One Creator ( singular - Rev. 4:11 )
Creator is God and God had No beginning and will have No end - Psalm 90:2
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One God or many gods
- Thread starter Starlight
- Start date
Creator is God and God had No beginning and will have No end - Psalm 90:2
For each day we can count both forwards and backwards without ever stopping.
For each day we can think of we can think of a next or coming day.
Thus, eternity ( past, present and future ) is already in our hearts and minds.
Presently what makes us a finite human is: enemy death.
With the removal of death we become infinite in that we can live forever, in heaven for some, or on Earth for the majority.
The Bible's promise is: the end of enemy death for us - 1st Corinthians 15:24-26; Isaiah 25:8
God is speaking about the Israelites at Ex. 20; Deut. 5What is your idea of a God, God of the tribe of Israel who asked every one of Canaanites to be killed, men, women and children?
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; .." Exodus#20:1.5, Deuteronomy#5:4.9
Basically bad parents would pass down their badness down to their children and grandchildren if they chose wrongdoing.
- Exodus 34:6-7
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Badness is eternal in Christianity, they are born in sin. It does not go away in the third or fourth generation.
River Sea
Well-Known Member
Bharat Jhunjhunwala
TruthPrevails
How can infinity be One? Many with no beginning...
CorrectiveLens
Member
From a Christian point of view, the particularity that we connect with depends on whether or not we receive His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a person but a portal through which the Holy Father can connect to the heart and mind of mankind. Those that receive the Holy Spirit connect with Him within and those that don't receive the Holy Spirit have no connection with God and are not part of His family.
Bharat Jhunjhunwala
TruthPrevails
If God is Infinite and He is Universal consciousness, then Holy Spirit is also a subset of God. So God as well as Holy Spirit are also within us. It becomes a question whether we are willing to connect with Them who exist within us.
CorrectiveLens
Member
According to Isaiah 63: 9-10, the Holy Spirit of the Father is referred to as " the angel of His presence". In other words, where His Holy Spirit is, the Father is. Are they two different entities? The answer is no. There is only one entity, the Father. The Holy Spirit of the Father is a tool which the Almighty God uses to interact with the realities created by sending and indwelling living beings in each reality. This allows the Father to pretty much take control of the beings mind, heart, soul, motivation, and will. The beginning of our reality started when the Father created a living being in it. This being is referred to as the "First and only begotten Son of God". This being is unique from the Father, but because he is filled with the Father's Spirit, He obeys the Father perfectly. He is also referred to as " the visible image of the invisible God". It is through the Holy Spirit of the Father that the Father communicates and empowers His Son to create our reality.
God is just, but also merciful. If He condemns everyone, then He would be merciless, which He is not. If He saves everyone, then there would be sin and disobedience in His Kingdom. His only choice is to save a few. He does this by erasing our present sins by our trusting in Jesus' death for the remission of our past sins as well. We still are not good enough to enter heaven due to future sins committed.
That is when " being born again " takes place.
In other words, the will and motivation for every thought and action changes to love for God first and everyone else as we love ourselves. The Bible says that love covers all sins. When Christ went back to heaven, after He died and rose from the dead, he went back to get glorified. Just as the Son is the temple of the Father, because the Son if filled with the Holy Spirit of the Father, the Father gives the Son a spiritual body which is filled with the souls chosen by the Father during the life time of humanity. Those that are in the body of Christ are the temple of the Son as well as the temple of the Father. It is they who change the voluntary will of man to their will through the Holy Spirit who fills them with the divine love necessary to obey the Spirit of the Law upon which the Letter of the Law is based.
This is a "both" for me. Kind of. I can probably be described as a monist... a Viśiṣṭādvaita (vish-isht-ad-vy-ta) monist. Viśiṣṭādvaita is a Hindu school of philosophy that posits all diversity subsumes to a single entity or substance. For me that is Brahman, who manifests as "God" and gods. Further, the image I have of God is Viṣṇu (Kṛṣṇa). However, that doesn't mean that I don't think of Śiva as God, because I do. Śiva and Viṣṇu are complementary aspects of the Supreme Being, a combined form called Harihara.
The "gods" are manifestations of God for particular or specific purposes. They are manifestations of God but they exist as individuals. After all, God can do anything he needs or wants to. So yes, he can exist as two or ten or one million individual forms at the same time. This is partly because Jaki rahi bhavna jaisi prabhu murat tinh dekhi taisi. Meaning: Everyone sees God as per one's perception. God appears or takes the form one imagines. A Hindu sees God as Śiva or Kṛṣṇa; a Christian sees God as Jesus or Yahweh; a Muslim sees God as Allah.
A Christian or Muslim sees the Hindu image of God as false; a Hindu largely doesn't care, as long as you leave him or her alone to their beliefs, or is puzzled why God would punish people for not believing in or worshiping him. Problems arise with "You have an incorrect view of God; you worship a false God; mine is the one true God" and the attributes ascribed by humans to God. The human mind is incapable of understanding who and/or what God really is.
That said, while I believe there is only one God, I'm not a monotheist, but rather a henotheist, because this one God can and does take myriad forms. If we want to further mess with our minds, Brahman is not God. Brahman becomes God when we imagine Brahman as God. In other words, we create what God is. There's that Jaki rahi bhavna jaisi prabhu murat tinh dekhi taisi concept again. No one ever said Hindu philosophy was straightforward.
Interesting to me that you mention ' goddess ' because to me by biblical Eve turning aside from divine Law, then it seems as if Eve wanted to set herself up as a 'goddess' to be better off and decide what is right or wrong in her own eyes.
Eve fell for Satan's pitch to Eve ' You don't need God ' but by turning away from divine law she imitated the opposition; Satan
True, badness is eternal in Scripture, all born in sin, but when a parent does something particularly wrong then their children could suffer because of the parental misconduct.
For example: getting drunk while pregnant or doing drugs while pregnant could bring suffering to the child for life.
That affected child then could pass down a defect that otherwise would Not have happened.
Right. God's holy spirit is Not a person - Psalm 104:30 - but what He uses.
God's spirit is impersonal according to Numbers 11:17,25 because God's spirit is a genderless "it".
Jesus instructed that we should pray for God's spirit at Luke 11:13 B; Matt. 7:11; James 1:17
So, if imperfect parents know how to give good gifts to their children, then how much more will God grant the good gift of His spirit to those who humbly approach asking Him in prayer. - Acts 2:17
I never thought of God's spirit (Psalm 104:30) as a 'subset' of God, but seems to me since God's spirit is an impersonal " it " (Numbers 11:17,25) 'subset' seems to fit the picture. - Joel 2:28
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
So, what you are suggesting is the "goddess" in your religion was the temptation of Eve to consider herself a goddess was absolutely wrong and Eve's fault for listening to Satan.
That is so strange to me. In my religion the god and goddess are two equals of the universe and whose union is necessary for the harmony of the universe. There is no Satan in my religion. There is the "trickster" god or goddess or combination that constantly tries to create chaos to keep the god and goddess humble. Thus, male and female are equally important. To have just a god seems so out of balance. The cosmic order of the world represented by the world tree is maintained by both working in resonance. If anything, it is the god creates many of the problems which are then corrected, and harmony preserved.
Bharat Jhunjhunwala
TruthPrevails
Even better. So they are within us. Thx.
Thank you for your reply. Eve knew the Law was Not to eat from the forbidden tree as brought out at Genesis 3:2-3 in her reply to the serpent. So, 'yes', it was Eve's fault for listening to Satan. It was her choice to make.
In the Bible the trickster is Satan ( the god of this world of badness - 2nd Cor. 4:4 )
Although Eve was tricked (deceived) by Satan we find Adam was Not fooled according to 1st Timothy 2:14
This means the blame rested (Not on Eve) but on Adam. Adam did Not have to go along with what Eve did.
In Eden there was Not a 'world tree' but two (2) trees mentioned and only one tree out of all the trees on Earth only one tree was the singular forbidden tree.
So, in short, it is Satan 'as the god of this present world' creates many problems for us.
Satan is like a behind-the-scenes Puppet Master pulling the strings. Revelation 12:12,9
The ' many problems which are then corrected, and harmony preserved ' is because we are all invited to pray to God ( Creator God - Rev. 4:11) for Jesus to come ! - Revelation 22:20
Jesus to come and notice: Jesus to bring ' healing ' to earth's nations - Rev. 22:2.
'Healing' to Earth for us. A beautiful paradisical Earth coming as described in the 35th chapter of the book of Isaiah.
So, I think we can agree that problems will be corrected and harmony everlastingly preserved.
CorrectiveLens
Member
John 14: 6 I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Only those that acknowledge their sinfulness, repent of their sins, believe and trust in Jesus' death for the forgiveness of sins, and get baptized with the Holy Spirit will have access to the Father. We become the temple of Christ, who is the temple of the Father. They are not within everybody.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
satan is very clever .. he causes us to think we "know it all".
G-d is not petty .. He is aware of what is in the deepest recesses of our minds.
He knows who is sincere and who is not.
Quoting one or two verses of a Scripture does not make a person a scholar.
Perhaps we could blame the Reformation, as it promoted division in authority, and self-proclaimed
sectarian dogma.
..but in reality, we only have ourselves to blame, for thinking that "we know it all".
Only G-d knows it all, and He will judge between us on the Day of Judgement.
I can't answer your question because you left out what is, to me, the most obvious choice. The question, IMO, should really be "One God, many gods, or none?"