The Problem with Polytheism

[Vinayaka]

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.

I meant it depends on the school in Hinduism. In my school, Ganesha and Murugan are separate from Siva in the same way jiva is. It's part of maya, but in the meantime, we deal with it as we see it. Ultimately, everything is Siva, (Brahman) So it's both simultaneously. Philosophically, it's termed monistic theism. The monistic part is that it's all one, at a deeper level, but at a more outer level, there is diversity. So just as in advaita, we're all Siva if all the 'stuff' or clouds or darkness is removed, so too is there an outer world. We (my sampraday) often use the wording absolute reality, and relative reality to distinguish. So when I go to the temple, I see Ganesha and Murugan as separate beings, very old and wise souls, not just 'another name for God'. When I beseech Murugan especially there is a palatable different and more intense vibration, as he rules over a different chakra than His brother. But the beauty is that we all accept the right for others to hold slightly differing views on this. In South India the heads of all the various Saiva Siddhantha Aadheenams, and the Sankara Maths all get along as friends. There is great tolerance involved.

 

[Vinayaka]

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."

He got there by one path, turned around, and saw many paths.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Many paths, One mountain.

Eh. Many paths, thousands of hundreds.

 

[Alex22]

I don't see how that is a problem.

 

[Jainarayan]

Is that attributed to him? I know not.

Yep, pretty much. Different words, same idea.

 

[Jainarayan]

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."

Yes, this.

 

[The Hammer]

Yes, this.

I don't completely disagree.

 

[Jainarayan]

I meant it depends on the school in Hinduism. In my school, Ganesha and Murugan are separate from Siva in the same way jiva is. It's part of maya, but in the meantime, we deal with it as we see it. Ultimately, everything is Siva, (Brahman) So it's both simultaneously. Philosophically, it's termed monistic theism. The monistic part is that it's all one, at a deeper level, but at a more outer level, there is diversity. So just as in advaita, we're all Siva if all the 'stuff' or clouds or darkness is removed, so too is there an outer world. We (my sampraday) often use the wording absolute reality, and relative reality to distinguish. So when I go to the temple, I see Ganesha and Murugan as separate beings, very old and wise souls, not just 'another name for God'. When I beseech Murugan especially there is a palatable different and more intense vibration, as he rules over a different chakra than His brother. But the beauty is that we all accept the right for others to hold slightly differing views on this. In South India the heads of all the various Saiva Siddhantha Aadheenams, and the Sankara Maths all get along as friends. There is great tolerance involved.

Yes, got it. It’s very similar in Vaishnavism I think. Some people, most I’ve come across, see the gods as separate beings, yet still like us, part of the whole. That’s Vishishtadvaita... all diversity subsuming to a whole. I think Vishishtadvaita is not strictly a Vaishnava school, but rather pan-Hindu.

I think if this were not the case, or beliefs, why would we pray to or worship the individual gods and goddesses? They each have their own energies. I pray(ed) to Hanuman for strength, perseverance and my workouts, to Saraswati for my music, to Rāma when I need guidance on doing what’s right, and so on.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

I am not sure how monotheism is anymore compatible with science than polytheism is.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

Why could multiple gods not come to exist uniquely and independently without benefit of a creator of their own? Why does the number of gods matter?

 

[Yerda]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

I don't think any of the results in science look an different if we switch between the assumptions that there is one god and there are many gods. Polytheism looks on that framing to be just as compatible with science.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

Not to be all atheisty, bu doesn't the same issue arise with any more than zero gods?

 

[McBell]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

Then surely their creator must have had a creator.
And the creators creator surely had a creator.

Lather rinse repeat

I mean, you have not given any reason why "surely they must have something or someone that created them"...
So with the same reasoning we end up with a long long line of creators being created.

 

[Alex22]

In the Greek creation story we don't believe a god necessary created the universe. Out of nothingness or Chaos came light and the sky and then Mother Earth and etc

 

[Viker]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

I don't see any problem. Why must there be one creator? Is that an actual rule?

 

[blü 2]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

If God can be outside of time when the argument requires ─ like Augustine's anni tui omnes simul stant ─ then why shouldn't gods have the same privileges? If God simply exists, requires no cause or maker, why not them?

Besides, the God of Christians is three gods (four if you count Mary, five if you count Satan), all relatively dull compared to the competition, but the first three seem to manage by pretending to be one (I means, who would you rather go on holidays with, Aphrodite or the BVM?)

 

[Kooky]

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

Why? The universe wasn't created, either.

 

[Viker]

Why? The universe wasn't created, either.

But there was a cause.

 

[Kooky]

But there was a cause.

Only if you want it to be there!

 

[Clara Tea]

Monotheism is compatible with science because they can say the Universe and its laws were created by one entity known as God.

The problem with polytheism is that if there are multiple Gods then surely they must have something or someone that created them ?

Possible actions of Gods A, B, C.

1. A made B and C
2. A made B and B made C
3. A, B, and C don't exist
4. A, B, and C always existed
5. We need a D to make A, B, and C (unless A made B and C, then D just had to make A).
6. The universe made A, B, and C (instead of the other way)
7. The beginning (called alpha) is the end (called omega...last letter of the Greek alphabet).

Consider number 7, above. There are parts of the universe that are traveling away from other parts faster than the speed of light (because the metric of space is stretching). Yet, the universe is uniform, which means that it doesn't make sense to say that the distant star is traveling away from us, any more than it makes sense to say that we are traveling away from it. Thus, the Twin Paradox doesn't seem to hold in an expanding universe. The Twin Paradox is that one twin can take off from here, go close to the speed of light, turn around and come back, and the twin that accelerated will be younger than the twin who stayed home (due to time dilation due to special relativity). If we apply the time dilation formula for stars that are traveling apart faster than the speed of light, time would become imaginary. Just what exactly is imaginary time? How do we deal with it?

Could it be that the extreme edges of the universe reverse time and go back to the beginning of the big bang? If so, the last event of the universe is exactly the same as the first event of the universe. Isn't that what the bible says? "I am the alpha and the omega" (so maybe God knew that this is how the universe is structured, but science hasn't quite been able to catch up?

 

[Clara Tea]

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.

The notion of an oscillating universe has been debunked, since there doesn't appear to be enough mass to pull the universe together again.

One could argue that mass could come to our universe from outside of it. However, time stands still as mass enters. Yet, one could argue that mass could enter the poles of a black hole (and we have evidence that it does, in the form of cherenkov radiation--when particles are accelerated faster than light is allowed to travel in that medium).