God

Feel free to edit this page, as the topic is dear to many people and I might not have gotten it right.

There are a large number of different concepts of the divine, and this fact is reflected in the many NamesGivenToTheDivine. WhatIsGod, anyway?

The view that the divine exists is called Theism. There are four varieties of theism, or four differing theories, or concepts about God(s): Monotheism, Pantheism, Polytheism, and Animism (the latter might be regarded as a special variety of either Polytheism or Pantheism).

There is an ancient monotheistic tradition that began with the first Prophet of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Abraham (or instead, for believers, that began with Adam), according to which there is one God, a Spirit that (or who) is the CreatorOfTheWorld and possesses the superhuman qualities of Omnipotence (being all-powerful), Omniscience (being all-knowing), and (according to the majority of Monotheists) a concept which might be called Omnibenevolence (being all-loving). This basic concept is shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though, of course, it is much embellished by each religion and sects within each religion.

A number of ArgumentsForTheExistenceOfGod have been offered; in argument for the thesis that God does not exist, TheProblemOfEvil has been posed with the project of TheoDicy a response.

Arguably, Eastern conceptions of The Ultimate (this, too, has many different names) are not conceptions of the divine, though certain Western conceptions of what is at least called "God" (e.g., Spinoza's pantheistic conception and various kinds of mysticism) resemble Eastern conceptions of The Ultimate.