Most of us have some understanding of one or more organized belief systems. Often, we referred to these belief systems as religions. There are the large organized religions of the Protestant faiths, Roman and Orthodox Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, etc. They all have in common a belief in a single deity or creator. They also have in common the belief that we as mere mortals cannot possibly comprehend the motivations of the divinity.
I digress however, into this religious discussion, because of the belief system of one, uniquely American religion -- the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints also know to its members as the LDS church and to the rest of us as the Mormons. I do not espouse any particular religious belief, for a lot of reasons. And, I am certainly not a Mormon. They do however have one believe that is particularly interesting.
The Mormons are best known for their missionary pursuits, young men and women in white shirts and dark pants and knocking on doors. They are also known for their belief that Jesus Christ visited the New World after visiting the Middle East. Those beliefs, however, are not nearly the most academically interesting portion of their belief system.
They believe in one God that we must worship and pray to, as do most of today's monotheistic religions. They believe in the Christian Trinity -- God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. However, they also have the belief that God, our God, the God worshiped by earthly humans, may be but one of many number of gods! God, by their definition, is at the top of the human pyramid! If there is life on a planet circling the sun Alpha Centauri, and that planet is populated by living beings, the Mormons could absolutely believe that those beings have their own God who created and nurtured them! They believe that every population of living, intelligent beings has its own Creator/God! This is definitely not classical Eastern or Western belief.
Historically, we categorize religions as monotheistic -- believing in one God, polytheistic -- believing in many gods, or adiestic -- believing in some force, or some transcendence of death, which may not necessarily have the name of God. I think the Mormons represent a new category which we shall call multi-theistic which means that any given population worships or believes in one God, but does not discount the possibility that other beings and other gods may exist. The Mormon belief system holds that God is inherently good.
I raised the point because it is a consideration not often evaluated in the study of either Eastern or Western philosophy. As we shall see, this one particular belief may influence our philosophical inquiry just as much as the classical Eastern and Western belief systems.
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ1nweotz-8MZGNiNHB6YzhfNjRkcG40ZHg4eA&hl=en
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