Have you ever thought about the form that we attribute to Gods and Goddesses in Hinduism? I hadn't thought about it till, but suddenly the other day it just occurred to me that almost all our Gods seem to have multiple heads, multiple eyes, multiple hands, but not a single one has multiple ears, multiple noses(or no nose or no ear), multiple legs(or no leg) and so on. Ever wondered why?

This particular line of thought intrigued me a lot. I tried to recollect any number of Gods that I knew of- I couldn't find a single God with multiple legs or other body parts. Why is the hands and head so important than other body parts? And another parallel yet similar themed question is, why is that all Gods are more Human than Animals or Trees or even Alien life form? Does that show a lack of Imagination on the part of people who created the figurines or simply a "Hero-turned-omnipotent" metamorphosis of a human being?

Why is God always shown to wear gold, which incidentally is held in high regard by human race? Is it that Gold gains its status because of its association with God, or did the God got the gold because gold is held in high regard by humans? If it is the second, then it might mean that Gold is more powerful than God!- if it is the first, then why is Gold alone taken to that high position?- after all gold wasn't the first metal to be discovered!. Why is no God fond of silver or bronze or brass or glass or other metals?- Will there be platinum jewelery for God in the future if platinum gains over gold?

There are some exceptions to this normal observation of Gods having animal features like Ganesh or Hanuman. But even these Gods were humans when they were born and only later they got their animal features as TINA factor took in, or by some curse. There are some others who argue that Hinduism has got Snakes, Eagles, Cows etc. But the point to note is, that all these are only gods and not God. The God would invariably be a Human form and ofcourse, none of these Animal Gods are known for their beauty! ;)

I do often get a doubt as to whether the Dasaavataaram(Ten Incarnations) is anything but science..Is it that Evolution was said as a series of Incarnations of God? I mean the first one starts as Fish, which is a sea-borne being, moves on to Tortoise(an amphibian), then a wild boar(a marsh land animal) , a dwarf, half animal-half man, a nomad, a king on the move, a planned strategist and an executioner - Well, it is easy to read between the lines and impart meaning into a possibly playtime story turned epic. This line of thought is very similar to what Richard Dawkins say here as,

I think religious belief is a scientific belief, in the sense that it makes claims about the universe which are essentially scientific claims. If you believe the universe was created and inhabited by a supreme being, that would be a very different kind of universe from the sort of universe that wasn't created and does not house a creative intelligence. That is a scientific difference. Miracles. If you believe in miracles, that is clearly a scientific claim, and scientific methods would be used to evaluate any miracle that somebody claimed evidence for.

Suppose, hypothetically, that forensic archaeologists, in an unlikely series of events, gained evidence -- perhaps from some discovered DNA -- which showed that Jesus did not really have an earthly father, that he really was born of a virgin. Can you imagine any theologian taking refuge behind Stephen Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria and saying, "Nope, DNA evidence is completely irrelevant. Wrong magisterium. Science and religion have nothing to do with each other. They just peacefully coexist." Of course they wouldn't say that. If any such evidence were discovered, the DNA evidence would be trumpeted to the skies. [Reproduced from Salon - Requires forced view of an ad]

There are quite a lot of forceful points that he makes there in that interview..One point I particularly liked was,

I would say that parents should teach their children anything that's known to be factually true -- like "that's a bluebird" or "that's a bald eagle." Or they could teach children that there are such things as religious beliefs. But to teach children that it is a fact that there is one god or that God created the world in six days, that is child abuse.

How very true!- It indeed is child abuse...we usually concern ourselves with only physical abuse, that many are unaware of the mental abuse that we put our kids through- by short shunting their thoughts- by giving them "facts", by disguising our believes as truth and our characters as virtue... I understand we do all these because we think that it is the best, but it really begs my understanding, on why should we think it is the best for our kids.