My belief - II (Avatar)

I am a Hindu. So do I believe in Rama or Krishna ? Answer may be yes or no, depending on what one means by belief.

Do I believe in the historical autheticity of avatars? Again the same answer.

Let me explain this, I do believe that a long time ago there must have existed a noble and just King called Rama, he must have been a notable warrior and a honourable gentleman. I am also sure that his Kingdom must have been a prosperous one and his subject must have loved him. I also believe he might have slain Ravana.

In other words I do believe that Ramayana does portray more or less a real picture of past.

However I hesitate to pronounce Ramayana or any Hindu scriptures as documents which are objectively accurate. As is clear from many incidents described in epics, they can not be taken as the gospel truth (I am being sarcastic) .

As I have speculated earlier, Hindu epics were written more as documents for philosophical and spiritual discourse and less as accurate depiction of history (or itihaas).

What is the point of writing all this? This is an attempt to articulate my understanding of avatar.

I rever Rama not because he is the literal avatar of Bhagwan Vishnu, but because he (or to be more precise his portrayal) embodies the human ideals that is kindness, honesty, integrity, justice and valour.
In the same manner Krishna (or as before his portrayal) is revered for his compassion and wisdom.

And this, in my view is a sensible approach. We should worship avatar because they embody the human ideals and not because of dogmas and semantic hair splitting arising out of beliefs in literal veracity.

Ofcourse the reason I worship the specific forms is entirely a matter of random chance, it is a matter of chance that I was born Hindu, therefore I think it is to quibble over the specific form.
What is more important to realize is true nature of divinity that is Brahman (ofcourse this is truth according to Hinduism, and I agree with it)

PS Ofcourse I believe that everything is a manifestation of the cosmic force, this makes everyone, (in a sense) avatar.