Is Christianity Polytheistic?

Firstly you still haven't explained to me how it is that regardless of naming myself God belief in my existence does not constitute a form of theism.This is true regardless of whether one is Christian, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, atheist or anything else.Why is that? What am I lacking? Christians don't worship Christ?Can you define what you mean by "worship" for me?

Have you ever been to Lourdes?Would you agree that many (not all) Christians do indeed worship Mary?What about praying to saints? Is that worship?

From an "outside" perspective (i.e. a specific-religion-independent perspective) biblical Christians are polytheists who believe themselves to be monotheists.Of course they, by very definition, are not going to agree with that non-Christian perspective.

So your other questions were thouroughly answered? By your own definition of god that they don't agree with.So... so what?

Hi, Straggler. What about the answer I provided in my last post made you decide to ignore it?Edited by Bluejay, : I almost apologized for being rude: but then I remembered who I was responding to, and decided that it probably wouldn't really bother you.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Nice post. With my above post should sum this thread up quite nicely Edited by Practical Prodigy, : spelling

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Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence mainly should I go on? Any also self-proclaimation is far from confering Godhood. Just because you adopt a name for yourself doesn't mean that you are recognized as such, thats like saying if you decided to call yourself President of the United Sates that it would make it true. Basic circular reasoning and a poor logical argument to say the least. A title confers no definition unless it is acknowledged, confirmed, and used by others, thats with any name or title. I fail to see how that is even relevant to your argument, and if that is your basic premise then this discussion is basically mute. Seems you are confusing worship and veneration. God alone is worshiped. Jesus, Virgin Mary, Holy Spirit, saints, etc are venerated.Worship (adoration towards a diety) - Adoration, which is known as latria in classical theology, is the worship and homage that is rightly offered to God alone. It is the acknowledgement of excellence and perfection of an uncreated, divine person. It is the worship of the Creator that God alone deserves.Veneration - Veneration, known as dulia in classical theology, is the honor due to the excellence of a created person. This refers to the excellence exhibited by the created being who likewise deserves recognition and honor.Hope this clears it up for you...

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To be fair to Straggler, the greek gods didn't necessarily have those qualities but could still rightly be called gods in the sense that the greeks were polytheistic.

Let's tighten this up a bit.There is no "outside" perspective from which to make a definition. God concepts are wholly and strictly specific-religion-dependent. You cannot have a "god concept" outside a specific religious view.You can talk about various god concepts. You can compare and contrast god concepts from an "outside" point of view. But you cannot make up a "god concept" outside the specifics of a religion.This is where your arguments all fall down. You're an atheist. You do not get to determine any specific criteria for a god concept. You have no religious base from which to form such a concept. I think it is actually illegal somewhere.You have syntactically twisted the concept of a "god concept" to make Christianity appear polytheistic. No one has any standing to make a religion-independent, or even dependent, god concept then try to shoehorn it into a specific belief system foreign to that concept. It's lunacy. You might as well go on about how evolution is denied by the 2nd Law of Thermal Documents.Hindu is polytheistic because they officially define many (hundred) god concepts. Christianity is monotheistic since they officially define only one. They also give elevated but considerably less than "god concept" status to various other personalities. But to say then, that from an "outside perspective," Satan is a "god concept" in Christianity because he may be seen with such a status in Hindu, or any other concept foreign to the creed, is ludicrous.Christianity is monotheistic because they say so. Any opinion, definition or (heaven forbid) logic to the contrary, especially from the "outside," notwithstanding.Now, out of "professional courtesy" Hindus and Christians recognize and accept the other's right to define their own god concepts, because they at least understand that this is what religions are supposed to do, but will fight and kill each other for being wrong, blasphemous and ... well ... just plain ugly, which apparently is another thing religions are supposed to do.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : Re-order paragraphs for clarity. I think.

Very good complimentary post to what Blue Jay and I posted, Kudos

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Hi, Prodigy.If you like a message, you can just give it a good rating by clicking "4" or "5" on the left-hand panel: there's no need to post a new message each time you see a message you like.Edited by Bluejay, : subtitleEdited by Bluejay, : typo tic

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Zeus, Thor, Apollo, Loki, Vishnu, Kali, Aphrodite, Ra etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. also lack these criteria.So by your definition there were no gods and theism didn't exist until the advent of the Abrahamic religions.Go figure. Again - I know that Christians like to relabel things in order to maintain their monotheistic facade but simply giving it a different name doesn't change the fact that Christians are worshiping entities other than God.Lourdes and Mary being an obvious example.

No. I am not ignoring it. How are those at Lourdes not praising and submitting to the supernatural powers of the virgin Mary? They made a saint of the person who claims to have seen the apparition of her for heavens sake! Theism is about belief. Not worship.If the high priestess of Apollo worships only Apollo but believes in the existence of Zeus, Aphrodite and all the rest of the Greek pantheon she is still a polytheist. Yes? Polytheism is about belief. Not worship. If biblical Christians believe Satan exists and Satan is conceptually indistinguishable from being the Christian god of evil in all but name I fail to see how your worship argument applies at all?

Then how are we able to determine that newly discovered cultures are in fact theistic?Bearing in mind that when discussing theism in a non-religion-specific context the Fates, Titans, paleolithic representations of fertility and what-not are are commonly described as "gods" how would we determine whether a newly discovered culture believed in a concept we would call a "god"? I am not imposing my own criteria. I am claiming that we all apply the term "god" in a religiously-independent objective sense most of the time anyway. To demonstrate this non-religion-specific concept of god try to answer the following:I have changed my name to God. I assume that you believe that I exist. So now you believe that God exists. Which makes you a theist. No?If not why not exactly? What is it I am lacking that makes me a wally on a debate board with a silly name rather than something that is recognisably godly?Is "god" just a label that religions can define internally to prop up their self proclaimed monotheism? Or is it a term with conceptual meaning that is independent of any one religion?Everybody here, no matter what their religion or even whether they have one, will agree that I am not a god because I don't meet any recognisably godly conceptual citeria. Yet simultaneously I am told that there are no specific religion independent criteria by which godliness can be determined. Which religious specific concept of God was Slevesque talking about in the quote below? How can the above be referring to any specific religion's concept of God? This is not my statement. It is a quote from a Christian making a point that we all conceptually understand. How is this possible if religion-independent use of the term god is "lunacy"? Christians also say god is good and incapable of evil. Yet many non-Christians who have read the OT will disagree.How is this different exactly?

An ability to perform supernatural feats is your only criteria so far. I assume there are others? Based on that alone Satan is definitely a god and belief in his existence definitely constitutes a form of theism (regardless of whether one worships him or not). So what other criteria would you suggest? FFS!!! Not my own definition of god. How many more times need I say this?By the definition of god we all use most of the time. For example what concept of god were you talking about when you said the following: There are a dozen quotes of this type I could recite from you on this subject. In fact you are arguably one of this forums greatest proponents of the idea that there is a concept of god that is not tied to a specific religion.Have you changed your mind on this?