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?
Tags: monotheism
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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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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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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 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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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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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 3:29 PMIt's interesting to see he thought one ultimate reality is monotheistic God as if everything depends on interpretation.

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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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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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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 3:56 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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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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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.