God vs gods

[Elijah John]

Here on this site, one often hears from non-believers statements and questions doubting the existence of "gods", plural. Not sure why that is. Why not just question God, singular? In Western culture, that would be a more relevant question.

Hardy anyone believes in "gods" anymore. Hindus and Pagans maybe. But most folks here in in the West are either Jewish, Christian of Muslim. Monotheism is predominant.
(Whether or not Trinitarians are actual Monotheists is another debate).

But this leads to an important question. Why philosohically, (excluding reasons of upbringing or cultural conditioning) do SO many in the West believe in God, singular, as opposed to "gods" plural?

What IS the case for Monotheism, as opposed to Polytheism?

(please, this is not intended to become a "prove God or gods exists", thread)

[arian]

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Why there cannot be other co-eternal Creator gods? Because one 'Infinity' is all we need, and is all there is.

Do set this forth as truth / fact or as opinion? If you claim truth kindly substantiate both claims.

Infinity contains everything, and this is fact. Could you describe another infinite that some things within this universe reside in?
If 'finite things exist, which they do, a lot of them just by observing our grand universe, and we admit it goes on within infinity, and even BB Evolutionists talk about bubble in a bubble multiverses, they too could fit in infinity. There is no need for 'another' infinity, it wouldn't even make sense.

It is obvious that there is 'intelligence' in this universe, thus there is 'Intelligent Design' in this universe. If there is Intelligent Design, then there is an Intelligent Designer.
If the universe evolved without a purpose or plan, then every train. plane and automobile is an unplanned accident. Result of the human apes nervous twitch. If humans are just a purposeless evolution, then everything else must be. (as I explained in detail)

And since God is an Infinite, Eternal Creative Mind I Am Who I Am, He is all there is, and He is all we need.

So say tales in ancient religion promotion literature. Is there a way that anyone interested can verify their truth and accuracy?

I haven't quoted the Bible, this is my scientific observation. I am a creator, and I know I didn't create man, so then man must have a Creator.

Who is the Creator? By observation, my mind is. I create and come up with concepts with my mind.
Since I didn't create me, or this universe, nor did I ever hear anyone claiming to have created the universe, then the next obvious conclusion is that this Book called the Bible is correct, that there is a Creator God. Also it explains that this Creator God is Spirit, and that He created me in His image. It all makes perfect sense, my mind is spirit which cannot be seen by anyone, and the Book says man was created in Gods Image, then my Mind must be God.

The obvious conclusion; God is an Infinite, Eternal, Creative Mind "I Am Who I Am" as he explained to Moses.

Even God himself couldn't create another Infinite, Eternal God since He is already Infinite. So where could He put another Himself in? Could you think of another mind within your mind?

Many pretend, claim or profess to know a great deal about invisible, undetectable supernatural entities -- evidently based upon reading a book of stories and perhaps having emotional episodes.

Yes my dear friend, many do profess all kinds of different stories through beliefs created by religions, as evident in this crazy world today. But I present to you the logical, rational, scientifically obvious, philosophical revelation (not divination) of God.
You will never confuse my version of God with any other created gods. He is a God you can fully trust in, not because I said so, but because you can see/know Him yourself, by knowing yourself.

IF one or more of the thousands of proposed "gods" existed as an "infinite" entity, HOW exactly would mere humans understand its / their capabilities and limitations?

As I explained, there cannot be 'more' infinites. ONE Infinite is all we need, and is all we have. You would have to change the meaning of 'infinite' to 'finite' to have more of them. Man is finite, thus we are little gods.

Infinite is absolute, .. it IS infinite, just as 'nothing' is absolute, and this is why I say; 'nothing' IS really nothing.

Limitations? The finite (brain) has limitations, but our mind is infinite. Since we are made in the image of God, then obviously God is infinite and he is not limited by a brain. The finite is designed, while the Infinite is the Designer, and by reason, an Infinite Designer cannot have limitations. The Bible makes sense when it says; "All things are possible with God". Another words, if we just clear our minds of doubt (Satan the trickster) there is nothing impossible for man (Just as God said in the Tower of Babel story), and this too makes perfect sense.

Now you could say: "Well, since we are god and have free will as God, So what could stop us from creating and doing unlimited evil?"

Here too we just look deep inside our mind (actually inside Gods Mind) for an answer; If our will opposes Gods will, it is just like a bad, or an evil thought, like murder for instance that we may have, and it is not one with God. Murder is a finite thought not an infinite one since God cannot kill himself. And since God has established what is good and what is evil for Himself, He will simply get rid of this flash of evil thought and will eventually cast it way deep inside His mind to a place called hell.
Remember that any individuality other than God is created. The Creator has power over the created, and He deals with it.

Now Satan can influence our mind with different beliefs, clouding our mind where we get all confused, but that is still us, our mind/spirit.

"Satan" is one of the supernatural characters proposed by religionists (ancient and modern) and is assigned characteristics, abilities and limitations in keeping with the story line.

It's OK, you can call it an evil thought, a bad deed. You don't have to call it Satan to go with the 'Children's Bible' storyline. Stick with 'observable' things within this universe and this world.
You are right, it's hard to see through the smoke of religion with their fairytale characters mixed in with reality, just like it is getting harder and harder to differentiate observable science from science fiction, or far fetched fairytales.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 77 by arian]

Well done..this is along the lines I was looking for, a rational basis for Monotheism.
Upon first glance, I think this is it. Not sure there are no holes in the theory of "infinite regress" that you put forward, but for now anyway, it works for me. That combined with the infinity of the supreme being excluding the necessity for any others.

So to summmarize, we have:

1) "Infinite regress" combined with the infininte nature of the First Cause, ie the Creator.
2)The myths so often attached to Polytheism, and not NECESSARILY attatched to Deistic, Monotheism.
3)Thomas Paine's explanation of the negative PRACTICAL effects of Trinitarianism, (and by extension, Polytheism ) on the stregnth of one's devotion to the One, true God.

I don't claim these three things PROVE Monotheism vs Polytheism, but they do proved me with all the rationale I need to favor what I know intuitively, that being the Reality and desirability of Monotheism over Polytheism.

A forth just occured to me as well...I know of NO ethical code that is attatched to Polytheism, but I do know of some ethical codes attatched to both Monotheism and (I have to admit) to Trinitarianism.

[arian]

[Replying to post 77 by arian]

Well done..this is along the lines I was looking for, a rational basis for Monotheism.
Upon first glance, I think this is it. Not sure there are no holes in the theory of "infinite regress" that you put forward, but for now anyway, it works for me. That combined with the infinity of the supreme being excluding the necessity for any others.

So to summmarize, we have:

1) "Infinite regress" combined with the infininte nature of the First Cause, ie the Creator.
2)The myths so often attached to Polytheism, and not NECESSARILY attatched to Deistic, Monotheism.
3)Thomas Paine's explanation of the negative PRACTICAL effects of Trinitarianism, (and by extension, Polytheism ) on the stregnth of one's devotion to the One, true God.

I don't claim these three things PROVE Monotheism vs Polytheism, but they do proved me with all the rationale I need to favor what I know intuitively, that being the Reality and desirability of Monotheism over Polytheism.

A forth just occured to me as well...I know of NO ethical code that is attatched to Polytheism, but I do know of some ethical codes attatched to both Monotheism and (I have to admit) to Trinitarianism.

Thank you my friend, and as individuals created in Gods image, to find a place we can be of one mind is truly a joyful moment, especially in these last days.

God bless you.

[David the apologist]

[Replying to post 4 by wiploc]

I think I understand now, why non-believers do that. I think some do it consiously, and some unconsiously. To diminish credibility of belief in One God and put Monotheism on the same plane as polythiesm. To put belief in One God in the same category as believing in Zeus and Hera, Posiedon, Thor, and Odin. Trying to make it seem as ridicuoulus as believing in pixies, leprachauns, and unicorns. Am I right?

Otherwise, why question panteons when hardly anyone is making polytheistic claims in the first place.

Sure, it easy to punch holes in the belief system of the of Olympian Gods. Less so, the single, God of the Philosophers.

The causality may run the other way.

I have a picture in my head such that the Trinitarian God of Christianity, the God of Abraham, and the God of the philosophers are one and the same entity. He is personal, but He is also a principle of intelligibility to me, and He makes the world make sense. On the other hand, I have this category of "similar gods," in which I include other Judeo-Christo-Islamic traditions. I also have a "beings of the philosophers" category, in which I include Plotinus' Monad, and Brahman (sp? so many Hindu names with the same root!). Finally, I have a "false gods" category, in which I include the polytheist pantheons.

You have your own categorization system, which (being a Unitarian and a Deist) probably places more emphasis on the God of the Philosophers, and less emphasis on the religious traditions. But you have at least a hierarchy such that YHWH and Brahman are closer to the top than, say, Quetzalcoatl or Thor.

The atheist, for whatever reason, has come to form a categorization schema in which the "God of the philosophers" is at best a god of the gaps, and all the religious traditions have been placed on a level playing field so that Brahman and Thor are viewed as fundamentally the "same kind of thing," and that kind of thing is "a god." Hence, YHWH, Brahman, Allah, et al. are all just variations on the same irrational theme. This is probably why they're atheists: they see the monotheistic God as just another one of the characters in the old poems.

[Elijah John]

Just to clarify somewhat...I AM a unitarian with a small "u" unitarian in theology as opposed to trinitarian. Absolute monotheist, as my usergroup designation indicates. But I do not belong to the UU church. Too vague in it's theology and too political for my tastes.

And I believe that God is personal, YHVH, the God of Moses ,David and Jesus. I believe the Name designates God as a conscious, personal being. But SPIRIT, not antropromorphic with a long white beard, not big grandaddy in the sky.

So while I appeal to philosphers to make a case for monotheism, I differ with them when they conclude that God is impersonal. It is my understanding that most philosphers conclude that God is a Unity, as opposed to a Pantheon.

Strict Monotheism, it seems to me, has minimal myths attatched, unlike polytheism, which has Pantheons.

-Deism as interpreted by Thomas Paine has the LEAST amount of mythology incorporated, then
-strict Monotheism such as Islam, and Judaism, as most Jews do not take the bulk of the Bible stories literally.
-Then I would place Trinitarianism, which added the myths (imo) of the NT to the Hebrew Bible.
- Then of course, the Neo-Pagan duality of the Goddess and the God,
- then historic Paganism with it's Pantheons, and Hinduism.

This is what I see as a progression of "myth-less" or minimal myth religions...to myth saturated.

[Danmark]

The atheist, for whatever reason, has come to form a categorization schema in which the "God of the philosophers" is at best a god of the gaps, and all the religious traditions have been placed on a level playing field so that Brahman and Thor are viewed as fundamentally the "same kind of thing," and that kind of thing is "a god." Hence, YHWH, Brahman, Allah, et al. are all just variations on the same irrational theme. This is probably why they're atheists: they see the monotheistic God as just another one of the characters in the old poems.

Tho' I am baffled by your 'god of the gaps' suggestion in this context I completely agree with the reference to the Jewish God as comparable to the Roman and Nordic Gods as well as the thousands of Gods that emerge from other cultures.

One of the distinct differences is this abomination of logic that the Constantinians came up with; this absurd notion of three separate Gods, with three separate spirits or spirit-bodies that some how constitute a single God. It may be the single greatest absurdity in all of religious literature. It is clearly a contradiction of terms necessitated by the apparent need to claim to be monotheistic. It is the result of the triumph of unwavering faith in Christian scripture over logic and common sense. Without the tyranny of the Chimera composed of ecclesiastical and secular power of the 4th Century this monstrosity of logic would have never taken flight.

[Zzyzx]

.

The atheist, for whatever reason, has come to form a categorization schema in which the "God of the philosophers" is at best a god of the gaps, and all the religious traditions have been placed on a level playing field so that Brahman and Thor are viewed as fundamentally the "same kind of thing," and that kind of thing is "a god." Hence, YHWH, Brahman, Allah, et al. are all just variations on the same irrational theme. This is probably why they're atheists: they see the monotheistic God as just another one of the characters in the old poems.

How do you come by your knowledge of Atheists and what they think?

Have you discovered in your research of Atheism that there is NO such thing as "the Atheist position?" Since no unifying dogma is required for "I do not believe in gods", weekly reinforcement meetings are not required, and no Sunday School offered, Atheists tend to have individual opinions rather than following "group think" or indoctrination.

Those who are indoctrinated to follow group think may have difficulty recognizing that others are not similarly afflicted.

[bishblaize]

How do you come by your knowledge of Atheists and what they think?

Have you discovered in your research of Atheism that there is NO such thing as "the Atheist position?" Since no unifying dogma is required for "I do not believe in gods", weekly reinforcement meetings are not required, and no Sunday School offered, Atheists tend to have individual opinions rather than following "group think" or indoctrination.

Those who are indoctrinated to follow group think may have difficulty recognizing that others are not similarly afflicted.

Oh the irony. You're not making the same mistake you're calling him out for, surely?

[Danmark]

Oh the irony. You're not making the same mistake you're calling him out for, surely?

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[David the apologist]

The atheist, for whatever reason, has come to form a categorization schema in which the "God of the philosophers" is at best a god of the gaps, and all the religious traditions have been placed on a level playing field so that Brahman and Thor are viewed as fundamentally the "same kind of thing," and that kind of thing is "a god." Hence, YHWH, Brahman, Allah, et al. are all just variations on the same irrational theme. This is probably why they're atheists: they see the monotheistic God as just another one of the characters in the old poems.

Tho' I am baffled by your 'god of the gaps' suggestion in this context I completely agree with the reference to the Jewish God as comparable to the Roman and Nordic Gods as well as the thousands of Gods that emerge from other cultures.

Well, let me try and explain to you the key differences between the gods of paganism and the God of monotheism.

To us, God plays a role rather more analogous to that played by, say, the Monad for Plotinus, the Form of the Good for Plato, etc. Vishnu is not something that belongs on the same plane as God. If you want something from the Hindu pantheon to compare YHWH to, go with the more abstract and philosophically interesting Brahman.

The difference between a god and God is that a god is merely a powerful being that can do things in the natural order (or is a part of the natural order in some sense, being the being behind thunderstorms, say), whereas God is something external to and transcendent of the natural order, yet nonetheless productive of it.

Indeed, I daresay that Brahman, the ineffable unity behind and beyond the perceived universe in Hindu belief systems, has rather more in common with the Christian God than, say, Zeus or Thor. Zeus and Thor are both children of other gods, gods which in their turn had congealed out of the primeval chaos, which alone was the "first principle" in the cosmogony.

The monotheistic God is a Ground of Being first and foremost, and while He does play a role as an actor in the grand drama of the universe, His primary role is to support and organize that universe. The radical difference between creature and Creator in Judeo-Christian thought, such that God "existed before" ("exist [tenseless] without" would be more accurate philosophically, imo, but obviously concepts like that hadn't been made explicit at first) anything in nature, and that nature was created by God out of nothing. In the developed mythologies of "civilized" societies, you won't find that. The closest thing I've found is Ptah in Egypt, and even then, it seems like the world is being made out of parts of his body (spit, tounge, teeth...), or at the very least that's a possible interpretation.

Moreover, when the monotheistic religions began explicating their concept of God with the rigorous tools provided by the various Greek philosophers, they tended to come to weird conclusions, like immutability, impassibility, divine timelessness, immensity, and (most fun and intriguing of all, imo) divine simplicity. When philosophers like Plotinus placed the gods in their ontologies, they always ended up being lesser spirits and not the primary grounds of being.

One of the distinct differences is this abomination of logic that the Constantinians came up with; this absurd notion of three separate Gods, with three separate spirits or spirit-bodies that some how constitute a single God. It may be the single greatest absurdity in all of religious literature. It is clearly a contradiction of terms necessitated by the apparent need to claim to be monotheistic. It is the result of the triumph of unwavering faith in Christian scripture over logic and common sense. Without the tyranny of the Chimera composed of ecclesiastical and secular power of the 4th Century this monstrosity of logic would have never taken flight.

Well, with all due respect, it seem to me that you haven't even attempted to understand the trinity, period, let alone try to understand it in the kind of conceptual framework that the Christians who came up with the creeds operated in.

To make the point clearer, imagine that I claimed that science is an evil thing that only gave governments weapons and technology to corporations. I then proceeded to post the following on a physics forum:

One of the distinct differences is this abomination of logic that the Copenhagenists came up with; this absurd notion of wave-particle duality, with the electron acting like a particle when we look at it, then turning into ripples as soon as our backs are turned. It may be the single greatest absurdity in all of scientific literature. It is clearly a contradiction of terms necessitated by the apparent need to claim to be "avant garde." It is the result of the triumph of unwavering faith in the behavior of things under contrived conditions and obscure mathematics over logic and common sense. Without the tyranny of the Chimera composed of intellectual and industrial powers of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries this monstrosity of logic would have never taken flight.

Such a claim would be a flagrant example of ignorance on my part: ignorance on what the early workers in the field of quantum mechanics actually said. ignorance of why they came to say it, and ignorance as to the historical context in which they said it.

I don't mean to insult you, but your characterization of the doctrine of the trinity leaves much to be desired. How, pray tell, would you have me categorize "Danmark's physical person," "Danmark's self-revealing speech," and "Danmarks's sneezes" in philosophical terms like "Danmark's haecceity" etc.? The result would be something rather odd and arbitrary-seeming, would it not?

Now, for an ordinary human person, such aspects of their being seem arbitrarily chosen and gerrymandered. However, in the Jewish world, the notion of "God's Breath" (or, in the more common/less distinctive terminology, "Holy Spirit") was important, as it was by God's Breath that men lived, were empowered to do great things for God's Kingdom, or were "inspired" (God-Breathed) to prophecy. In the subset of the Jewish community that would eventually become Christianity, Jesus came to be seen as someone through whom God was particularly intimately revealed (see, eg, Matthew 12:27 for an idea of what a "Jewish-influenced" community was willing to affirm of Jesus). Over time, this developed into "Logos Christology," on which view Jesus was considered to have been the self-communicating, self-revealing Word of God that somehow took on flesh and became a human person.

So for the early Christians, God, God's Word, and God's Breath became particularly prominent and important aspects of God, and inquiry into their interrelations - and whether any of them could be considered as partaking of God's Divinity - became quite important. God couldn't be confused with His Word, as if speaker could become spoken, but calling God's Word a distinct substance from God, and as something more creature-like than Divine, seemed to be unfitting as well. The Trinitarian formulations were attempts to do justice to both the distinctions amongst God, His Word, and His Breath, and to their fundamentally integrated and inseparable character. You may think that the notions of God, "Logos," and Divine Breath are all ultimately hogwash, but surely you must be able to see that if they are granted as real and vital parts of the universe that something broadly similar to a Trinitarian creedal formulation is the only way to do justice both to their distinctness and their intrinsic shared Divinity?

As to your apparent assertion that Constantine enforced trinitarianism on an unwilling and doubtful public, I will at this point have to rest content in pointing out that 1) the actual historical situation is rather more complex than you make it out to be, and 2) the "illogical" nature of the doctrine of the trinity makes it an unlikely choice as a means of controlling a population, and (if anything) speaks to the truth of the claim, just as the very absurdity of the concept of wave-particle duality speaks to its truth: no one would make it up.