When I was going through a financial hard time, friends helped keep me on my feet without asking for anything in return. Now I'm more comfortable and I in turn have helped those who I consider friends in troublesome situations, because their comfort is worth more to me than having a few hundred euro more. I don't ask for them to pay me back, that's a personal choice, but really, they know they can trust in me and not have that stress, and I know I can trust in them if I were to stumble and require aid. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
That is exactly my experience. I got help from friends and family when I was struggling, and they never asked for anything in return. Instead of paying it back, I pay it forward.
To tie this back to our allies, that is exactly what happens. We give aid when help is needed, and down the line those same countries will help out allies, perhaps even the US. Why do (or did) we have such a strong alliance in Europe? Because of what we did during and especially after WW II. Without us, Russia may have very well rolled over the rest of Europe. We also helped to rebuild their countries and economies, ultimately to our own benefit as we grew wealthier together.
For someone to think this should be a direct 1:1 transactional process, they need to look back at history. They need to understand why the US is (or was) a leader in the free world.
The U.S. is not "comfortable." The WWII paradigm is over.
When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
Critics would of course say that "God" is a product of human imagination...but then again God may well declare that all of creation is a product of His imagination! It is all in the perspective of the observer.~Phat
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
I assume he means the Cold War paradigm since the Soviet Union was an ally during WWII. In other words, he doesn't think we need concern ourselves with NATO or Europe, as if neither is any longer a factor in our security or well-being.
But it's just one more nonsensical bald declaration by Phat, accompanied by no evidence or argument.
I assume he means the Cold War paradigm since the Soviet Union was an ally during WWII. In other words, he doesn't think we need concern ourselves with NATO or Europe, as if neither is any longer a factor in our security or well-being.
Then Phat is ignoring Putin's attempts to dust off the Iron Curtain and reinstall it.
The larger economic model involves US leadership. The US guarantees safe shipping lanes across the globe, a solid reserve currency, and access to the US market which is the strongest market in the world (for now). What the US expects in return is support for US goals across the globe. This system has worked since the end of WWII, and there is no reason why it can't continue.
I do think paper gold is a problem. There's every indication that there is more than 10x as much paper gold as there is gold backing it. That's why I would never buy paper gold.
The US Dollar is no longer the global reserve currency. It's just not official yet.
Gold is once again the global reserve currency. Blame Trump if you must, but the change has been quietly happening for 25 years.
You said you want the US government to artificially increase the price of gold by 10x. Why?
As Gold goes up, the dollar goes down. Which asset do you think I trust more in this day and age? Democrats want the dollar to remain strong and Gold to remain suppressed. By the time you figure out which bandwagon to jump on, your portfolios may have tanked. Be wise with your investments.
And about backing the dollar:
Nixon separated the dollar from gold in 1971.
Kissinger negotiated with the Saudis to back it with oil. (Petrodollar) 1974.
Now comes the real reason we love Venezuelan oil. The dollar needs to be backed by the assets (hard assets) again in order to compete with China and Russia. Trump may be a megalomaniac to a degree and a warmonger, but some say he already sees our competitors and does not want them hogging the hard assets in this hemisphere.
If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.~Anthony de Mello God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient. Ignatius of Loyola
What are you talking about? (...)what I was describing was how "true Christians" have reduced Christianity to transactionalism in which they do whatever they want to even when they know it's wrong, write it off as "stumbling as all imperfect fallible humans will inevitably do" (or rationalize it as "what God wants me to do"), and then do the quid pro quo transaction with their "Jesus" of asking for forgiveness and always receiving it.
Christian Nationalism differs from Christianity. I agree that many of "us" behave badly. jar used to say that most goats (sheep and goats judgment) would be christians.
Remember, "Jesus" (scare quoted because it's a knock-off copy of the standard trademarked thing) is (his) personal invisible friend. A wonderful part of having "Jesus" as an invisible friend is that "Jesus" always agrees with you. And, far more important, when you stumble (as the Jesus Freaks had explicitly taught me c. 1970 that all Christians will inevitably do, fallible sinners that they are) then all you have to do is ask your invisible friend for forgiveness and He will always forgive you.
Jesus will always forgive you if you repent and understand that what you did was wrong. One need not make reparations for the sins of their father, but one should acknowledge that what their father did was wrong.
in my email correspondence with a creationist, he brought in a second party who was obviously a sock puppet so that they could gang up on me, after which they would often congratulate each other for that last zinger. During one such circle-jerk, the sock puppet actually said laughing "I'm going have to pray extra hard tonight for forgiveness for that one!"
Such insincerity! It seems as if this "creationist mocked Jesus!
Of course they can always be assured that their invisible Jesus friend will always forgive them; what invisible friend wouldn't? But there are times when that will happen, when an invisible friend turns against them. Which is to say that their own mind is turning against them, which means that they need to seek professional help. And hopefully not a "Christian counselor".
My Christian counselor is very good. He understands Psychology as well as Theology.
What I left out is how Christian "repentance" is different from an atheist's. When an atheist does wrong, he at least wants to try to repair the damage that he has done or offer some kind of restitution, even if it's nothing more than to sincerely apologize to the one(s) he had wronged.
I agree. I might add that a "true christian" in your mind is indeed a fake christian. For the record.
When a "true Christian" does wrong, he only seeks forgiveness from "God/Jesus" and nothing more; ie, he almost never offers any kind of restitution, nor even any apology to those wronged. The instance I described is a prime example of that. In addition, an atheist would at least try to reform and try to refrain from doing that wrong again, whereas a "true Christian" seems eager to be a repeat offender (especially if he thinks he's on a Mission From God).
I should also mention what Dr. Bob Altemeyer wrote about fundamentalists' use of cheap grace (The Authoritarians, pp 139-140):
The Authoritarians: Cheap Grace. Unfortunately, fundamentalist Protestantism may directly promote hypocrisy among its members through one of its major theological principles: that if one accepts Jesus as a personal savior and asks for the forgiveness of one’s sins, one will be saved. But a lot depends on what “accepts” means. Is one’s life transformed? Do good works increase? Is the born-again person more like Jesus, holier? That would be all to the good. But because of some evangelist preachers, the interpretation has grown that all “accepts” means is a one-time verbal commitment. You say the magic words and you go to heaven, no matter what kind of life you lead afterwards. Many have thought that a pretty sweet deal. You’ve conned a free pass through the Pearly Gates from the Almighty and you can sin and debauch all you want for the rest of your life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined the phrase “cheap grace” to denigrate this interpretation of the New Testament,27 and other writers have lamented the cheap grace that seems to ooze from some evangelists who seem to keep a sharp eye on the donations that follow. Sider (p. 57) summarizes the analysis of another professor of theology, John G. Stackhouse Jr., as follows: “Many evangelicals lie, cheat, and otherwise sin against others in an ‘already-forgiven bliss’ with an attitude of ‘I’m-cool-’cause-Jesus-loves-me-and-so-I-don’t-owe-you-a-thing.’”
Do only good little girls and boys go to heaven? Or does goodness, as the film star Mae West said many years ago, have nothing to do with it? I asked a large sample of parents to respond to the following proposition: “If we have faith in Jesus, accepting him as our personal savior and asking forgiveness of our sins, we will be saved, no matter what kind of life we live afterwards.” Forty-two percent of the Christian high fundamentalists agreed with that statement. If that indicates the attitude of fundamentalists in general, a huge number of people are swilling in cheap grace.
I agree.
FOOTNOTES::27 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Protestant theologian who joined an underground anti-Nazi movement as Hitler marched Germany to war. He was arrested and eventually executed in 1945 shortly before Allied forces liberated the camp in which he had been held. His analysis of cheap grace appeared in his 1937 book, The Cost of Discipleship, which was translated into English in 1959 by SCM Press of New York.
28 Being sensitive to direction-of-wording effects, I also posed the question in a “negative” form, where belief in cheap grace would require disagreement: “If we are born again but continue to sin, we are NOT saved. God will not accept sinful persons, no matter what they have faith in.”A third of the Christian high fundamentalists disagreed with this. So what was the real level of belief in cheap grace in this sample? Somewhere between 33 and 42 percent. But either way, tis a good-sized crowd.
BTW, when you read The Authoritarians, be sure to read the footnotes. Despite Altemeyer advising against it, that's where some of the best material is.
Text from Message 1505:
Text from Message 1503:
Yeah, quoting the Bible to a "Bible believer" never works, because they don't care one whit what the Bible says, but rather only what they "know" that it says.
I will likely never claim that I have fully internalized what the Bible says. Where I will disagree with you is this idea that everyone has their own god. There is only One.
Also, none of what I wrote said or implied that you were being expected to internalize what the Bible says to any extent! Where did you get the that from (again, that's part of what would make me think you're tripping balls on blood glucose)?
What I was saying is that "Bible believers" don't actually believe what the Bible says, but rather that they start what they want the Bible to say and then project that onto the Bible. You even quoted my point while ignoring it.
Where I will disagree with you is this idea that everyone has their own god.
So then you are claiming vast powers that enable you to know everything about the supernatural? That your mind is so vast and infinite that you are able to know and understand The Infinite? Or will you at least acknowledge that you are a mere human who, like all mere humans, is incapable of perceiving, etc, the supernatural?
All that anyone can do is to make guesses about the supernatural, including about the gods. Anybody's idea about "God" is their own particular idea; even though their own particular ideas about "God" may have be based on and shaped by what others had taught him, one's own ideas about "God" are just that: one's own particular ideas. That should be manifestly obvious.
And even if your own particular idea of "God" were to actually exist and to present Itself to you in Its infinite entirety, your puny finite human mind would be unable to deal with it. For perspective (one of the best things that science fiction gives us), here's a scene from the first season of Babylon 5, G'Kar talks to Catherine about Sigma 957:
BTW, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), the creator, showrunner, and head writer of the show, is an atheist. He made religion a part of every alien culture (especially the Minbari) and received a lot of fan mail from religious people (e.g., nuns) praising the show for its treatment of religion and religious subject matter. Not surprisingly, it takes an atheist to address and assess other religions fairly and rationally while a theist would concentrate on showing why those other religions "are wrong" and his own "is right."
So like Catherine and G'Kar's ant, your mind would have to construct something that it could handle, a surrogate (AKA substitute), a kind of place holder for "God" which is an extremely poor, inaccurate, and insufficient facsimile but at least it can be used by your mind whenever you try to think or talk about "God". Every believer has done this, create THEIR OWN surrogate for "God". That should also be manifestly obvious.
Now obviously, you didn't create your "God/Jesus" from scratch, but rather you adopted stories and ideas that you had been told and taught, same as almost all other believers have done. This leads to problems for a few reasons:
From basic communications theory, there's always a problem of loss of information, which includes distortion of the message being transmitted. Same as whenever you learn something, you don't take in all the information sent plus you do not understand it completely nor completely accurately. IOW, you end up misunderstanding the lesson to some degree. Error keeps creeping in.
The person teaching you had also misunderstood what he had been taught by his teacher, so what you're being taught is his understanding, which is built from his own misunderstanding of his lessons. Compounding error upon error.
From there, you develop your own particular misunderstanding, thus crafting your own personal god.
It is inevitable.
quote:"God is not what you imagine, or what you think you understand. For if you understand, you have failed." -- Augustine of Hippo
[When you search for God, y]ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy. -- Der Jehova-Vertrag ("The Jehovah Contract"), by Viktor Koman, 1984
Text from Message 1505:
There is only One [god].
Demonstrably false. Not only have there been a great many gods (288,000 is just an estimate, but the order of magnitude definitely seems right), but just about everybody, even you, could name at least a dozen gods without having to think too much. The planets are named after gods, as are most of the days of the week (and many medieval clocks include a dial for the day of the week labeled with depictions of that god, eg, the Gros Horloge in Rouen, France, which I have seen personally). Even the Bible names multiple gods.
For example, here are the days of the week named after gods in Spanish:
lunes (Monday) -- the Moon
martes (Tuesday) -- Mars
miércoles (Wednesday) -- Mercury
jueves (Thursday) -- Jupiter (by Jove!)
viernes (Friday) -- Venus
Weekday names in French and Italian follow the same pattern as Spanish where only Saturday and Sunday are not named after pagan gods.
In German, they are (Tag means "day"):
Sonntag (Sunday) -- the Sun
Montag (Monday) -- the Moon
Dienstag (Tuesday) -- Diens, reference to the god Týr, associated with Mars
Mittwoch (Wednesday) -- mid-week, so not after a god but an older form is Wodenstag, Wotan's Day (Wotan was the Chief of the Gods, AKA "Odin")
Donnerstag (Thursday) -- Thunder day, hence Thor
Freitag (Friday) -- Freyja, wife of Wotan, associated with Venus In German class, instead of TGIF it was TFIF, "Thank Freyja It's Friday" (Freyja sei Dank, es ist Freitag!)
Samstag (Saturday) -- Sabbath, as in Romance languages also Sonnabend, basically "Sunday Eve"
English goes with all gods-days:
Sunday -- the Sun
Monday -- the Moon
Tuesday -- Tiw, the Old English name for the war god, Týr (see above)
Wednesday -- Woden's Day, our name for Wotan/Odin, basically the same day name as in older German
Friday -- Frigg's Day (OE: frigedæg, where both g's get palatalized to a "y" sound), our version of Freyja, associated with Venus
Saturday -- Saturn's Day, so we break from German and the Romance languages
So you cannot look at a calendar without seeing multiple gods.
QED
And, as established above, even in Christianity which claims "there's only ONE!", most of the 45,000 different versions of Christianity (200 in the USA) teach different versions of "God" than the others do (keeping in mind that a version of "God" includes all the theology associated with that god, especially considering that in most version of Christianity Salvation is not gained from believing in the right god, but primarily from believing in the right theology).
Again, it's manifestly obvious that we have had many gods.
If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.~Anthony de Mello God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient. Ignatius of Loyola
And what purpose would that serve? In the 3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter topic, you spent 5.5 years and 42 messages to fail to give any good reason to read that book which, as far as we can tell, is nothing but theological maunderings. I have much to take care of, so why would I waste my time on that.
I will make a counter offer of one of the most excellent books I know of from my 74 years of existence. Borland's Turbo Pascal 5.5 release incorporated Object Pascal, an extension of Pascal incorporating object-oriented programming (OOP) -- actually, Niklaus Wirth's original Pascal was pretty bare-bones being intended as a tool for teaching structured programming (the really hot topic when I was in school in the late 70's), so any practical industrial-strength version of Pascal had to have been extended, especially its file I/O functions.
Turbo Pascal 5.5 included a booklet by Jeff Duntemann which explained OOP principles as they appeared in Object Pascal. It was my first introduction to OOP, being before I learned C++, and he explained it fully and with such incredible clarity that I still marvel at his treatment. Even the "esoteric and mysterious" subject of virtual methods was clear and understandable, including how they're implementated through the virtual method table (VMT) and exactly how the VMT worked!
Unfortunately, I had to leave that booklet behind when I left that company. In order to find a copy you would need to track down the Turbo Pascal 5.5 documentation. I mourn the loss of that booklet as I do my copy of the Pirke Avot which I had lent to a friend who never returned it (I do very much prefer Jewish thought over Christian maunderings).
So what does a book about OOP have to do with our discussion? No more than your book recommendation does.
However, from what you've said about Ellis Potter's book, it only serves to prove my point about the many gods and the many versions of "God"/"Jesus"/"Christianity".:
As per what you've said of it, Potter describes and compares three different theological approaches. If your assertion of there being only ONE version had any validity, then Potter's book would have served no purpose at all. IOW, his book contradicts your assertions, so why would you think that it supports you?
Potter only confirms what I've been trying to explain to you:
Nobody KNOWS anything about the gods, nor can anybody know anything about the gods. All that anybody has ever been able to do has been to make stuff up about the gods and then elaborate on those divine fictions. Try as they may to make those elaborations "reasonable", it's still all just made up. BTW, that's called theology. So theology is stuff that people have made up about gods.
There's no way to verify or validate theology outside of testing for internal consistency, etc -- though theology will also find ways to explaining away failures of internal consistency (AKA apologetics).
That's what your description of Potter's book looks like. So what's your point?
In the 3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter topic, you spent 5.5 years and 42 messages to fail to give any good reason to read that book which, as far as we can tell, is nothing but theological meanderings. I have much to take care of, so why would I waste my time on that?
It all depends on what you consider wasted time and what you consider productive time. The philosophy that I espouse is as simple as any computer programming language that you have learned. Regarding God, there are not 240,000 of them.
The language is as simple as 0 and 1.
However, from what you've said about Ellis Potter's book, it only serves to prove my point about the many gods and the many versions of "God"/"Jesus"/"Christianity".:
As per what you've said of it, Potter describes and compares three different theological approaches. If your assertion of there being only ONE version had any validity, then Potter's book would have served no purpose at all. IOW, his book contradicts your assertions, so why would you think that it supports you? Potter only confirms what I've been trying to explain to you: Nobody KNOWS anything about the gods, nor can anybody know anything about the gods. All that anybody has ever been able to do has been to make stuff up about the gods and then elaborate on those divine fictions. Try as they may to make those elaborations "reasonable", it's still all just made up. BTW, that's called theology. So theology is stuff that people have made up about gods. There's no way to verify or validate theology outside of testing for internal consistency, etc -- though theology will also find ways to explaining away failures of internal consistency (AKA apologetics).
That's what your description of Potter's book looks like. So what's your point?
Potter breaks down his 3 theories rather eloquently. The book has 3 circles on the cover. It also describes three worldviews. Keep in mind that this discussion is at a 40,000 foot level...thus details are unimportant...only the Big Picture. Three worldviews can be analogous to several descriptions, some of the being:
Oneism, Twoism, and Threeism.
Home, Away, Home Again.
Keep in mind we are talking philosophy and NOT Science.
Monism is described by Potter as the oldest "religion" or philosophical worldview. To be continued...
Edited by Phat, .
If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.~Anthony de Mello God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient. Ignatius of Loyola
quote:
It all depends on what you consider wasted time and what you consider productive time. The philosophy that I espouse is as simple as any computer programming language that you have learned. Regarding God, there are not 240,000 of them. The language is as simple as 0 and 1.
I would say that making vague comments without going into sufficient detail to show anything good about the book is a waste of time if you’re supposed to be discussing the book.
We still don’t have a clear idea of what Ellis means by “monism”or why it could be considered a “worlodview” it a “theory if everything”. We only know that Elli uses his own idiosyncratic definition.
Although doesn’t your comment “ Regarding God, there are not 240,000 of them. The language is as simple as 0 and 1.” make YOU a monist? Trinitarian belief - especially Ellis’s is NOT that simple.
It all depends on what you consider wasted time and what you consider productive time.
Productive time is taking care of life's necessities and concerning oneself with how things actually work. That actually accomplishes tangible results and benefits.
Wasted time is agonizing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, such is what theological musings boil down to. Basically, metaphysical masturbation.
quote:Gwyn (on the phone with Antonio): I was just spending the afternoon engaged in mental masturbation. My second favorite kind.
What the fuck are you talking about? DEFINE YOUR TERMS!
That's the central problem of ignosticism: nobody can even define what "God" is supposed to mean. Everybody keeps yelling "God", but nobody has any idea what the fuck they're talking about.
quote:Theological noncognitivism is the non-theist position that religious language, particularly theological terminology such as 'God', is not intelligible or meaningful, and thus sentences like 'God exists' are cognitively meaningless. This would also imply that sentences like the negation of 'God exists' or 'God does not exist' are likewise meaningless, i.e., neither true nor false. It may be considered synonymous with ignosticism (also called igtheism), a term coined in 1964 by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism.
So just what are you talking about? The gods, of whom that have indeed been hundreds of thousands? Or just one particular one of those hundreds of thousands of gods? And of whom that are thousands of different versions, so different from each other that their followers have spent millennia slaughtering each other for following the "wrong God"?
I have conclusively demonstrated that there have been a great many gods, whereas you have yet to demonstrate that there has only been ONE! All you have given has been a bare assertion with absolutely no basis. I just named eleven of them in my Message 1514 (reposted by you in Message 578 as being the ones used to name the days of the week (so even you use their names all the time). And even you can name a dozen gods off the top of your head. And yet you still have nothing to offer.
I had asked ChatGPT for a list of names which I hadn't gotten around to posting, but here it is:
ChatGPT:You said:
A list of the gods throughout history.
ChatGPT said:
That’s a huge topic — humanity has named thousands of gods across cultures and eras. To make it manageable, I can give you a structured overview of major deities through history, grouped by civilization or religion and roughly chronological order.
Here’s a broad outline:
Ancient and Prehistoric Deities
Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria)
An / Anu – Sky god, father of the gods
Enlil – God of air and kingship
Enki / Ea – God of water, wisdom, creation
Inanna / Ishtar – Goddess of love, war, fertility
Utu / Shamash – Sun god, justice
Nanna / Sin – Moon god
Marduk – Babylon’s chief god
Nergal – God of the underworld and plague
Ancient Egypt
Ra / Re – Sun god
Osiris – God of the afterlife, resurrection
Isis – Goddess of magic, motherhood
Horus – Sky god, protector of kings
Set / Seth – God of chaos, storms
Anubis – God of mummification, the dead
Thoth – God of wisdom, writing
Bastet – Cat goddess of home and fertility
Amun / Amun-Ra – Creator and solar god
Canaanite / Phoenician
El – Supreme god
Baal / Hadad – Storm and fertility god
Asherah – Mother goddess
Astarte / Anat – Love and war goddesses
Mot – Death god
Classical Mediterranean
Ancient Greece
Zeus – King of the gods, sky
Hera – Queen, marriage
Poseidon – Sea
Hades – Underworld
Athena – Wisdom and war
Apollo – Sun, music, prophecy
Artemis – Hunt, moon
Aphrodite – Love and beauty
Hermes – Messenger, trade, trickery
Dionysus – Wine, ecstasy
Ares – War
Demeter – Harvest
Ancient Rome (largely equivalent gods with Latin names)
Jupiter (Zeus)
Juno (Hera)
Neptune (Poseidon)
Pluto (Hades)
Minerva (Athena)
Venus (Aphrodite)
Mars (Ares)
Mercury (Hermes)
Diana (Artemis)
Apollo (same name)
Ceres (Demeter)
Vesta (Hestia)
South and East Asia
Hinduism (Vedic and Classical)
Indra – Storm and war god (Vedic)
Agni – Fire
Varuna – Waters, cosmic order
Vishnu – Preserver
Shiva – Destroyer and regenerator
Brahma – Creator
Lakshmi – Wealth, fortune
Saraswati – Knowledge, art
Parvati / Durga / Kali – Power and motherhood
Ganesha – Remover of obstacles
Buddhism (Not gods in the same sense, but includes divine beings)
Brahma and Indra (Sakra) as guardian deities
Avalokitesvara / Guanyin – Bodhisattva of compassion
Maitreya – Future Buddha
China
Shangdi / Tian (Heaven) – Supreme power
Yu the Great – Culture hero, flood controller
Nuwa and Fuxi – Creator deities
Guandi – God of war and loyalty
Mazu – Sea goddess
Caishen – God of wealth
Japan (Shinto)
Amaterasu – Sun goddess
Tsukuyomi – Moon god
Susanoo – Storm god
Inari – Rice and prosperity deity
Izanagi & Izanami – Creator deities
Northern and Western Europe
Norse / Germanic
Odin (Woden) – Allfather, wisdom, war
Thor (Donar) – Thunder
Freya – Love, fertility
Frey – Peace, prosperity
Loki – Trickster
Tyr – Justice, war
Hel – Underworld
Frigg – Marriage
Celtic
Dagda – Father god
Brigid – Poetry, healing, smithcraft
Lugh – Skill, sun, war
Morrígan – War and fate
Danu – Mother goddess
Indigenous and Other Traditions
African
Olodumare / Olorun (Yoruba) – Supreme god
Shango – Thunder and justice
Ogun – Iron, war
Yemaya – Sea and motherhood
Anansi – Trickster spider (Akan)
Native American
Wakan Tanka (Lakota) – Great Spirit
Coyote – Trickster
Manitou (Algonquian) – Universal spirit
Quetzalcoatl (Aztec) – Feathered serpent god
Tezcatlipoca – Night and sorcery
Huitzilopochtli – War and the sun
Inti (Inca) – Sun god
Viracocha – Creator god
Polynesian
Tangaroa / Kanaloa – Sea
Tane – Forests, creation
Pele – Volcano and fire
Maui – Trickster hero
Abrahamic Faiths
Judaism
Yahweh / Elohim / Adonai – The one God
Christianity
God (Trinity): Father, Son (Jesus Christ), Holy Spirit
Islam
Allah – The one, transcendent God
(Includes angels and jinn but no other deities)
Would you like me to make this into a chronological world map or timeline (e.g., how belief systems evolved from animism ? polytheism ? monotheism), or do you prefer a comprehensive alphabetical index of gods (thousands of names, like an encyclopedia list)?
Is this conversation helpful so far?
So, again, there have undeniably been many gods. So what the fuck are you talking about?
PS:
Unfortunately, ChatGPT left out an important Egyptian goddess, Hathor:
Stargate SG-1:
[Daniel explains the attributes of Hathor as wine, fertility, and music.] O'Neill: So then drugs, sex, and rock and roll?
Keep in mind we are talking philosophy and NOT Science.
Yeah, so anything goes and you can redefine reality into whatever you happen to want it to be at the moment. And then redefine it again later on a whim.
quote:Dammit, Jim! I'm an engineer, not a philosopher!
Again, from what you have given us Ellis' theological maunderings have no bearing on reality, so why would I waste my time on it?
It all depends on what you consider wasted time and what you consider productive time.
Some examples of wasting time needed for more productive work:
You work at a computer at work, but instead of doing your work you surf the Web or play Solitaire or Minesweeper (Minesweeper was good for testing the responsiveness of a new mouse, but not for hours every day).
Arguing on-line over which is the better starship captain, Kirk or Picard. Or the Star Wars equivalent (or anything Star Wars). Or ceaselessly complaining about and arguing over perceived violations of canon or mishandling of new additions to a franchise (eg, hating on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds of on the new Doctor).
Trying to talk sense to a creationist. Or a MAGAt. Or a religious fanatic who never engages his brain.
Anything sports. Complete and total waste.
Any kind of specialized subject that has no effect on everyday life; eg, theology. Or that is important, but only to specialists who work in that subject; eg, programmers and their programming paradigms.
Theology feels important to you because you're all ate up on that stuff, but it's meaningless for normals. Trying to force a book of esoteric theological musings on those for whom that nonsense is just ... well ... nonsense, is like a programmer trying to force a book on programming paradigms on a non-computer type (THAT was my point in presenting Jeff Duntemann's OOP book to you, but yet again you completely missed the point).
Guardians of the Galaxy:
Rocket: He can't understand metaphors; his people are too literal. It just goes right over his head. Drax: Nothing goes over my head. I'm too fast. I will catch it!
Actually, I spent an hour or more on the phone with an old and dear friend. Stuart works at Ball Aerospace and is as nerdy as any of you. We talked about religion, science fiction, and science fact. He recommended two books for me. Perhaps you have heard of them.
For Us The Living
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Both are by Robert Heinlein
He is not particularly religious, but he listens to me, and I listen to him. That's all that matters..
If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.~Anthony de Mello God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient. Ignatius of Loyola
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