Christian Religious Comparison

I have read about the various motivations of Christian religious comparison. There are various viewpoints which range from trying to show other religions to be inferior and / or bad, trying to subvert them, trying to see them as a precursor or less adequate expression of Christianity, to pick and mixing the "approved" elements of other religons and siding them with concurrences in Christianity. And various shades in between these theories. Tomorrow I shall be moving on to looking at other approaches to comparison. I received my book on St. Paul today and I shall begin this on the commute tomorrow.

I have also written a poem (yesterday) to "put my money where my mouth is" so to speak. It is part of my collection Cosmography, which is a set of sonnets about each of the planets in the solar system. I hope you enjoy...

Venus

The scribes of tragedy marked your arc high,
How wars were fought and love was made beneath
Primordial lines you drew on ev'ning skies,
Behind the hills you then were slyly sheathed,
As mess of battle-fields both was clean dried -
Victorious in laurels, losers wreaths,
How love was fought and wars were much decried,
How sleek you moved and hid between the teeth
Of man with mouth aghast with dreams of lust,
You paint your phosphor over his young chest,
Your dot visage immerses his full bust,
Swift chasing moonlight to his sacred nest,
To tangle in the essence of his trail,
And ache his silver-fish towards your pale.

"Oliver - Oliver never before has a boy wanted more!"