God/Gods?

Great Debates
1

Hello there, i’m afraid i’m new at this, so if i breach protocol or insult anyone on this, my first post i apologise. Just thought i’d start things off with something i can talk about. This is all purely theological, so i hope this is the rigth place to post ^_^;

There are Pantheons and Gods all over the world, they come in every shape and size, but many Gods from many Pantheons are very similar to one another, at some points so similar that they might as well be the same god. I happen to like this idea, the theory that some gods are found all over the world with different forms to work with different cultures.The trickster is one such universal, Be he Coyote, Hannuman, Loki, or others, he is found everywhere, sometiems a bit more nasty than others, but still always there. Ther eis always a thunder god too, now are all these teh same Gods, or are they different Gods with similar abilities?

Now lets jump feet first into the abyss. The CREATOR is present in almost every religion on earth. Sometimes he is the same god who runs the universe, sometimes he just shows up, makes a bunch of stuff, and leaves. But he is almost everywhere. In Norse he takes the form of a Giant Cow (Which by the way is the only reason i have any real doubts about norse creationism, i just CAN’T believe the universe was birthed by a cow the size of a galaxy.), In hindu it’s um… damn, i want to say Ganesh, but thats the Elephant god of family and firtune. I mean the The many faced God who all teh other gods are comprised of. If anyone knows who i’m talking baout, feel free to explain him ^^. In native American Religions he is called the Great Spirit (and sometiems Coyote by the Crow indians, I LOVE coyote ^^), and is as much an observer as he is a creator. As i understand the aboriginees of Australia are also big on creationism, but i know nothing about that. Many of the old, OLD pagan Religions of Europe and Eurasia have an EArth Mother who is also their creator, justa feminie view of the same person. And of course the three major world religions have him with names like JEhova, Allah, or just plain old GOD.

Now the legends of such a creator spirit are so prevelant, that its a safe bet that one exists, but which one? OR do they all exist and he just aproaches different people in different ways?

(On a personal note, i think the very idea that any of us mortals can truely understand the creator or why he does what he does is a true lesson in human Ego)

Now this thread isnt necessarily about just GOD as being prevelant all over the world, its about ALL The gods. Is there some common link between them? Are many of these gods the same Gods(or aliens if thats your thing and you watch too much Stargate)?

Just a fw thoughts, lets see what comes up. :slight_smile:

2

The common theme between all of the gods, and present-day science for that matter, is mans fundamental need to understand how the universe works and his place in it.

3

Many Pagans and Christians would be very insulted that anyone could suggest that their gods are the same. Admittedly Neopaganism is not really the same as the Old Religion, but Christianity certainly isnt.

4

Yeah, followers of all religions all do a great job with that. It’s one of the less charming features that people take away from belief systems.

Human consciousness is a user of patterns; it perceives them, creates them, modifies them, and plays with them. If you needed to pick a moment where the last protohuman “ape” became the first “person”, I think a good arbitrary moment would be the first time they looked up at the sky and thought that that cloud up there looked just like a lion…and now more like one of the dogs that followed on the fringes of the tribe…and now like nothing except maybe…maybe a face?

Gods are narratives that are built around patterns that people keep perceiving, because in large part we’re “made” to. A Creator, well, people are tool users, and we are that because we have the capacity to create, and we have that because we can perceive and manipulate the patterns of creation. And so on for any random given category of common-themed gods and powers.

5

The Romans found similarities and made associations between their own gods/goddesses and those of the cultures they conquered or otherwise had dealings with. They didn’t see all divine beings as manifestations of one supreme being, but divinities in different cultures who bore strong similarities were thought to be essentially the same being in different “cultural” clothing. For instances, Gaius Julius Caesar associated the Germanic god Wodin (Norse Odin) with the Roman god Mercury. Such associations persist in the names of the days of weeks across modern languages, associations with planets, and so on.

Having said which, I would tend to think (from limited knowledge and experience on the topic) that such similarities between divinities become weaker the more disparate the two cultures in question are. I will go way out on a limb and suggest that perhaps the strong similarities between, say, Roman and Norse gods are a reflection of some shared root culture or shared perception of the cosmos, while similarities between, say, Roman and Aztec gods might be rather weaker. Either way, I wouldn’t take the commonalities – creation, weather, the Sun, etc. – as some kind of evidence of an underlying cosmic truth, but rather as a expression our shared human nature and shared perception of the world around us… which is more or less what Beezlebubba said.

Furthermore, as Kalashnikov points out, some religions are predicated on the distinctness of their god(s), whether monotheistic, such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, or polytheistic, such as (Neo-)Paganism.

And let’s not forgot that some religions do not include the idea of “god” at all.

6

That sounds to me like the fallacy of argumentum ad populum. There was a time when most people believed the Earth was flat. Would it have been a “safe bet” to conclude that it was true? In your zeal to reconcile all the widely disparate versions of god, you are overlooking the possibility that NONE of them exist.

7

God(s) are not just creators but they are controllers. There is something that sets the order of things, wheather it be God, gods, nature, luck, what have you. So yes there is a “safe bet” that something controls the order of the world and the universe. It is NOT chaos because there is an order to the universe. To have a set of circumastances and know that it weill produce the same thing every time means there is order. And something controlls that order. So yes there is a God/gods. Does not have to be a specific entity per se, and wheather you belive in dieties, science or nothing at all, just for the fact that you are here is proof that something controlls everything.

8

Brutha: “I still don’t see how one god can be a hundred thunder gods. They all look different…”
Om: “False noses.”
Brutha: “What?”
Om: “And different voices. I happen to know Io’s got seventy different hammers. Not common knowledge, that. And it’s just the same with mother goddesses. There’s only one of 'em. She just got a lot of wigs and of course it’s amazing what you can do with a padded bra.”
–Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

9

I have no problem with a Wiccan who says that his gods are like the Jesus Whom I worship. If they love me, then the Wiccan is correct; if they don’t, then he is mistaken.

10

“something” is not equavalent to “god”.

And THAT, my friend, is the fallacy of False Dichotomy, i.e. “There is either God, or there is chaos”. I don’t think you really mean “order”. I see no evidence of order in the universe - in fact, events in the universe would seem to be rather arbitrary. I think what you want to say is there is PREDICTABILITY in the universe (to a certain extent). What is your reason for believing that predictability necessitates a sentient creator?

11

No two people have the same god.

That is, their conceptions of who (their) god is are different.

I choose to believe that there is one Entity behind these conceptions, manifesting Himself in a variety of ways, most particularly through Jesus of Nazareth.

I also can allow that there may possibly be other spirits that account for the varieties of religious experience. How this fits into my monotheistic cosmos, I’m not clear. But that’s His problem, not mine, to resolve.

One must also take into account human imagination and the venality of pseudo-religious predators.

12

:wink:

Well, I practice Poly -theism…

isofunny

13

Brutha: “I still don’t see how one god can be a hundred thunder gods. They all look different…”
Om: “False noses.”
Brutha: “What?”
Om: “And different voices. I happen to know Io’s got seventy different hammers. Not common knowledge, that. And it’s just the same with mother goddesses. There’s only one of 'em. She just got a lot of wigs and of course it’s amazing what you can do with a padded bra.”
–Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Darn you Rjung. You have already discovered my secret, the basis of all my beliefs are Discworld novels! thought i could hide that a bit longer than i did. >_<

14

Your OP was too well-suited to the novel. :wink:

15

Something is equavalent to something. And until you can identify that something you cannot say it is NOT “god”.

No sir. Without order you have disorder, confusuion. If there was no order then you would not have science. From that order we learn to predict it. Yo cannot predict something from disorder. My reason for believeing order necessitates a creator of order is that from chaos you cannot get order. Therefore I believe that in the beginning there was chaos and something created that order.
Yes, Irepeat myself for a reason.

16

[monkey wrench]

Scientifically speaking, the universe is not ordered; it is organized. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all systems tend towards a state of maximum entropy. If I correctly recall my far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic theory, decreasing entropy results in order, while increasing entropy translates to increasing organization. Thus the structures of the physical Universe – biological organisms included – are highly organized, not highly ordered.

[/monkey wrench]

17

Well, by your reasoning, since I cannot say it is not an invisble pink unicorn, we could use that name to refer to it as well. Shall we?

18

Something I’ve wondered- the Bible states in several places that it is impossible to look upon the face of G_d. This was also a key component of Greek myth, where gods had to take mortal (or animal or meteorological) form to hook up with mortal women lest they incinerate them in their glory. (Remember the conception of Dionysos?) Do you think this is coincidence, or that the concept of deities having an unbearable-to-mortals presence derived from the same source?
Changing the subject, but the golden calf: how significant due you think the fact it was a calf was? Do you think it was an homage to the Ugaritic and Meditteranean bull worshippers (while at the same time saying “we’re a new people, thus it’s a calf and not a bull”), or just an easy to make shape? Or related to the bulls of Apis? Or symbolic of a civil war fought between the monotheist and pagan factions? Or just a really great moment for Charlton Heston and Edgar G. Robinson to shine?

19

Whatever floats your boat bub. Or does something not equal an inviisble pink unicorn either?

20

See this article from the Journal of Chemical Education, where it is explained that, despite a transport of macro objects from initial locations to more probable locations, there is no change in the entropic state of the objects themselves, but only in the agent that moved them.

A shuffled deck, for example, is no more entropic than a new deck. The increased entropy takes place not in the cards, but in the arm, wrist, and finger muscles of the shuffler. There is no increase or decrease in entropy in a dorm room that is either neatly ordered or hopelessly disordered. Either way the room turns out, the change in the number of accessible energy eigenstates occurs not in the room, but within the bodies of the students whose agency caused the room to change.