A Thousand Gods?

[account_inactive]

Zero.

[Asmodee]

Zero.

The spirits are telling me that your number might be a tiny bit closer to the actual number than "a thousand".

[The Grand Nudger]

@OP

Well, that's certainly one of the ways that polytheists seem to have conceptualized the capriciousness of nature...the many conflicting currents of this that or the other, and the complete and utter lack of any overriding paradigm.  Why good sometimes wins out and sometimes doesn;t.  Why the volcanoes sometimes rain down fire on the wicked and othertimes the virtuous.  Why disease killed indiscriminantly. If there's one god, why not many, and if so..it might explain a few things here and there.

If one imagines there to be a "good" god, it's intuitive to imagine that same said good god is somehow not responsible for botflies....and monotheists today are still running with that assumption, though in place of evil gods they present the evil of man. OFC, polytheists often had a more nuanced and subtle vision of gods in any case...as flawed creatures, by our standards. Not always willing to or capable of doing the "right" thing. You see this most poigniantly in transitionary pantheons, as polytheists move to monotheism they often envision their god as great, not necessarily good, but at least, -ours-.

[Drich]

This question is for theists that insist there must be an uncaused cause. I have asked it many times in other threads\ forums and have yet to receive a single response. 

If it is possible that an eternal god exists then is it possible more than one eternal god exists? 2? 10? 1000?

This would explain a lot ! A universe governed by a  committee or warring factions as opposed to rule by a mastermind.

God is a title not a individual being's name.

There are three separate beings who claim this title in Christianity.

Is it possible that there are more God? No, not in Christian theos. Why? because no one else qualified to make that claim.

Outside of the christian theos yes, because 'we' willy nilly can can anything we worship 'god.'

Now you have your answer.

[Arkilogue]

I can only speak from my own understanding...

No, there is only one eternal (without beginning) God, but there are also infinite gods who can live for the rest of eternity (without end).

The original God is an infinitely spatial mass and in an act of self expression began "creation" (universes/relative spaces), the primary aspect of the "Word" is of being an individual, a "one". So the expression creates infinite one's as finite individuals (gods/universes) with the original infinite God, now surrounded by space voided of matter The infnite One (God) and the finite ones (gods) each have a fixed surface border and space between them.

Each is developed like an embryo and there is a birth event of fully developed individual universes/gods leaving the confinement of the metaversal stack, off the top, to exist as free agents in the field of the original Infinite God.

Oh, so many problems with that.

First, how did you come about this "understanding"?  To understand is to infer something from information received.  What possible information could you have which lead you to this very specific conclusion?

Second, "spatial mass"?  The definitions of those words very much do not fit the description of any god of creation.  "Spatial" is "of or relating to space" and "mass" refers to "matter", NEITHER OF WHICH existed before the universe.  So if the One God is a "spatial mass" who made the universe, creating both space and matter, how does that work?  His creation would have to exist before his existence would be possible!

Third, the rest of that is just nonsense.

I came to my understanding after working with an old idea: Chaos (Greek), Ain Aoph Aur and the Tzimtzum (ancient Judaism), the mixture of Apsu and Tiamat (Sumerian), Nun (Egyptian), Ananta Sesha and Vishnu (Hindu). All these concepts/ideas are of an infinite undifferentiated substance/god that is moved/separated/carved out of to make the space of the universe.

The mass before the universe takes up all available space forever. A universe is a voided space and the basic stable building block of matter inside the universe is an atom.....mostly voided space with an extremely tiny amount of actual mass constantly moving around in it.

I also arrived at the infinite mass idea by following the logic of the Big Bang and correcting for the perspective errors it is always presented with by media: We are always shown a shining dot (singularity) in a sea of blackness with our point of perspective (camera) outside in that sea of blackness. Then the singularity inflates and the inflation border passes our presupposed point of perspective then "ABRACADABRA" we are inside an inflating universe!

First: There is no black/empty/imaginary space outside the singularity. The Big Bang theory states that all the mass/space/time of our universe is in that singularity, there is no external space for a presupposed perspective to view it from/be in. The only valid point of perspective is inside the singularity.

Second: When you enter the singularity with your perspective, look around, where is the border? Does it have a center relative to a non-extant external "nothing" space? No. It has no border, the center is everywhere. The singularity is an infinite mass in gravitational equilibrium. And when it quantum fluctuates, it makes more than one universe at a time.

[The Grand Nudger]

How quaint.  Your instrumentation was a bunch of dusty fairy tales.  I think imma go with the guys who run particle accelerators, personally.

[Arkilogue]

How quaint.  Your instrumentation was a bunch of dusty fairy tales.  I think imma go with the guys who run particle accelerators, personally.

In your opinion.

Yeah, I use that info too. Do you know how many quark densities they've found and how sure they are there are no more?

[segevmoran]

I can only speak from my own understanding...

No, there is only one eternal (without beginning) God, but there are also infinite gods who can live for the rest of eternity (without end).

The original God is an infinitely spatial mass and in an act of self expression began "creation" (universes/relative spaces), the primary aspect of the "Word" is of being an individual, a "one". So the expression creates infinite one's as finite individuals (gods/universes) with the original infinite God, now surrounded by space voided of matter The infnite One (God) and the finite ones (gods) each have a fixed surface border and space between them.

Each is developed like an embryo and there is a birth event of fully developed individual universes/gods leaving the confinement of the metaversal stack, off the top, to exist as free agents in the field of the original Infinite God.

Now really.. How can one come up with all that stuff?
How do you know there is only one (If at all)?
how do you know there are infinite Mini Gods?
How do you know their structure, their substance? their purpose? their wishes?
Who talked with them? who was the blessed one that can actually talk with the gods?

[Asmodee]

Oh, so many problems with that.

First, how did you come about this "understanding"?  To understand is to infer something from information received.  What possible information could you have which lead you to this very specific conclusion?

Second, "spatial mass"?  The definitions of those words very much do not fit the description of any god of creation.  "Spatial" is "of or relating to space" and "mass" refers to "matter", NEITHER OF WHICH existed before the universe.  So if the One God is a "spatial mass" who made the universe, creating both space and matter, how does that work?  His creation would have to exist before his existence would be possible!

Third, the rest of that is just nonsense.

I came to my understanding after working with an old idea: Chaos (Greek), Ain Aoph Aur and the Tzimtzum (ancient Judaism), the mixture of Apsu and Tiamat (Sumerian), Nun (Egyptian), Ananta Sesha and Vishnu (Hindu). All these concepts/ideas are of an infinite undifferentiated substance/god that is moved/separated/carved out of to make the space of the universe.

The mass before the universe takes up all available space forever. A universe is a voided space and the basic stable building block of matter inside the universe is an atom.....mostly voided space with an extremely tiny amount of actual mass constantly moving around in it.

I also arrived at the infinite mass idea by following the logic of the Big Bang and correcting for the perspective errors it is always presented with by media: We are always shown a shining dot (singularity) in a sea of blackness with our point of perspective (camera) outside in that sea of blackness.  Then the singularity inflates and the inflation border passes our presupposed point of perspective then "ABRACADABRA" we are inside an inflating universe!

First: There is no black/empty/imaginary space outside the singularity.  The Big Bang theory states that all the mass/space/time of our universe is in that singularity, there is no external space for a presupposed perspective to view it from/be in. The only valid point of perspective is inside the singularity.

Second: When you enter the singularity with your perspective, look around, where is the border? Does it have a center relative to a non-extant external "nothing" space? No. It has no border, the center is everywhere.  The singularity is an infinite mass in gravitational equilibrium. And when it quantum fluctuates, it makes more than one universe at a time.

Okay, I can kind of see where you're coming from, but it still doesn't really make any sense.  The singularity did not "contain" space, matter and time, but rather space, matter and time were "born of" the singularity.  You can't fit anything at all inside something which is infinitely small.  You cannot fit a single quark in it, nor the smallest measurement of space conceivable.  What's more, you cannot imagine what it would be like "inside" the singularity because there is no "inside".  It's infinitely small.  Rather, everything about the singularity is like nothing we have ever experienced or could ever experience in our universe filled with space, time and matter.  It is unimaginable because it is undefinable.  it is undefinable because we don't have the science to explain and, thus, understand it.  The mathematics which lead to the Big Bang Theory break down at the point of the singularity.  They don't work any more.  And mathematics is all we have to lead us to the belief that it all came from a singularity in the first place.  So anything at all you "imagine" about this singularity is 100% a wild guess.

So to address your two points, First, Big Bang Theory does not that space, time and matter were "inside" the singularity, it says that space, time and matter came from the singularity.  That is not the same thing.  In the first few seconds of the existence of the universe matter could not exist yet because the universe was too hot.  That, alone, tells you that even if you were thinking correctly that all of this was "inside" the singularity matter could not have existed there.  But given that the singularity was infinitely small, there was no "inside".  There was no "center".  It had no measurements, it had no mass, it could not be quantified with current understanding.  There was no "spacial mass" "inside" the singularity because there was no inside, there was no space, there was no matter.  All of that simply was the singularity, in a form not recognizable and completely unknown to us today.

Second, you cannot "enter a singularity" and if you did you would have no "perspective".  There is no mass and there is no gravity.  For it to have any size at all it would have to be contained within space because it is space which allows size.  This was not a container which everything poured out of and became the building blocks of the universe.  In fact, we have no idea what it was, or even if it really existed at all.  Your ideas rely heavily on a single current theory being factually accurate in specific ways, which it almost certainly is not.  The singularity is nothing more than an artifact of observing the expansion of the universe, creating the math to explain that expansion and then running that math backward to see what happens.  Big Bang Theory is the answer to a math problem, not an observed reality.  We don't know it's accurate.  The theory certainly isn't conclusive enough to base the creation of gods on it.  Even if it were, the deity you described would not and could not have existed until well after the big bang, once the universe was cool enough for matter to begin to form.

[chimp3]

This question is for theists that insist there must be an uncaused cause. I have asked it many times in other threads\ forums and have yet to receive a single response. 

If it is possible that an eternal god exists then is it possible more than one eternal god exists? 2? 10? 1000?

This would explain a lot ! A universe governed by a  committee or warring factions as opposed to rule by a mastermind.

God is a title not a individual being's name.

There are three separate beings who claim this title in Christianity.

Is it possible that there are more God? No, not in Christian theos. Why? because no one else qualified to make that claim.

Outside of the christian theos yes, because 'we' willy nilly can can anything we worship 'god.'

Now you have your answer.

Inside of the christian ethos I was not asking the question.