1) Believe in a monotheistic religion like Christianity or Islam or Judaism, with belief in only one God who is 100 percent good and perfect.
2) Or become an Atheist who only believes in the material world with no God or spiritual dimension or human soul. (Since Buddhism doesn't focus on God, it falls in this category or somewhere in between)
Why only these two extremes? Both of them are too absolute. It seems that the elite want you to only choose from one of the above. So when universities hold public debates in theology, they usually hold them between Christian fundamentalists and Atheists (e.g. William Lane Craig vs. Richard Dawkins), insinuating that those are the two possible choices you have. Even Hindus now claim that there is one God (Brahma) in Hinduism with many faces.
Perhaps the elite want you to choose between Monotheism and Atheism because both of those belief systems are easy to control people through. For example, if one adopts the Atheist view, one believes in only the material universe and thus becomes a staunch materialist. Thus the elite can use materialism to control their lives. But if one becomes a Monotheist, such as a Christian or Catholic, then the elite can use Church authority to control them by telling them what "God" wants them to do, as the Catholic Church has done for 1700 years. Also, by claiming that the "one and only God" is perfect and infallible, it makes the authority of the religion absolute and unquestionable, which is more effective for social control of course.
Why don't they introduce Polytheism, the belief in multiple deities, as a valid choice? Probably because if one believes in multiple Gods, then one is less controllable by authority, because if one doesn't like what one deity says, then one can just worship another deity. So there is less central control and authority in that. Or why not introduce Pantheism, the belief that God is everything, as an option? Perhaps because if one believes that God is everything, then one will believe that oneself is God too, or that God is contained within oneself, and thus one does not need an outside authority or church to tell him what to do.
So basically, the elite want you to choose a belief system where you will be easier to control, since their job is to control you after all, not give you freedom or truth or enlightenment, no way. A farmer controls his herd and keeps them in line, he does not try to give them truth or freedom, no way.
However, if there are Gods and deities, then I think Polytheism makes more sense than Monotheism. Here are the reasons why:
1. Why should there be only one God or deity? If there is a God or deity, why can't there be more than one? We know that everything in this world or universe has more than one of it. For example, there is more than one of trees, rocks, mountains, rivers, people, animals, etc. This applies to all species. And there are many stars and galaxies too, not just one. Thus everything has more than one of the same kind. So why can't there be more than one deity or God as well? The logic would follow. For there to be more than one creator or deity would be consistent with everything else in the universe. In fact, why can't there be a family of deities or a race of deities or a species of deities? Why is there a rule or assumption that there can only be one God or Creator? It simply doesn't have a basis. People assume it because many orthodox religions simply say so.
If there are families of deities, then that would answer the question Atheists ask which stump Christians, "If God created the universe, who created God?" The answer would be that parental gods created god, just as Chronos was the father of Zeus in Greek mythology. But instead, the Christians like to throw the question back at the Atheists and ask, "If the Big Bang created the universe out of nothing, then who created the Big Bang? What came before it? The belief that everything came out of nothing in a "Big Bang" is also a religion too."
2. All ancient cultures and tribes were Polytheistic and believed in multiple deities. Even Ancient Greece and Rome had Polytheistic religions. Monotheism is a relatively recent phenomena. According to religious historians and scholars, monotheism began with the rebel Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, who forced monotheism onto Egypt and angered the priestly establishment and people, and was thus eventually overthrown and banished. Before that, all cultures were polytheistic and believed in multiple deities. Even the ancient Jews and Israelites were polytheistic, contrary to what people might think. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Judaism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-t ... 77340.htmlThe origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age polytheistic Ancient Semitic religions, specifically Canaanite religion, a syncretization with elements of Babylonian religion and of the worship of Yahweh reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.
So if all the earliest religions of the world were polytheistic, then as a rule of thumb, if something is older and more original, it's more likely to be closer to the TRUTH and more accurate. If the earliest humans were Polytheistic, then it stands to reason that maybe they were closer to the truth since they were LESS manipulated by civilization and control, and more natural and in harmony with nature, and thus closer to our origins.the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 indicates that Yahweh was believed to have been one of the children of the Canaanite deity El Elyon (God Most High). The song describes how the nations were originally formed, and what it says is that the peoples of the earth were divided up according to the number of El Elyon’s children (the junior members of the divine pantheon). Yahweh, Israel’s patron deity, was one of Elyon’s children.
The best evidence suggests that Yahweh did not begin as the “only true God” of later Jewish monotheism; he did not begin as the creator of the world. Yahweh began as a young, up-and-coming tribal deity whose prowess among other gods mirrored Israel’s aspirations vis-a-vis surrounding tribes and nations.
Even in the Bible, there are passages that suggest a plurality of Gods. For example, in the Old Testament, the first of the Ten Commandments that says, "Thou shall have no other Gods before me" is not saying that there are no other gods, only that the Israelites should not worship others gods. This implies that other gods exist, for if they didn't, why would this commandment even mention it? Furthermore, in Genesis when God was creating the world, he said, "Let US make man in OUR image" and then later after Adam and Eve fell from eating the fruit off the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God approached them and upon finding out what happened, said, "Behold, man has become like US, knowing good and evil."
3. Miracles, answered prayers, and changed lives occur in every religion, not just Christianity. So there may be different deities working behind each religion, or else one deity behind them all. Either way, each religion does seem to have some kind of real power behind it. Every religion works for someone, or else it wouldn't exist.
4. Atheists love to ask Theists the question: "If God created the universe, then who created God?" Monotheism can't answer that except to claim that "God is eternal and has no creator" which is a cop out. But Polytheism provides a simple answer to that: If there is more than one God, then perhaps our God was created by other Gods, like how humans and animals are born by mothers of their own species. In Ancient Greek mythology, the Gods are born by other Gods too. For example, the God Zeus was the son of Chronos, who was his father. So even the Gods have parent Gods. This is how all species on Earth work, so why wouldn't the Gods be subject to the same? It goes in line with what we know.
5. The Ancient Astronaut theory is now becoming more popular in the paranormal/UFO/alternative community. The History Channel has now done many seasons of its "Ancient Aliens" series. The theory goes that humans were created by ancient aliens (the Annunaki) who created us by manipulating the DNA of hominids (man-like apes) by combining it with their own alien DNA, thus creating hybrids. That explains the missing link in evolution and why humans suddenly had intelligence whereas other species still didn't despite millions of years of evolution. It also explains why humans have 95 percent junk DNA which no other animal on Earth has, and why humans seem out of place in the evolutionary pattern of all species on Earth.
The ancient astronaut theory is corroborated by many ancient cultures, including the earliest ones in Sumeria, Babylon and Egypt, which all say that they were created by "Gods from the sky and heavens" who gave them their language and culture. So this theory does explain a lot of unexplained mysteries that science has no real answer for. Now, if the ancient astronaut theory is true, then these alien creators are "the gods" that early humans wrote about and passed down into their legends, which means that there are multiple "gods" since an alien species was involved, and perhaps more than one alien species too.
6. Your body has over 30 trillion cells according to biology. Each of those cells is a living organism that eats, reproduces, dies and is replaced by new ones. Now to all your 30+ trillion cells, YOU are their God, or creator and ruler. So if these cells believed that there was only one God, only ONE of you, would they be correct? Of course not, since every person and animal on Earth is made up of many of such cells. Again, if there are many of each species, then why can't there be many deities as well? It would be consistent with what we know.
7. Many people have "guardian angels" that seem to guide them, help them and protect them. And many people have their prayers answered too, in a way that doesn't seem like chance and coincidence. How can one God be listening to so many prayers at once? It would be a lot easier for multiple Gods to be listening to multiple people.
8. If we define God simply as a CREATOR, then that could mean anything or anybody. We don't even know who or what created us. It could be an alien race, as mentioned earlier. Or we could be living in a computer simulation, as some professors and scientists propose, in which case our "gods" are simply the computer programmer(s) of our simulation. Either way, the existence of a creator does not imply that there has to be only one, as monotheistic religions claim. For example, it takes a team of workers to build a house, and it takes a team of engineers and architects to design a big structure. It even takes a team of designers to design a computer simulation, if we are indeed living in one. Thus we know that it usually takes a team of builders or designers to construct something in our world. So why can't that apply to the designers of this world too? Just because religion and the Bible says it can't? Well that's not a good enough reason because authority is not truth and words do not create reality.
In addition, just as there are other teams creating other video games and virtual simulations, there could be other creators/teams running other world simulations too. We could also be an experiment, a human farm, or just entertainment in a virtual reality show to the designers that created us. In that case, we don't know who our creator or creators are, so why should we assume that we only have one creator?
So you see, these are good reasons I think, why we should keep the possibility of Polytheism -- or multiple deities, creators and custodians -- open, rather than assume that there can only be either one deity and creator or none at all, which is unwarranted. But it seems that that's what our culture and elite want us to choose from, probably for their own purposes of social control, so they present the debate about God as if there are only two choices in the matter -- Monotheism or Atheism, or Christianity vs. Atheism.
But both of these belief systems don't make sense if you think about it. Both organized religion and Atheism contains too many unwarranted assumptions and unanswered questions and are faith based. Science does not say that there is no God or creator, as Atheists presume. Atheism is a humanist view, opinion and belief, not a scientific one. Science is a tool and method, it does not hold views and opinions, as Atheists try to make it out to be. So we need more options and choices than just Monotheistic religions and Atheism.
Either way, I think that if there is a God, deity or creator, then there would likely be multiple Gods, deities and creators, for the reasons above. What do you think?
Of all the religions, Hinduism is the only one that is both polytheistic and monotheistic. It features many deities, but all the deities are faces of the same God, Brahma. This signifies that God is very multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, possessing many different personalities. Why not? Isn't God supposed to be able to do anything, including that which is beyond human comprehension? If this is true, then God may be more complex than we can imagine. So it's possible that multiple deities may be aspects of one deity. Perhaps it doesn't really matter, because in the higher realms of existence, such numbers as "one vs many" have no significance the way it does in our 3 dimensional universe. It could be that in higher realms, different laws apply that we cannot fathom with our linear minds. After all, our minds were designed and adapted to understand things in the physical universe, not higher realms or dimensions. So we must be humble and not pretend that we can know everything there is to know, or assume that everything can be measured in a laboratory, including higher dimensions of reality.
Furthermore, if there is a God or only one God, then why does he have to be 100 percent perfect, good, just and infallible? That seems like a programmed assumption and isn't warranted. Even if we can establish the existence of a creator, it does not logically follow that he or it has to be perfect. We know that nothing is perfect in this world and that no one is perfect. Creation is not perfect, so why should the creator be? A creation is a reflection of its creator after all. So the assumption here of a flawless creator is not sound or logical.
Moreover, the God of the Bible is clearly not perfect or all good, but has many character flaws and an evil violent side too, according to many Biblical stories, if taken literally that is. He gets jealous, angry, orders violence, kills innocent children and people, commits mass murder, carries out unfair punishments, decrees unfair laws, etc. He also can't be all powerful because he allows evil and injustice to rule the world, and can't even control Satan but has his plans thwarted by him. He even creates his own enemies such as the devil and demons. And he sends billions of unbelievers (the majority of the world's population) to an eternal hell of everlasting punishment, just for not believing in Jesus. None of this makes any sense.
So all the evidence and data indicate that God is not 100 percent perfect or good or just, but has a semi-evil side or dark side and so thus is IMPERFECT too, just like any flawed being is. Thus there is no logical reason to assume that a creator or deity MUST be perfect and infallible. That is just an assumption programmed into us by religion and our culture, perhaps to make us feel constantly inadequate since no one can measure up to perfection. The only explanation for this is that by getting people to believe in God's perfection and infallibility, they cannot question the authority of their religion or scriptures. This maximizes social control, which is what religion is all about.
An important point here is that just because here is a creator or creators, or there are builders of this world, it does NOT then logically follow that these creators or builders MUST be perfect, infallible, all good, all wise, all knowing and all powerful, as religion claims. A creator or builder is just that, by definition, and does not necessarily imply the traits of perfection or flawlessness or infallibility.
Also, just because something or someone is bigger and more powerful than you, does not mean he or it has to be perfect, flawless and always right. For example, if an ant or insect entered a large house built by humans, and marveled at the size and magnitude of the creation of the house, and then assumed that the builder or builders of the house MUST be all powerful, all wise, all good, all just, infallible and perfect, would the ant or insect be right? Of course not. The builders of the house are humans, and as fallible as any other living creatures. Just because a human being is a lot bigger and more powerful than an ant or insect, does not mean that the human being must have infallible flawless attributes. It does not logically follow. You get the drift?
Or suppose the 30+ trillion cells in your body, all of which are living organisms, believed that YOU, their god, are all powerful, all knowing, all good, perfect and infallible. Would their belief be accurate about you? Of course not. You are a fallible flawed dualistic being, as you well know, even though you are a "god" to the cells in your body and your mind is "the mind of god" to them. You make mistakes and have character flaws and shortcomings, so why can't God? Why does a Creator "need" to be perfect? It doesn't make sense. Think about it.
Likewise, there is no logical reason to believe that the creators or builders of this world must have perfect and infallible attributes either, as Christianity and Islam claim. These are simply religious doctrines that are preached to you, which you are expected to take on faith, just because they say so. They do not have any logic or reason to them. They are simply tools of social control.
Moreover, the existence of a creator or builder does not imply that there must be only one of such, as monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam claim. We all know that it takes a team of workers to build a house, a team of engineers and architects to design something elaborate, and a team of game designers to construct a computer simulation. So why can't there be a team of creators or builders of our world too, as logic and common sense would presume? Just because religion says there can't be? It doesn't make sense.
Also, if God is all powerful, then:
-- How come God had to use a flood to wipe out the human race at the time of Noah? Why didn't he just zap everyone he wanted to eliminate with a laser or ray and leave Noah and his family unharmed?
-- How come God always needed humans to write his infallible scriptures? Why didn't God just write the Bible himself in heaven and then drop it down to his believers, so that there would be no human error?
-- Why did God make the Israelites wander in the desert with Moses for 40 years to find the promised land? Why didn't he just transport them in a space ship, or teleport them over to the promised land like in Star Trek?
-- Why did God need 6 days to create the world? Why not do it instantaneously like Q can do in Star Trek The Next Generation?
-- Why do so many faithful obedient servants of God in the Bible end up dying a martyr's death, including the Apostle Paul and greatest prophets? Why would God let his loyal followers and warriors get killed if he was all powerful? Why doesn't he protect them? If obeying God doesn't save your life, then what's the point?
-- Why does God let Satan ruin his plans and rule his world and let him run amok, if he's all powerful? Why does God wipe out his human enemies, but can't wipe out his arch enemy, especially if he's the cause of all the sin and mayhem on Earth?
Etc. Etc.
Finally, if God is all knowing, then why would he create mankind knowing that he would rebel and fall in the Garden of Eden? And why would he let the serpent roam around the Garden of Eden, knowing what would result? Why would he create mankind just to wipe them out in a great flood? Why would he create a world where the majority would die unsaved and thus go to hell for all eternity? Furthermore, why would he even need to punish people for all eternity? Why not just extinguish them and be done with that? That sounds insane and psychotic.
However, I don't think our Creator or God would be 100 percent evil either, or else he would have just wiped us all out by now, or disallow any good from happening in the world. So most likely, our Creator (or Creators) are something in between, either semi-evil or possess a dark side. This would make sense, since in our reality, everything exists as a duality and union of opposites, depicted by the Chinese Ying Yang symbol. Everything must have an opposite to exist: Light must have a dark, good must have evil, white must have black, day must have night, up must have down, justice must have injustice, past must have future, Democrats must have Republicans, etc. So likewise, it makes sense for God to have an evil or dark side too, just like we all do. It even says in Genesis that God said that he knows evil too: "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:22)
Perhaps Satan or the devil represents God's dark half, instead of a separate entity. God and Satan could be like Jekyll and Hyde. There are even Bible verses that indicate that God and Satan are the same person or on the same side. For example:
2 Samuel 24:1
"Once again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he caused David to harm them by taking a census. "Go and count the people of Israel and Judah," the LORD told him."
1 Chronicles 21:1
"Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. So David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan, and bring me word that I may know their number."
Interestingly, some of the Gnostic Gospels of the Nag Hammadi library -- discovered in 1945 in Egypt and considered to be among the Lost Gospels rejected from the official Church canon and suppressed -- actually say something like this. Some of the Gnostic texts reveal a stunning bombshell: That Satan is actually the God of the Old Testament in disguise, which they call a "demiurge", who imprisoned us in bodies in a world of physical matter in order to use and exploit us. And that's why there is so much evil and suffering in this world. So the devil's greatest deception wasn't in convincing the world that he doesn't exist, as Christians claim, but in convincing the world that he was God. It's a mind blowing revelation that turns Christianity on its head. No wonder such texts were suppressed and destroyed, and the Gnostic sects persecuted and wiped out.
According to this forbidden Gnostic teaching, Jesus actually came to save the world from the God or demiurge of the Old Testament, and was also sent by a higher good God to help free humanity of the lower "bad God" that created the world of matter. After all, Jesus did tell the Pharisees who followed Old Testament law that they were "children of the devil". So this implies that there are levels of Gods or deities. And it also says that the Serpent Lucifer (which means bringer of light) in the Garden of Eden, was also sent by a higher good God to liberate mankind from the demiurge creator. So the Bible story has it all backwards due to the demiurge's deception.
Anyway the point is, none of these religious claims about God's attributes make any sense. Just because the Christian Church or ministers or even the Bible claims all these things, doesn't make it true. Words do not create reality and authority is not truth. If the Church or Bible said that I looked like Britney Spears or that the Moon was made of Swiss cheese, would that make it true? Truth is not determined by authority, but by evidence, reason and logic. By those standards, what the church and religion says does not hold water.
But humans still need something to believe in. Therefore, it makes sense to seek answers elsewhere. Remember that authority is not truth and truth does not come in a package like fast food. Truth is something you have to dig for and piece together like a puzzle. It's a process and journey of discovery that takes work and dedication. You have to really love truth and knowledge and have a philosopher's soul to go such a route, for it comes with a lot of uncertainty and confusion in unknowing. So it's not for everyone, especially those who need the certainty of organized religion and its prepackaged "truths". It requires being comfortable with not knowing and the ability to embrace the unknown. The life of a truth seeker can also be a lonely one, one which alienates you from groups and societies that prefer conformity to established beliefs. And sometimes, the only reward you get is getting to keep your integrity intact. As great philosophers and writers have said:
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Friederich Nietzsche
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone." - Ayn Rand
Just remember though, once you start down the path of a truth seeker, you can never turn back. Once you find some answers or become more enlightened during your search, you cannot become unenlightened or unknow things. For example, if you discover a big secret, can you forget it and pretend you don't know about it? Keep that in mind.
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” - René Descartes