Facts about God
Such experiences confirmed their belief that God was acting to protect those who believe in him.
Mystics and philosophers may contemplate the various attributes of God, such as his omnipresence or compassion, in search of a more profound understanding of the divine.
Best of all are prayers of determination and pledge, made not from need, but from strength and the desire to serve God's will, and accompanied by action.
God loves us because he longs for us with his desire for fellowship with us.
Biblical texts make evident that God cares about people, and that he also cares about whether or not people care about him.
Hence, Sikhs most frequently refer to God by the title Wahiguru (or "wonderful guru").
Muslims conceive of God as the supreme singular power in the universe called "Allah."
Groves of trees inspire reverence as surely as any cathedral, and their unwavering fruitfulness season after season is seen as reflecting God's unchanging provision for humanity.
To attribute the traits of Allah upon any other god is considered by Muslims to be the only unforgivable sin.
The via negativa (negative way) or apophatic theology is to seek knowledge of God through negating categories, rather than through positive statements and affirmations.
The Christian view of God is perhaps best sumed up the biblical statement: "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
Theravada Buddhism has been described as atheistic or agnostic: When asked about a supreme God, Buddha remained silent.
Goddess, then, becomes the focus of worship and liturgy in the Wiccan tradition.
Mainstream Orthodox Judaism teaches that although God is the creator of both matter and spirit, God in fact is neither.
The original meaning and etymology of the Germanic word god has been widely disputed, though most agree it takes root in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word *khutуm.
The Raaya Meheimna, a Kabbalistic tractate always published with the Zohar, posits two more parts of the human soul, the chayyah and yehidah.
That this way of life is so often successful becomes a reason to believe that God is indeed alive and is the One who "makes straight your paths" (Prov.
Ruether refers to the Supreme Being by the gender-neutral term “God/ess,” and claims that this being must be that conceived of as both male and female, yet also neither male nor female.
The apprehension of God as a loving Father has remained central to Christian piety.
Wicca, then, is seen as the current iteration of a long-standing tradition of religious beliefs which acknowledge the goddess as supreme.
God manifests as the Holy Spirit by actions on earth and within the lives of Christians.
The worship of gods other than Aten never fully ceased outside Akhenaten's court, and the older polytheistic cults soon regained prominence.
To this the Bible adds another dimension, characterizing God not only as the divine ruler but also as a divine father.
A common prayer is the Vishnu sahasranama, a hymn describing the one thousand names of God.
Rather, they claimed that such personal descriptions of God should be understood as metaphors.
Jesus also demonstrated how believers can come into an intimately personal relationship with God as their Father, which he demonstrated in his own prayers, where he called out: "Abba, Father!"
Hymns and songs praising God are, of course, a time-honored form of devotion.
Both the Catholic and Orthodox churches have traditionally venerated images and icons of Christ (whom Christians believe to be the second person of the Godhead), as well as those of angels and saints.
Rather, Sunnis use consensus or Ijma' to determine what is Islamically acceptable.
Given the vast number of concepts about God, religious scholars and theologians have created a number of classifications to describe them.
Churches such as the United Church of Canada and Religious Science currently use the term "the One" alongside "God" as a more gender-neutral cognomen for God.
Women in Christianity have begun to reconfigure the traditionally male conception of God, attempting to make it more feminine, both linguistically and theologically.
When classical theism discussed the love of God within this framework, it sometimes faced a dilemma.
The urge to reinvigorate the sense of God as woman has found its way into mainstream religion as well.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:10-11).
God is also known by the laws he gives the people to live by—the laws of the Mosaic covenant, which require justice, charity to the poor and downtrodden, integrity in matters of morality.
The Christian Bible testifies to the historical manifestation of God in Jesus of Nazareth.
Experiences in nature provide a likeness of God's harmony and peace, in contrast to the grasping rat-race of city life.
The King James Version of 1611 renders YHWH as "The Lord," Elohim as "God," Adonay YHWH and Adonay Elohim as "Lord God," and kurios ho theos as "Lord God" (in the New Testament).
God becomes someone that can be seen and touched, and who may speak and act in a manner easily perceived by humans, while also remaining transcendent and invisible to the naked eye.
The mundane reality is defective, because the scattered fragments—sparks—of God's nature are covered by "husks" of evil.
The Jewish Kabbalistic concept of the ten Sefirot (emanations) of God has been mentioned.
At the same time, the New Testament's identification of God with Jesus Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit were eventually developed into the doctrine of the trinity.
All gods, then, reduce to the same principle which does not exist as a plurality.
Capitalized "God" was first used to refer to the Judeo-Christian concept, and may now signify any monotheistic conception of God, including the translations of the Arabic All?h and the African Masai Engai.
A second approach, Dynamic Monarchianism, defended the unity of the Godhead by saying that the Father alone is God, and that the Son and Holy Spirit are merely creatures.
Christian theologians describe God's dual attributes in several respects: transcendence and immanence, freedom and love, being and change.
Other religions accept images as helpful aids to focus devotions and as a conduit between the worshipper and the ineffable God.
Some sects of Hinduism recognize the Trimurti, a conception by which the three major gods (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) represent the three modes of the Supreme Deity as Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer (see below).
Many of the earliest conceptualizations of divinity were actually goddesses.
Considering this close relationship between God and human beings, it is not surprising that Jews, Christians, and Muslims often conceive of God in personal terms.
would later claim that images of God in the form of Jesus should be permitted, as the person Jesus marks a shift in God's nature from invisible to visible.
The first gods were largely tied to natural or primordial processes, such as Uranus, the father god of the sky; Gaia, the mother goddess of Earth; and Chronos, the godly personification of time.
Each of these worldly forms was created as a manifestation of God.
A more reasonable account of God's suffering has been suggested by Alfred North Whitehead and Jьrgen Moltmann with their notions of God's longing and desire in love.
Composers like Johann Sebastian Bach wrote to glorify God, and in appreciating his music one can be moved to feel God's presence.
The end result of devotion is not a complete merger of the soul with Brahman, as described by Shankara, but rather an opportunity for the liberated soul to share in the nature of God.
The standing view in neo-Hasidism, currently, can be summed up as the ancient and popular Kabbalistic incantation, ??? ??? ?????? ("Ain od milvado"), which means: "There is nothing but God."
Some mystics and theologians, however, redefine this true love of God in terms of his longing for human beings.
Some have jurisdiction or governance over a large area, as the "patron god(s)" of a geographical region, town, mountain or clan.
Few concepts in human history have generated as much fascination, intense longing, rapturous devotion, somber contemplation, and endless debate as the topic of God.
Here Jesus discards the formality and respectful distance which the Hebrew Bible requires of a believer addressing God.
Some non-Christian religions also incorporate multiplicity into their concept of the One God.
Jeremiah among other Hebrew prophets seems to have embodied God's painful suffering when he deplored the unacceptable condition of Israel.
Various gods rise to supremacy at various times in Vedic myth, as well as in the execution of the ritual.
Other terms include the trinity, which denotes the "three-in-one" constituent parts of the penultimate God.
Elohim is the generic term for God in the Hebrew Bible, translated "God."
That is, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are titles which describe how humanity has interacted with or had experiences with God.
Again the object to which prayers are offered could be persons, murtis, mantras, concepts, or simply plain formless meditation as practiced by the ancient sages.
Based on a literal reading of this pointing (???????), many modern Protestant Christians read God's name as Jehovah.
Names of God, however, are innumerable, varying with religious traditions and over time.
According to Whitehead, understanding God's suffering makes us feel that God is close to us: "God is the greatest companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands.
The Hebrew Bible describes God as the Creator of the universe, the physical world, and all that lives upon it.
The Smarta school believes meditation upon icons (murti) representing an unlimited number of gods to be the optimum means by which connect with the greater power of Brahman, who transcends the iconic form.
The gods of polytheistic and henotheistic belief systems have independent and individual personalities with specific skills, needs and desires.
Rather than asserting what God is, then, negative theologians discuss what God is not.
Allah is all truth and the source of all creation; therefore Allah alone is worthy of worship, and no other gods are to be acknowledged or worshiped.
Stories attributed to Guru Nanak suggest that he believed god to be everywhere in the physical world as in pantheism.
The movement known as neo-Confucianism developed a more philosophical concept of God.
One reads in their devotions and transcendent rapture the overwhelming quality of even the most fleeting encounter with the true love of God.
God states in the Qur'an: "We indeed created man, and We know what his soul whispers within him, and we are nearer to him than the jugular vein" (50.16).
Similarly, the Sikh tradition typically describes God as the preservative force within the physical world, present in all material forms.
Ruminations upon the feminine aspects of God have been dubbed theaology, based on the Greek root thea, or feminine conception of God as opposed to the masculine theos.
Atheists who reject these arguments complain that they would only be accepted by people who already believe in God.
To answer this objection, Swinburne developed the hypothetical method, which begins by positing the existence of God as a hypothesis, which then can be verified by observing the world.
The Sikhs reject any division of God, including the notion that God can produce avatars or human incarnations.
Hendrikus Berkhof, a Dutch Reformed theologian (1914-1995), calls this polarity of God his "two-sidedness.
The Son as a created man received a power (dynamis in Greek) from the Father at the time of his baptism to be adopted as the Son of God.
The ancient Greek gods provide the best example of henotheism that is most familiar to Western scholarship.
Recently there have been a number of religious movements which have attempted to restore the role of the feminine in conceiving of God.
Modern Hinduism has developed substantial monotheistic movements that acknowledge one personalized God as supreme.
When human beings attempt to understand the attributeless Brahman with their worldly minds, ever under the influence of maya, Brahman becomes God, or Ishvara.
Abraham's portion of the covenant was that he spread the teaching that only God alone is the true God, and all others are not.
The ten sephirot form the "tree of life" in the form of the human body; hence every person has the potential to unify the sefirot within the self and ascend towards God.
Both of these gods enjoyed some significance in the Vedas, Vishnu being declared the supreme god in several instances, and Shiva prominent in the form of his precursor, Rudra.
Alfred North Whitehead's (1861-1947) "dipolar theism" discusses God in terms of his transcendent "primordial" nature and immanent "consequent" nature, which are his "conceptual" and "physical" poles, respectively.
The noun God is the proper English name used for the deity of monotheistic faiths.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) described God both as the hidden God (deus absconditus) and the revealed God (deus revalatus).
The Bible depicts God with anthropomorphic traits, as seen in Genesis 1:26: "God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'"
The use of capitalization, as for a proper noun, has usually persisted to disambiguate the concept of a singular God from pagan deities for which lowercase god has continued to be applied.
Help of the gurus is essential to reach God, who is conceived as the ultimate guru.
Plato construed God as representative of the single good which existed in contrast to the physical world, which was in constant flux and therefore evil.
Their belief in a father/ruler God meant that the Greek polytheism was perhaps best described as a henotheism.
Muslims, Jews, Unitarians, and a small fraction of Christians are unitarian monotheists, referring to the fact that they believe in God as an undivided one and nothing else.
One view, called Modalistic Monarchianism or Sabellianism, taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three different successive modes of one and the same God.
Christianity in the Apostolic era maintained the thorough denunciation of images of God taught by the Jews.
Later, medieval rationalist philosophers in each of these religions put forth the view that one should not conceive of God as personal in the literal sense, as such perceptions limit God’s transcendent majesty.
Mystical experiences are often described as exceeding the boundaries of human language; therefore, statements about mystical experience of God may be best suited for such a theology of negation.
God may be understood as male, as female, as both male and female, or as beyond gender (such as an impersonal abstract power or energy).
The Jewish people encountered God in the events of their history, notably the Exodus from Egypt.
God's active mercy and protection, coupled with the obligations to follow his law, constitute the two sides of the covenant relationship.
Throughout history, the vast majority of people in the world have believed in a God.
God takes a compassionate, paternal interest towards the Israelites; he is not content to rule them, but would also educate them and raise them to meet his highest expectations.
The sephirot are comprised of different vessels embodying various emanations of God's being.
God is in want of nothing because as "Pure Form," God is completely actualized.
Rig Veda 1:164:46 is famous for insinuating the existence of some divinity beyond the numerous gods, stating that "Truth is One, though the sages know it as many."
Instead, God is conceived of in wholly personal terms as Ishvara, a being totally separate from the universe and souls within it.
The New Testament commends this intimacy for all believers: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God...
Rational arguments for the existence of God have been developed especially in Christianity.
On the other hand, the Hebrew Bible deliberately avoids any rational apprehension of God's nature.
when pharaoh Akhenaten declared the solar God Aten to be solely supreme, and then ordered that images of gods other than Aten be destroyed.
The goddess Asherah was worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah as the consort of Yahweh, although it was never an approved practice.
According to Christian "natural theology," all people can have an indirect understanding of God through the created world of nature, which is God's "general revelation" to humanity.
There can be no such cosmic design without a Designer, who is God.
The word God was first used in the Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas to represent the Greek term Theos, (Latin Deus) in translations of the Bible.
On the other hand, Jesus is fully divine, yet Jesus and God the Father are distinct beings.
God appears at various junctures in order to alter the fate of individuals and nations.
According to St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), God is both high and humble at once.
Frequently, God is conceived of as a personal being that can relate with all aspects of human experience, and has attributes of goodness, justice, love, etc.
Viewing images as idolatrous misrepresentations of the true God has led in various historical periods to iconoclasm, the destruction of images.
Aristotle propounded the idea that all people must seek to understand truth, as the search for truth is ultimately a form of participation in God.
Ishvara (Supreme Lord) is the term used for the personalistic God; it is the more popular form of God in Hinduism.
The word God comes from the Old English/Germanic terms god (guю, gudis in Gothic, gud in modern Scandinavian and Gott in modern German).
Mainly, God in the Bible is understood relationally—as God in covenant with Israel - and thus God is known through the covenant relationship.
The ontological argument, originally developed by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1034-1109), claims that God must exist based on the simple fact that the human intellect can conceive of such a supreme power.
On the other hand, for many saints and pious believers, relating to God in personalistic terms allows an intimacy and depth of sentiment surpassing the logic of the more refined and rationalist conceptions.
Belief in divine providence among the Puritans and American colonists meant that they saw God's hand in the discovery of the New World as a haven for dissenting believers who faced persecution in Europe.
The God of the Hebrew Bible has the likeness of a king who governs his subjects and expects their loyalty and service.
Such a desire, which can be called God's heart, may transcend what has traditionally been called the absolute "freedom" or "omnipotence" of God especially in the monotheistic tradition.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are together considered Abrahamic religions due to the fact they worship the God who first came into covenant with Abraham.
Jьrgen Moltmann defines this desire of God as "God's longing for 'his Other' and for that Other's free response to the divine love.
Androgyny may very well be the future of godly conceptions in the context of gender.
The key to divine suffering seems to be God's longing or desire for fellowship with us, for if his desire is not fulfilled, he suffers.
Wicca, for example, has focused upon the use of powers derived from numerous gods, particularly the goddess, in order to execute magical procedures.
Both Plato and Aristotle's conception of the highest entity in the universe would go on to wield massive influence on the conceptions of God in the Abrahamic faiths, especially Christianity.
Later gods, such as the Olympians, became identified with more specific aspects of experience.
Athena was heralded as the goddess of wisdom, artistry, education and inner beauty, as well as war.
Hasidic Judaism has long held that God himself went into exile with Israel, and for two thousand years has suffered with his people in their exile.
The mundane reality is defective, because the scattered fragments—sparks—of God's nature are covered by "husks" of evil.
Hinduism of the early Vedas was polytheistic, with elaborate rituals and sacrifices prescribed for the appeasement of the various gods.
Followers of Shaktism conceive of the divine power of the Ishvara as a female goddess called Devi or Durga, who is worshiped as the Divine Mother.
The Mormons experienced God's gracious providence in June 1848 when a swarm of locusts threatened the first planting of crops near Salt Lake City, Utah.
Kabbalah teaches that in order to create the universe, God "withdrew," and created the universe within the space from which "he" contracted.
Elohim is the generic term for God in the Hebrew Bible, translated "God."
Using these methods, most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, and that Jesus' preaching began around AD 27–29 and lasted one to three years. They calculate the death of Jesus as having taken place between AD 30 and 36.
Thoth, God of the Moon, Magic and Writing. The wisest of the Egyptian gods was Thoth (Djhuty, Djehuty, Tehuty), the baboon and ibis god of the moon. Thoth was the god who overcame the curse of Ra, allowing Nut to give birth to her five children, with his skill at games.Aug 6, 2001
Thoth is the Egyptian god of writing, magic, wisdom, and the moon. He was one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt alternately said to be self-created or born of the seed of Horus from the forehead of Set.Jul 26, 2016
Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing, and alphabets (ie. hieroglyphs) themselves. He was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld, and the moon became occasionally considered a separate entity, now that Thoth had less association with it, and more with wisdom.
Names. The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton (YHWH Hebrew: יהוה). Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem, literally "the Name". In prayer the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai, meaning "My Master".
Jews believe that there is a single God who not only created the universe, but with whom every Jew can have an individual and personal relationship. They believe that God continues to work in the world, affecting everything that people do. The Jewish relationship with God is a covenant relationship.Sep 14, 2009
In that context, “Yes” is the best answer. However, even though most of the world's Buddhists recite the name of Buddha or pray to Buddha, Buddha is not a deity or supreme being in the same way that the Christian God is. ... For Buddhists, what and how you practice is more fundamental than what you believe.May 13, 2011
YHWH is called haShem. Some Quakers refer to God as The Light. Another term used is King of Kings or Lord of Lords and Lord of the Hosts. Other names used by Christians include Ancient of Days, Father/Abba, "Most High" and the Hebrew names Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah and Adonai.
ViracochaThe supreme deity or god of Incan Mythology was the creator Viracocha. ... There are many legends on Viracocha. ... The Inca were sun worshippers; the sun Inti was the god of agriculture. ... Inca believed Inti was the son of Viracocha. ... Illapa.Illapa the next most powerful god was associated with rain.More items...
His value as a war god is placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted in Greek art as holding Nike (Victory) in her hand, favoured the triumphant Greeks.
In Greek mythology, Sagittarius is identified as a centaur: half human, half horse. In some legends, the Centaur Chiron was the son of Philyra and Saturn, who was said to have changed himself into a horse to escape his jealous wife, Rhea.
He is the son of Zeus and the Titan Leto, and was born in the Greek island of Delos, along with his older twin sister Artemis – goddess of the hunt. Apollo is the ideal of the kouros, which means he has a beardless, athletic and youthful appearance. ... Apollo was one of the few gods that the Romans kept the same name.
The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.
To this day, the goat's horn is used to symbolize an abundance of food and drink. After defeating Cronus, Zeus placed the constellation of Capricorn in the heavens in honor of Amalthea and the sea nymphs. Capricorn is also referred to as the "Gateway of the Gods", in both Greek and Roman mythology.
Sparta worshipped Artemis as their patron goddess, under the epithet "Athena Poliachos" (Athena Protector of the City). ... Elis and Olympia had Zeus as their city god. The statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Please select a name from the list below to view the Greek god's description.Zeus. God of the Sky (Zoos) ... Hera. Goddess of Marriage, Mothers and Families (Hair'-ah) ... Poseidon. God of the Sea (Po-sigh'-dun) ... Demeter. Goddess of Agriculture (Duh-mee'-ter) ... Ares. God of War (Air'-eez) ... Athena. ... Apollo. ... Artemis.More items...
She was the daughter of Zeus, king of the gods, and the Titaness Leto and she has a twin brother, the god Apollo. Not only was Artemis the goddess of the hunt, she was also known as the goddess of wild animals, wilderness, childbirth and virginity.
Hermes (called Mercury in Roman mythology) was considered the messenger of the Olympic gods. According to legend, he was the son of Zeus, king of Mount Olympus, and Maia, a nymph. As time went on, he was also associated with luck, shepherds, athletes, thieves, and merchants.
Hermes (Roman name: Mercury) was the ancient Greek god of trade, wealth, luck, fertility, animal husbandry, sleep, language, thieves, and travel. One of the cleverest and most mischievous of the Olympian gods, he was also their herald and messenger.Jun 24, 2012
Greek mythology, The 12 Gods of Olympus. Zeus overthrew his Father Cronus and then drew lots with his brothers Poseidon and Hades. Zeus won the draw and became the supreme ruler of the gods. He is lord of the sky, and the rain.
The demi-god Hercules withstood many life-threatening events and monsters, but even he eventually died. ... Before he died, the centaur persuaded Deianeira to take some of his blood - which, unbeknownst to her, was tainted with poison - to give her hubby as a love potion if he ever tried to stray.Apr 10, 2017
Next, Eurystheus sent Hercules to steal Hera's wedding gift to Zeus: a set of golden apples guarded by a group of nymphs known as the Hesperides. This task was difficult—Hercules needed the help of the mortal Prometheus and the god Atlas to pull it off—but the hero eventually managed to run away with the apples.
Heracles was the most famous of the Greek mythological heroes. ... Like most authentic heroes, Heracles had a god as one of his parents, being the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alcmene. Zeus's wife Hera was jealous of Heracles, and when he was still an infant she sent two snakes to kill him in his crib.
Hercules is a Roman hero and god. He was the equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.
Ouranos - Uranus. Uranus the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth.
Despite these identifications, Apollo was never actually described by the Greek poets driving the chariot of the sun, although it was common practice among Latin poets. Therefore, Helios is still known as the "sun god" – the one who drives the sun chariot across the sky each day.
Jupiter - King of the Gods - Crystalinks. Jupiter is the supreme god of the Roman pantheon, called dies pater, "shining father". He is a god of light and sky, and protector of the state and its laws. He is a son of Saturn and brother of Neptune and Juno (who is also his wife).
Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter) is the king of the gods in Roman mythology. He was the god of the sky and thunder. He is known as Zeus in Greek mythology. His brother's name was Pluto and his sister was Ceres.
The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto, the Roman equivalents of Poseidon and Hades respectively.