The oldest monotheistic religion

@philokalia said
Yeah, what you ate talking about concerning Hinduism is basically henotheism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism

It is not uncommon for Hindus to be devoted to a single God and believe that other gods are mere avatars of that God as well.

Still, Hindu texts are highly contradictory and you could quote the Rg Veda and declare that all that Hindus really ar ...[text shortened]... r to consider Hinduism a series of religions and not a single religion.

Big and beautiful topic.

Polytheism and monotheism in the Hindu (Sanatana Dharma/ Vedic Dharma) tradition coexist, the deities are like the spokes of a Wheel that emanate from the Hub. In the Hindu form of monotheism the Divine is formally referred to as Brahman –the source from which all deities are manifest; the Hub that transcends all attempts at defining or qualifying it; not male nor female; has no form, has no description; takes on apparent form or characteristics solely to allow humans the ability to relate to it, and in that state it may be called Krishna, Shiva and any other name that refer to a Qualified Absolute beyond qualifications. The characteristics take place in the human consciousness so that the Divine can love, protect and show compassion, whilst beyond qualifications it is all encompassing.
This all encompassing nature as the source and reality of all other deities and of all animate and inanimate creation, is the One to whom all prayers are offered; the One is conceptualized by the people according to their own mind and elevates them to its ultimate reality, which is the singular omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient divinity who demands no allegiance, punishes no one for lack of belief and provides wisdom, comfort, compassion and freedom to the individual who seeks it. All the individual needs to do is look within. To what is One, sages give many a title.

The above mentioned merging of polytheistic and monotheistic concepts is unique to Vedic Dharma, which is, in my opinion, a single one religion. And since the Reality behind the phenomenal universe is considered limitless, indescribable and absolute principle, it seems to me that the Vedic Divine is not a case of henotheism but a panentheist concept -in fact, according to Vedic Dharma, Reality is identical with Divinity. This is the reason why, according to this tradition, all-things compose an all-encompassing Immanent God.
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@whodey said
There is no single story. There are many variations to their story of creation

https://www.dailyo.in/variety/hindusim-world-creation-universe-brahma-vishu-shiva/story/1/19522.html


Because Hinduism is plural, with a vast collection of customs and beliefs of numerous communities, over many periods of history, there is no single story of creation. There are many stories, ...[text shortened]... f once again.

Also read: Why Hanuman Chalisa is the most powerful expression of personal Hinduism

This is not accurate!

According to the Vedic interpretation, Creation is a process, not an event –so there are many stories as regards this process; for example, the Purusha Sukta offers the view of the ideal primeval being existing before any phenomenal existence, which is conceived as a cosmic person with a thousand heads, eyes and feet who filled the whole universe and extended beyond it. The world form is just a fragment of this divine reality.

Anyway, FYI, the earliest account of Creation is the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the Rig Veda. Fell free to google it. When you read it, Mundakopanishad gets crystal clear: “As a spider projects and withdraws into itself the web, as the plants sprout from the earth, as hair grows on the head and body of man, so from the Imperishable comes out the Universe”.
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@black-beetle said
Polytheism and monotheism in the Hindu (Sanatana Dharma/ Vedic Dharma) tradition coexist, the deities are like the spokes of a Wheel that emanate from the Hub. In the Hindu form of monotheism the Divine is formally referred to as Brahman –the source from which all deities are manifest; the Hub that transcends all attempts at defining or qualifying it; not male nor female ...[text shortened]... he reason why, according to this tradition, all-things compose an all-encompassing Immanent God.
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'singular omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient divinity who demands no allegiance, punishes no one for lack of belief and provides wisdom, comfort, compassion and freedom to the individual who seeks it. All the individual needs to do is look within.'

I really don't see how any Christian can read that passage and still elevate the Christian God.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
'singular omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient divinity who demands no allegiance, punishes no one for lack of belief and provides wisdom, comfort, compassion and freedom to the individual who seeks it. All the individual needs to do is look within.'

I really don't see how any Christian can read that passage and still elevate the Christian God.

Mind is boundless and its projections countless 😵

@whodey said
Of the ancient religions we have left Hinduism and the various religions derived from the Bible.

In fact, pretty much all religions are derived from the Bible as world religions are dominated by the Bible.

It's a good thing to that these only remain considering that at one time the world was full of polytheistic religions engaged in child sacrifice.

You have the cart before the horse. The creation story recounted in the Book of Genesis is derived from several prior mythic traditions. The contest between good and evil is derived from Zoroastrianism. The NT story about the death and resurrection of God is derived from Egyptian religion.

@moonbus said
You have the cart before the horse. The creation story recounted in the Book of Genesis is derived from several prior mythic traditions. The contest between good and evil is derived from Zoroastrianism. The NT story about the death and resurrection of God is derived from Egyptian religion.

Some say Jesus was based on the Egyptian god Horus.

Same story, and same birthday, yet Horus was thousands of years earlier.

@moonbus

. The contest between good and evil is derived from Zoroastrianism.

I think the Bible is more profound. The contest is not really between good and evil so much as it is between Divine Life and the knowledge of good and evil.

Notice that good and evil are both related to the tree which brought death to man.

"And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (Gen 2:9)

This alone is persuasive to me that this is not ordinary human imagined writing. Human imagined writing would do as you have just done - made the conflict be between good and evil.

The Bible however shows dependence on God for divine life verses independence from God for a knowledge of evil AND good both.

The tree of life was of dependence and divine life.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was of revolt, independence, and eventual death.

Good and evil were on the same tree of death. And Adam was told the not only the evil part of it would cause death, but ANY part of it. good or evil would bring him into death.

"And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Gen. 2:16,17)

Now go back and compare this with your other sacred traditions.

Satan, the first independent being of extraordinary intelligence and cunning and who rebelled against his Creator, told man to eat of the tree of independence and death - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. which had been forbidden.

" ... Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

and the woman said to the serpent, Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die,

And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil." 3:1b-5)

God purpose was for man to partake of the tree of life to receive God into him mingling the human with the divine.

instead man became mixed with the Devil - mingled with the Devil - invaded in his being with Satan God's enemy and the one "who has the might of death."

Thank Ishwar for Wikipedia!

The post that was quoted here has been removed

The tradition Sanatana Dharma envelops a multisystem of philosophy, religious beliefs and ritual, a complex that was Greek to the British writers of the early 19th century. Due to the fact that the significance of the Rigvedic gods and their myths began to wane in the later Vedic period, the Rigvedic theism (in which any god could be hailed as supreme and one’s attributes could be transferred to another) pressed mentally hard jokers like Max Mueller who could not make heads or tales of the complexity and the richness of the tradition and ended up with stupidities like the so called “kathenotheism” etc. etc. It took some more to the startled and stranded Western scholars to grasp the “panentheism of Prajapati”, which is merely another basic element of the tradition.

I would stay clear from Wiki out of respect to the Vedic Dharma, although I admit I reject the authority of the Vedic Dharma outright. For crying out loud, even the term “Hinduism” (the title of a book written by Sir Monier Monier-Williams, and simply a designator of religious practices and ideas distinctive to India) is just a note on Advaita Vedanta, a subtradition of Vedanta, which is the main Indian philosophy from the Vedic period and is identified with the religion of the land. Vedanta, as both religion and philosophy complex is called Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Religion). The Hindus describe their religious identity as Sanatana Dharma instead of Hinduism, referring to a plexus of customs, obligations, traditions and dharmas (in this context: ideals) [namely: doctrine, practice, society, story, devotion] that exceed by far the Western idea of religion as merely a system of beliefs. Well, false a la Wiki assumptions emerge when one tackles the Vedic Dharma tradition non-holistically.
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@black-beetle said
Mind is boundless and its projections countless 😵

And water never rises above its source.
Our minds do quite a bit of projecting, and since the fruit of it is all around us.
Do you like what you see?

@moonbus said
You have the cart before the horse. The creation story recounted in the Book of Genesis is derived from several prior mythic traditions. The contest between good and evil is derived from Zoroastrianism. The NT story about the death and resurrection of God is derived from Egyptian religion.

Its easier to believe that the Biblical creation story was the foundation for many other stories, as apposed to someone back in that day ran around collecting all of the other stories, just to put them together in a single account of their own. It isn't like the internet was there and there was an easy way to compile such works.

The Bible unlike any other collection of books they were not sourced by the same people, they were not written at the same time, they were not written in the same location and yet Biblical scripture is a narrative of God's story with mankind from Genesis to Revelation where the writers refer to one another's work, and their accounts with a single God.

@galveston75 said
So with this thought of God being 1 God in many beliefs and just as the bible states clearly, how did the Christian religions of today manage to switch their god to 3? Don't really need to high jack this thread but food for thought.....

There is only one God, the Trinity isn't three different gods.

@kellyjay said
There is only one God, the Trinity isn't three different gods.

In the same way that Hinduism's many gods are one God?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
In the same way that Hinduism's many gods are one God?

They believe as Christ said, that when we see Jesus we see the Father, because they are in perfect harmony they are one, as they are with the Holy Spirit? There are no distinctions between between them, this also is the eternal nature of God in that there was never a time that this was not true of God?