How many Gods are there in the Christian religion?
The Trinity
Ask a Christian to explain the Trinity sometime when you want a good laugh. To Christians, there is One True God, who is in fact three Gods. There is God the Father who is the Old Testament Jewish God, Yahweh. There is God the Son, Jesus, born of a woman and ascended into Heaven. And then there is the amorphous Holy Spirit. Three completely separate entities with three very different personalities. They pray to them as separate individuals. Sounds like three gods, yeah? Not very monotheistic of them.
Christians explain this in an abstruse, labyrinthine concept call The Trinity. Basically, the three gods are one god, the one god is three gods, and if you don't understand that you are an ignorant twit who will burn in Hell.
The Mother Goddess
Many Christian sects worship the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. There are icons and statues to her. She is prayed to regularly. She appears to people (sometimes as a toasted cheese sandwich) and preforms the occasional miracle. The whole goddess gig.
Angels and Demons
Angels are immortals akin to the servant gods of the Sumerian religion, the igigi gods. According to Sumerian legend, mankind was created because the igigi gods were sick and tired of doing all the work for the greater gods. Mankind were made to be servants to the servants. The concept of rebellious servant gods (fallen angels) goes back to those same Sumerian legends.
Saints
There are over 10,000 demigods, called saints. They are prayed to like gods, perform miracles like gods, are worshiped like gods, yet were once human. Part man, part god - the definition of demigods.
So, according to the Christian faith, Heaven is crawling with gods, semi-gods, and demigods. The pantheon of the Christian religion has many more gods than any of the classical polytheistic religions. Valhalla or Olympus would need annexes and high-rise apartments to house all the deities in the Christian Heaven.
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5 comments:
I think you have a lot of things mixed up here. I am not catholic and I do not seriously acknowledge the validity of praying to the saints, but I know plenty of catholics who do. While I'm sure that in some ways they can be seen as demigods, they are not given godlike qualities. Yes they were once humans, yes they are given a decidedly sacred or divine meaning, but they are not worshipped as gods merely called upon for strength in certain areas of life. Keep in mind that very few churches call upon the saints in their masses.
dude, you have a lot of theologies mixed up in here. and perhaps switch out saying "Christian's" with "catholic's". the Christian and Catholic faiths may have started from the same place but they are now two very different religions. and while your tone infers a mockery of faith, I then must ask if you suggest instead we believe in something like...evolution? because in my opinion it takes more faith to believe that we are products of a cosmic dice roll billions of years in the making. makes more sense to just open your mind and accept that there are just things we can't always explain, such as "God" or "God's".
Lol... nowadays, the trinity is the easiest thing in the world to explain.
If I have a computer, and I have an operating system installed on it, how many computers do I have?
One. That's monotheism.
If I take that computer and install two more operating systems on it, how many computers do I have?
Three. They may be running on the same machine, but because they're each their own complete, separate, independent unit, it's really not the same thing as having only one computer. If I deleted one of the core files of one of the operating systems, it wouldn't change the others at all, and so we can't say that they are the same in any meaningful way. That's what the Jews think we believe; yes, it's polytheism.
But what do I have if I take all of the files of the operating system, and join them all together? Like, what if, for these three separate operating systems, they all shared resources, perfectly, using the same root files, just in different ways. Now how many computers do I have?
Well, you could say that I still have three different computers, but they're no longer independent; they share too much, and they're not separate entities anymore, just three different ways of interacting with the same root filesystem. There is no single file that can be deleted without affecting all three operating systems; there is no distinction between the three OS's any more. And as far as the user interface is concerned, I could still load up the Mac OS to run a Mac-based program, the PC OS to run the PC-based program, and the Linux OS to do normal everyday things, but I'm no longer running these things as independent units, but as aspects of a gestalt entity.
That's the Trinity. God is a more complex system than can be encompassed by just a single person, but that does not in any way, shape or form, mean that God is anything less than a complete, indivisible entity. When we pray to God and read the Bible, it's just a different way of interacting with Jesus in person, because we there is only one God with whom we are interacting, no matter how.
There is only one God and He wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know Him. He has surrounded us with evidence of Himself and He keeps the question of his existence squarely before us. "Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him. (39) Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." (Deuteronomy 4:35,39)
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