Namaste,
Again twisting and this is not fair.
Regardless of Samprayda or even religion, God must be One - Its also a philosophical stand point of most known philosophies of the world.
My God, your God etc is still ignorance - given the funamental agreement that God is one. So, when you talk to newbies, the quarrel of my God, your God is the stepping stone or starting point.
Fortunately, all the major sampradaya or schools of thoughts from India have same fundamentals - but different "models" of understanding the unltimate reality. When the fundamentals are not same, they have their own ultimate God - as a subject mostly and as a notion in few thoughts. But, its neverthless you have one God and i have another God.
Shaivasim identified Lord Shiva as THAT ultimate One - keeps Lord Vishnu with the status of DEmi-God ( now you should ponder and disagree and start another argument cos of your disagreement).
Vaishnavaism identifies the ultimate ONE as Lord Vishnu - and thus keeps Lord Shiva as a demi-god.
So, until you dont try to reconsile, you are left with only ONE GOD - as per your following. If you really mess up your mind assuming you can follow both - with a reconsilation - you are LOST. Someone who is lost cannot have any conviction or arguments on why they have lost.
I fear, we fundamentally going in circle here... GOd is one - not Two. Question is, is it Shiva or Vishu or even these two names refers to same entity/vastu/subject? Answers from Sri Vaishnava is, Yes GOD IS ONE and HE IS LORD VISHNU. So, no one else can substitute or take that role - thus Lord Shiva is not on par and will never be on par regardless of your wish, desire and dictation - Lord Shiva will be always a demi-god. Calling or considering this belittling - is our belittling of the great saints like Sri Ramanujuna.
If you dont have rational backing for such disagreement, your disagreement itself is not valid.
Hare Krshna
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