Hinduism Paper

HUM 1130

30 January 2010

Hinduism Option One

The belief in “God” is something that is commonly shared in my family. I was raised in Lutheran religion and was brought to church at a very young age. My early belief about God was brought about through teachings from my parents and Lutheran Sunday school. I remember being taught that God was good, knew everything about me and wanted me to be good. I also remember that a fear was instilled in me that I should obey God and believe in God, so I was not punished by being sent to Hell.

At this early age, I formed a vision of God that was the vision of Jesus. I did not have the ability to understand the separation between the two and just pictured Jesus in my head whenever I thought of God. I have never spent much time thinking about how other people view God in their mind. While most people I know believe in God, I never entertained the idea that what I picture God as, in the physical sense, may be different than what others picture God as. However, in reading about Hinduism, I learned that some religions really take time to visually depict their Gods. In the religion I was raised in, I was taught was Jesus looked like while he was alive, I saw some pictures of Jesus after he died (floating in clouds with an angelic halo) but I never remember seeing a picture of what God looked like.

I decided to interview my Husband Craig about what he thought God looked like when he was young. Craig told me that he first learned who God was from his parents and later from his Church. My husband was raised Lutheran like I was, but his Church was more “strict” than mine was. Craig told me that his first vision of God was of God being “larger than life, enormous in height” and “dressed in white.” Once Craig told me what his first picture of God was, I asked him what his first feelings of God were. He told me that he was “almost afraid of God, like he was vengeful if you made mistakes” and “that everyone had to answer for...