1) How many gods are there?
2) Can one know God (or the gods) personally?
3) Is there a heaven, and if so, how does one get there?
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1. There is super conscious, Conscious and Sub conscious. Gods exist in the subconscious because they are created thee in a partnership between the Superconsncoius and the Conscious. They are created by the religions based on a shared symbolic language,concentration and will of the worshipers as they are created by the imagination and have a definite reality if you open yourself psychically.
2. yes. I personally invoke many gods from different pantheons and have had quite a few memorable experiences.
3.Most religions taught reincarnation secretly(like Christianity) or publicly. To get there you complete the great work.
does that make sense (grin). understandable it sounds foreign to most people. But, if you begin by looking at all of the similarities of the religions, The mythologies and and the rites etc one begins to find a lot that is shared. When you then find out that the ancients hid there secrets and did not give them out where they could be misused. You had to earn the right to receive by illumination (mysticism). Then and only then can you understand the real nature of religion(at least from my perspective. Pagan Christs by Carpenter and 12 crucified saviors by Kersey Graves are beginnings but by no means the end of a path that can be very revealing to the right mind. They did "not give holy things to the dogs. They will rend them (in argument) and turn on you. It is like throwing Pearls to the Swine."
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We’ll have to agree to disagree on such matters, but thanks nonetheless for a thought provoking response. I’m no expert on world religions, but here’s what I know:
1) Hindus recognize the existence of many gods. Christians, Jews and Muslims recognize one. Buddhists none. Atheists none.
2) Evangelical Christians believe in an always accessible God, deeply involved in people’s lives. To Muslims, Allah is neither knowable nor accessible.
3) The Muslim view of heaven has something to do with 72 virgins or raisins or whatever. Buddhists believe that after one reaches Nirvana, a state of “perfect peace” or “highest happiness,” one “fully passes away” upon death. The mainline Christian depiction of heaven is not paralleled in other faiths; Heaven is depicted as a place, not of this world, that believers will inhabit forever.
I guess I see more distinctions than similarities between the major religions. IMHO, one cannot believe all of them simultaneously.
actually in one sense Christianity views them as 3 in 1. In another sense in the old testament there are different names for the one god such as “shaddai El Chai”, Elohim Tzaboth” “Yhvh Tzaboth” “El” “yhvh Elovadaath” “yhvh Elohim”
“Elohim gibor” and so forth. they re usually translated to the Lord. They are referring to the one god (the Hebrew god in his different aspects. For instance man maybe a father to his son a husband to his wife and boss to his employees. He is the same man if you will but he has different aspects. Depending on your relationship to him you would invoke him accordingly. So to does the God have different aspects to his Christian and Jewish followers. So they would invoke a different aspect. using another one of his names. Pagans are actually very similar The view all Gods as being one God and all Goddess’s as being one Goddess which is actually a part of the God. What really looks different really is not as different as it appears. Christians tend to emphasize the oneness but believe in the different aspects where as most pagans view the oneness but prefer to emphasize the separateness of that Godhead.
things are often hidden. For instance In most pantheons there is a Virgin mother who is representative the first or primal mater. She is the first form of matter as such she is the giver of life. But, because she is the giver of death because that goes with life. In Hinduism she is Maya in Celtic religion she is Morgan for instance. But let us look at Buddhism. Maya is the mother of Buddha according to that mythology she is the mother of Buddha who was in the royal line and conceived with immaculate conception. In the negative aspect she is Maya the version of material mindedness. In that aspect she is equal to Satan who tempts Jesus in the desert In the Buddhist Sutras it is Maya as the personification of the world illusion who tempts Buddha on his enlightenment. The same story the same circumstance. In most of the religions there is an equivalent whose name means Sea or bitter sea. The name Mary as Mother of God means bitter sea. She like most of the pagan varieties of Maya is a mother who gives birth to the Sun god via immaculate conception. When you become familiar with these stories you begin to see how Mary fits nicely into that tradition as a variety of the virgin mother goddess. But since Christianity only wanted to go to The Sun god (Jesus) they did not make her a goddess in there mythology. But they still needed to connect to that principle of Prima Mater so Mary mother of Christ was venerated. This appears to be a concept they got from Buddhism. While Buddhism does not get into Gods and Goddess’s it does want to venerate them for they are simply different aspects of the spirit. So it introduces them as persons in the narrative of The Buddha. In Buddhism and Christianity the Gods are simply disguised as persons disciples, Virgin mothers etc. The virgin matter in her positive aspect is Martha and her sister Mary Magdalene(both of these sisters names are just another form of the name of Mary). One of them the dark one representing death is pictured as a prostitute. There are also these same sisters appearing in Buddhist sutras with names that translate the same as Mary and Martha both and there fore are representative of Mary and Maya. The story of the the dark-prostitute one washing the Buddhas feet with her hair is the same as in Christian scriptures.
It will be remembered that in Christian scriptures Mary Magdalene and Martha lived in Bethany with there brother Lazarus. some time ago I read that in Egyptian stories there was to sisters Merti and Meri who lived with there brother Elazurus in Bethanu.
The more you develop an eye and the more you look at things the more things like this stand out. For instance there is a God in many pantheons who is mercurial. Hermes for instance whose name means stone. he is also the Psychopomp or guide between the worlds, He is the Priest, and the one connected with the principle of communication and speech. It will be remembered the St Peter was the one whose name meant Rock. He was mercurial in temperament and was the one who held the keys of the kingdom of heaven (psycopomp). he was also the one who takes over and becomes the chief Priest or first pope if you will. He was the one who spoke for the disciples.
Peter is simply Hermes in the Christian religion. Christianity uses the same Gods that the pagans used. As such they are representative of aspects of spirituality of which the follower must connect with. But because Christianity wanted to go to the Solar Deity or Christ principle it simply made them as disciples friends and such. The people of Christianity and just forms of Gods and Godess's in other religions that are themselves representative's of spiritual principles. There are many many similarities in Buddhist and Christian Scriptures and I have only mentioned a few. A reading of the different religious mythologies will be very rewarding to the person who really wants to get into things deeper and have a deeper knowledge of the spiritual tradition of all men. One has to remember that they kept things secret and you had to earn the knowledge of thngs by diligent work and meditation and contemplation.