Is one god enough?

Originally posted by josephw
Are you blind? Just look at the condition of the human race. We're on the verge of WW3 for crying out loud!
Have you seen the local news?
Don't try to tell me we aren't sinful. It's just too obvious.

Felt good to get that off my chess. Now I'm going to bed. It's late, I'm tired, and I've been whining all day. I've had a head cold for 3 days now. With a headache.

Did I say people weren't sinful?
No, I reject the notion that the default position is that we are full of sin - that is, you're born that way.
That is ridiculous.

I’m wondering if Tyto’s question is really about one god being a more reasonable assumption than more than one. Whether polytheism is really less reasonable than monotheism... Other than parsimony, I can’t think why it should be.

I, however, am a monist, so I tend to think that in the end there is only one ultimate reality, not as a being, but as the ground of all being from which we are manifest, of which we are, in which we exist, and to which we return—and from which we are ultimately no more seperable than is the gulfstream from the ocean. If there are gods, I would still think it likely that they were also part of the ultimate whole, the totality manifest in myriad diverse forms.

My experiences of that wholeness and non-separability are no kind of proof, of course—not even to me. So, it’s back to parsimony perhaps; except that when we think in terms of figure-ground, that the tree I focus on is part of the forest of which it is, and that is part of..., and that is part of...—it does seem reasonable to think in terms of an ultimate totality.

Really what I want to know is why a theist proposes one god and not multiple gods.

I feel there must be multiples, I can't prove it of course, I just have faith.

Theists - am I wrong and why?

(please save the scripture lesson, I can read)

Originally posted by Tyto
So there is more than one god, or are you saying there isn't?

There is only one God, and there are many gods, a piece of wood
can be called a god, a demon may present itself as a god, a god is
simply one of many, while God is simply the one true and only God.
You can have people be called gods, anything can be called a god,
but God basically isn't something you can have many of, if you do
have many of them, then you are dealing with a god not God.
Kelly

Ok, Kelly.
On what basis are you dismissing my other Gods? (Intentional capitalisation there to show I mean super-powerful creator types rather than wood and idols etc)

Originally posted by Tyto
Really what I want to know is why a theist proposes one god and not multiple gods.

I feel there must be multiples, I can't prove it of course, I just have faith.

Theists - am I wrong and why?

(please save the scripture lesson, I can read)

I am curious how your pantheon is ordered. Many of the polytheistic religions have a very detailed pantheon with very specific roles, jobs, origins, offspring, demises, etc. How does your pantheon playout? And, based on what do you have these grand ideas?

It's just based on a belief that a universe so incoherently massive must need lots of gods to make it.

I don't have any hard evidence for it, but common sense says it must be so.

Originally posted by Tyto
Ok, Kelly.
On what basis are you dismissing my other Gods? (Intentional capitalisation there to show I mean super-powerful creator types rather than wood and idols etc)

My relationship with God causes me to dismiss the gods of this world.
Kelly

Originally posted by Tyto
It's just based on a belief that a universe so incoherently massive must need lots of gods to make it.

I don't have any hard evidence for it, but common sense says it must be so.

You view gods as the parts of the whole as all the gears of a watch
cause it to work so the gears are gods within the watch, but reject the
idea of lets say, all power really only rests in one place that sets up
all other powers and puts them into little boxes that limit them and
lays down the ground rules for how they can and not do things as that
power sees fit, as in the watch maker?
Kelly

Originally posted by amannion
Did I say people weren't sinful?
No, I reject the notion that the default position is that we are full of sin - that is, you're born that way.
That is ridiculous.

There are many "good" people with a sin nature. What is meant is the "potential" to sin. Unbelievers live or "walk" by their 5 senses. They cannot help but to sin. Christians have a "choice." This is a difficult topic to explain to a Christian, and twice as difficult to an unbeliever...😳

Originally posted by KellyJay
My relationship with God causes me to dismiss the gods of this world.
Kelly

Well, as you'd point out if I said that, "What you perceive to be your relationship with what you perceive to be God".

How do you know you got it right?

Originally posted by checkbaiter
There are many "good" people with a sin nature. What is meant is the "potential" to sin. Unbelievers live or "walk" by their 5 senses. They cannot help but to sin. Christians have a "choice." This is a difficult topic to explain to a Christian, and twice as difficult to an unbeliever...😳

Everyone has the potential to sin. So what?
My 5 year old daughter has teh potential to sin. So what?
What is it about beinga Christian that gives you choice over your sin where I don't?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Well, as you'd point out if I said that, "What you perceive to be your relationship with what you perceive to be God".

How do you know you got it right?

Faith Scott, I cannot add to it. I cannot prove it, I believe and act
accordingly, my walk with God is personal, and real to me.
Kelly

Originally posted by amannion
Everyone has the potential to sin. So what?
My 5 year old daughter has teh potential to sin. So what?
What is it about beinga Christian that gives you choice over your sin where I don't?

I'd say nothing is different between you and I or you and any other
Christian: however, when God enters your life you start seeing things
differently, life changes, you get a new life and what was normal no
longer seems right and necessary. When God isn't in your life there
isn't anything but the ways you have known all your life flowing though
you, when God enters you, sin becomes something you are more
aware of, and so too the need for change. The acts of sin are no
different than before, but you see them for what they are more clearly.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Faith Scott, I cannot add to it. I cannot prove it, I believe and act
accordingly, my walk with God is personal, and real to me.
Kelly

And that's fine. I respect the fact that you can have that much faith. I could not.