Religions and Other Gods

dGirl1986 said:

I was just wondering if the Christians on here believe in the existence of other gods, and if people belonging to other religions believe in the existence of other gods and the christian god.

If you do believe in their existence, what brought you to the deity you currently interact with and does it impact your practices/faith at all?

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I just don't believe they exist, which in that sense makes me "atheistic" toward them. Though I also have a tendency to agree with C.S. Lewis,

Aslan speaking: "I take to me the services which thou hast done to [Tash], for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not." (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle [London: Penguin Books, 1956], p. 149).

-CryptoLutheran

The apostle Paul wrote that those who sacrificed to idols were actually sacrificing to demons. 1 Corinthians 10.

Most Christians consider other gods demons or just people believed in other religions were delusional. I was more a Henotheist even when I was Christian, it was sort of a way of being aware of others.

dGirl1986 said:

I dont see the relevance to the OP

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There is a stream of Christian thought that says that what some people regard as being gods, are in fact, deceiving spirits. Something like that Zeus does not exist properly, but it's possible that there are devils pretending to be Zeus to keep people from belief in the one God.

Though, what I find fascinating are Paul's words to the men of Athens, seeing the many altars dedicated to all sorts of gods, he finds one dedicated to the "Unknown God", which Paul goes on to proclaim is, in fact, YHVH, though unknown to the Athenians, He is the true and real God. Paul even uses poetry dedicated to the Olympians as reference to YHVH instead, "in him we move, breathe, and have our being" and "we are his offspring".

-CryptoLutheran

dGirl1986 said:

I dont see the relevance to the OP

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He's saying no, there are no other gods. There are only evil spirits. I have never met a Christian who believes other gods exist.

dGirl1986 said:

I was just wondering if the Christians on here believe in the existence of other gods, and if people belonging to other religions believe in the existence of other gods and the christian god.

If you do believe in their existence, what brought you to the deity you currently interact with and does it impact your practices/faith at all?

Click to expand...

Personally, I know and experience only One Divine Source. In the same breath, there are many ways to believe in and worship that One Divine Source which makes it appear that there are other gods. But it's the same One God that everyone is looking at, only from different perspectives.

What brought me to this inner experience of the One Divine Source is something called "Love".

Edited to add: Though I'm Lover of Christ, I'm no longer a Christian. I just wanted to make clear of that because of who the OP seemed to be directed to.

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I see gods in general as archetypal manifestations of our collective identities, often reflecting specific cultural values or more universal aspects of the human condition.

As such, they *do* possess a certain kind of autonomy from our individual minds, but it'd be foolish to assume that they physically exist out there.

Any thing could be a god!
but
There is no god worthy to be worshiped except Allah.
لا إله إلا الله
Do you like the idea that a piece of rock or a rat is your beloved god?! because there are millions who believe in it.

dGirl1986 said:

Ive seen a couple on this forum that believe other gods exist, they just dont follow them.

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Who? I'd be interested to know. I've never met one.

Sister of Faith said:

Do you like the idea that a piece of rock or a rat is your beloved god?! because there are millions who believe in it.

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I always find it incredibly hilarious when monotheists characterize pantheism in this particular fashion. It's almost hysterically funny.

I believe everything is a part of God, so yeah, the rock, a rat, a pencil...whatever. It's all a part of God.

Sister of Faith said:

Do you like the idea that a piece of rock or a rat is your beloved god?! because there are millions who believe in it.

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Sure beats the Islamic idea of God.

No. Any Christian who says they believe in other gods isn't Christian. The Father, son and holy spirit are part of a trinity and they are together the one and only god.

Christianity is the only true religion and people who follow another religion are either misguided or they never received the truth.

The Jews are correct except they haven't accepted their Messiah yet but they will.

Muslims have some stuff right but that is only because their religion is based on a mixture of Christianity and Judaism. They were misguided by the false prophet Muhammad.

The rest are carry overs from the point in time when God cut himself off from humanity because of their sinful nature. They were not ready to accept the message of the one true god. They created their own gods because in their hearts they knew of god but they didn't have his guidance and truth yet. God made his covenant with Abraham because he was ready to accept God's message and god promised to take care of his descendent's. God sent Jesus to humanity as a gracious offer of eternal life. All who accept Jesus and live by his message will receive everlasting life through him.

Sister of Faith said:

Do you like the idea that a piece of rock or a rat is your beloved god?! because there are millions who believe in it.

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I do wonder whether people like you realize just where the misconception enters this particular picture.

For starters, this portrayal assumes (or at the very least misleadingly insinuates) that divinity rests exclusively or totally in either the rock or the rat.
It's a bit like exclaiming: "Do you like the idea that the skin cell on your big toe is yourself?"
Of COURSE the skin cell is not (the whole of) yourself, yet it would be foolish to deny that it is a part of you, containing your unique DNA.

Secondly, the problem here is not that you esteem divinity too little - but that you denigrate (parts of) the manifest universe, conceiving of it as despicably "other".

Sister of Faith said:

Do you like the idea that a piece of rock or a rat is your beloved god?! because there are millions who believe in it.

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I think that you are miss-representing.

The essence of the rock, rat and all of life including you and I are an "activity" of God. With out God, nothing can exist. God is with in all of Creation. One can "see" the Divine impulse through His Creation.

That's a very different take than what you described.

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On pantheism, I remember G.K. Chesterton's remark (paraphrasing here) that love craves division. In other words, it is unsatisfying to love only oneself. One person must love another person who is not oneself, for love to be in its truest, highest, sacrificial form.

dGirl1986 said:

I was just wondering if the Christians on here believe in the existence of other gods, and if people belonging to other religions believe in the existence of other gods and the christian god.

If you do believe in their existence, what brought you to the deity you currently interact with and does it impact your practices/faith at all?

Click to expand...

For Baha'is God is one... and the major religions have a common Divine origin.

"The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion..."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 19