Siara on Jan 24 2008, 02:02 PM, said:
Sometimes I wonder... is there anything important in the Hindu tradition? It's been around for 5,000 years. There must be some big truth in it. Then I read a story about them worshiping kids with horrible birth defects. These stories strike me as pathetic and barbaric and it makes me lose any confidence I had in their tradition.
A while ago a kid was born attached to a headless conjoined twin. They worshiped that kid too, because it had multiple arms. Yuck.
Having said that... that poor, poor baby. How awful.
There's nothing in any of the major Hindu texts that encourages the worship of deformed children. Because of a strong tradition of gods incarnating onto the earth in the form men, though, many of the poorest and least educated Indians take to worshipping these poor kids who somewhat resemble their gods. Not all Hindus do this, and it's clearly not part of their religion. Maybe you should read up some more on their faith, eh? It's certainly no less valid than any of the Abrahamic religions.
Edited by Randy123, 28 January 2008 - 09:22 PM.