Forums > Social Discussion > Monotheism
Login/Join to Participate13 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia
I was wondering which seems more likely (if any), a single god or a pathenon of gods?
Even my multiple personalities hate me!
BLEEEAAAGGHHH!
veteran
1,433 posts
Location: 8 days at Cloudbreak, 6 in Perth, Australia
A single goddess and god!
Are we there yet?
1,897 posts
Location: australia
a plethora of pantheons
Pirate Pixie Crew Captain
8,428 posts
Location: Wales
Neither
Feed me Chocolate!!! Feed me NOW!
3,149 posts
Location: London
adding to the list of unhelpful answers:
it depends what you mean by a god.
i like fenixfyre's answer though
"Switching between different kinds of chuu chuu sometimes gives this "urgh wtf?" effect because it's giving people the phi phenomenon."
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
Surely the more "gods" the more questions like... where the heck do they come from? who or what keeps knocking them out...
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
1,019 posts
Location: Huddersfield + Hull Uni... UK.
We'll never know.
Willy - is bad for your health...
3,638 posts
Location: Brum / Dorset / Fairy Land
we might........
Geologists do it in the dirt................ 
1,189 posts
Location: Edinburgh
Both opinions are equally invalid.
However the more of them there are, less likely it would be for them to be called gods rather than freaky star-trek energy beings.
According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Dynamics, we may already be making love right now...
....of doom!
585 posts
Location: Hastings, UK
one god, multiple facets which can be seen as gods in their own right..which pretty much encompasses everything.
Neo - Hippie
358 posts
Location: Sala, Slovakia
Umm what if both views are true..?: )
Smile.. It confuses people..:)
Wonders never cease as long as you never cease to wonder.
old hand
834 posts
Location: Wellington somerset, UK
One god who is a part of every thing and beyond the imagination of every thing.
Why would a god, a perfect being create somethign in his likeness would that not be vain,
why create something if it can imagine its creator????
Drawings by chalk minds, strech between the stars
Kyle Mclean-
Contact without dance is like sex without wiggling.
A) it does feel as good
B) it does not look as good on film
with added berries
1,365 posts
Location: Manchester, England (UK)
I don't so much believe in a God as a person-like thing.
I've come to believe it as a kind of not actual being, but maybe a part of a nature or the world. You can feel it when its windy, see it where water runs, a kind of beauty, all life is beautiful, whatever form it takes.
mmm...maybe I'm just a die-hard romantic.
Live like there is no tomorrow,
dance like nobody is watching
and hula hoop like wiggling will save the world.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK
what if you believe that all possibilities create their own univirese in which case both situations are true
(as is a univerese where everything is sound and in which nothing is possible as it is a possibility
) back
just a shadow of my former self...
205 posts
Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
when you say 'more likley', i kinda start thinking about probablities, but how do you establish probabilities on something like that?
i think the prevalence of monotheistic religions suggests one God is easier to believe in, than believing in many. but then that prevalence could be due to to other factors completely separate from how probable monotheism is.
but in answer to your question. i think one God is more probable than multiple as you only have to accept one unknown 'event', that God 'A' exists. in polytheistic religions you have accept that God A is real, God B is real God C is real etc.
but then you need to make the distinction between God and an animistic spirit of the sort pricklyleaf talked about.
but now im rambling and the rum is starting to talk more than me.
It took a while, but once their numbers dropped from 50 down to 8, the other dwarves started to suspect Hungry.
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA
I think what each of us believes with conviction is what is true.
Kind of an energy of belief manifests itself to become true...if that makes any sense?
Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Seek and you will find...
What you find may not be what you were after, but you will have found something.
Oh yeah, this can take years by the way, its not often instant, but the only way to know... (OOOeeeeOOOO)
HoP Posting Guidelines
* Is it the Truth?
* Is it Fair to all concerned?
* Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
* Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
13 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Written by: Lavatwilight
Why would a god, a perfect being create somethign in his likeness would that not be vain,
why create something if it can imagine its creator????
Why create anything at all?
Even my multiple personalities hate me!
BLEEEAAAGGHHH!
old hand
834 posts
Location: Wellington somerset, UK
Pele i like you idea it has been circling in my head for the past few months now :-)
Hardy...
why create anything at all.
i am of the belief that we are the universe split so it can understand its self, or something along those lines, a lil more complex but thats the jist of it.
But you are veryright why create anything at all???
but that would require a physical (be it matter or energy) condenced form of god,
im not so in to that idea
Drawings by chalk minds, strech between the stars
Kyle Mclean-
Contact without dance is like sex without wiggling.
A) it does feel as good
B) it does not look as good on film
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK
if you belive that a god is an omnipotent being then you can only really have one
otherwise 2 omnipotent beings would create paradoxs (would one be able to create something that the other couldnt undo therfore denying its omnipotence)
then again can a single god being omnipotent make something it cant undo?....
anyway im rambling..
a god could either exsist in one form or many - being omnipotent it can do what it wants
back
just a shadow of my former self...
205 posts
Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
i think all the theologies that have multiple Gods dont have Gods that are omnipotent. i think it is the monotheistic theologies that develop the idea of omnipotence...but i could be wrong. all the multi-deitic (i think i just made that up) theologies have deities that arnt omnipotent, look at the greek (and roman who just copied greek), norse, american idian or egyptian to name afew. none of there Gods were omnipotent. collectively that might have been, which might explain why, in monotheistic theologies, where everythign is callapsed down to one deity their tend to be omnipotent.
an omnipotent GOd can unmake something it made, it comes with being omnipotent.
It took a while, but once their numbers dropped from 50 down to 8, the other dwarves started to suspect Hungry.
currently mending
493 posts
Location: Bristol, New Zealand
Spot on Icer...
Monothesism encourages a very different way of thinking to polythesism (which may or may not be a work). Instead of one omnipotent god you have a multitude of spirits which all usually represent an aspect of life. This can range from gods of physical life such as gods of the sun, moon, soil, to gods which embody emotions such as love and peace (hippies not being entirely new).
Rather than creating a hierarcial system with a man at the top who controls everything (see the parallels with western societies development) this leads to the understanding of life/nature as a conflict/balance between the various gods. This balance is seen as necessary to maintaing human life... If the sun god overcomes the raingod you have a drought, your crops don't grow and your people starve.
Worshipping the many aspects of nature which create the conditions for human survival requires that humans do not alter this balance. To do so would be to declare war on a god. The biblical verison sees man given dominion over the earth... It is his to look after and to maintain as he sees fit.
To someone who follows pagan/native american/aborigine/etc beliefs to look at the environmental consequences of 2 millenia of monothesic rule (by and large), climate change, deforestation, nuclear waste, depletion of the ozone layer, contamination of water tables etc and the effects they are now beginning to inflict on our species the conclusion would be that the gods are angry, and when these indescribably powerful natural forces are unleashed humankind realises quite how weak it really is as the fragile balance required to maintain are species is disturbed. Which is fairly close to what most climatologists will tell you.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Nietzsche
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
Could someone define god for me?
Because I can't actually draft a coherent reply for every possible answer...
even if there is nothing else I can be doing right now (other than reading some 500 new posts!)
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
currently mending
493 posts
Location: Bristol, New Zealand
God or gods are what you make of them... Generally they're things beyond human comprehension though
some possible answers include:
the universe and all existance
spirits of various elements of nature
extra terrestrials (seriously)
an old man with a beard (I find this the least plausible)
God is such a relative concept... How do you define something you cant and wont understand (which is roughly where the I dont understand it so god/gods did it comes from)?
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Nietzsche
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK
i think thats the main issue with the question
you cant really go one way or another with out a definition of a god
is it
a) an omnipotent spirit (in which case it can cause tiself to be one or many beings)
b) a being that has power over nature and certain aspects of the world (in which case you can eitehr have one or many again both with equal validity)
or c) what ever someone happens to beleive in? ie some being that 'writes' history - a fate figure - in which case again one or many are equally valid
back
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
well in that case isn't one god or many gods being more likelycompletly relativistic?
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
currently mending
493 posts
Location: Bristol, New Zealand
basically yes
you cant really talk about likelihoods, which infers the probability of something being true, because spiritual beliefs aren't provable/unprovable (unless you try and look at myths literally).
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Nietzsche
729 posts
Location: Farnborough, Hampshire
Personally, I think it all comes down to perspective..... I believe in many gods, goddesess, whatever you want to call them, but I also believe that is entireley possible that they are all faces of the same thing.... I don't really believe in them as sitting up there on high looking down on us, more along the lines of its the easiest way I've got to rationalise the primal energy these figures represent, and it helps me relate to them, as well as difining a clear mental picture I can understand, and connect to. Example, if you took 2 people, and showed them the same picture, then asked them to describe it, they'd both probably say completeley different things, whilst both reamining on the same lines.
So I guess my answer is both, and neither, it just depends on who's looking
no excuses. no apologies.
1,799 posts
Location: aotearoa, New Zealand
how about one god that is made up of many gods?
those that know, dont say. those that say, dont know.
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom
Or many gods that can be arranged to form One God- let's call it 'Godular Modularity'
"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."
--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32
Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK
"mod gods"
yes kids you too can create your own gods - collect all 15 to create mega-god and defeat the evil monkeys of commercalism.....
*clears throat
anyway back on topic
i think either is as vaild still
back
© 1998 - 2024 Home of Poi
All prices converted to United States dollars using XE.com