Counting the Gods and gods

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Neil_Anthony

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How can we tell, philosophically, if two people worship “the same God”. If we believe there is only one god, does it make sense to talk about someone “worshipping another god”?

For example, Vatican II taught that Christians and Jews and Muslims worship the same God. But some people insist that because the Jews and Muslims don’t believe God is a trinity, that they are worshipping a different god. How can we judge these different opinions philosophically?

You could take it to the extreme and say that everyone worships a different God, because our understanding of God is slightly unique to each person. Both extremes seem wrong, but what is the philosophical reasoning for deciding these questions?
 
Neil_Anthony said:
How can we tell, philosophically, if two people worship “the same God”. If we believe there is only one god, does it make sense to talk about someone “worshipping another god”?

For example, Vatican II taught that Christians and Jews and Muslims worship the same God. But some people insist that because the Jews and Muslims don’t believe God is a trinity, that they are worshipping a different god. How can we judge these different opinions philosophically?

You could take it to the extreme and say that everyone worships a different God, because our understanding of God is slightly unique to each person. Both extremes seem wrong, but what is the philosophical reasoning for deciding these questions?
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Last night on EWTN Fr. John Corapi, teaching the Catechism of the Catholic Church, said that the Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship one and the same God: the God of Abraham, and that we all share the belief that we are children of Adam and Eve. I believe if we do not share in common the two beliefs mentioned by Fr. Corapi, then we do not worship the same God.
 
I agree with Father Corapi. The God of the Jews has to be our God, since spiritually we decend from the Jews and Abraham and Moses. Our knowledge of God was more “fleshed out” so to speak when the Word became Flesh and revealed to us that God is not only One, but Three in One. The Jews have rejected that revelation, but it doesn’t mean they have ceased to worship the true God. The Muslims also worship the God of Abraham and Moses and with the Jews agree (perhaps the only thing they agree on) that God is One, not Three in One. Our God, however, is surely much closer to the Jews’ than to the Muslims’ God. Our God would never define paradise as a night with a hundred virgins.
 
We are all followers of Abraham. We all worship the same God. But its how we worship him that is different between the three. Christians believe Jesus is the son of God, Jews and Muslims dont. Jews are still waiting for there messiah, Christians and Muslims are not. Muslims believe Ishmael was the rightful son of Abraham, Jews and Christians believe it is Isaac.
 
Hi Everyone,

If God is defined as the First Cause or the Uncaused Cause, in other words as the Maker of All Things, there cannot be two of Him. Everyone who believes in a God that made all things believes in the same God.

All believers do not necessarily believe the same things ABOUT God. This does not mean that they believe in a different God. People who know me don’t know everything about me or they may know different things about me. But they all know the same me. It’s the same with God.

Verbum
 
ICEArmy said:
We are all followers of Abraham. We all worship the same God. But its how we worship him that is different between the three. Christians believe Jesus is the son of God, Jews and Muslims dont. Jews are still waiting for there messiah, Christians and Muslims are not. Muslims believe Ishmael was the rightful son of Abraham, Jews and Christians believe it is Isaac.
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So if we say that we believe in the God of a specific person, like Abraham, that means we all worship the same God? I guess that makes sense…

Could we just as easily say we all worship the God of Adam, and therefore worship the same God? Or is it something specific about Abraham?
 
Abraham is the ideal follower of God. He almost sacraficed his only son to prove his devotion to God. We, all people who believe in God, try to follow Abraham’s devotion. Abraham is in all the books, Bible, Torah, and Quran. What also makes Abraham more important than Adam, is the fact that Abraham was human. In that sense, he made mistakes. Therefore we can all accept Abraham as being someone to look up to and try to Imitate.

Authors of the New Testament report that Jesus cited Abraham to support belief in the resurrection of the dead. “But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken” (Mark 12:26-27). The New Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham’s interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of perfect faith in God. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense” (Hebrews 11:17-19). The imagery of a father sacrificing his son is seen as a type of God the Father offering his Son on Calvary.

The traditional view in Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that through Abraham’s seed, all the people of earth would be blessed. Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely being of Abraham’s seed was no guarantee of salvation. The promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through Abraham’s seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews.

source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham#In_Christianity
 
For my part, this answer from Verbum hit the nail on the head:

“All believers do not necessarily believe the same things ABOUT God. This does not mean that they believe in a different God. People who know me don’t know everything about me or they may know different things about me. But they all know the same me. It’s the same with God.”

Adding that some may know Verbum directly, while some do so by hearsay of different degrees of accuracy, here’s why I think this discription is useful: I think that there are two ways of “knowing” God on Earth. One is the traditional religious* way of being an adherent of a faith and believing the scriptural and traditional ways of that faith. Much of this is a “cradle” phenomenon, though it may develop into a deep examination of one’s realtionship with God with its necessary devotional aspect. This kind of “knowing” is some admixture of intellect and emotion usually labeled “faith.” These are a class of faith perhaps catagorizable as “knowledge” about God. This catagory is also the one containing the varied and many anthropomorphizations of God.**

But there are some, I beleive, who have been granted a special vision of God. In our faith we might call this a “beatific vision,” or whatever the correct eclessiastical term is for that. If it is a certain kind of vision, there is a system which calls it “knowledge by Identity.” I personally suspect that that is the variety of vison St. Augustin had when he stopped writing, claiming that all he had penned “was as straw,” or something like that. In either case, this other sort of “knowing” contains a component of direct experience of some kind or degree that the–by far more common–“knowing” does not.

The exegisis of that vision, in the experience of the beholder, is incontrovertible by reason of its empirical tangibility, and is not subject to the kinds of debates we seem to find in abundance on these pages. That kind of knowledge may be catagorizable as “knowledge” of, or in the case of some forms, as God. This latter sub catagory is not necessarily of the three major Abrahamic branches, yet seems to have a kind of internal non-blasphemic validity of reportage and exegisis, regardless of many factors of other differences.

The “Counting” question is a good one in any case, and reminds me of a street preacher I encountered who had a very particular ministry. He wandered an especially busy part of town and carried a microphone. He asked one question for a start, and later broadcast the answers. The question at least made me think about the nature of my faith. His only and persistant question was “Are you practicing a religion tha’s only “about” Jesus Christ, or are you *here and now *a son or daughter of the living God?” That question made me ask if I actually was walking my talk.
Code: 
*re-ligare" >L "to tie back to" in the sense of ribboning a sapling to a stake to keep it's growth straight. This "tieing back" does not appear to be a factor or necessary in the other sort of knowledge, except perhaps as a mental accounting or cognative exposition of an event most likely ethereal beyond words.

**One wag said "God created Man in His image and likeness, and we returned the favor." It is in precisely this area of our understanding of "Who" or "What" God IS relative to human awareness that we differ from non-christianist or non-Abrahamic faiths or systems, in some cases in a profoundly radical way.
 
Counting the gods? I’ll start with Aa - Ar.

Aa, Aakash, A’akuluujjusi, Aatxe, Aba, Abaangui, Ababinili, Abad, Aba-Inka, Abal, Abandinus, Abarbarea, Abarimon, Abaris, Abarta, Abas, Abassi, Abba, Abdals, Abeguwo, Abellio, Abere, Aberewa, Abhean, Abhijit, Abnoba, Abuk, Abundantia, Abyang-Diriinin, Abydos, Acacallis, Acacia, Academus, Acan/Ah-Chuy-Kak/Ah-Ciliz, Acantha, Acarnan, Acaste, Acat, Acca-Larentia, Acestes, Achaemenides, Achaeus, Achall, Achaman, Achates, Achelois/-us, Acheron, Achimi, Achiyalatopa, Achtan, Achtland, Acidalia, Acis, Aclla, Acmon, Acoetes, Acolmiztli, Acolnahuacatl/Acolmiztli, Actaea, Acuecucyoticihuati, Ac-Yanto, Acyutah, Adachigahara, Adad, Adamanthea, Adaox, Adapa, Adaro, Adawulcanak, Addanc/Affanc, Adekagagwaa, Adeona, Adephagia, Adhidevata, Adim, Adi-Mailagu, Adimurti, Aditi, Adityas, Adjassou-Linguetor, Adjinakou, Adlet, Adlivun, Admete, Admetus, Adonis, Adrammelech, Adroa, Adroanzi, Adsullata, Adur, Adya-Houn’tò, Aeas, Aedon, Aeëtes, Aefsati, Aegaeon, Aegaeus, Aegea, Aegimius, Aegina, Aegir, Aegis, Aegle, Aegyptus, Aello, Aelquntam, Aeneads, Aeneas, Aengus, Aeolus, Aequitas, Aera-Cura, Aericura, Aerten/Aerfen/Aeron, Aesacus, Aesepus, Aesir, Aesma-Daeva, AesSidhe, Aeternitas, Aether, Aethon, Aethra, Aetna, Aetolus, Aeval, Afekan, Africus, Afrit, Aganippe, Aganju, Agarou, A-gaskw, Agassou, Agastya, Agave, Agayu, Agdistis, Agdistis/Angdistis, Agé, Agelasta, Agenor, Aghora, Aglaea, Aglalannawan, Aglaulus, Aglauros, Agloolik, Agni, agojo-so’jo, Agonalia, Agrius, Agron, Agrona, Agrotora, Aguara, agudar, Agugux’, Agunua, Agwe, Ahalya, Aha-Njoku, Ahau-Chamahez, Ahau-Kin, Ah-Bolon-Dzacab, Ah-Cancum, Ah-Chembekur, Ah-Chun-Caan, Ah-Cun-Can, Ah-Cuxtal, Ah-Hulneb, Ahi, Ahitescatoneh, Ah-Kin, Ah-Kumix-Uinicob, Ahmad, Ahmakiq, Ah-Mun, Ah-Muzencab, Ahoeitu, Aholi, Ahone, Ah-Patnar-Uinicob, Ah-Peku, Ah-Puch, Ahriman, Ahsonnutli, Ah-Tabai, Ahti, Ah-Uincir-Dz’acab, Ahuizotle, Ahul, Ahulane, Ahura-Mazda, Ah-Uuc-Ticab, Ai, Aiaru, Äiatar, Aibell, Aide, Aideko, Aife, Aigaion/Briares, Aigamuxa, Aigeiros, Äike, Aillen, Ailuros, Aimend, Ain, Aine, Aipaloovik, Airavata, Airesekui, Aireskouy-Soutanditnr, Airitech, Airmed, Airyaman, Aisoyimstan, Aita, Ai-Tupuai, Aitvaras, Aius-Locutius, Aizan, Aizen-Myoo, Aja, Ajari-Joan, Ajatar, Ajbit, Ajilee, Aji-Shiki, Ajisuke-Takahikone, Ajok, Ajtzak, Aka-Manah, Akbaalia, Akba-atatdia, Akea, Aken, Aker, Akerbeltz, Akert, Akeru, Akh, Akhlut, Akhushtal, Akka, Akkan, Akna, Akongo, Äkräs, Akshayapatra, Akshobhya, Akte/Cypris, Aktunowihio, Aku-Aku, Akuj, Akuma, Akupara, Akycha, Ala/Ale/Ane, Alaghom-Naom/-Tzentzel, Alaisiagae, Alakapuri, Alalahe, Ala-Muki, Alapay-Mishupashup, Alastor, Alaunus, Alauwaimis, Alberich, Alberich, Albino-Spirit-animals, Albiorix, Albunea, Alcestis, Alcippe, Alcyone, Alcyoneus, Alecto, Alectrona, Alectryon, Alektca, Alemonia, Alevipoeg, Alexiares, Alfrodull, Alignak, Alilmenehune, Alipugpug, Alisanos, Alkuntam, Allah, Allanque, Allowat-Sakima, Almo, Aloadae, Aloeus, Alom, Alom-bag-winno-sis, Alom-begwi-no-sis, Alope, Alowatsakima, Alpan, Alpheus, Alqol-ti-Mani-t’aix, Altjira, Alu, Aluelop, Aluluei, Alunsina, Alupundan, Alur, Alvis, Alyog, Amaa, Ama-arhus, Amadlozi, Amaethaon, Amaguq, Amahraspands, Ama-Itsaso, Amala, Amaltheia, Amalur, Amanikable, Ama-No-Minaka-Nushi, Aman-Sinaya, Amaravati, Amata, Amaterasu, Amathaunta, Amatheia, Amatsu-Kami, Amatsu-Mara, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, Amaunet, Ambika, Ambisagrus, Amen, Amenemope, Amenhotep, Ame-No-Kagase-Wo, Ame-No-Mi-Kumari, Ame-No-Oshido-Mimi, Ame-No-Toko-Tachi, Ame-No-Wakahiko, Ament, Amentet, Amenthes, Amenti, Ameretat, Amesha-Spentas, Am-Heh, Amida, Amimitl, Aminon, Amitabha, Amitayus, Amitolane, Amlak, Ammavaru, Ammit, Ammon, Am-No-Tanabata-Hime, Amor, Amotken, Ampelos, Amphinome, Amphion, Amphiro, Amphithoe, Amphitrite, Amphrysos, Ampu, Ampual, Ampu-at-Paray, Amrita, Amset, Amulius, Amun, Amunet, Amun-Re, Amun-Re-Kamutef, Amurru, Amycus, Amymone, An, Anaisa-Pye, Anakes, Anala, Anan, Ananga, Ananke, Anann, Anansasem, Anansi/Aunt-Nancy, Ananta, Anantesa, Anat, Anath, Anatole, Anatu, Anax, Anaxarete, Anayaroli, anaye, Anbay, Ancamna, Anchises, Andajus, Andaokut, Andarta, Andhaka, Andhrimnir, Andiciopec, Andjety, Andraste, Andriamanitra, Andvaranaut, Andvari, Anedjti, Anenagi-tayapiwa’ciga, Anerneq, Anextiomarus, Angalkuq, Angatupyry, Angerona, Angiris, Angita, Angitia, Angoro, Angra-Mainyu, Angrboda, Anguta, Angwusnasomtaka, Anhor, Ani, Anicetus, Ani-Hyuntikwalaski, Anila, Anilaw-ha-Sumagda, Animal-spirits, Aningan, Anito, Anitun-Tabu, Aniwye, Anjea, Ankh, Ankt, Anlabban, anl’tani, Anna, Annaed, Annamurti, Anna-Perenna, Annapurna, Annat, Annonaria, Annwn, Anog-Ite, Anouke, Ansa, Anshar, Anshitsu, Antaeus, Antea, Anteros, Antero-Vipunen, Antevorte, Antheia, Anti, Antiope, Antu, Antü, Anu, Anubis, Anuket, Anumati, Anunitu, Anuradha, Anzu, Ao, Ao-Ao, Aoide, Ao-Kahiwahiwa, Ao-Kanapanapa, Aon, Ao-Nue, Ao-Pakarea, Ao-Potano, Ao-Pour, Ao-Roa, Ao-Takawe, Ap, Apa, Apadel/Kalagang, Apalala, Apam, Apam-Napat, Apam-natat, Apanuugak, Apaosa, Apate, Apep, Aphaea, Aphrodite, Apicilnic, Apidanus, Apikunni, Apis, Apistotoke, Aplu, Apo, Apocatequil, Apolake, Apollo, Apollyon, Apophis/Apep, Apotamkin, Apotequil, Apoyan-Tachi, Appiades, Appias, Apsaras, Apseudes, Apsu, Apu, Apu-Hau, Apu-Illapu, Apu-KoHai, Apu-Mantangi, Apu-Punchau, Aqalax, Aquilo, araburu-kami, Arachne, Aranyani, Arapayan, Arasy, Arawen, Arawn, Arazu, Arcadia, Arcas, Arche, Ardescus, Ard-Greimme, Ardhanari, Ardhanarisvara, Ardra, Ardwinna, Arebati, Aredvi-Sura-Anahita, Arendiwane, Arensnuphis, Areong, Areong-Jong, Areop, Ares, Ares-Lusitani, Arethusa, Arges, Argia, Argiduna, Argus, Ariadne, Ariadne-celtic, Arianrhod, Arishtat, Aristaeus, Arjuna, Arklys, Arktos, Arnakua’gsak, Arnamentia, Aroonoona, Arria, Artemis, Artio, Artio, Artume, Aruna, Arundhati, Arununa, Arurin, Aruru, Arutam, Arvernus, Aryaman, Aryman
 
Cool. Did you read *The Ten Billion Names of God *by AC Clarke?
 
What? You haven’t heard of inflation? I read it thirty five years ago; surely there have been more since then, lol! 🙂 Thanks.
 
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