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[Kannada]

theres one hypostasis/person.one substance too,but were not substance monists except advaita smartists .

since theres one hypostasis,there are no multiple gods or devis,only bodies.just like christians dont worship 4 Gods since jesus was both transendant in paradise and on earth i a carnal mortal form.

[Fan 101]

You misunderstood. Or deliberately misinterpreted. I’m not sure which right now. Let me simplify:

What Christians call angels, demons, and saints, Hindus call lesser gods (and demons to them are also just demons). They’re functionally the same. You’re quibbling over nonexistent differences. It would be like saying “we don’t have cars, we have automobiles” and not realizing those are the same thing.

For example, you can pray to saints and they can perform miracles for you. In the same vain, you can pray to a lesser Hindu god for the same reason. And in both instances, they’re really just doing what they do thanks to the main god.

[jimwalton]

> You misunderstood. Or deliberately misinterpreted.

I didn't deliberately misinterpret. I'm trying to understand something that doesn't make any logical sense to me.

What Christians call angels, demons, and saints are three completely different things. None of them belong in the same category with each other. You are grouping them all together and telling me, "That's what Hinduism is like, and that's what Hindus call 'lesser gods'." But that doesn't help me. Angels are spirit beings that are God's messengers. They have a form (though not physical)—a particular shape. People have seen angels. They have a form. Demons are forces more like chaos. We're not aware of any physical form, and they're not necessarily spirit beings. People don't see demons; they have no form. They're spiritual forces. Saints are human, even on this Earth. I'm a saint. So is every Christian. So you can't just lump them together and expect that helps me understand Hinduism.

> For example, you can pray to saints and they can perform miracles for you.

This is not a biblical idea. I think it's made up. Saints can't perform miracles for you (even though that's what Catholics believe). It's not a biblical idea, but rather a made-up one.

[Kill Us]

> You make it seem like all is one and one is all, with no differentiation and no subject/object relationships, and that's just not an accurate picture in any sense of reality.

Can you make out shapes from ice sculptures? The obvious answer is yes. Can you make out shapes from water? Obviously not. Yet, ice is simply frozen water and no different from one another. One has definite shape and one is not.

> I don't think it is. You're denying obvious reality, in my perspective.

That would make you no different from an atheist who only sees the illusion of the material world as reality and everything he cannot sense as unreal. Is a mirage real? Not in a sense that there is an actual water there but it is real because you are seeing it. So is this reality real? Not in a sense that this is fixed and unchanging in the divine perspective but it is real for our human existence. What I am denying is an objective reality exists that would last for eternity and nothing can change it. Everything is subjective and exists because of the consciousness we call as god and god can change it at will. Our own death also changes our reality by seeing the reality of spiritual world instead of the material world.

> It has to comport with Christianity.

Isn't the claim that Jesus is god himself? So why would it contradict the idea that Jesus is god's human manifestation? How is it wrong? I guess one big hurdle is we are trying to understand the divine with human perspective and the church leaders cannot comprehend how does god experience being in heaven and as Jesus at the same time and even talking with one another and therefore it has to be wrong. As humans, we only have a single perspective which is our own human body and to comprehend the perspective of yourself on two bodies talking to each other does seem absurd.

That doesn't mean it is wrong. You have two eyes, each eye sees a slightly different perspective than the other but works together to form a coherent image of the one we are looking. That's basically how Jesus and god works. Jesus has a different perspective from god and yet they are one and the same.

[jimwalton]

> Can you make out shapes from ice sculptures? The obvious answer is yes. Can you make out shapes from water? Obviously not. Yet, ice is simply frozen water and no different from one another. One has definite shape and one is not.

The obvious answer is yes, of course, but this illustration is a very different thing than the essential unity of all things.

> That would make you no different from an atheist who only sees the illusion of the material world as reality

I don't have to be an atheist to view the material world as real. Just drive your car into a cement abutment and you'll see how real the abutment is. A denial of the reality of matter is an unreasonable and unrealistic denial.

> Is a mirage real? Not in a sense that there is an actual water there but it is real because you are seeing it.

No a mirage is not real, nor is real because you think you are seeing it. We all know about the realities of the reflections and refractions of light.

> Isn't the claim that Jesus is god himself?

Yes.

> So why would it contradict the idea that Jesus is god's human manifestation?

It depends what you mean. There is a false idea that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not truly distinct, but instead are just different manifestations of the divine essence. This is incorrect. They are separate persons within the Godhead, distinct in their divine action though being of the same essence.

> the church leaders cannot comprehend how does god experience being in heaven and as Jesus at the same time and even talking with one another and therefore it has to be wrong.

Oh, plenty of church leaders can comprehend this. The ones we reject are the ones who postulate different theories than the one taught in the Bible. The Bible is the authority.

> You have two eyes, each eye sees a slightly different perspective than the other but works together to form a coherent image of the one we are looking. That's basically how Jesus and god works.

Actually, this is NOT how Jesus and the Father works. You are misunderstanding the Trinity. The Father and the Son are not just different perspectives working together to form a single coherent image. The two are not interchangeable. The Father and the Son are distinct persons. Love, relationship, and communication are possible between them because of that distinction.