re-written, and then translated. They get coloured by priests and prophets, flavoured by the times and put to use to 'prove' a new case. Knowing that this is the process, that 'the word of God' is often a multi-generational rethink of much older stories gives me perspective. It doesn't undermine the quest for understanding, rather it fosters it.