The Hindus view the Ganges...
Illustration
The Hindus view the Ganges as a goddess, a river which purifies all those faithful who immerse themselves in her. They believe that the water of the Ganges is so powerful that if a breeze carries one drop to your cheek hundreds of miles away it is enough to cleanse a lifetime of sins. If you scatter your ashes upon it, especially if you are fortunate enough to die in the city of Varanasi, your soul will travel straight to heaven. This is believed in spite of the fact that 114 cities dump their raw sewage into it, tens of thousands of bathers gather at eighty different ghats or sites daily (60,000 in Varanasi alone), and some 40,000 cremated bodies, 3,000 corpses, and 9,000 dead cattle are dumped into it annually, causing the water to boil with methane. God has planned a better way for us, that we might be cleansed of our sins and enter heaven. He has unfolded his great plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, through whom we have been chosen before the beginning of the world to be his own.
-- Guettler
-- Guettler
