1.
God
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In monotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by most theologians includes the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine simplicity, many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent and all loving. Furthermore, some religions attribute only a purely grammatical gender to God, incorporeity and corporeity of God are related to conceptions of transcendence and immanence of God, with positions of synthesis such as the immanent transcendence of Chinese theology. God has been conceived as personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, in pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, God is not believed to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism, God has also been conceived as the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable existent. Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God, there are many names for God, and different names are attached to different cultural ideas about Gods identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten, premised on being the one true Supreme Being and creator of the universe. In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, He Who Is, I Am that I Am, in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, consubstantial in three persons, is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Judaism, it is common to refer to God by the titular names Elohim or Adonai, in Islam, the name Allah is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a concept of God. In Chinese religion, God is conceived as the progenitor of the universe, intrinsic to it, other religions have names for God, for instance, Baha in the Baháí Faith, Waheguru in Sikhism, and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus, the English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau-, in the English language, the capitalized form of God continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic God and gods in polytheism. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, in many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Allāh is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning The God, Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. Mazda, or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå and 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 mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning placing ones mind, Waheguru is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God
2.
Agnosticism
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Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the existence of God or the supernatural are unknown and unknowable. Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of rather than a religion. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, the Nasadiya Sukta in the Rigveda is agnostic about the origin of the universe. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern and it simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the part of popular theology. On the whole, the bosh of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, positively the principle may be expressed, In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively, In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable, being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnosticism as a form of demarcation. A hypothesis with no supporting objective, testable evidence is not an objective, as such, there would be no way to test said hypotheses, leaving the results inconclusive. His agnosticism was not compatible with forming a belief as to the truth, or falsehood, karl Popper would also describe himself as an agnostic. Others have redefined this concept, making it compatible with forming a belief, george H. Smith rejects agnosticism as a third alternative to theism and atheism and promotes terms such as agnostic atheism and agnostic theism. Agnostic was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 to describe his philosophy, early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gnosis to describe spiritual knowledge. Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular, Huxley used the term in a broader, Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry. In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean not knowable, in technical and marketing literature, agnostic can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, platform agnostic or hardware agnostic. Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt and he asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition. A strong agnostic would say, I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, a weak agnostic would say, I dont know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on human affairs. Agnostic thought, in the form of skepticism, emerged as a philosophical position in ancient Greece
3.
Atheism
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Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist, in an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists, the etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος, meaning without god. The term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed, the actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope, the first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its unprecedented atheism, witnessed the first major movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason. Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to social and historical approaches, although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult, an older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the worlds population. Other older estimates have indicated that atheists comprise 2% of the worlds population, according to these polls, Europe and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61% of people in China reported that they were atheists, the figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union reported that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in any sort of spirit, God or life force. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism, and has also been contrasted with it, a variety of categories have been used to distinguish the different forms of atheism. Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity, the plurality of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheisms applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities, gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist, Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas, as far back as 1772, Baron dHolbach said that All children are born Atheists, they have no idea of God. Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that, The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist, ernest Nagel contradicts Smiths definition of atheism as merely absence of theism, acknowledging only explicit atheism as true atheism
4.
Deism
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Deism is a philosophical position which posits that a god does not interfere directly with the world. Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, included in those influenced by its ideas were leaders of the American and French Revolutions. These lead to many subdivisions of modern deism which tends, therefore, Deism is a theological theory concerning the relationship between the Creator and the natural world. Deistic viewpoints emerged during the revolution of 17th Century Europe. Deism stood between the narrow dogmatism of the period and skepticism, though deists rejected atheism, they often were called atheists by more traditional theists. There were a number of different forms in the 17th and 18th Centuries, in England, deism included a range of people from anti-Christian to non-Christian theists. See the section Features of deism, following, Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. Deism may also include an element, involving experiences of God. The words deism and theism are both derived from words for god, the former from Latin deus, the latter from Greek theós, prior to the 17th Century the terms were used interchangeably with the terms theism and theist, respectively. Theologians and philosophers of the 17th Century began to give a different signification to the words, both asserted belief in one supreme God, the Creator. Perhaps the first use of the term deist is in Pierre Virets Instruction Chrétienne en la doctrine de la foi et de lÉvangile, Viret, a Calvinist, regarded deism as a new form of Italian heresy. I have heard there are of this band those who call themselves Deists, an entirely new word. In England, the term deist first appeared in Robert Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy, Lord Herbert of Cherbury is generally considered the father of English Deism, and his book De Veritate the first major statement of deism. Deism flourished in England between 1690 and 1740, at which time Matthew Tindals Christianity as Old as the Creation, also called The Deists Bible, later deism spread to France, notably through the work of Voltaire, to Germany, and to the United States. The concept of deism covers a variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Sir Leslie Stephens English Thought in the Eighteenth Century describes the core of deism as consisting of critical and constructional elements, critical elements of deist thought included, Rejection of religions that are based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God. Rejection of religious dogma and demagogy, Skepticism of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious mysteries. Constructional elements of deist thought included, God exists and created the universe, God gave humans the ability to reason
5.
Monotheism
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Monotheism has been defined as the belief in the existence of only one god that created the world, is all-powerful and interferes in the world. Another, more broad definition of monotheism, is the belief in one god, a distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive monotheism and pluriform monotheism which, while recognising various distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity. There are also monotheistic parody religions, such as Pastafarianism, the word monotheism comes from the Greek μόνος meaning single and θεός meaning god. The English term was first used by Henry More, according to Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity. Scholars of religion largely abandoned that view in the 19th century in favour of a progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism. Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an Urmonotheismus, original or primitive monotheism in the 1910s and it was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical monotheism. Some writers believe that the concept of monotheism sees a gradual development out of notions of henotheism and monolatrism, quasi-monotheistic claims of the existence of a universal deity date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenatens Great Hymn to the Aten. A possible inclination towards monotheism emerged during the Vedic period in Iron-Age South Asia, the Rigveda exhibits notions of monism of the Brahman, in particular, in the comparatively late tenth book, dated to the early Iron Age, e. g. in the Nasadiya sukta. While all adherents of the Abrahamic religions consider themselves to be monotheists, Judaism does not consider Christianity to be monotheistic, Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. God in Judaism is strictly monotheistic, a one, indivisible. The Babylonian Talmud references other, foreign gods as non-existent entities to whom humans mistakenly ascribe reality, One of the best-known statements of Rabbinical Judaism on monotheism is the Second of Maimonides 13 Principles of faith, God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species, nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity. Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism, Judaism uses the term shituf to refer to the worship of God in a manner which Judaism does not deem to be monotheistic. During the 8th century BCE, the worship of YHWH in Israel was in competition with other cults. Some scholars hypothesize that Judaism was originally a form of monolatrism or henotheism, in this hypothesis both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah had YHWH as their state god, while also acknowledging the existence of other gods. Shema Yisrael are the first two words of a section of the Torah, and is the title of a prayer that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. Observant Jews consider the Shema to be the most important part of the service in Judaism. It is traditional for Jews to say the Shema as their last words, despite at least one earlier local synod rejecting the claim of Arius, this Christological issue was to be one of the items addressed at the First Council of Nicaea
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Pandeism
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Pandeism is a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that the deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate. Pandeism is proposed to explain, as it relates to deism, why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe. The word pandeism is a blend of the root words pantheism and deism, combining Ancient Greek, πᾶν pan all with Latin. It was perhaps first coined in the present meaning in 1859 by Moritz Lazarus, Pandeism falls within the traditional hierarchy of monistic and nontheistic philosophies addressing the nature of God. For the history of the words, pantheism and deism, see the overview of deism section. Weinstein noted the distinction between pantheism and pandeism, stating even if only by a letter, we fundamentally differ Pandeism from Pantheism and it has also been suggested that many religions may classify themselves as pantheistic but fit more essentially under the description of panentheistic or pandeistic. The earliest seeds of pandeism coincide with notions of monotheism, which generally can be traced back to the Atenism of Akhenaten, Weinstein in particular identified the idea of primary matter derived from an original spirit as found by the ancient Egyptians to be a form of pandeism. Weinstein similarly found varieties of pandeism in the views held in China, India, especially in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita. He similarly found that ideas of pandeism were reflected in the ideas of Heraclitus, religious studies professor, F. E. Peters, however, found with respect to the Pythagoreans and the Milesians that hat appeared. At the center of the Pythagorean tradition in philosophy, is another view of psyche that seems to owe little or nothing to the pan-vitalism or pan-deism that is the legacy of the Milesians. Gottfried Große in his 1787 interpretation of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, describes Pliny, a contemporary statement of this idea is that, Since God is not a being, he is therefore not intelligible. This means not only that we understand him, but also that he cannot understand himself. Creation is a kind of effort by God to understand himself. Of Nicholas of Cusa, who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent. This was reiterated by others including Discover editor Corey S. Powell, in the 1820s to 1830s, pandeism received some mention in Italy. Nannetti further specifically criticized pandeism, declaring, To you, fatal Pandeist, the laws that create nature are contingent and mutable, not another being in substance with forces driven by motions and developments. Neither Nannetti nor the 1838 author defines pandeism distinctly enough to distinguish it from pantheism
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Nasoræans". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "