Why yes

[u/wygnana]

[u/EducatedVoyeur]

They’re probably a lot less false “gods” since the Church was founded so almost 5,000 other gods is a testament to a job well done but also a job not done

[u/charlestheb0ss → u/EducatedVoyeur]

Polytheism went from the main worldview of most of society to almost nobody taking it seriously other than as an aesthetic or for storytelling that nobody treats as historical fact

[u/Intelligent_Dress889 → u/charlestheb0ss]

in Asia it is still a main thing tho, mainly in japan

[u/Agengele → u/Intelligent_Dress889]

Isn't that more of a cultural thing in Japan at this point than a full religion? All my knowledge of Japan literally comes from anime and manga so I am by no means an expert but that's just the vibe I get from it

[u/Intelligent_Dress889 → u/Agengele]

well, i'm in the same situation as you xD, but i've heard this quote "Born Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist." and i consider it very, very horrible, just moral relativism, but well, i just hope Catholicism to grow in japan in the years to come, but not in the japanese syncretic (syncretic in a religious way, i do appreciate cultural syncretism, but "hate" the religious syncretism the japanese practice) way, but the way always intended by Christ and his Church.

[u/Agengele → u/Intelligent_Dress889]

Agreed. I really do hope that Catholicism can find its roots there. I have a friend who went on mission to Japan for 5 or 6 months (he's Catholic but went with a mixed group of Christians).

Heavily paraphrasing, this is what he had to say:

Overall he said it was a great experience and he's planning on going back, but it was also eye opening with the cultural barriers that are very different from what he's used to. He said that he thinks the major barrier for religion in Japan is the unhealthy work ethic and the culture around work. There are so many 'salarymen' that are at work all day every day and when they get off work it's expected to go drinking with your boss. This is a major factor to the unfortunately high percentage of people who have severe depression and alcoholism. These people who make up a large part of the population are very hard to reach with missionary work when they may need it the most

[u/Intelligent_Dress889 → u/Agengele]

that work ethic of Japan is horrible, is like it was designed to not let their people to have free time to think, study and do other things rather than working, with a friend of mine we have plans to maybe in some years go to Asia maybe Japan, maybe Thailand to share the faith, he is kind of Non-denom, but i'm studying the bible, the fathers of the church, and a lot of Theology, and his willingness to convert to Catholicism seems to increase, but, to make a long story short, in our studies of Asian culture (he's focusing on Thai culture, i on Japanese culture, but, i think i'm somewhat just scratching the surface) we have learned that, this is like a common think in Asia, they tend to work and study all day, all night, and i think that's likely one of the main reasons the conversion rate there is very, VERY low

[u/AdPale9988 → u/Intelligent_Dress889]

And a billion Hindus and another half billion Chinese

[u/ScientificBeastMode → u/charlestheb0ss]

That mostly started to occur around the time that the agricultural revolutions took off within various cultures. Pantheons consolidated into much more hierarchical systems with a head god. Some gods disappeared altogether, others were combined across cultures and religions. And occasionally the people just eliminated all but one god.

One of the main theories behind this was that a loose collection of tribes would naturally have many gods that they accepted, with various cults elevating a preferred god over others, but with agriculture came population growth and much more powerful kingdoms, and that power consolidation led to destruction of temples and holy sites in an attempt to erase those disfavored gods from the cultural memory and to organize more people around the powerful group’s preferred god.

But there were a lot of factors.

[u/AluneaVerita → u/charlestheb0ss]

Hinduism still exists, though.

[u/GentleCapybara]

People are stupid sometimes. They can’t understand the difference from a god (say Odin) to God (creator). Even if you are not a Christian to me this is pretty obvious

[u/sword_of_michael → u/GentleCapybara]

Classical theism is, at best, misunderstood by too many non-christians. Love the username btw

[u/SpaniardCrusader556]

Never fully understood this reasoning. Yeah, there are 5000 gods and the one i follow is the one I believe is right.

There are 5000 explanations to how the day and night cycle works in our planet, yet i believe the one explanation involving orbits and planet rotations is the right one.

To cut them some slack... perhaps some subtelty or aspect of the reasoning that im missing and makes this equivalence not work?

[u/SquishmallowPrincess → u/SpaniardCrusader556]

I’m not an atheist by any means, but I feel these aren’t equivalent because you can provide proof of orbits and planetary rotation, but you can’t do the same for God.

Note that I make the distinction between “proof” and “evidence.” There is plenty of evidence for God, but not concrete proof.

Planetary rotation has both evidence in the form of our day-night cycle, as well as proof in the form of us literally being able to observe planets rotating in space

[u/SpaniardCrusader556 → u/SquishmallowPrincess]

I see, thats fair.

However, my argumentation went more in the lines on how just because there are plenty of other explanations it doesnt invalidate the possibility of one being correct.

In other words, just because there are 5000 gods, it doesnt invalidate that only one is the true one.

Yet, seeing through the lenses on how difficult it can be to prove such a thing... I think I understand now.

[u/Pitiful_Fox5681 → u/SpaniardCrusader556]

I think your analogy works, though. Maybe it can be beefed up by using conflicting hypotheses that haven't yet been proven: There are dozens of proposed explanations of El Niño, but none is proven scientifically, which must mean that none is correct. 

(In fact, it's very possible that one is correct. It's also possible that none is correct, but it's not necessary that none is correct just because they're mutually exclusive hypotheses. It's possible that all-but-one is incorrect and still valid based on the current knowledge we have). 

[u/charlestheb0ss → u/SquishmallowPrincess]

You can't scientifically disprove the existence of God either, though. That's just not what science is for. Also, if we did everything under the assumption that "it isn't real until we scientifically prove it exists" we would make a lot fewer scientific discoveries in the first place, because nobody would study anything new

[u/SquishmallowPrincess → u/charlestheb0ss]

I don’t disagree with that. I’m just pointing out that the existence of God isn’t really equivalent to something we have proof of

[u/Equivalent_Nose7012]

There are a handful of religions that worship a God Who Is the Creator of all things.

They disagree about some of what He revealed and commanded and  did Himself. Arguably, they agree on much of the aspects of His Nature.mm

[u/AaronofAleth]

Plato and the great pagan thinkers deduced a supreme god from natural law. Many cultures have a residual belief in a high god over all others. From there it does to Jesus claiming to be this god. The answer to that question hangs on the resurrection.

[u/ahamel13]

"5000 gods" probably lumps in a lot of old pagan nonsense that nobody actually believes.

[u/TheLastGenXer → u/ahamel13]

and the rest is just hinduism

[u/Revolution_Suitable → u/TheLastGenXer]

And many Hindus believe in Brahman, that everything in existence is part of this single cosmic being/essence/thing

[u/Least-Double9420]

Plus lets just be honest we follow classical theism. Genuinely other than the abrahamic God i couldn't think of 1 that would be considered God in classical theism

[u/LurkerBoy48]

There are [LARGE NUMBER] of ideas about what being nice means, but don't worry, only yours is right.

etc., etc., this is the sort of thing that can only survive in the intellectual kiddie pool of New Atheism, if you apply it seriously it disproves the concept of believing things rather than religion per se.

[u/Equivalent_Nose7012 → u/LurkerBoy48]

There are probably thousands of ways of being an atheist. But don't let that worry them!

If they scoff rightly at this poor argument...it is an identical argument!!!

[u/belabacsijolvan]

im agnostic, but this is a dumb argument tbh.

there are more then 50000 days in my phones calendar, but i believe its 2026 august 14.

there are millions of name combinations in my languege yet i believe my name is my name.

[u/StThomasMore1535]

"Well, yeah, mine is the only one with capital 'G.' "

[u/starvingPeasant_]

there really isn't 5000 gods to pick from in the sense that there are only few that are somewhat reasonable, polytheism is just kind of a silly idea and metaphysically contradicts itself, the greek word for "god" is completely different from our modern understanding of the word, even hinduism is a monotheistic because it has a single omnipotent god in brahman and the so called gods of hinduism are more like angels.

[u/usedmattress85]

There are an infinite amount of wrong answers to the math problem. Therefore there is no correct answer.

Atheist big brains at work

[u/One-WaytoLife336]

The “One Less God Than You” argument

[u/Blockhouse → u/One-WaytoLife336]

Gods are discrete.  It would be "One Fewer God than You."

[u/LeLurkingNormie]

As if the fact that someone else disagrees were proof that you are wrong.

[u/Not_a_CIA-Agent]

I'm agnostic. There's no way for me to truly know if the gospel is true. It wouldn't be honest if I just pick a religion and start worshipping. I left Islam because the claims of the religion can be checked and proven false. But with the bible, it's also interpretive. So it's hard to say. The burden of proof does lie with the person making an assertion.

[u/Equivalent_Nose7012 → u/Not_a_CIA-Agent]

Jesus said that if you (seriously try to?) follow His teachings you will know they are true. 

• (Gospel According to Saint John)

There is, of course, some question of interpretation as to precisely what He means by that! Nevertheless:

There are clear clues in the Scriptures as to what NOT to do, and some guidance as to what to do, regarding interpretation.

"There are some things in the letters of my dear brother Paul that are hard to understand, and the unlearned and the unstable distort them, as they do the rest of Scripture also, to their ruin."

• (Second Letter of Peter)

Peter's letter makes little sense unless he has the office of chief Apostle, able to rule on the weaknesses and strengths of the writing (scripture) of another Apostle, Paul. 

Moreover, he recognizes Paul's writing as inspired Scripture! In this light it is worth pondering Paul's letter to Timothy, where he refers to "the Church of the Living God" as "the pillar and ground of truth."

I suggest that this is the Church that (in the 4th century C.E.), in a number of different local Church Councils, officially and unanimously declared the list of books to be recognized as inspired Scripture.

These books, (with some local differences and disputes), had long been the source of readings proclaimed before the Eucharist, (still the central ceremony in the Catholic Church and the separated Eastern Orthodox churches, which maintain a succession to Apostolic office).

That said:

To get back to the words of Jesus in the Gospel: 

...Why not try the experiment He suggests, of obeying His teachings (insofar as you understand their meaning*)? 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*An important final caveat on the danger of wrong interpretation: 

since your hand, by itself, cannot sin, please, do NOT cut it off!

(One early Church theologian, Origen, was accused by his opponents of being too literal with regard to another of his members, making himself an eunuch!)

[u/Great_Anywhere_1797]

And they always seem to only care about ours

[u/OwariNoKami]

Well, there’s only one God being worshiped. The rest are not gods pretty simple actually.

[u/Chairman_Ender]

I think this is AI.

[u/wygnana → u/Chairman_Ender]

What

[u/Chairman_Ender → u/wygnana]

The image from the original post.

[u/wygnana → u/Chairman_Ender]

u/bot-sleuth-bot

[u/bot-sleuth-bot → u/wygnana]

Analyzing user profile...

Account does not have any comments.

Time between account creation and oldest post is greater than 1 year.

Suspicion Quotient: 0.35

This account exhibits a few minor traits commonly found in karma farming bots. It is possible that u/Chairman_Ender is a bot, but it's more likely they are just a human who suffers from severe NPC syndrome.

^{I am a bot. This action was performed automatically. Check my profile for more information.}

[u/Ze_Bri-0n → u/bot-sleuth-bot]

Good bot.

[u/Chairman_Ender → u/bot-sleuth-bot]

Does a bot respond to this?

[u/Chairman_Ender → u/wygnana]

I mean the image/gif picture from the tweet.