One God above all others?
I've noticed that people want to ask questions on controversial topics, and that answers and comments devolve into verbal aggression on both sides. (Me included I found - my sincerest apologies!)
Often this is over religion. Here is lies my question:
Why is it that people insist that their God is the only? And that all other Gods are inferior or non existent. That all people must follow te rules of their God, and only theirs.
Aside from the Bible or Koran stating so - why is this done?
Is it not more righteous to acknowledge others but not worship them than to deny existence?
Great question. I personally think there are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, a lot of it has to do with indoctrination. People are taught from an early age that there is only one god (except Hindus and a few others that are polytheistic) and that no other gods exist. This leads to the buildup of the ego to the point where we become combative over which god is the true god. Another issue is the feeling of relationship to a specific deity. Whatever feelings people get is attributed to a relationship with one deity and as such since people don't get that feeling from other deities that they must not exist or are inferior. Then of course, there is ignorance (usually stemming from ego). People do not study any religion other than the one they have grown up believing in. There is the element of fear. Just like they're judging someone else's religion, someone is judging their own. There is a fear in some that they might not be following the right deity and as such cling desperately to their beliefs rather than confidently
Quite simply I believe it happens because many don't want to admit they may be wrong.
I think most people tend to support that their religious beliefs are actually the most accurate ones because that's what they have been taught to do. Sometimes I guess religion is not taught properly. I remember when I was in school I had asked my teacher "what happens to the people who believe in other religions? Do they go to heaven?", her reply was "well i don't think so but God will decide for them". I just couldn't accept that the religion I was brought up with was the most superior. My question was "Aren't we all God's children? Does religion really matter to God?". I thought about it for years and eventually I came to realize that a big percentage of religious teachers do not teach religion properly.
For me, there is only one God for all and I am not against other religions. Each religion teaches people several things which are right. But one thing that they all have in common is that God is love. I don't think people should fight over religion. Instead we should all support and teach each other.
What do you think?
Good answer, I like the way you've thought about it.
Even Jesus declared the two greatest commandments is to love God with all our minds, hearts, and souls, as well as to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we did that, we would definitely have much more peace. :-)
for those individuals who live peacefully regardless of any differences in religious affiliation one God is understood to be theirs. temperance then is easily achieved because the individuals seek only to worship their Lord and Savior. While various branches have evolved from the original religious 12 disciples, all of Christianity grew from the Jewish community. Acknowledgement of the bearer of great redemption forgiving all sins is documented in many ancient writings. However, when transitional evaluation of current demonic acts purported as religious action is simply lawless criminal activity. In a world where the followers of a truthful and peaceful God is admired and worshipped everyone is free to choose their path to the everlasting life. When the lawless enter the picture, then peace and righteousness is destroyed.
If someone is wrong, it means someone is right. We will never know while alive on this Earth. That's why it's an argument that cannot be won or lost.
Being a protestant Christian, I've been taught that my God is absolute. One of our commandments tells us to not worship any false idols, which can be gold, riches, man himself or another God or Gods. This means that anything outside of our absolute God, would have to be false. So rather than to risk falling from grace with our God by having any waiver in our faith, we deny all other Gods. I don't think we are damning other religions or beliefs. I think we defend our own to insure our experiencing the final destination that our religion has taught us will be. Sometimes we will get aggressive or even combatant about it.
When people have total commitment to whatever they believe in, and will defend that commitment, unconditionally, they have my utmost respect; even if it doesn't agree with mine. What is in our hearts, when we meet the God or Gods of our own personal belief, is all that matters.
I guess that means it's possible that we can all be right, right?
When we talk of God and religion, we talk of what we were born to believe. If i were born in an Islam family, i would come to say Allah is the greatest unless i get a different experience which changes my view on that. I do notice that what people believe in, they hold on to it because it is an essential part of their existence. I am a Christian and even though i think or rather know that only God in heaven is the supreme, i still hear of testimonies from people of other religion and i wonder 'how is it possible? only God can do that!'
The thing is, what people believe in is what works for them, and so they are going to argue and disagree on which God is supreme. And so we are going to keep arguing because, well, mine works for me and yours works for you.
Am also very sure that all religion teaches virtues and how important it is in our lives, but some people just like taking things too far, and they interprets things the way it suits them. If all religious fanatics practiced exactly what their religion instructs, the world would be a better place today.
I believe that people insist that their God is the only way is because of personal conviction. Whether it be through indoctrination or just a realization, one's convictions hold them to believe a certain way. If one believes that his god is the only god, he wants everyone to know that to help them to their own realizations. Though it may seem controversial to some, those who believe this way and try to convert others are doing it out of love. They want others to have what they have... the same feelings toward their god as well as morals, etc.
I have never read the Koran, but I have read the Bible several times throughout my life. The funny thing is that most Christians deny the existence of other gods, but the Bible talks about the existence of these gods throughout. So, if a Christian uses the Bible as his standard and believes it is holy inspired, then he must know that other gods exist. Therefore, I believe it is "more righteous to acknowledge others but not worship them."
Thank you for your answer - I agree with the last statement!
They must've had the kool-aide...and want to share.
I don't think that most Christians claim or believe there are no other gods. The bible talks about the Greek gods, the Babylonians gods; Dagon, Baal, etc. To some cultures, those gods are worshiped. But they are not the one and only true God.
Hmmmm... my answer is found in your question expansion. It is written in the Bible and I don't deny their existence, because it says that they exist in the Bible. I wrote a hub called "what's in a title?" in which I give the bible verses that state this very thing; that there are "lesser gods". In short, I acknowledge that they exist, but I don't worship them.
NO.
All, religions are manufactured to rule and control people. Religion and spirituality are two, very different, topics. Religion is, once again, yielding it's swords and complacency's...stirring turmoil throughout the earth.
We need only, to follow, The Golden Rule, and keep our religions ( or lack of...) to ourselves.
If one feels they must argue for their God and against another, they are not very deeply faithful, methinks. Live and let live. Some of us are able to see that there are many lanterns that light the way; each has value and deserves respect. Others spiritual views only serve to confirm mine and brings me joy that they have a spirituality that helps them to make their life better.
This is just one example of evidence of humanity's greatest flaws: ego and competitiveness. Ever notice how countries raise their flags high when a threat (real or perceived) comes upon THEIR homeland, their "'hood"? Same thing. We are absolutely at our worst when we are united against an "other".
That's simply because man is God made and religion is man made... Every religion asks us to love one another.. .Bible says love thy neighbour and not 'love thy Christian neighbour' yet people will interpret it the way they want.
Fighting for religion is not equal to fighting for God. If God is on our side we won't need to fight!!
Because it would mean that their god is irrelevant and that all their efforts in supporting, promoting and believing in that god are moot, their ego can't handle such a blow.
There is, of course, no evidence what s ever that any god is any stronger or existent than any other, or none at all.
So each clings to the hope that someday, somehow their god will somehow prevail.
When dealing with a core belief, people sometimes get over emotional. The idea of God is one core belief that gives people assurance that they are protected and living their life in a "just" way. God gives purpose to many people’s lives so if a person thinks that another person is trying to shake a core belief they will get defensive and this may lead to aggression.
When a person is insecure in them selves and they rely on God or scripture for guidance then they most likely would need to believe that the God that they serve is the greatest of them all.
People have different opinions of their gods and beliefs every individual sees their religion as superior to the other just normal minds thinking differently.
I think that there is a bigger question inside of this and should be asked first if you really wish to find the answer; Is there really a God(s)?
But I think I can help answer this seeing that I have done "a bunch" of research on the topic.
It actually lies in the psychology of power, would a religion say their God is not AS good as Gods of the past. EXAMPLE: "Jesus is the most powerful all knowing God, Except Zeus , he was stronger and more powerful, but still...."
Your guy is always the strongest, fastest, meanest, most forgiving, biggest, more knowledgeable WHATEVER, your God has to be the best or else, what's the point?
Many societies in the Bronze age and before celebrated Polytheism. This was the worship or acknowledgement of many Gods. For example: I could worship apollo, but you might worship Neptune because you have better luck with him. Or maybe the town or province we are a part of worshipped Zeus.
The point is it was not until Judeo-Christian ideology pushed this one true God notion,Monotheism, in what i believe was a move for power. The Trump card of the previous Polytheistic religions. Yahweh, he does everything the old gods did and more.
If you actually think about it, the more Gods in the pot actully spoil the broth. When you have 50 people claiming their "Guy" is the best, how does one determine who is the best. I got a God you got a God, who cares. Now, you may be asking your self, Thats like polytheism, and that does work! But you may be forgetting that this was in a time when there was still no true understanding of Nature or the world around them. This was pre-copernicon, pre-darwin, and although intellectually people of this time may have been fully capable of seeing through this veil of Gods and Goddess, there really weren't any other explanations being put forward.
To sum it up, EVERY religious group worth their salt are going to claim that their God is the one true all knowing, all seeing, all righteous , whatever because, really if you have got Michael Jordan on your team, don't you know who's gonna win?
by Alina-Cristina 7 years ago
How would our world be like without religion?Would humans be able to find inside a moral compass to guide them towards good?
by kknde 9 years ago
Why religion have so big influence in people behavior?About impact of religion in day to day life.. And why is this happening? Is something people want or they are taught to want this.
by PhoenixV 5 years ago
Why Don't Atheists Believe In God?
by Abhishek Raj 6 years ago
Why are we here on Earth ?What am i supposed to do here ?that's a spiritual kind of question. But it's haunting me since morning. Everyday we wake up, go to work and then get to sleep. Is that's only the life ? Only this much ? What is your opinion ?
by Marc Lee 7 years ago
Do you consider yourself spiritual or religious, and what do you see as the difference?
by Kiss andTales 7 years ago
Can the choice of our religious beliefs always be accepted by the Heavenly Father ?I just would like to know how many think that the Heavenly Father accepts all worship.Based on these scripture I think it is vital to have the correct choice what about you ?2Ti 3:7 always learning and yet never able...
Copyright © 2023 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2023 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |