God vs. Gods. Was they plural out of need

[Chroelle]

I was thinking about this yesterday.
We have spoken of God, and Allah and Jahve in here before. They are all mono-deities. How about the religions with more than one god? And the religions where there is no GOD-ly figure but a power....

NAtive Americans believed in Mother Earth, and the fact that she could be cruel and kind. They saw her as a woman with temper, that needed respect.
So far they are the only religion that I could think of who had ONE god, and fully understood and didn't question the fact that this god could be both cruel and kind.

Christian have a hard time with their good being old testamential, and evil. Smiteful, killing babies, destroying cities that is not the god we find ourselves worshipping around Christmas....
Is that the reason that Jesus was born into this religion? Did God need a counterpart, that did not have his rumor of being violent, and swift on the justice? Was Jesus the one person that would make it clear for us that God can be kind, healing and forgiving too? Meaning that his excistence in the Bible would show another face of God.

I don't really know how muslims see the swift justice and loving side of Allah. I only know there is more or less the same sentence for muslims, that is for Christians, whenever someone was taken away before we were ready. "It was the will of *insert Deity* that it should go this way. We shall not assume that we can understand his ways."

Jewish worship the old testament God, that smites, destroyes cities and such. Seing him as the true god, and that he might be hard, but we should be humble and respectful of him.

Hindi has more than one god. And as far as I know they have both EVIL and GOOD gods.
Old roman mythology was also about having a God of farming, the sea, love, war and so on. This made it possible to blame one particular god for being somehow, while praising another for something good. Like if your crops all died, but you won the battle against your enemy. Then Ceres might have failed you, but Mars surely didn't.
The Greeks had the same types of God, even though it seems Zeus took a more dominant role with them...
In Northern Mythology Odin takes the same part that Zeus does, but with some fwe adjustments. Also Northern Mythology has based its belief on multiple deities. Thor, Odin, Tyr, Freja, Frej, and so on.

Buddhist believes in the power of things, instead of a God. They do not see Buddha as a god, but as an ascendant. This is why we call their belief a philosophy instead of a religion, even though it might seem the same some times. You can ascend if you do well in this life (the idea of heaven, but in another way). You will get to Nirvana if you live in peace with the force.
This is close to the thought of your actions will get you into either heaven or hell (Karma), and the thought of GOD being in everything.

So do you think that religions really did adapt so that people could easier find out that it was the work of one of the gods....?
Instead of being confused about why THE GOD was mean to you.

I don't know if it is clear what I mean.

[mistergreen77]

Believing in many gods is called polytheism. Believing in one god is called monotheism. I think monotheism is a progression from polytheism as people recognise that nature is consistent and predictable instead of arbitrary and chaotic. Hinduism is a bit different but you can see the progression there as well - they ended up conceiving of a supreme ultimate (Krishna) as well. Buddhism represents a more advanced stage of religion and is more of a philosophy, but to my mind it still contains a judgement against life and is a pessimistic approach to the question of meaning.