WJEC GCSE Religious Studies

## Belief in a god or gods A **theist** is a person who believes in a god or gods. The word covers several different positions, depending on how many gods a person believes in and how they regard other religions. A **monotheist** believes that there is only one God. Christians, Muslims, Jews and Sikhs are monotheists, and each holds that God is the creator and sustainer of everything. A **polytheist** believes in many gods, each with a particular role or sphere of power. Hindus worship many deities such as Ganesh, Durga and Saraswati, though many Hindus understand these as forms or aspects of one ultimate reality, Brahman, which is why Hinduism is not always described simply as polytheism. A **religious pluralist** believes that more than one religion can be a valid way of knowing the divine, so that no single faith has a monopoly on truth. A pluralist might hold that the major world religions describe the same ultimate reality in different cultural languages, and so would encourage respect and dialogue between them. This differs from the position of someone who holds that only their own religion is true, which is often called exclusivism. An **agnostic** does not claim to know whether a god exists. Some agnostics think the question cannot be settled with the evidence available, and others have simply not decided. An agnostic is not necessarily non-religious in practice, since some agnostics still take part in religious life. ## Why people believe in a god People give a…