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| Isaac Newton saw the
existence of a Creator necessary in the movement
of astronomical objects. Painting by Godfrey
Kneller, 1689. |
God
According to certain philosophies, religions and
mythologies, God is the creator of the Earth and of
everything else. Hinduism says that there is one God who
can come in many forms. Theists believe that God created
everything that exists and has ever existed. In most
religions, God is believed to be immortal (cannot die),
and to have unlimited power. The belief that God or gods
exist is usually called theism. People who reject belief
that God or any deities exist are called atheists.
Agnostics think we cannot know for sure whether God or
gods exist, but still might (or might not) believe at
least one deity exists. People who believe in God but
not in traditional religions are called deists. People
who believe that the definition of "God" should be
defined before taking a theological position are
ignostic.
In some religions there are many gods. This is called
polytheism. They may or may not believe in a Supreme
Being above the gods. Some polytheistic religions are
Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, Wicca and variants of Buddhism
that syncronised with traditional folk religions it came
into contact with. The belief that there is only one god
is called monotheism. People who only believe in one god
usually write God with an uppercase first letter. Some
monotheistic religions are Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Bahá'í Faith and Sikhism. In English the word "gods" is
written in lowercase letters. God is usually written
with an uppercase letter when it refers to the Supreme
Being. Some polytheists also use uppercase when talking
about their most important god. |
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Does God exist?
Many people have asked themselves if God exists.
Philosophers, theologians, and others have tried to
prove that it exists, and others have tried to disprove
the theory. In philosophical terminology, such arguments
are about the epistemology of the ontology of God. The
debate exists mainly in philosophy, as science does not
address whether or not supernatural things exist.
There are many philosophical issues with the existence
of God. Some definitions of God are not specific.
Arguments for the existence of God typically include
metaphysical, empirical, inductive, and subjective
types. Some theories are built around holes in
evolutionary theory, as well as order and complexity in
the world. Arguments against the existence of God
typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive
arguments. Conclusions sometimes include: "God does not
exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not
exist" (de facto atheism); "no one knows whether God
exists" (agnosticism); "God exists, but this cannot be
proven or disproven" (deism or theism); and "God exists
and this can be proven" (theism). There are many
variations on these positions, and sometimes different
names for some of them. For example, the position "God
exists and this can be proven" is sometimes called "gnostic
theism" or "strong theism".
Names
There are different names for God in different
religions. Some examples are Yahweh, Elohim in Judaism
and Christianity, Allah in Islam, Baha in Bahá'í Faith,
and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.
Believing in God
By the year 2000, approximately 53% of the world's
population were part of one of the three main Abrahamic
religions (33% Christian, 20% Islam, less than 1%
Judaism), 6% with Buddhism, 13% with Hinduism, 6% with
traditional Chinese religion, 7% with various other
religions, and less than 15% as non-religious. Most of
these religious beliefs involve God or gods. Some
religions do not believe in god or do not include the
concept of god.
God in the Abrahamic
religions
Abrahamic religions are very popular monotheistic ones.
Well-known Abrahamic religions include Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. Monotheistic means the people
in these religions believe there is only one God. The
name of God is usually not allowed to be said in
Judaism, but some Jews today call him YHWH (Yahweh) or
Jehovah. Muslims say the word Allah, which is the Arabic
word for "God."
Believers in the Abrahamic religions (except Islamic
believers) believe that God has created human beings in
his image, but this idea is not easily understood by
humankind. One artistic idea is that of an wise elder
man in use since the Renaissance.
God in Christianity
The Christian Holy Bible talks about God in different
ways. Within Christian canon the Old Testament talks
about "God the Father", whilst the New Testament is
about Jesus, or "God the Son". Many Christians believe
that Jesus was God's incarnation on Earth. Christians
consider the Holy Spirit to be God as well, the third
person of God.
In the New Testament, there are three beings who are
said to be God in different forms: the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit (also known as the Holy Ghost). This
is called the Holy Trinity. Although the word "Trinity"
is not in the Bible, the word used for God in chapter
one of Genesis is actually plural, and the phrase "in
the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit' is used in
the New Testament, (e.g. Matthew 28:19). Another word
that Christians believe has exactly the same meaning as
"Trinity" is the word "Godhead", which is in the Holy
Bible.
Christians believe that God incarnated in a human body,
through the normal birth process, normally growing up
into a man named Jesus or (Yeshua), coming to Earth
specifically to give every person an opportunity of
salvation from their own evil, called sin. The effect of
personal evil far transcends the repercussions humans
cause to one another in the world, but affects one's
relationship with God the Father, and that aspect of the
self cannot be addressed through one's own
self-improvement efforts, but requires God to intervene
in order to set one right. When Jesus prayed and talked
to God, he called him "Father," and taught others to do
the same.
Jesus also taught that one must be born again in order
to receive God's Spirit, otherwise one remains separated
from God, acting merely from their own mind, thus being
vulnerable to deception by human philosophies or the
many spiritual philosophies which do not come from God
but from Fallen angels, which are within various false
religions. After a person consciously accepts the free
gift of eternal life, which Jesus's sacrifice offers,
God comes to live in the individual, as God lived in
humankind before the Fall. |
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God in Eastern religions
In Hinduism, there is only one God, named Brahman, but
Brahman is said to have taken on many different
incarnations. Some of these are Rama, Krishna, Buddha,
Shiva, Kali, Parvati, and Durga. To many outsiders, the
worship of God's different incarnations is considered to
be the worship of many gods. However, it is really only
the worship of one God in different ways.
Some Hindus also believe that the spirit of God lives in
everyone. This idea is called Advaita Vedanta, which is
the Hindu term for Monism.
Religions like Buddhism and Confucianism involve the
worship of many gods, or sometimes no gods at all.
In Shinto, there is not a single specific God, as is in
most religions, but instead, a wide variety of deities
called kami, they are the spirit and essence of all
nature things, both animate and inanimate, even
including rocks, trees and poetry, for example. As
Shinto is a polytheistic religion, it is usually
believed that there are eight-million Kami (八百万の神
yaoyorozu-no-kami), in the Japanese language, the number
"eight-million" is normally used to mean infinity. |
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