This entry discusses how the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam deal with God and gender. It includes both traditional religious views, and modern views of these faiths, especially as to how modern feminism has influenced the theology of these religions. Monotheists hold a belief in one God as a fundamental religious principle. In Judaism and Islam, God is believed to be sexless, but has been traditionally referred to using male grammatical gender. In Christianity, God is ...

Including:

Abrahamic religions on God and gender - God in Islam Arabic Quran Abrahamic religions on God and gender - God in the Hebrew Bible Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Jewish views of God and gender Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Christian views of God and gender
Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Mormon views
Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Translating the names of God into English
Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Third person pronouns: He She or It? Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Mankind and Humankind Abrahamic religions on God and gender - New translation solutions
Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Criticism of feminine reconstructions of theology Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Bibliography

Read more here: » Abrahamic religions on God and gender: Encyclopedia - Abrahamic religions on God and gender

God, The - Loving father to all and the perfect compliment to the Goddess. He is viewed as co-creator of the universe. Often Identified with the sun, sky deserts, forests, agriculture, and wild animals. not to be confused with the monotheistic Christian concept of 'God' he is part of a pair.

(See also: God, The, Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

In the first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1:26, God states "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Exactly what Genesis means by the word "image" is not clear, but there is an analogy being made between God and humans. In some ways this passage is anthropomorphic; it is attributing human characteristics to God. However, less recognized is that the viewpoint of the Israelite b ...

See also:

Abrahamic religions on God and gender, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - God in Islam Arabic Quran, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - God in the Hebrew Bible, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Jewish views of God and gender, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Christian views of God and gender, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Mormon views, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Translating the names of God into English, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Third person pronouns: He She or It?, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Mankind and Humankind, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - New translation solutions, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Criticism of feminine reconstructions of theology, Abrahamic religions on God and gender - Bibliography

Read more here: » Abrahamic religions on God and gender: Encyclopedia II - Abrahamic religions on God and gender - God in the Hebrew Bible

God:

The Universal Spirit; the eternal and all-encompassing intelligence behind all forms, shapes, sentient and insentient matter. 'It' (viz. God) has no attributes, is free of all imperfection, and beyond any similarity to all 'Creation'. 'It' and 'It' alone - not any idol or human being - is worthy of all worship.

See also Holy Spirit, Allah .

(See also: God, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

GOD: male aspect which pervades all of the universe in vast interrelationships of every possible sort, providing impetus, creative spark and more. It is capable of being perceived in many ways depending on the perceiver and transcends time as well as space. Most perceptions of the great gods are valid in their own aspects and are or can be of considerable value.

Pagans often choose the archetypal god of the waxing year as patron of all which is new and growing, and the god of the waning year as patron of all which ripens and declines, before the inevitable rebirth. Such perceptions enable us to form close emotional and magickal links with godhood. He is the divine equal and counterpart to the Goddess. Often depicted as the Green God of Summer and the Horned God of Winter.

He is seen as the Sun, without which we couldn't survive. His life, then is honored through the passing seasons of the year. Wild animals are his special concern and His aspect of the Horned God, with antlered helmet was the Christian source of titling Pagans as Satan worshippers. The God's domains are the untouched natural lands whether mountain or desert or forest. The stars, too are his. And his symbols include: sword, horns, spears, wand, knife, arrow, and sickle.

(See also: GOD, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Religion:

A set of beliefs, including rituals and theological doctrines propounding the glory of the Supremme Spirit (God). 'The opium of the masses' according to Karl Marx.

(See also: Religion, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

God

The unchangeably perfect being who is the first and final cause of the universe, who ensouls the universe and within whom the universe operates. Some religions say God is one, others that God is dual, and still others that God is a Trinity,

(See also: God, New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

GOD: Masculine aspect of deity.

(See also: GOD, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

God

The unchangeably perfect being who is the first and final cause of the universe, who ensouls the universe and within whom the universe operates. Some religions say God is one, others that God is dual, and still others that God is a Trinity,

(See also: God, New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

GOD

Anything from a psychic projection to a full macrocosmic individual. Einstein, shunning Judeo-Xtian pleadings, defined God as the ultimate natural order. Deus est homo. Man is God. Indeed all beings are Gods or immortal entities. The Gods, as such, however, inhabit various levels of substantiality and, as superior entities, exist independently in their own right. And this is not just because strong personalities (as well as human society in general) create and batten projections and archetypes, but because semi-being actually wills itself to be born into that state between Matter and the Void. the Gods are being itself, rather than any particular substance. That is, they are pure substance or the conscious potentiality behind substance. Every mortal, Theosophy has pointed out, has his divine counterpart, his celestial doppelganger or heavenly prototype. It is this personal archetype that we call The Father (or Guardian Angel). Theophany is the rare union (in adepts) of the heavenly counterpart with its earth shadow-self. The divine archetypes are not confined to ordinary human beings, moreover, but ascend to ever more infinite celestial monads themselves. When we speak of The Gods or the God beyond the Gods, such as Allfather Odin or Zeus, Father of the Gods we refer to just these higher monads.

It is difficult to remember that all seemingly separate things -- all individuals -- created themselves out of the Original Void and go on forever creating themselves. Thus, spirit manifests itself through matter; we never cease to embody and demonstrate divinity -- sometimes wisely, more often not. It is the gravest error to reproduce and propagate life indiscriminately. Such attempts to reincarnate oneself on the merely material plane, to maintain the same identity perptually through the generation of progeny -- this form of lust vitiates the Spirit and greedily confines matter disproportionately to a single, inferior and separationist aim. That in turn results in premature entropy and the abortion of Cosmic Purpose.

We should distinguish between various divine synonyms. Daimon, for instance, did not, amongst the Greeks, have our sense of demon, but was rather a spirit or higher self. Socrates spoke often of his daimon who conversed with him. The Sanskrit deva, although translated god, amongst the Hindus means any God, but in the Zend Avesta it is always a malevolent spirit. In Buddhism deva refers to almost anything from a legendary hero to a hobgoblin, but pure Buddhism attaches no importance to Gods of any kind. It considers them to be illusions, like everything else.

Whether reflective of reality or not, it is easy enough to plot an origin for God in the singular, but whence the proliferation of multi-deities? In Egypt they were seen simply as the natures of things (neteru). Iamblichus asks of the Egyptians, however, what the cause of the distinction between them is and whether it is from their energies, or their passive motions, or from things that are consequent, or from their different arrangement with respect to bodies. By the latter, he goes on to say that he means, for example, that Gods inhabit the ethereal, that demons inhabit the air and that souls inhabit terrestrial bodies.

Of course, it is differentiation that being comes to be in the first place. Before differentiation there is nothing but tohu-bohu -- indeed between the Void and confusion (or chaos), there is little difference. With the utterance of the command Be! the zero is annihilated.

(See also: GOD, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

A Christian theological definition of God according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

"

God

See also: God , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

God, Goddess

A sense of the presence of God or Goddess in a dream is an augur of spiritual revelation and advancement, esoteric insights, and peace of mind. The meaning of dreams of pagan gods depends on the association with that god.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - God, Goddess, Meaning of Dreams about God, Goddess, Dream Interpretation God, Goddess)

God In its widest sense, the origin and root of all that is. Absolute being may be regarded perhaps as one equivalent expression, but even being itself may be regarded as a condition or attribute, and beyond it we must therefore postulate be-ness.

The idea of a root or origin sometimes connotes supreme power and governance; but such conception of a rootless root or infinite origin does not exist, for whatever is, or has been, or ever will be, must ultimately spring from the womb of boundless infinitude, and we can speak only of a power and governance in connection with the subordinate or minor -- however supernal or sublime they may be -- which spring forth from the Boundless in virtually infinite numbers through beginningless and endless duration.

Monotheists recognize but one God, conceived as a supreme personality and usually endowed with attributes pertaining to human personality, this mental image of God therefore being but a reflection of the human mind, with its inherent limitations and biases; yet even monotheists tacitly recognize other gods under the name of natural forces. Polytheism recognizes hierarchies of divine beings, and pantheism discerns divine power as everywhere and eternally present.

The human being also in essence is a divinity. The attribution of personality to God is justly regarded as an inadmissible limitation; but there is a lack of clearness as to the meaning of such words as personality, self, and individuality, which unfortunately leads some monotheistic minds to the fear that the denial of personality will reduce the conception of divinity to merely an empty abstraction. Yet our inability to conceive the inconceivable has nothing to do with our intuition and duty, nor with the vision of the inner god as the supreme guide in a human life.

See also PERSONAL GOD

(See also: God, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

God (Gods) and Goddess (Goddesses) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature's hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.

One function of dhyani-chohans (gods or demigods of a lower type) is the watching over of all hierarchies below them, some being guardians of the human host, others guarding and protecting the less evolved kingdoms. The higher hierarchical ranges of gods or divinities in our universe "are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively -- God. . . . To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissoluble linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us" (SD 1:133).

These beings belong to two general divisions, the arupa (formless) and the rupa (form) divinities. Those having forms should not be imagined as necessarily having human forms as in the ancient pantheons, yet rupa gods do have highly ethereal forms, some perhaps resembling the present human shape and others of quite different construction. But the arupa divinities are to our power of imagination "beings of pure intelligence and of understanding, pure essences, pure spirits, formless as we conceive form" (Fund 347).

Tradition has it that in the immemorial past, certain lower gods associated intimately with their children, humanity, on this globe; but as time went by and mankind became more immersed in material pursuits, people grew to become increasingly forgetful of their divine origin and of the presence of the shining divinities instructing and guiding their forebears, so that the gods and demigods were remembered only in mythologies and religious metaphors of the various races.

What did the ancients mean by their gods and goddesses? They were intended to represent the guiding intelligences present within or in back of all invisible secrets, as well as astral and physical manifestations of nature. During the third root-race there were beings who were

"endowed with the sacred fire from the spark of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual parents of Man, as the lower Pitar Devata (the Pitris) were the progenitors of his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their zenith, were described as, 'towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositaries of all the mysteries of Heaven and Earth.'. . .

". . . the chief gods and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the deified images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity, and those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in those gods, both virtue and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by posterity" (SD 2:171-2).

The primeval human deity worship degenerated during the fourth root-race (the Atlantean), the ideal at first becoming confused with the form, and the latter finally almost superseding the spirit -- thus in the relatively complete materialization of idea into form, the later Atlanteans in time began to worship themselves, what was to them the powers of nature appearing through themselves as human beings; the degeneration of the ideal proceeding so far that ultimately the worst kind of idol worship became relatively universal, except for the seed of the newer and somewhat higher mankind of the fifth root-race then beginning.

"The moderns are satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth race, who created gods after their own sexual image, whereas the gods of primeval mankind were 'male and female,' " i.e., hermaphrodite (SD 2:135).

See also DEITY

(See also: God, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Deity or God. Intelligence and will superior to the human, forming the intelligent and vital governing essence of the universe, whether this universe be large or small.

The principal views as to the nature of deity may be classed as

1)    pantheistic,

2)    polytheistic,

3)    henotheistic, and

4)    monotheistic.

Pantheism, which views the divine as immanent in all nature and yet transcendent in its higher parts, is characteristic of certain Occidental philosophical systems and of all Oriental systems.

Polytheism implies the recognition of an indefinite number of deific powers in the universe, the plural manifestations of the ever immanent, ever perduring, and manifest-unmanifest One. Polytheism is thus a logical development of pantheism.

Henotheism is the belief in one god, but not the exclusion of others, such as is found in the Jewish scriptures, where the ancient Hebrews frankly worshiped a tribal deity and fully recognized the existence of other tribal deities.

Monotheism is the belief in only one god, as is found in Christianity and Islam. These religions, in inheriting the Jewish tradition, have confounded this merely personal and local conception with the First Cause of the universe, which in theosophy would be called the formative cosmic Third Logos, thus producing an inconsistent idea of a God who is both infinite, delimited, and personal in character, with an intuition, however, of the necessarily impersonal cosmic intelligent root of all.

In theosophical philosophy, the cosmic divine in the hierarchical sense is both transcendent and immanent, during manifestation breaking as it were into innumerable rays which produce the various deific powers in inner and outer nature; each such immanent divinity, however, itself emanating from the all-encompassing and forever unmanifest Rootless Root or parabrahman.

The various universes, sometimes referred to as sparks of eternity, spring from parabrahman at periodic intervals called manvantaras, and then resolve back into the pre-manvantaric condition or pralaya, only to issue forth again when the pralaya of whatever magnitude has run its course. Therefore, at one and the same time divinity is transcendent and immanent, eternal and unmanifest, while its rays or cosmic sparks of whatever magnitude are periodic and manifested. Hence from each such manifested One or cosmic hierarch proceed the multiple rays, to which in various theogonies are given names and attributes of superior deities. Thus the words god and deity become generic, and the general definition may be applied to the core of the core of any being, great or small, cosmic or human, for all are sparks of the cosmic flame of life.

The word deity, in the sense of beings which are more spiritual than the human being of today, may be applied to the divine rulers of human races before the times of the demigods and heroes; or more generally to an indefinite range of nonphysical beings, spiritual or ethereal in character, including among the latter the so-called "spirits of the elements."

See also GOD; GOD(S)

(See also: Deity, God, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

God - N

A being who has "many faces." He (it) is considered a radically immanent being who is often referred to as a "universal consciousness," "universal life," or "universal energy." The New Age god is more or less an impersonal force that pervades the universe.

(See also: God, New Age, Body mind and Soul)

RELIGION (from religare, to bind book, Latin) 1. way or ways that people orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meaning and values. (Catherine Albanese)

2. institution whose function is to protect us from an experience of God. (Jung) (NAD)

(See also: RELIGION, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Horned God - Consort of the Goddess. The lord of animals and forrests, associated with hunting.

(See also: Horned God, Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Dream Interpretation God, gods

Dreams about God convey some valuable insights and promise help. If you are seeing or speaking to God: you are receiving advice "from above". If you are praying in the dream, it means that your faith is growing stronger. God appearance in dreams might be a sign of guilt we want to be taken away.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - God, gods, Meaning of Dreams about God, gods, Dream Interpretation God, gods)

Sun God, Sun Gods Sometimes applied to the cosmic logoi, which collectively are not only symbolized, but actually are represented by and through the septenary sun. Deities of masculine character are often called sun gods. Like the sun, a sun god may be on various planes, from that of a Logos to that of the absolute in various subordinate hierarchies.

Sun gods in mythology usually slay dragons, as Apollo slays Python, and often have serpents for their emblems, the serpent being dual in aspect -- high and low, inner and outer, active and passive, positive and negative, spiritual and material.

As in Egyptian mythology, Osiris the sun god manifests as Horus, his own son, who is also a sun god, in similar fashion sun gods are manifested in man and on the lower planes of nature; similar to the Egyptian Osiris we have Adonis, Bacchus, Krishna, Christ, etc., as the sun god or spiritual monad in man; and cosmically we find sun gods on various planes.

(See also: Sun God, Sun Gods, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)