To us there is but one God...

[In answer to the question, "I was studding Egyptian Religion, when I got thinking, we are suppose to believe in one God. Yet dont we believe in the father and the son, and dont we believe that they are both gods, so wouldnt that make two gods that we believe in?  Then there is the holy ghost, which doesnt that make three deities?  Then where does the devil play into it all.  We belive he is our brother, he is collecting an army of his own to fight agianst us, is he not a god in his own right? Would he not compare to anciant religions form of the god of the underworld?" I wrote the following]

 

When I read the scriptures, the impression I get is that when it talks about there being "one God," it's as a contrast to the many idolatrous gods of the Egyptians and the Babylonians, etc. They had a god of rain and a good of the river and a god of fertility and a god of the sun and on and on--and none of those gods were real or able to do the slightest thing, they were just blocks of wood or stone. It's offensive to see the children of God worshipping things that aren't even real, instead of a real being who actually has power to help them and advise them. Anyway, that's the feeling I get from e.g. Exodus 3:13-14. Moses asks, when they ask me which God sent me, what shall I tell them? And the Lord basically says, "The real one."

 

So when the Lord says, "There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me" (Isa 45:21), I don't think he is any way intending to exclude his Father from consideration. He's just saying, "None of the gods YOU think are god actually are. Baal is not a God, nor Isis, nor Horus."

 

I suppose from a mythological viewpoint you could view any powerful being with a following as a god, and that would make Satan a god from that perspective. (In fact, Satan is referred to in scripture at least once as the "god of this world," i.e. he whom Babylon worships.) Ultimately, though, he is weak and no more a god than any other thing which has no power in the eternities, and is not a God at all.

 

That's my take on it anyway. What's yours?

 

-Max

 

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Rock Is Dead. Long Live Scissors!

 

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)