Monotheism vs Polytheism: Which is more likely?

[Piscivore]

Maybe we get a brand new god everyday, but there's only one, but it can split in three.

Or something.

And it can turn into a car and a robot also.

 

[blobru]

Hmm, assuming christianity, is there really only one god? I mean, even the commandments say that one should not have any other gods before that one. Which obviously means that there are indeed others, just that you should prefer that particular one, for whatever reason.

Greetings,

Chris

Possibly sarcastic quotes hadn't been invented yet:

-- Thou shalt have no other "gods" before Me!

 

[Christian Klippel]

Possibly sarcastic quotes hadn't been invented yet:

-- Thou shalt have no other "gods" before Me!

But that would make him a "god" also, and not a god, right? Which would then instantly declare the concept of any real gods to be a fraud. Maybe my knowledge of the finer aspects of the semantics of the english language aren't that good...

Greetings,

Chris

 

[blobru]

But that would make him a "god" also, and not a god, right? Which would then instantly declare the concept of any real gods to be a fraud. Maybe my knowledge of the finer aspects of the semantics of the english language aren't that good...

Greetings,

Chris

The One True God exists outside of "quotes", in CAPITAL LETTER LAND.

 

[Christian Klippel]

The One True God exists outside of "quotes", in CAPITAL LETTER LAND.

Hehe, i see. Funny thing, in german that commandment reads slightly different. It is "Du sollst keine anderen Götter haben neben mir", which would translate to "You should have no other gods besides me", but could also be translated into "You should have no other gods next to me" or ".. at my side".

But i guess that's one of the prerequisites one must have when digging into that stuff: the ability to interpret that stuff the way it suits for a particular purpose at that moment. At least that is what i see all these religious people do all the time.

But back to the OP: i think that polytheism would be more likely as well. I mean, a lot of ancient religions actually had multiple gods. From what i understand, the invention of monotheism came later, right?

Greetings,

Chris

Edit: Of course for the german version the implication is the same: that there must be other gods, and that this particular one has to be preferred.

 

[blobru]

Hehe, i see. Funny thing, in german that commandment reads slightly different. It is "Du sollst keine anderen Götter haben neben mir", which would translate to "You should have no other gods besides me", but could also be translated into "You should have no other gods next to me" or ".. at my side".

Hah. Maybe in German God is claustrophobic, or really antisocial. (He does admit to being a jealous god.)

Edit: Of course for the german version the implication is the same: that there must be other gods, and that this particular one has to be preferred.

Sure. I was offering a half-baked, modern-day apology for the obvious implication in the OT that there are other gods besides Yahweh.

However, retorts the One True God: "Them others ain't no gods. Pfft. With names like 'Baal', their butts were just made for kicking!"

 

[Christian Klippel]

However, retorts the One True God: "Them others ain't no gods. Pfft. With names like 'Baal', their butts were just made for kicking!"

Well, at least we know for sure that he has problems with the greek gods, and especially that he don't speak with Zeus anymore:





Greetings,

Chris

 

[blobru]

Well, at least we know for sure that he has problems with the greek gods, and especially that he don't speak with Zeus anymore:





Greetings,

Chris

Ouch. Poor Yahweh. No wonder He and Zeus are on the outs. Funny skit, thanks [paraphrased excerpt]:

Deity's assistant: Have you seen what Zeus and the Greek gods are giving their people?... science and medicine and philosophy; logic and reason and democracy; engineering and astronomy... history and drama and art, architecture...

Mr Deity: Alright, okay, let me ask this, missy: is there anything in all that great stuff the Greeks are getting, anything at all, about how to kill a goat? ...or how to twist the head off a turtle dove? ... Is there anything in there telling people that it's okay to eat grasshoppers? And are the Greeks getting the heads up about not wearing wool and linen together, or not to have an ox and a donkey on the same plow? Those Greek gods are doing theirs a terrible disservice... People don't need all that science and medicine stuff to give them hope about making the world a better place... what they need is all kinds of useless minutiae to keep themselves distracted... from how crappy their lives are.

 

[Trent Wray]

Hmm, assuming christianity, is there really only one god? I mean, even the commandments say that one should not have any other gods before that one. Which obviously means that there are indeed others, just that you should prefer that particular one, for whatever reason.

Greetings,

Chris

Another point to make is the --- and God said "let us make man in our image, in our likeness"

And it can turn into a car and a robot also.

Are you saying that with the concept of god, there is more than meets the eye?

 

[Mashuna]

I don't like to think of them as Gods, just extremely powerful transtemporal beings.

/DoctorWho

 

[quarky]

Mormons are monotheists, yet they believe that they can become gods themselves, and eventually rule over some other planet. Its all quite vague.

And disgusting.

(especially the sucking up)

 

[dahduh]

I am truly agnostic, but I nonetheless consider Polytheism more valid than monotheism due to the simple fact that the universe rarely makes just one of anything.

I'll leave it as simple as that to begin with.

Any thoughts?

Polytheism is infinitely more likely.

If we suppose the incidence of gods are uncorrelated, the number of gods k in any given universe must follow a Poisson distribution with some number of mean mean number of gods λ,

[latex]$$P_\lambda(k)=\frac{e^{-\lambda}\lambda^k}{k!}$$[/latex],

We wish to establish the most likely λ of the universe we live in. Since λ is otherwise unconstrained we can take an ensemble average of all universes to obtain

[latex]$$\langle\lambda\rangle=\frac{1}{L}\int_0^L d\lambda \sum_0^{\infty} k P_\lambda(k)=\frac{1}{2}L$$[/latex],

where L is an ensemble cut-off. Since [latex]\scriptsize\langle\lambda\rangle\to\infty[/latex] as [latex]\scriptsize L\to\infty[/latex], we can conclude there is an infinite number of gods.

This may make the fact that despite frequent prayers I still do not have a Porsche with blonde accessory all the more strange; one would have supposed that at least one god would have intervened. But it is also possible to show that godly interests in worldly affairs converges exponentially quickly to zero as omniscience approaches infinity, so the odds of getting a prayer answered remains zero.

 

[Christian Klippel]

This may make the fact that despite frequent prayers I still do not have a Porsche with blonde accessory all the more strange; one would have supposed that at least one god would have intervened. But it is also possible to show that godly interests in worldly affairs converges exponentially quickly to zero as omniscience approaches infinity, so the odds of getting a prayer answered remains zero.

Well, there is an answer for that as well, if you want to know why praying doesn't really help:



I just love this series...

Greetings,

Chris

 

[dahduh]

Well, there is an answer for that as well, if you want to know why praying doesn't really help:



I just love this series...

Greetings,

Chris

Har. That's got to be my favorite episode, next to perhaps PZ the science advisor with his terrible tie.

Guess what the ring tone on my phone is

 

[Beerina]

Monotheism vs Polytheism: Which is more likely??

0% = 0%, so the same.



ETA: I take that back. An infinitely powerful god is mathematically disproven, if you include not just the most powerful existing god, but that it is the most powerful possible. There is no such thing as the most powerful god, since there can always be another one.

The halting problem applies to infinite computational entities as well, IIRC.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

As a former Catholic, I do not necessarily believe that having one monotheistic God is necessarily the most emotionally satisfying choice of religion. It's just that some monotheistic religions- such as Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, have managed to "have their cake and eat it to" by incorporating saints.

The problem with a monotheistic one God is that, well, when you have one guy, he has a lot of stuff to do. Your problems may be too trivial to get to. What's more, it seems supremely selfish to be praying for your own problems which affect only yourself when there are so many other larger problems- disease, hunger, natural disasters, etc, that need attending to.

But with Gods who are assigned to a specific purpose, well, then there's a much bigger chance that 1. They'll pay attention to your request and 2. They will be more likely to agree to help with said request, because the God was made to deal specifically with these sorts of issues, as opposed to having to deal with EVERYTHING in the universe.

The Catholic Church got around this by incorporating saints. Although I would pray to God when it came to gratitude, saying the Catholic creeds, I always went to the saints with any specific requests. Saints are SUPREMELY popular and often times get far more attention than the big guy himself in terms of idols, parades, pendants holidays, etc etc. As a Catholic, I think the saints were the best part. They're like having your own personal X-Men. Plus "saints days" are a great excuse to throw parties and fesitvals.

God as a concept can seem too big, too otherwordly. Whereas Gods (or saints) are more connected to the physical world and have very specific roles so they seemed, to me, more approachable.

I am not saying that people who are monotheistic believers who do not believe in saints who don't get just as much or more emotional satisfaction from their beliefs than your average polytheistic believers. I'm just saying that I think that for SOME people, the polytheistic approach (either as true polytheism or in "sort of" polytheism in which saints stand the place of gods) can be more emotionally satisfying.

 

[skeptiform5]

Well I think that they are both incorrect so I can't really judge which is 'more incorrect' than the other so I think the argument is kinda' pointless in the first place.

 

[Angus McPresley]

I'm struck by how often theistic arguments that supposedly prove the existence of "a" god will work just as well for "many" gods.

For example, "Well, something had to create the universe". Couldn't multiple gods have done it?

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm struck by how often theistic arguments that supposedly prove the existence of "a" god will work just as well for "many" gods.

For example, "Well, something had to create the universe". Couldn't multiple gods have done it?

Aquinas actually solved that one. He started from the axiom generally accepted at the time, and actually inherited from the pagan Greeks, that the one must come before many. There must be one human before there are two human, one apple before there are two apples, etc. Therefore you must have one god before you have two gods.

The problem is that the axiom is false. If you apply that, you must have one quark before you have two quarks, and you must have one kind of particle (quarks or gluons) before you have two (quarks _and_ gluons). The problem is that it doesn't work that way. You can't have a single quark, and you can't have quarks or gluons without the other particle.

Still, you have to give credit to Aquinas for putting some thought into that. Which is more than can be said about the average fundie just throwing around some paragraph from Aquinas as some proof of the one God, and not even understanding that it was a part of a larger whole addressing each potential problem, and not some a case of X independent proofs of God. Or why without that chapter, indeed, they can't make the case for why one God and not many gods. That is, if they even heard of Aquinas at all.

 

[Soapy Sam]

One can't help wondering if Yaweh was a jealous god...of whom was he jealous?
Cthulu?