CBC.ca - Program Guide - The Story of God

CBC.ca - Program Guide - The Story of God
Sunday, May 21, 2006, 8:00 p.m. ET
Life, the Universe and Everything

I caught the first part of what looks to be an interesting new series on Newsworld tonight, The Story of God. Prof Robert Winston is exploring the history of religion in humans, over three parts, and part one tonight was an interesting look at 'polytheism.'

Well, sort of anyway, lol. In reality, it seemed like tonight talked about non-Judaic religions, as opposed to polytheistic ones. Certainly Hinduism qualifies as a polytheistic faith, but talk of Buddhism and Zarathustrianism make the notion of polytheism a little weak. Regardless of that, the actual analysis was very balanced, and the discussion of Buddhist ideas was fascinating. Its always fascinated me how both Buddhism and Christianity have the notion of suffering as central to the idea of enlightenment.

I'll be curious to see the next two installments of the series, as he examines the Judiac and modern religions. The whole arrangement of the series has a typically Judeo-Christian bias, but thats to be expected given where it was made here in Christian Canada. But I honestly can't help but wonder how Hindu's feel at being lumped in with the 'silly, ancient' polytheistic stuff. I'll be curious to see the rest of the shows …