We posit one God because we need to explain the cohesion of reality - why things hang-together and don't fly apart; why there are values; why there is is structure, coordination, predictability etc.
We posit many gods because we need to explain free-will/ agency, evil, love, creativity, the possibility of change and newness.
The main religions and philosophies do a very bad job of covering both these requirements, of explaining how we can actually have "all the above".
[Although - given that historically is is believed that polytheism/ many gods is spontaneous and natural and came before monotheism/ one God; it could plausibly be argued that there is an innate tendency of those who posit many gods to unite them under a dominating leader ("henotheism"), thereby providing some of the unifying and cohering attributes of one God. While, in practice if not theory; monotheistic religions exhibit a spontaneous tendency to divide their reverence and supplications among many beings; that are accorded co-deity/ semi-deity nature (such as the Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, or the Blessed Virgin Mary); and/or specially significant influence on life and creation (such as spirits, saints, holy persons). Thereby answering some of the questions for which polytheism provides answers.]
Either they pick one, or many, God/s and ignore the need for the other...
Or else they "explain" how things work with language of such abstraction and complexity that it does not count as an explanation....
Or they try to stun and deter people from questioning by spouting mystical paradoxes.
The result? Look around... Nihilism.
People have no coherent and comprehensible explanation for why and how things are; so they have just given-up on understanding; and instead focus on getting-through each hour/ day/ year - with the maximum of pleasant and minimum of unpleasant experiences.
So; if you want to do better, you won't get off-the-peg help from religions or culture - nobody that you would trust can tell you a valid answer.
You will have to do it for yourself.
4 comments:
yet the answer is so simple: a God and a Goddess, Cosmic Marriage and Family. the point being that the most important part that allows for oneness and for endless expansion both, is a Couple. admittedly this was once known, but it was a long time ago, so long ago that it might as well be in the future.
Bruce, when you say you only publish comments that you judge to contribute to the intended effect of the blog post, what do you mean? I'm tempted sometimes to argue or debate but if you don't want that, I won't.
I suppose I can only say from my point of view that, yes, I have indeed given up on understanding in this life. "We see through a glass darkly" seems like a very reasonable description of our state, and then there are famous quotations such as Augustine's "If you can understand it, it's not God", or St. Gregory of Nyssa's "Concepts create idols; only wonder understands". These are mystical paradoxes but I don't believe they inspire nihilism. I apologise if I'm not understanding your meaning.
Given that paradox seems "baked in" to reality, to use a trendy term, the God of classical theism makes most sense to me.
@M - What I *mean* is that I decide what comments to print, and I don't intend to discuss individual cases!
In general, the post sets the agenda for discussion. For instance - your comment describes how you have "always" thought about this matter, and does not take into account what I am saying in the post - e.g. you don't make it evident that you have grasped or refuted what the post says. Therefore any discussion would not be a debate or argument about the subject of the post, but about matters essentially unconnected with it.
In this post, or my blog generally; I'm not trying to refute somebody else's theology when they are quite satisfied by it, and when it motivates them strongly enough to resist the pervasive and purposive anti-Christian evil that results from our totalitarian society.
The problem as I see it, is that most (nearly all) self-identified Christians are so feebly convinced by their professed faith that it operates as just "a lifestyle choice", a hobby or pastime; and makes no apparent difference to their ability to discern or their always-increasing assimilation into the agendas of evil.
Ouch!
Only kidding. Thanks for explaining that!
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