[somebody]

I dont know if anyone here is polytheistic. So please give me your feedback and let me know if its better to believe in many gods than just one?

btw i am Hindu

[Buffy]

"Better?" What do you mean?

I believe in both Santa and the Easter Bunny. Polytheistic pagan. So sue me. Is that "better?" I don't know and I don't really care if anyone else thinks its not.

I have seen arguments that monotheism was and "advance" in religious thought, but most of the "reasons" have to do with problems of the specific religious movements that preceeded it, rather than any *inherent* problems with the abstract *idea* of polytheism.

To me all such arguments are merely "us versus them" bias, but you're all free to express your opinions on the concept. Beware of your exposition though...

Out of one, many,
Buffy

[Southtown]

Catholics are polytheistic. God, Jesus, Mary, Peter, every Roman emperor and pope since.

[Edella]

Originally Posted by Southtown

Catholics are polytheistic. God, Jesus, Mary, Peter, every Roman emperor and pope since.

Ah! My mother would be rolling over in her grave!

Anyway,one biblical passage has always confused me: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." --1 Timothy 2:5

This verse clearly suggests that Jesus is not God himself, but a man who mediates access to God.

[Southtown]

There lie surprizes inside every prepackaged belief system.[/2cents]

The bible also clearly suggests that Christianity in toto is false.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/chrestians
http://www.iahushua.com/ST-RP/christ.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...0;&version=50;

[Igby]

I'm not polytheistic, but I've noticed that the argument from Design (for the existence of god) leads to the logical conclusion that there is more than one god.

Poor Aquinas. He tried so hard, too.

But, yeah, my concept of god is all jumbly. Distant, not Tri-Omni, but for some reason I believe in only one. Must have been my upbringing. And the whole jewish thing, I guess.

[HydrogenBond]

Polytheism were projections of unconscious compulsion that make up the human personality. It helped break human propensity into distinct differentiations. For example, Mars was the god of war and Venus the goddess of love. Humans can war or they can love. Both are compulsions that stem within but can be triggered outside. The projections into gods helped individuals to differentiate what compulsion was going on so they were not acting blindly.

For example, if an ancient person fell in love, he or she would see this as being shot by Cupid's arrow. This mythology actually created a certain level of objectivity to these strong emotions. Modern people may assume the love is coming from another person, while the ancient would assume it was coming from a secondary goddess source. Both are wrong, but the ancients had the advantage of following the will of the gods (unconscious compulsion) while being somewhat objective that the other person may not be feeling the same way. The modern person may project on the other person and fall in love with a projection and not be able to tell reality from fantasy since they can't externalize their projections. The result can be a broken heart.

The modern person may have gotten hurt by love because the projection was not reality. This may inhibit them from falling in love again. But the ancient saw the arrow of love coming from the goddess. Who can resist the goddess, thereby living love to the fullest inspite of the past. In other words, it is nobody fault but is the will of the gods.

When monotheism appeared all these external differential projections of unconscious compulsions were unified as coming from one source. This created complications because of conflicting compulsions coming from the same source. This helped strengthen the human mind due to the mental exercise required to sort everything out.

Smboliic monotheism is connected to how the human personality is organized. The one god is a projection of the inner self. This can be understood as the natural evolutonary center of the unconscious mind that complements the ego. It is sort of a jukebox of time averaged human propensity, which all humans share. It can play distinct compulsions to differentiate the unconscious motivations of the ego, such as love or hate. Because the inner self is the entire jukebox, it shuffles through its records with the long term goal of promoting a complete human being.

The ego has will power and choice. It can let the jukebox play on shuffle or it can pick its favorate song or two and only play that. But the normal ups and downs of human life are connected to the jukebox having an ancient mind of its own, returning to shuffle mode for ego completeness, while the ego tries to override songs its doesn't like, even thought they are a part of being a complete human.

If you look at old testament monothiesm there is God. The new testament has God the father, the son and the Holy spirit. This implies a return to differentiation. This is not regressive but progression. God the father is still the sum of the ancient gods connected to natural instincts. The son of man is modern human propensity that has evolved over maybe 10,000 but is separate from primal instincts. The Holy spirit is the potential set by the two creating a dymamic interaction between two jukeboxes. These two jukeboes use different side of the brain.

In bible prophesies, God the son looks and act more like the God of the old testament than the loving sacrifical lamb of the new testament. Basically what this predicts is that the dual jukebox will unify in the future. The result will be a modern version of natural human instinct. The river and tree of life, with its twelves types of fruit or twelve records in the single modern human jukebox.

[Jakely Bront]

Originally Posted by somebody

I dont know if anyone here is polytheistic. So please give me your feedback and let me know if its better to believe in many gods than just one?

btw i am Hindu

It is, indeed, very, very good and wise to believe in many gods. And, then it is possible to use these beliefs to experiment with whether these gods are in fact real, or are imaginary.

Doing so can be very instructive to the mind, and such a person will develop the skills and knowledge to in fact find which "gods" are worthless. Just test them, in any way imaginable, in your own experience, without depending upon the words of anyone else, as contained in "traditions," and "teachings."

Jakemon.