Polytheistic Monotheism

Most religions fall into one of two categories: monotheism or polytheism. Monotheism is the belief in one god. Polytheism is the belief in more than one god. I consider my path as "polytheistic monotheism".

My polytheistic monotheism belief consists of two parts:

• All the different gods within a singular polytheistic religion are different aspects of one god (a "faceted god" belief system).
• All religions are worshipping the same god (a "many paths, one god" belief system)

First I'll try and explain the "faceted god" belief system. This "theory" holds that God created man (humankind) in his image. And just as we have a male and a female gender, so does God-- God has a feminine aspect and a masculine aspect. And just as we have many facets to our selves, so does God. For example, my facets include: wife, mother, sister, writer, poet, educator, warrior, and so on. God also has these facets. And just as I call on the poet facet of myself when I want to write a poem, I can also call on Brigid (the poet/creative aspect of God) when I need creativity. So although one calls God by different names, these names are actually just aspects of the same god.

This leads into the next part of my belief system, "many paths, one god", which states that all the deity worshipping religions of the world are worshipping the same god, just in different ways. Similarly, there are parents all over the world who share common goals (raise and protect their children), but who developed culturally and personally different ways of accomplishing this goal. Two reasons that I believe this are 1) many religions share similar basic moral tenets (restrictions on murder, be kind to others, et al.), and 2) many religions share stories (for example, the flood story is a common thread through many religions). And, of course, if you accept the first belief system ("faceted god"), then the "many paths, one religion" belief is a logical next step.

And these two belief systems ("faceted god" and "many paths, one religion") lead me to my "polytheistic monotheism": a belief in many gods who are one God.

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