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buddhism 46 jainism and stoicism 47 among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with god disagree as how to best worship god and what is god s plan for mankind there are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions one view is taken by exclusivists who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth generally through revelation or encounter with the divine which adherents of other religions do not another view is religious pluralism a pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one but does not deny the partial truth of other religions the view that all theists actually worship the same god whether they know it or not is especially emphasized in the baháʼí faith hinduism 48 and sikhism 49 the baháʼí faith preaches that divine manifestations include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions such as krishna buddha jesus zoroaster muhammad bahá ú lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity an example of a pluralist view in christianity is supersessionism i e the belief that one s religion is the fulfillment of previous religions a third approach is relativistic inclusivism where everybody is seen as equally right an example being universalism the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone a fourth approach is syncretism mixing different elements from different religions an example of syncretism is the new age movement revelation main article revelation see also prophet and fideism revelation refers to some form of message communicated by god this is usually proposed to occur through the use of prophets or angels al maturidi argued for the need for revelation because even though humans are intellectually capable of realizing god human desire can divert the intellect and because certain knowledge cannot be known except when specially given to prophets such as the specifications of acts of worship 50 it is argued that there is also that which overlaps between what is revealed and what can be derived according to islam one of the earliest revelations to ever be revealed was if you feel no shame then do as you wish 51 the term general revelation is used to refer to knowledge revealed about god outside of direct or special revelation such as scriptures notably this includes studying nature sometimes seen as the book of nature 52 an idiom in arabic states the qur an is a universe that speaks the universe is a silent qur an 53 fideism is the position that in certain topics notably theology such as in reformed epistemology faith in god is superior than reason in arriving at truths some theists argue that there is value to the risk in having faith and that if the arguments for god s existence were as rational as the laws of physics then there would be no risk such theists often argue that the heart is attracted to beauty truth and goodness and so would be best for dictating about god as illustrated through blaise pascal who said the heart has its reasons that reason does not know 54 a hadith attributes a quote to god as i am what my slave thinks of me 55 inherent intuition about god is referred to in islam as fitra or innate nature 56 in confucian tradition confucius and mencius promoted that the only justification for right conduct called the way is what is dictated by heaven a more or less anthropomorphic higher power and is implanted in humans and thus there is only one universal foundation for the way 57 on matters of theology some such as richard swinburne take an evidentialist position where a belief is only justified if it has a reason behind it as opposed to holding it as a foundational belief 58 traditionalist theology holds that one should not opinionate beyond revelation to understand god s nature and frown upon rationalizations such as speculative theology 59 notably for anthropomorphic descriptions such as the hand of god and attributes of god they neither nullify such texts nor accept a literal hand but leave any ambiguity to god called tafwid without asking how 60 61 physico theology provides arguments for theological topics based on reason 62 specific characteristics titles main article names of god the mesha stele bears the earliest known reference 840 bce to the israelite god yahweh the hebrew word for god is el which also as a proper noun referred to the chief deity in ancient semitic religions throughout the hebrew bible there are several titles used for god such as elohim el shaddai translated god almighty 63 el elyon which means the high god 64 and i am that i am 65 66 in the hebrew bible god is also given a personal name yhwh often vocalized as yahweh or jehovah in origin possibly the name of a deity of edomite or midianite origin who was adopted into ancient israelite religion 66 in many english translations of the bible yahweh is translated as the lord with lord in all caps 67 jah or yah is an abbreviation of jahweh yahweh and often sees usage by jews and christians in the interjection hallelujah meaning praise jah which is used to give god glory 68 in judaism some of the hebrew titles of god are considered holy names god is described and referred in the quran and hadith by certain names or attributes the most common being al rahman meaning most compassionate and al rahim meaning most merciful 69 allāh arabic الله is the arabic term with no plural used by muslims and arabic speaking christians and jews meaning the god while ʾilāh إِلَٰه plural āliha آلِهَة is the term used for a deity or a god in general 70 71 72 muslims also use a multitude of other titles for god in hinduism brahman is often considered a monistic concept of god 73 god may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of god with early references to his name as krishna vasudeva in bhagavata or later vishnu and hari 74 sang hyang widhi wasa is the term used in balinese hinduism 75 vaishnavism a tradition in hinduism has a list of titles and names of krishna 99 names of god in islam in chinese sini in chinese religion shangdi is conceived as the progenitor of the universe intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it ahura mazda is the name for god used in zoroastrianism mazda or rather the avestan stem form mazdā nominative mazdå reflects proto iranian mazdāh female it is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit and like its sanskrit cognate medhā means intelligence or wisdom both the avestan and sanskrit words reflect proto indo iranian mazdhā from proto indo european mn̩sdʰeh 1 literally meaning placing dʰeh 1 one s mind mn̩ s hence wise 76 meanwhile 101 other names are also in use 77 waheguru punjabi vāhigurū is a term most often used in sikhism to refer to god 78 it means wonderful teacher in the punjabi language vāhi a middle persian borrowing means wonderful and guru sanskrit guru is a term denoting teacher waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all description the most common usage of the word waheguru is in the greeting sikhs use with each other waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh wonderful lord s khalsa victory is to the wonderful lord baha the greatest name for god in the baháʼí faith is arabic for all glorious 79 other names for god include aten 80 in ancient egyptian atenism where aten was proclaimed to be the one true supreme being and creator of the universe 81 chukwu in igbo 82 and hayyi rabbi in mandaeism 83 84 depiction main article aniconism see also incorporeality ahura mazda depiction is on the right with high crown presents ardashir i left with the ring of kingship relief at naqsh e rustam 3rd century ce in zoroastrianism during the early parthian empire ahura mazda was visually represented for worship this practice ended during the beginning of the sasanian empire zoroastrian iconoclasm which can be traced to the end of the parthian period and the beginning of the sassanid eventually put an end to the use of all images of ahura mazda in worship however ahura mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure standing or on horseback which is found in sassanian investiture 85 deities from near eastern cultures are often thought of as anthropomorphic entities who have a human like body which is however not equal to a human body such bodies were often thought to be radiant or fiery of superhuman size or extreme beauty the ancient deity of the israelites yahweh too was imagined as a transcendent but still anthropomorphic deity 86 humans could not see him because of their impurity in contrast to yahweh s holiness yahweh being described as radiating fire and light which could kill a human if looking at him further more religious or spiritual people tend to have less anthropomorphic depictions of god 87 in judaism the torah often ascribes human features to god however many other passages describe god as formless and otherworldly judaism is aniconic meaning it overly lacks material physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds furthermore the worship of idols is strictly forbidden the traditional view elaborated by figures such as maimonides reckons that god is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision resulting in a historical tradition of divine incorporeality as such attempting to describe god s appearance in practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is taboo and arguably heretical 88 gnostic cosmogony often depicts the creator god of the old testament as an evil lesser deity or demiurge while the higher benevolent god or monad is thought of as something beyond comprehension having immeasurable light and not in time or among things that exist but rather is greater than them in a sense all people are said to have a piece of god or divine spark within them which has fallen from the immaterial world into the corrupt material world and is trapped unless gnosis is attained 89 90 91 use of the symbolic hand of god in the ascension from the drogo sacramentary c 850 both in judaism and christianity the bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of god that the bible includes many different images concepts and ways of thinking about god has resulted in perpetual disagreements about how god is to be conceived and understood 92 early christians believed that the words of the gospel of john 1 18 no man has seen god at any time and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to god but to all attempts at the depiction of god 93 however later depictions of god are found some such as the hand of god are depictions borrowed from jewish art prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize god the father 93 yet christian art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the father so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century ad a rationale for the use of a human is the belief that god created the soul of man in the image of his own thus allowing humans to transcend the other animals it appears that when early artists designed to represent god the father fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure typically only a small part would be used as the image usually the hand or sometimes the face but rarely a whole human in many images the figure of the son supplants the father so a smaller portion of the person of the father is depicted 94 by the 12th century depictions of god the father had started to appear in french illuminated manuscripts which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography and in stained glass church windows in england initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space where the hand of god had formerly appeared gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half length figure then a full length usually enthroned as in giotto s fresco c 1305 in padua 95 in islam muslims believe that god is beyond all comprehension and does not resemble any of his creations in any way muslims tend to use the least anthropomorphism among monotheists 87 they are not iconodules and have religious calligraphy of titles of god instead of pictures 96 gender main article gender of god the gender of god may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who in classical western philosophy transcends bodily form 97 98 polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender allowing each to interact with any of the others and perhaps with humans sexually in most monotheistic religions god has no counterpart with which to relate sexually thus in classical western philosophy the gender of this one and only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and god address and relate to each other namely god is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active as opposed to the receptive role in sexual intercourse 99 biblical sources usually refer to god using male or paternal words and symbolism notable exceptions include genesis 1 26 27 100 101 psalm 123 2 3 and luke 15 8 10 female hosea 11 3 4 deuteronomy 32 18 isaiah 66 13 isaiah 49 15 isaiah 42 14 psalm 131 2 a mother deuteronomy 32 11 12 a mother eagle and matthew 23 37 and luke 13 34 a mother hen in sikhism god is ajuni without incarnations which means that god is not bound to any physical forms this concludes that the all pervading lord is gender less 102 however the guru granth sahib constantly refers to god as he and father with some exceptions typically because the guru granth sahib was written in north indian indo aryan languages mixture of punjabi and sant bhasha sanskrit with influences of persian which have no neutral gender from further insights into the sikh philosophy it can be deduced that god is sometimes referred to as the husband to the soul brides in order to make a patriarchal society understand what the relationship with god is like also god is considered to be the father mother and companion 103 existence main article existence of god see also atheism and agnosticism the system of nature 1770 argues that belief in god is based on fear lack of understanding and anthropomorphism the existence of god and the nature of god are subjects of debate in theology philosophy of religion and popular culture 104 in philosophical terms the question of the existence of god involves the disciplines of epistemology the nature and scope of knowledge and ontology study of the nature of being or existence and the theory of value since some definitions of god include perfec...
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