Comparative Religion Babblings

First off, The Pain: Christianity and Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism.
As often, the Artist's Statements are often as good as the cartoon ("any belief system that proscribes bacon is clearly discredited").  And I could contemplate whether Catholic schoolgirls or tasty food is a better contribution (one's cheaper, at any rate), but I want to move on.  Like many, I'm intrigued by "Eastern religions", not so much because I start out thinking they have some special truths but because I like seeing the wacky differences in human societies.  I'm still hesitant about asserting actual knowledge, since with older histories and (historically) larger populations than Western religions, plus apparently real lower levels of persecution, there's at least as much variety in say Hinduism as there is in Christianity, and I haven't read the Vedas while I've read much of the Bible.  Still, I think I've picked up something, and, provoked by yesterday's reading on what Hindus think about Jesus, I wanted to dump out a caricatured view.

Judaism: the universe was created 6000 years ago (don't tell me Adam having an age of 963.4722 years was originally meant as a metaphor), and, after some bumpy periods where God tried to kill every man, woman, and child alive, the Jews were selected to be God's light unto the nations.  The Jews actually made it to major nations such as China and India, but AFAIK were never significantly noticed.  Nations such as the Mayas or Japan had to do without.

Christianity: building on the above, God then incarnates himself to go around healing a rather small number of sick people before getting crucified and resurrection, as a way of sending a "salvation or else!" message of barely-avoidable eternal torment to all of humanity living in a small province on the edge of the second biggest empire of the time.  Early Christians did make it to China and India where they were, again, ignored as one more wacky religious minority.  And again, people such as the Mayas, Japan, or the aborigines had to go without, at least for a millennium or so.

Islam: as above, but Jesus wasn't the son of God, just a great prophet, second only to Muhammad, who had the *real* Final Word of God, This Time We Mean It. 

Mormons: as above, only different.

So far, old hat, and standard atheist caricatures of religions -- often extended to all religions.  Which is actually my point, because a little learning suggest something else (after repeating caveats about how saying "what Hindus believe" is fairly risky):

Hinduism: there is no single point of creation; rather, the universe has always existed, as is vast if not infinite extent, with many worlds, and many cycles.  The Epicureans would be happy so far.  In inverted Epicurean logic, the Hindus argue that anything created must have an end and so an immortal soul must have an eternal history.  The current world is billions of years old (this is why I picked on the 6000 number; as far as I know, Hindus don't have to resort to "metaphor" in getting along with science here.)  With all this scale, the notion of any single or final revelation of God to Man is absurd: Hindus believe Krishna was a divine incarnation, but also so was Buddha, and Jesus, and Sri Ramakrishna in the 19th century.  All equal, all God.  Conversely, other Hindus don't say Jesus was an incarnation, but a Yogi -- not God come to Earth, but a man who touched Godhead.  Again, nothing unique about it, and it's only the ignorance of the West which makes it think so.  The oldest Veda, the Rig Veda, apparently has "there are many roads to God" right in it -- a marked contrast to the Judaic family.  India isn't the uniquely chosen holy land (though it has holy lands) but the country which has the most advanced Yogic science.  Instead of a finite lifetime leading to infinite reward and punishment you have karma and reincarnation, with multiple tries to re-achieving union with God.  (To the question of why souls got separated from God, one webpage simply said "we don't know".

Of course, they also have a caste system and burning widows alive on funeral pyres, and when I read about the putative infinite powers accessible to Yogis I immediately imagined what I or many friends would do with infinite power and a spark of compassion, like cure *all* disease victims, not just the ones I could touch.  (I alluded to this under Jesus, too: healing the sick and blind is apparently a PR or calling card thing, not an ongoing activity for the God of Infinite Love.)  But leaving aside the good old standby of theodicy, Hinduism just feels far less ridiculous in the sense of theological scale, with a big and old world, multiple revelations, no divinely favored center of or final time for revelations, a proportionate reward system.  There's probably still stuff to ridicule, stuff perhaps fixed in Buddhisms (plural deliberate), but some of the most egregious problems of scale and locality I have with the Abrahamic family aren't there.

And, woo, the melatonin is kicking in.  I hope this is somewhat coherent...