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A question for Theists

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
what is evil ?

That which brings more harm than help.

Does God have power over evil ?

What is evil to one God is good to another. The Old Stories show the Gods as frequently in conflict with one another.

should God have to combat evil or is this our duty ?

Depends on the God and devotee.

if we are ultimatly all god then why are we also impure ?

Spiritual purity/impurity isn't a concept I ascribe to anymore.
 

Kirran

Premium Member
namaskaram Kiran ji

Namaskaram ratikalaji, such hard-hitting questions, thankyou!

not goodness ?

is it acidental or deliberate ?

Goodness is the same, depends what we think is good, it's still maya.

Whether it's accidental or deliberate, I think neither. It's just stuff that is.

so what if his ultimate power were knowledge ?

I don't think so, it ascribes too many personal attributes to me.

if we are God how come we lack Gods Knowledge ?

I think we have God's knowledge, although perhaps not all of it. But what is knowledge anyway? Knowledge is maya, it's in vyavaharika.

why does a Hindu chant ? have you not heard a Hindu say that chanting purifies the mind , the heart ?

This is a very good question, yes I would say it does purify, but more in the sense of clearing and focusing, allowing a clearer sight of Shiva.
 

Glaurung

Denizen of Niflheim

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
namaskaram Bhai ji

welcome back :)

Thank you! :)

of course you know about Varaha , ...but then to God this earth planet probably looks like a ball being tossed in the air , ...that one such as God could just catch opon his tusks :p
Hahaha, indeed. :D

as a panentheist what do you feel about human ignorance and what we term as evil ?
Rival wrote an interesting post , .....please if you have any thoughts on this they would be most welcome , ...

I consider 'evil' in an entirely naturalistic sense. Put our hand in fire, we will get burnt. Fire in itself is not bad, even if fire can be used for bad or dangerous things. Hunger is to tell us we lack food, for example.

When it comes to humans, I think it's a mix of ignorance, egotism, and maliciousness, or general, naturalistic things. Sometimes people do things out of anger, desperation, selfishness, some people do things out of maliciousness... and there are some who are... just... wicked people. Some people may be wired up wrong.
 

SpentaMaynu

One God, All in all
Hi all, I love seeing all these diverse ideas and believes about God and I learn so much. This is wonderful and seeing all these I can feel my spirit being uplifted in worship to God.

I believe God is One with many Names and many manifestations. God is All and All is God. We are not God in His/Her/Its fullness but we are definitely aspects of God. I see no contradiction in seeing God as both immanent and transcendent - personally within us and non-personal far and detached from us. God is so great that our human minds now cannot fathom Him and still He is all around us interacting in every second. God is both the beginning and the end, the One who create and destroy again. God is with us in time and space as we know it but still He is outside of that. That's why the different religions, while there seems to be many differences, is actually One God interacting with us in different ways so we can have a better understanding of both God as well as one another. Practicing one religion to me means to study in depth what God wanted to teach us in that manifestation (for example - Jesus Christ, to lay down our lives for one another). Trying to practice as many different religions as possible to me means to get to know God in as many different ways as we can possibly take in in one lifetime. Ultimately the religion is Love and God is Love.

what is evil ?
Does God have power over evil ?
should God have to combat evil or is this our duty ?
if we are ultimatly all god then why are we also impure ?

Though I believe God is the ultimate Good I do also believe that evil is a part of God (not a separate part - God is One). All of us in our current position have the decision to make between good and evil but ultimately we become One with God again.

I do not believe God "could make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it" (as if God lifts rocks o_O ...) because this would be to limit God's own omnipotence and would thus invalidate his character

:p maybe God can pretend not to be able to pick up a rock, no? But then God can't lie... lol bit of a dilemma we have here - luckily none of us is gonna put up a fight about this.

I consider 'evil' in an entirely naturalistic sense. Put our hand in fire, we will get burnt. Fire in itself is not bad, even if fire can be used for bad or dangerous things. Hunger is to tell us we lack food, for example.

When it comes to humans, I think it's a mix of ignorance, egotism, and maliciousness, or general, naturalistic things. Sometimes people do things out of anger, desperation, selfishness, some people do things out of maliciousness... and there are some who are... just... wicked people

Yes! This is very well said. Sometimes something might look like evil to us and yes we have to react (or not, which in itself is a reaction) to that and our reaction might be right, wrong, good or evil depending on who you ask. I think we have some difficulty to understand God and then some of the things we think He did seems evil to us. We should stop trying to explain, let every one make their own decisions. As for me I will trust and love God with all in me
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
Namaskaram ,

do those who would identify as Theists beleive in one supreme god or multiple gods ?

Multiple Gods and Goddesses, independent beings, not aspects or facets of one God. There is no single supreme God. In fact I daresay that Ásatrú is deist. Even that's a stretch because there's no mention of any being that created and controls the universe. There are processes, though. The creation of the universe seems to have been spontaneous, though the world itself was created by Odin and his brothers. The universe is governed by something called orlog, wyrd and hamingja, which together are not entirely unlike karma.

to you Is god omnipotent ?

No, the Gods have their limitations. They rely on each other for help at times, and they work together. And sometimes they fight.

is god omnipresent ?

Only in the sense that if one calls on a God(dess) he or she will answer, but they don't have their receivers tuned to us 24/7. That is, Thor may be off fighting enemies, but as soon as he hears his name he responds.

is god omnicient ?

No, they don't know everything, which is another reason they rely on each other. They gather daily for a "staff meeting" to share news and knowledge and make decisions.

is god eternal ?

No, they're born, they live, they die to paraphrase a movie line that is not far off the mark.

Blissfull ?
and full of Knowledge ?

No, that's not part of my belief system. Though one can have a rousing good time time eating, drinking, brawling, wrestling and partying at Thor's place (he loves rowdiness).

is God a personification of love ?

No, the Gods are real beings and not personifications of anything. Thor is not the God of thunder, he is thunder; Týr is not the God of justice, honor and courage he is justice, honor and courage; and so on for the other Gods and Goddesses.

please feel free to add other atributes that you feel it important to mention

The Gods and Goddesses are our older, wiser, greater and more powerful "kith and kin"... family and friends.
 
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Breathe

Hostis humani generis
:p maybe God can pretend not to be able to pick up a rock, no? But then God can't lie... lol bit of a dilemma we have here - luckily none of us is gonna put up a fight about this.
Confusing, isn't it? :D

But for me, I don't believe God has a physical body. Well, kind of, but not quite. God is the totality of all but greater than it. So God making a rock so heavy 'He' cannot lift it is effectively making himself too heavy for himself... which doesn't make sense to me. :D

Yes! This is very well said. Sometimes something might look like evil to us and yes we have to react (or not, which in itself is a reaction) to that and our reaction might be right, wrong, good or evil depending on who you ask. I think we have some difficulty to understand God and then some of the things we think He did seems evil to us. We should stop trying to explain, let every one make their own decisions. As for me I will trust and love God with all in me
Totally agreed. :)
 

ratikala

Istha gosthi
namaskaram Spenta Maynu ji

Hi all, I love seeing all these diverse ideas and believes about God and I learn so much. This is wonderful and seeing all these I can feel my spirit being uplifted in worship to God.

jai jai , ...it is so difficult to explain this feeling to one who does not have it ....yet so beautifull to see when one does , ..

prehaps you know ?.... this thread came about due to my sadness at reading many of the posts in the recent ''what is Antitheism'' post , ....

from where I stand , so much richer is the life that sees God .

I believe God is One with many Names and many manifestations. God is All and All is God. We are not God in His/Her/Its fullness but we are definitely aspects of God. I see no contradiction in seeing God as both immanent and transcendent - personally within us and non-personal far and detached from us. God is so great that our human minds now cannot fathom Him and still He is all around us interacting in every second. God is both the beginning and the end, the One who create and destroy again. God is with us in time and space as we know it but still He is outside of that. That's why the different religions, while there seems to be many differences, is actually One God interacting with us in different ways so we can have a better understanding of both God as well as one another. Practicing one religion to me means to study in depth what God wanted to teach us in that manifestation (for example - Jesus Christ, to lay down our lives for one another). Trying to practice as many different religions as possible to me means to get to know God in as many different ways as we can possibly take in in one lifetime. Ultimately the religion is Love and God is Love.

with this I agree with entirely , the differences between religions I see only as coming from incomplete veiw , as yes God is too vast to incomprehensable in his fullness , so inevitably we understand only fragments of his being , it is only when we think that our fragmental knowledge is complete and authoritive knowledge that we begin to fight , ...to say ''my God'' , ''your God'' or even ''No God'', ....those that realise this greatness of God have no problem with other religions and understand the relevance to others of each different tradition .



Though I believe God is the ultimate Good I do also believe that evil is a part of God (not a separate part - God is One). All of us in our current position have the decision to make between good and evil but ultimately we become One with God again.

yes likewise , ...evil , yes it is a pary of God , as everything stems from God , except that Evil comes from the Ignorant position of not knowing , ...evil comes from the notion of our own independance and our wish to control , ...but as God is ultimatly the controler , ...Evil is only a temporary state of delusion and exists only in the material realm where we seek to control .
Therefore ultimatly there is only good , ..this to me is the only way I can tolerate this life , ..to know that Ignorance is only a temporary state of not Knowing , ...but that the Ultimate state is Knowledge and that which is to be Known is God , ...


:p maybe God can pretend not to be able to pick up a rock, no? But then God can't lie... lol bit of a dilemma we have here - luckily none of us is gonna put up a fight about this.

He Hee , ....I think God will perform these tricks just to make us stop and think , ....but of course if God created an eneormous rock of all rocks , that rock would be God , ...and God being all powerfull may simply lift himself , after all rock is only matter , ....mind of God surely is far greater , ...:p

Sometimes something might look like evil to us and yes we have to react (or not, which in itself is a reaction) to that and our reaction might be right, wrong, good or evil depending on who you ask. I think we have some difficulty to understand God and then some of the things we think He did seems evil to us. We should stop trying to explain, let every one make their own decisions. As for me I will trust and love God with all in meOne God, many Names, many manifestations

to me this comes down again to our ignorance or incomplete veiw , ....Evil is only Evil when the intent behind the action is malevolant , if God acts in a way that 'appears' to be evil we must try to understand the motivation behind the action , ...malevolant or benevolant ? .....but as I think he has a plan far greater than our comrehension can fathom , ...and as he has no enemys , his action can only be benevolant , ..who has he to hate or undermine ?

.....no one as everything is He :)
 

SpentaMaynu

One God, All in all
jai jai , ...it is so difficult to explain this feeling to one who does not have it ....yet so beautifull to see when one does , ..

prehaps you know ?.... this thread came about due to my sadness at reading many of the posts in the recent ''what is Antitheism'' post , ....

from where I stand , so much richer is the life that sees God

Yes it is difficult and it is always awesome to meet someone else who really is into worshiping God almost obsessively. I think this is maybe one of the reasons why so many of the mystics reach a point of silence. Many times when I try to explain to people the greatness of God and they start to fight with me about the impossibility then I just keep quite and smile.

Evil is only Evil when the intent behind the action is malevolant

In our human mind (maybe I should add Western mind) to see evil as a part of God is very difficult to understand. That's why I didn't know how to explain myself there, so what you said about ignorance make sense to me (for now, I will think about it for a very long time to come).
But this, the intent behind an action, is something I did thought about a lot and it is true what you say - many times people like to throw words like right, wrong and sin around and many times my answer was 'okay so why exactly is that wrong?' Sometimes they answer 'because the Bible says so' (many of them unable to show me where, which only shows me they've heard it somewhere) and other times 'because my mother said so' (an answer I hate). Until after I've read about a whole lot of different ideas such as the interconnection of all beings and the Wiccan creed 'an ye harme none, do what thy wilt'. This made me realize that 'wrong' or 'sin' (and hence evil) is when we hurt someone, do something from a point of hate or fear.
Then we can see how a harmless and loving kiss from Judas to Jesus wasn't so harmless and loving at all but reeks of evil.
 

Kirran

Premium Member
Yes it is difficult and it is always awesome to meet someone else who really is into worshiping God almost obsessively. I think this is maybe one of the reasons why so many of the mystics reach a point of silence. Many times when I try to explain to people the greatness of God and they start to fight with me about the impossibility then I just keep quite and smile.

So much this man, respect.
 

ratikala

Istha gosthi
sorry ...short break for Prasada , ..:)

do those who would identify as Theists beleive in one supreme god or multiple gods ?

......I belive in one supreme God , ....Multifarious manifestations , ...each manifestation representing an aspect of the supreme , however only the supreme posesses all characteristics symultaniously and in their fullness .

to you Is god omnipotent ? .....yes
is god omnipresent ? .....yes
is god omnicient ? ............yes

is god eternal ? ...........yes
Blissfull ? ...........undoubtably
and full of Knowledge ? .......full of as in the personification of knowledge ...absolute Knowledge in form and the permiating knowledge which resides in all beings in the form of a seed waiting to fructify .

is God a personification of love ? .............absolute and abundant Love

please now if you wish , any more questions , ... fire away
 

Kirran

Premium Member
sorry ...short break for Prasada , ..:)

do those who would identify as Theists beleive in one supreme god or multiple gods ?

......I belive in one supreme God , ....Multifarious manifestations , ...each manifestation representing an aspect of the supreme , however only the supreme posesses all characteristics symultaniously and in their fullness .

to you Is god omnipotent ? .....yes
is god omnipresent ? .....yes
is god omnicient ? ............yes

is god eternal ? ...........yes
Blissfull ? ...........undoubtably
and full of Knowledge ? .......full of as in the personification of knowledge ...absolute Knowledge in form and the permiating knowledge which resides in all beings in the form of a seed waiting to fructify .

is God a personification of love ? .............absolute and abundant Love

please now if you wish , any more questions , ... fire away

To what extent are you a manifestation of God?

Is the Supreme more present in some times or places than others?

How does anger and suffering relate to God?
 

Kirran

Premium Member
Reflex more questions, didn't stop to say that your answers were very interesting, good to get more perspective on your views.

And I hope you enjoyed Prasada :)

I've been doing the aarti you told me every morning since :)
 
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ratikala

Istha gosthi
namaskaram ..

nice questions , now how to put into words , ....

To what extent are you a manifestation of God? ... God himself is the all pervasive eternal being , ...the me to whom you refer is the most insugnificant and temporary expansion of the supreme , the tiniest partical of one single exhalation , the most minute fraction of his being seperated from the supreme but still bearing the imprint of his nature , .(that nature lay like a seed waiting to be realised)

Is the Supreme more present in some times or places than others? .....no , the supreme is eternaly present , it is only due to our limited perception that we might not understand or sence that eternal presence .

How does anger and suffering relate to God?
......whos anger , whos suffering ?

to me anger is due to our ignorance , and suffering due to our embodied nature , ....as embodied beings we crave things which we dont fully understand , we crave perminance and security , we crave beauty and love , we crave perfection , ....yet we look for them in the wrong places , ..this causes us great suffering , when we dont get what we want sometimes we feel anger , frustration and dissapointment , ...because of this anger and frustration we cause suffering for others , this perpetuates a cycle of suffering from which all embodied souls suffer to varying degrees .
 

ratikala

Istha gosthi
namaskaram

Reflex more questions, didn't stop to say that your answers were very interesting, good to get more perspective on your views.

And I hope you enjoyed Prasada :)

no worries , ....and Prasada , ...Mmmm ....am very fortunate :)

[/quote]I've been doing the aarti you told me every morning since :)[/QUOTE]

jai jai , ......please on the last circle of incense remember to send me your Deities blessings ....:)

we will send ours , ....
 

ratikala

Istha gosthi
namaskaram Spenta maynu ji

Yes it is difficult and it is always awesome to meet someone else who really is into worshiping God almost obsessively. I think this is maybe one of the reasons why so many of the mystics reach a point of silence. Many times when I try to explain to people the greatness of God and they start to fight with me about the impossibility then I just keep quite and smile.

jai jai , ....I can agree with the keep quiet and smile , ....and the reaching the point of silence , ....there have been enough times when I read posts here and thought enough ...I am off , ....but what keeps me here are the smiles and the likes from the good Guys ,....I dont mean to imply that the remainder are bad , but I realy cant cope with the competetiveness , negativity and the point pushing , ....



In our human mind (maybe I should add Western mind) to see evil as a part of God is very difficult to understand. That's why I didn't know how to explain myself there, so what you said about ignorance make sense to me (for now, I will think about it for a very long time to come).

I just tend to look at ignorance and even evil as a part of our growing and learning process , .....all children do stupid and sometimes selfish things untill they learn that they are not the center of all , as they grow they learn that others have fellings too , ...they then learn to share and bring joy . to me all evil comes from an imaturity of mind , self centeredness , greed and averice can only come from a deluded sence of self , ...there is something allmost comforting about this because at least one knows however hard evil tries it can never win , the natural state of God is truth and purity , ...therfore it is a harmonious state ....no evil is powerfull enough to unballance it it will always right it self , .....even the true nature of mankind is inteligence but this takes many many lifetimes to fully mature , to be come realised , ...then we no longer need this birth and suffering , ...

But this, the intent behind an action, is something I did thought about a lot and it is true what you say - many times people like to throw words like right, wrong and sin around and many times my answer was 'okay so why exactly is that wrong?' Sometimes they answer 'because the Bible says so' (many of them unable to show me where, which only shows me they've heard it somewhere) and other times 'because my mother said so' (an answer I hate). Until after I've read about a whole lot of different ideas such as the interconnection of all beings and the Wiccan creed 'an ye harme none, do what thy wilt'. This made me realize that 'wrong' or 'sin' (and hence evil) is when we hurt someone, do something from a point of hate or fear.
Then we can see how a harmless and loving kiss from Judas to Jesus wasn't so harmless and loving at all but reeks of evil.

and even this idea of right and wrong , if sin , ...it is all relative to a persons position . this is why I find Dharmic religions to be more helpfull to me than Christianity , ...that does not mean that Christianity is not right for another person , that to me is the reason for the multifarious manifestatins of the supreme , ...he comes or makes teachings available in a way that is accessable to the mind of any given society , ...

no sin is not evil , sin is not knowing , ..sin is ignorance , ...ignorance is only lack of knowing , ...knowing takes time and reason to question and learn , ...and the rules that are laid down are to help societies to live harmoniously , ...but we also need to learn to apply all rules corectly , ....these rules are for us to live by not for us to tell others how to live , ...the Bible says let he who is without sin cast the first stone , ....we are not here to judge others we are here to learn , this is done by reflecting upon our own weaknesses not the weaknesses of others .

Then we can see how a harmless and loving kiss from Judas to Jesus wasn't so harmless and loving at all but reeks of evil.


but can ths not be looked on in different ways , ...this betrayal was prehaps a part of Gods plan , without the betrayal there was no sacrifice ? ...and from this sacrifice what did Judas and other Christians learn ? ...the Bhagavad Gita also looks at this issue , Krsna explains that although the body may be killed that the soul is eternal , ...and it is true we all rise again this is part of the process of learning , prosess of purification , ....and of Jesus son of God he to is eternal he canot be killed yet he accepts betrayal , ....if this betrayal is Evil why does he accept it ? he dosent have to , he does so for a hidden reason , .....this is for us to examine , ...Gods reason for allowing any of us to suffer ? ...what are we supposed to learn , ...
 
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