I don't think anything in actual existence is worthy of worship other then the Creator but I do believe God shows partial differing visions of him to mystics, different "hues" of his light, and that there is perhaps infinite such visions, and all these visions show a glory that if you multiply by infinity, they would be worthy of worship and God appears in garbs of these visions.

God never appears in full form but in garbs and behind veils. He always appears behind veils and the veil is the very glory shown that doesn't show the rest.

I don't believe we get the same image of the divine, I believe every soul orients towards a veil, and that no soul can get the vision of ultimate oneness. I think that station is impossible to see.

I think this veil also consists part of our identity, and hence, we all have our own god, and god is worshiped indirectly through them.

I also think that some veils are superior to others, and some veils can have imperfections and be tainted as well.

I don't think it's possible to have absolute vision of the Divine. We can only get visions that are more close to the divine then others. Still, the way we are imperfectly created, the veil we take on, we tend to believe it's superior and will belittle veils that are not on the same page.

We think our veil is the whole of the glory and we have it, but really, it's just a veil.

Our god we worship is not the true God, it's a veil, a pointer, a descent of glory, a partial limited perspective. The true God cannot be worshiped but is rather unknown and unseen.

In other words, theists create gods in their own image.

I agree.

I'm with you most of the way there mk.

Is a polytheist someone who has a plastic deity on their dashboard?

If it is unknown and unseen, how do you know all this stuff about it?

How is any of this distinguishable from imagination or delusion?

Sounds all quite fuzzy (how can you know any of this is true rather than made up to suit your desires?), but it does not sound like polytheism to me. But maybe a Hindu can elaborate what conditions have to be met...

It's polytheism if he thinks that it's multiple deities rather than aspects of a single deity.

(November 30, 2014 at 5:35 am)fr0d0 Wrote: It's polytheism if he thinks that it's multiple deities rather than aspects of a single deity.

Very good. But what's the difference between the two possibilities? How do you delineate deities, what's the criterion for them to be separate entities?

I personally don't see more to deism than an argument from incredulity or emotional appeals; and pretty much the same ones that theists often use.

"I can't think of any way the universe could be in it's current state unless an intelligent being created it."
"I just feel there is some higher power that did all this."

Or the other form I have heard is just a tautology:

"Whatever caused the universe to happen, I call that god. Therefore, god created the universe."

As well as pointless, it is also flawed because it assumes the universe had a cause.

For example:

Call the smallest real number greater than zero x.

If x > 1 then squareroot(x) < x so x is not the smallest real number.
If x < 1 then x*x <x so x is not the smallest real number.
Therefore, x=1 as all other possibilities have been discounted.

I'm not trying to insult deists, but to analyze deism. If there is more to it than I am aware of, I'd be happy to hear it.

If you say god is the universe, or god is nature, or god could be nothing... you're really not saying anything at all.

So seeing as I think deities are in the imagination, you can have as many as you want.

Also, sorry to rip into deism so hard but:

Q) Are there any things that could have always existed, or could come into existence without an agency in control?

A) Yes: How do you know the universe/metaverse isn't one of them?
A) No: So god didn't always exist, and it had a creator. So did the creator's creator. So did the creator's creator's creator. So did...

To borrow again from the great Dillahunty; any attempt to use a diety is answering one mystery with another bigger mystery.

Claim: the universe looks designed
Rebuttal: what does a non-designed universe look like to compare?

Is deism a refusal to let go of some external meaning to life?

Well I was thinking it would be like soft polytheism where deities are manifestations of the same God but not separate entities.

You should talk to trinitarian christians. They have a lot of bullshit on how to make several entities just one. I can not help you as my gods come in pairs.