The Nature Of God And Which Lense One Helps View Religion...

There are many different views about the nature of god and which lense one chooses to view religion or spirituality. The nine that will be discussed are animism, polytheism, henotheism, pantheism, religious dualism, deism, theism, atheism, and agnosticism. While some of these have overlapping principles, they are each unique viewpoints as of the nature of god and are held by different religions throughout the world today and in history. One of the first forms of religions was animism, or the view that there are spirits in natural objects that account for its characteristics and behavior. Since science did not exist the way it does now, people used animism as a way to explain what they were seeing around them not only from a religious†¦show more content†¦This is similar to animism because they believed in the power of each natural occurrence, however, in animism the beliefs were independent of the idea of a god controlling the natural occurrence. Polytheism arose after animi sm and reduced the number of gods who controlled not only events in nature but also in government and politics. These gods were then politicized and helped to create complex societies and governments which allowed for differences in classes and rankings within society. Polytheism is most commonly known from Hinduism or greek mythology, which has many deities all in control of different aspects of life. Henotheism is a type of polytheism that affirms the existence of multiple gods but worships only one. This form of religion is seen in one path of Hinduism referred to as bhakti yoga. In this religion, for example, they don t deny the existence of other gods, but believe that Krishna is the most important god that should be worshiped above all others. Greek religions which worshiped Zeus primarily as their god is another example of Henotheism. Taking an entirely different approach then Animism, polytheism, and henotheism is Pantheism. This is the belief that god and the cosmos are one , and God is impersonal (transpersonal). This belief states that every person, plant, animal, living and non-living thing, is part of the one god. The impersonal or transpersonal aspect of this is what