Polytheistic reality in Monotheism
Jul 28, '07 12:57 PMfor everyone
There are many Monotheistic faiths which hold only one God. Those feature is similar. He is absolute and omnipotent being. Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism, YHWH in Judaism, Lord in Christianity, Zeus in Catholicism. Are they all the same God whose names only differ or are they all different Gods who claim to be only one God?
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Comments:Chronological Reverse Threaded

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eglamkowski wrote today at 3:04 PMFirst, are any of these REALLY monotheistic to begin with? Just about all of these recognize angels and saints. What Christians call an angel another (polytheistic) religion might refer to as a "lesser" god, a saint would be called a demi-god. It's just a matter of semantics.

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briangriffith wrote today at 3:15 PM, edited today at 3:20 PMDuring the Mughal Empire in India, Emperor Akbar (who was of course a Muslim) held Hinduism to be basically monotheistic, because all divinities and all creatures were held to exist within one ultimate reality. And as the Sufi Muslims say, "It's not that there is no God but Allah; it's that there is nothing except Allah".How could Akbar be wrong?

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mercedo wrote today at 3:22 PMMichael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Azazel, Seraphim, Cherubim...
I meant many monotheistic Gods in the title 'polytheistic reality' , but in fact there are many supernatural beings in a description of Bible and their relationship to only one God is very obscure. Some are called God in Bible.

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controlgroup wrote today at 3:24 PMI like the sufi muslim saying. If you're gonna be religious, that's the way to go. It's kinda zen like.But I'm an atheist, so I'd ask a different question. I'd ask how mankind constructs these images and what the similarities say about that construction. Do we always choose certain concepts? Or is it that we plagiarise? The bible is mostly stolen from earlier babylonian texts, and christianity is stolen from mithraism. All the judeo-Xtian religions are the same, but they don't look at all like (say) the hindu gods. But the Hindu gods do look somewhat similar to the Ancient Thai and Chinese gods, and China happens to be only a thousand miles or so away.

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paji2 wrote today at 3:26 PMOK, I am a bit puzzled by the "Zeus in Catholicism" - last I knew, Zeus was a Greek god and Jesus was venerated by the Catholics almost over His Father ..??

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mercedo wrote today at 3:29 PMIt's interesting to see he thought one ultimate reality is monotheistic God as if everything depends on interpretation.

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paji2 wrote today at 3:30 PM
mercedo saidSome are called God in Bible. I believe you will find that Satan for example, is called "god" - Only the Father - at least in the Bibles I have, is called "God", with a capital "G". :)

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mercedo wrote today at 3:56 PMTraditionally the name of monotheistic God in Judaism was YHWH, but since Jewsish states were ruled under both Ptlemaic 323 -198 and Selucid 198 - 166, they started calling their only one God as Zeus, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, Selucid king 175 -163 forced Jewish people to worship Greek God Zeus in Jewish temple. 63 BC, Jewish states were finally annexed by Romans. Roman Catholicism adopted the name of Greek highest God as Jewish monotheistic God. Zeus was changed phonetically in Deus, and later it came to the origin of Theos, God in Greek, and Deitas, God in Latin. Theism and deity are from Zeus etymologically.

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mercedo wrote today at 4:08 PMIt's not important as to whether we use capital G or not in God. God in Bible is a proper noun, though 'god' might be an ordinary noun.
So could you kindly tell me which version of Bible you use? Basically I use NIV and in there for example Genesis 32:22-31, it says Jacob struggles with God. this God is not YHWH, but some supernatural being like an Angel.

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ullangoo wrote today at 4:12 PMZeus comes from *diwos pitar = father of gods (in Latin it became Jupiter). Theos and deus are related to *diwos, which is Sanskrit (Hindi devi/deva). Deus is NOT derived from Zeus, and neither is theos or deity or theism or anything. Theos and deus both mean (a) god. Linguistically speaking - and this has nothing to do with the age of the texts - deus is the older form. You got it totally wrong.

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mercedo wrote today at 4:17 PMThanks, Ullangoo....Here I accept a linguist's commentary.

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infinitemonkey wrote today at 4:32 PMIt largely depends on your particular interpretation of what angels and saints are and what their relationship is to us and to God.Some Catholics or other Christians would certainly pray to saints or even angels (or invoke them in some way), and you would have a point. However, many others would be horrified at the idea because of the injunction of the commandment to not have any other gods before God, and would also vehemently deny that saints or angels are divine themselves. So praying to a saint or invoking them would be blasphemous or heretical -- or at the very least theologically iffy.This is, for example, one bone of contention between most Christians and Roman Catholics -- the Marian cult, where the Virgin Mary is in effect treated as virtually godlike in her own right (from our non-Roman Catholic point of view). From the point of view of most Christians, she was a mere human being -- a particularly blessed and chosen human being, but still a human being more or less like the rest of us. The Roman Catholic Church, however, has elevated her to near-divine status, such as claiming she was born without sin, etc.Cheers,Ethelred

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mercedo wrote today at 4:32 PM
controlgroup saidThe bible is mostly stolen from earlier babylonian texts This is very correct, you knew that? Basically today many Hebrew Scriptures were thought to be edited around the period of Babylonian captivity. I'm not sure as to the latter part of your comment. I am not well versed in those beliefs, but I think Chinese gods are directly adopted from Hinduism.

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ullangoo wrote today at 4:33 PMYou're welcome.Catholics believe in the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This three-in-one God is the only non-created being and therefore the only one worshipped. Whatever you call angels and blah-blah, they are parts of creation and essentially different from God.

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infinitemonkey wrote today at 4:38 PMAt least in the case of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, yes, they are definitely the same God, though they differ over the specifics. They evolved from the same roots.As for other religions, arguably yes, they do worship the same Godhead in differing ways. Indeed the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches in the Catholic tradition essentially argue as much in between the lines (though you have to pick apart the teachings to get the meaning, but it is definitely there in Dominus Iesus -- other belief systems are described as "defective", but they are also clearly described as being possible ways to salvation, i.e. they "point" to the same Godhead, if you will).Cheers,Ethelred

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ullangoo wrote today at 4:41 PMI think we can rest assured that Chinese religion evolved independently of Hinduism. For one thing, the former is considerably older. There is, I think, some fairly late influence via Buddhism.

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paji2 wrote today at 4:48 PM
mercedo saidTheism and deity are from Zeus etymologically. May it ever be so - you just try to go into a Catholic church and start praying and worshiping Zeus! That - to me - is comparable to call your friends "Monkey" or "Chimp" - because a theory has it we evolved from them.

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mercedo wrote today at 4:53 PMI see. There is an optimal interpretation in understanding the description of Bible. your understanding seems to be so, so I embrace this most acceptable one. God refers to only one monotheistic absolute being, and 'god' includes many other spirits.

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mercedo wrote today at 4:57 PMOk, I value your idea. But many believers think very differently. They hardly imagined all Gods are the same. How can you persuade them? Are you going to say, ' If we've got only one God, it must be the same.' ?

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paji2 wrote today at 5:06 PM
mercedo saidSo could you kindly tell me which version of Bible you use? New King James, Jerusalem, Goodspeed, New World, King James - Czech translation, King James - Romanian translation.In the account you give, true, it was an angel - some believe it was Jesus in his heavenly form but that is beside the point.There are many instances where there is a representative of God - but is spoken of as "God", since he fully stands in for him.The G-g is an important difference, not merely grammatically but it gives the sense of whether this particular one is a "true" or "false" god.Therefore, Satan is "a god of this world", not "God of this world".

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infinitemonkey wrote today at 5:08 PMIt just depends on the believer. Some people are going to be bigoted pinheads no matter what you do.But actually many are quite happy with the idea. Indeed it is the basis of a lot of the dialog between religions, such as that with the Pope and Anglican Church or other interfaith dialog. And Islam, for example, explicitly recognizes monotheistic faiths as being more legitimate than others, particularly those from the Judeo-Christian tradition, so they don't need much convincing, either (though they get annoyed by the concept of the Holy Trinity, which they view as contradicting their strict interpretation of monotheism).Cheers,Ethelred

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mercedo wrote today at 5:09 PMI wonder how the interpretation is very similar however vary the denominations the Protestant has. You used to make a comment that Nietzsche's criticism was done in Protestant's understanding of Bible. If he knew Roman Catholicism, did he stop criticising Christianity in general?

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ullangoo wrote today at 5:09 PMEthelred, your thoughts are interesting.I think we have three possibilities. 1) we believe that there's only one God and that people who haven't received the true revelation nevertheless seek Him, hence worship Him as well as they can; 2) people without the revelation worship demons; 3) there may or may not be one God, but all religions are made by humans, and which you follow makes no difference. I opt for 3) - being fairly sure there is a God.