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The Problem with Polytheism
- Thread starter ronki23
- Start date
I'm not sure why this would be a problem. Most pantheons I'm aware of have a hierarchy.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Couldn't they be creators?
Energy can't be born or die, so in that sense the universe and its laws are eternal. Monotheists, some, say that god is eternal. Why can't the same thing be said about multiple gods?
An example-two parents to create a child.
A group of people to create a building.
More than one entity to create the universe.
Even if we create something individually, say build a chair, it still takes multiple people to find/put together/make the parts to create what we call a chair.
Problems are only problems to folks that make them problems.
As far as i know throughout history there have been about 3800 creator gods, each one created the universe, how that works i do not know but people believed every one dun it... And i guess people can believe whatever makes them happy.
Using your “logic”, who or what created that monotheistic God? Why do the polytheistic Gods need to have been created, and the monotheistic God not created? Have you ever heard of polydeism? It’s the belief that the universe and its laws were created by a number of gods, each with their own specialty who stepped back after creation, not unlike the deistic God.
Same deity, different names.
Many Creators, many signatures on Creation. Working together and sometimes adversarially. I don't see an issue with this.
Not according to the believers, in say Ixpiyacoc, there deity was top god, all the others were pretenders to the throne. And same today, i don't know of any monotheist who will even admit to other gods.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Polytheism makes more sense. One monolithic infinite being couldn't possibly be conceived as to how such being would exist. A single Omni God I would give my sympathy too. That would be a torturous way to exist.
Eternal beings in an infinite reality makes more sense. For sanity's sake all beings have limits. Eternal beings that are uncreated sounds like a far more plausible reality. Beings are social animals. God is incomplete without a social aspect to God. Thus the need for others.
Eternal beings in an infinite reality makes more sense. For sanity's sake all beings have limits. Eternal beings that are uncreated sounds like a far more plausible reality. Beings are social animals. God is incomplete without a social aspect to God. Thus the need for others.
Of course, everyone thinks their god is the only God. You are right. And therein lies another corner monotheists paint themselves into, or another wall to seal themselves in, from which they can’t escape and will suffocate. My position comes from the Rigveda... “One Truth known by many names”. A very logical and open-minded POV, I think.
Now that depends, lol.
Many paths, One mountain.
Going forward I'm using "universe" to mean "all of existence," just so we're on the same page.
I don't believe in any creator being, and I personally believe the gods came around later. I subscribe to a cyclical universe concept, wherein a big bang event forms a universe cycle, and entropy ends it. There's then a big crunch event and it all happens again. I'm torn between whether the cycles are infinite, with time itself being a loop and thus there being no "first" or "last" cycle, and a non-sentient force such as chance or fate initiating the first cycle. I lean more towards that first explanation though. In it, time would be something like a donut, with "first" being a kind of irrelevant concept.
Furthermore, since I understand time to be the passing of events, I do not believe that a sentience outside of time can exist, as it's thoughts would be events. If it didn't have active thoughts, it wouldn't be sentient. Any being with sentience must therefore be within time at large. That doesn't necessarily mean all beings must be within linear time (the fourth dimension), though. If time is events, it is certainly multi-dimensional, as there is great evidence within physics of dimensions higher than the fourth dimension of linear time as we experience it. But still, time at large must be present for it's thoughts to occur within. I also do not think a being can exist outside of space. Even if it's made of pure light or energy, that light or energy must exist somewhere, it has to be. Just generally, if something is it must be within existence because, well, existence is all that... exists.
As for the gods, I see them as beings within the universe, bound by its laws, just like us. What separates us is how much we're bound and why and how. They didn't create the universe, they're just products of it like everything else.
I don't believe in any creator being, and I personally believe the gods came around later. I subscribe to a cyclical universe concept, wherein a big bang event forms a universe cycle, and entropy ends it. There's then a big crunch event and it all happens again. I'm torn between whether the cycles are infinite, with time itself being a loop and thus there being no "first" or "last" cycle, and a non-sentient force such as chance or fate initiating the first cycle. I lean more towards that first explanation though. In it, time would be something like a donut, with "first" being a kind of irrelevant concept.
Furthermore, since I understand time to be the passing of events, I do not believe that a sentience outside of time can exist, as it's thoughts would be events. If it didn't have active thoughts, it wouldn't be sentient. Any being with sentience must therefore be within time at large. That doesn't necessarily mean all beings must be within linear time (the fourth dimension), though. If time is events, it is certainly multi-dimensional, as there is great evidence within physics of dimensions higher than the fourth dimension of linear time as we experience it. But still, time at large must be present for it's thoughts to occur within. I also do not think a being can exist outside of space. Even if it's made of pure light or energy, that light or energy must exist somewhere, it has to be. Just generally, if something is it must be within existence because, well, existence is all that... exists.
As for the gods, I see them as beings within the universe, bound by its laws, just like us. What separates us is how much we're bound and why and how. They didn't create the universe, they're just products of it like everything else.
Well yes, there’s an exception to every rule. I have had a hard time reconciling for example the bloodlust of the Aztec gods, especially Huitzilopochtli. If he’s not propitiate with human sacrifice the world will end. Well, I think the Aztecs hot it wrong because Huitzilopochtli hasn’t been sacrificed to on the scale he demanded in over 500 years, and we’re still here.
Sri Ramakrishna.
Is that attributed to him? I know not.
Yes, but not in so many words. What he said was, "So many religions, so many paths to reach the one and the same goal," and "All religions are true. God can be reached by many different religions. Many rivers flow by many ways, but they all fall into the sea. They all are one."