One God Many Gods....

Walking down the busy lanes of Harvard yesterday, I was feeling overwhlemed by the "high per capita" intellect that so effortlessly oozed out from the campus. Eavesdropping on every gossip, I was soaking in the elevated intellect, when I heard two students discussing religion and god. Seemed a pretty odd place to discuss the "mysterious" at the heart scientific mecca.

The discussion meandered through the pros and cons of religions. The ubiquotous flaw they found in Hinduism was polytheism. On my way back I was thinking about what they said and did it actually make sense? Being a staunch believer in objective criticism guided by rationale, I thought about the whole idea of polytheism or the concept of having "many" gods as opposed to "one" in other religions. I dont claim to be strictly religious, I do believe in God, if you define, living a wholesome content life and helping others finding their wholesome content lives is a way to God.

What really bothers me is the apolegetic nature of Hindus towards Polytheism. They justify it by drawing quotes and making extrapolations from ancient text, supporting the fact that there is one universal God but exists in many forms. I dont find any problem with thid explanation apart from the fact that its superflous. Why do you have to adopt a gossamer interpretation of the holy texts to explain a point of view that needs no importance?

Universally, all religions in one form or the other say that God is formless, shapeless and beyond comprehension. If that fact draws a consensus amongst the religious beings, then how can one possibly quantify this shapeless and formless being. What plausible count can you assign to some abstract idea, or unsurmountable faith which we label God?
In fact just to support the very fact from our holy texts, the Vishnu Sahasranamam ( one of the most sacred stotras in hinduism) in one of its stanzas says:

Stanza 27
asankhyeyo-aprameyaatmaa visishtah sishta-krit-suchih
siddhaarthah siddhasankalpah siddhidah siddhisaadhanah.

Asankhyeyah -Sankhyaa means number; Asankhya=numberless. Asankhyeyah is one who has numberless names and forms. The infinite variety of things and beings that constitute the manifested Universe are all His Own Form, and hence He is indeed numberless, whom He expresses Himself as the Universe.
source (http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/Homepages/shivkuma/personal/music/vishnu-sahasranamam-meanings.htm)


Propoents of hinduism defend it, saying we have one God, manifested in many forms. But why attach the number one, why cant we say we have many Gods, synergetically existing together to do whatever that one god does. Why adopt an apologetic attitude for not having just one God? This question is very important in today's religious hegemonistic world because it raises another fundamental query. Why is religion considered an absolute truth? The very essence of any religion is to seek the ultimate truth, which is not possible if I am not allowed to question and contradict. Isnt that the only way of knowing anything and everything, knowing God, knowing Gods....