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| Author | Topic: Do Christians Worship Different Gods? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GDR Member  Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Recently in a discussion with Straggler, (Subjective Evidence for God), he made the observation that we have many false god(s). I countered that we assign false attributes to our god(s) for a variety of reasons, however that is really semantics. For the sake of this discussion I’d just like to go along with Straggler and say that a god with different attributes is a different god.
I am a Christian, but it seems to me that I worship a very different God than a Christian who reads the Bible as a book, (or books if you like), that is essentially ghost written by God. I read the Bible as a metanarrative that tells the story of God gradually infusing knowledge of himself into the minds and hearts of His people so that over time we gradually gain a more accurate picture of His character and His desires for our lives. I see it as being written by people, who were inspired to write their stories in their own words. These stories would of course be both culturally and personally conditioned. I see Jesus as being the man through whom God revisited His creation, and the man who fulfilled and clarified the Hebrew scriptures. It is my contention that the Hebrew scriptures, or essentially our Old Testament, can only be understood through the lens of the New Testament. With that in mind I believe that much of the Old Testament was strictly men attributing to God that which they dreamed up or which suited their purposes. For example this is from Deuteronomy 21 vs 18-21:
quote: However Jesus says in Matthew 6 vs 14:
quote: In the OT story we have a god who is not only unforgiving, but a god who wants to involve everyone in town in a violent execution of a kid who is struggling with adulthood. In the NT Jesus calls us to be a people who are spring loaded to forgive. Again, this is from Numbers 31
quote: And what does Jesus say in Matthew 5:
quote: When you really boil it down, in the OT story God hates the enemies of Israel but in the NT lesson God loves all of His creation and wants the followers of Jesus to reflect that love. Are we as Christians supposed to accept the idea that we worship a God who at one point in time advocated genocide? There are many other cases in the OT that are in contradiction to the teachings of Jesus, such as the destruction of the Canaanites. In the OT God supposedly wanted those who broke the Sabbath laws to be put to death but Jesus essentially says that the Sabbath laws may be ignored. However this does not mean that the Hebrew scriptures are to be ignored, as it is from those same scriptures through which Jesus was revealed, and from where Jesus understood his role as Messiah. I would go further and say that through those scriptures Jesus gained His understanding of how Yahweh was, through Him, visiting and revealing Himself to His people. Jesus says that the greatest law is that of love which is right from Leviticus 19:18: 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD. I also believe that the prophet Micah got it exactly right when he said:
quote: In order to accept the OT as factually true the argument usually made is that it is the difference between the old covenant and the new, and that God did what was necessary to keep the Jewish nation pure. I don’t buy it. I believe in a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The fundamentalist, (I’ll use that term for someone who believes that God essentially dictated the Bible to the authors), is in my view forced to believe in a God who subscribes to situational ethics. I believe that reading the Bible as if it had been dictated by God does a disservice to the Bible, and to the Christian faith. The question then of course is what do we believe from the Bible. Well it is faith, but we are also to use our wisdom and the wisdom of godly men over the centuries. Frankly, IMHO, if we properly understand Christ’s gospel message of hope, love, truth, forgiveness, justice, mercy etc it isn’t all that hard to sort out the truth. As a Christian I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and use that as a starting point. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the word of God and I believe that the writers of the NT accurately recorded the teachings of Jesus. I believe that Paul and other NT writers comprehended and accurately portrayed what Jesus said did and what it all meant. (This does not mean that every small detail happened exactly as written.) I have two questions for discussion.
1/ Am I as a Christian worshiping a different God than the God as worshipped by a fundamentalist Christian? We concentrate a great deal on this forum on the perceived, (I use perceived as I don’t believe there is any contradiction), difference between the scientific view of the world and the Christian view. In my view this is relatively inconsequential, but I contend that these two views cause profound differences in the world view held by Christians which is much more problematic. So my second question is:
2/ What effect do these two different views of the Christian God have on our world view as individuals today? If this passes inspection I think Bible Study is appropriate. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.Everybody is entitled to my opinion. 
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Chuck77 writes: Well, you tell us. Are you? If you're worshipping the God of the Bible and have met Him personally just tell us, and we will know.We all have the same Father who are born again, that is what binds us together. Do you feel you are a brother with all the believers who claim Jesus as Lord? The spirit testifys in us when we meet other believers. Same spirit dwells in us. Do you know Him personally? Have you truly been saved? Have you been born again? Did you recieve Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Did you repent of your sins and place then all at the foot of the cross? Did the Holy spirit seal you as a child of God?
This is a view of Christianity that troubles me. IMHO you have twisted the message of Jesus 180 degrees away from what He preached. You make it all about "me". Have I been saved - have I been born again etc. It then all becomes all about me and my salvation. The message of Jesus is that we are to take the focus off of ourselves and put it on others. It is to forsake selfish love and embrace unselfish love. Read the "sermon on the mount" including the beatitudes. Read Matthew 25 and the separating the sheep from the goats. It isn't about believing the right doctrine so that you can recite the right buzz words to get into the club. It is about having a changed heart that has been impacted by the Holy Spirit, as there is a job to do which is to reflect God's love, justice, mercy etc into the world.
Chuck77 writes: The God of the OT is the exact same God as the NT. Same God, different covenant. The same holy spirit that inspired the NT writers inspired the OT writers. There is no seperating the OT and the NT. They all work together leading to Jesus's fullfilment of the law. I'm fine with that but it depends on what you mean by inspired. Go back to the OP. Do you believe in a God that would ever demand genocide. Do you believe in a God that would ever want us to have all the good townsfolk stone my rebellious son to death.
Chuck77 writes: No one really cares about the Chriatian God in this world. "We" Chritians are a minority. Who in the world in truly born again? Less than half of 1% IMO. That is dead wrong. The western world has been largely formed by its Judeo-Christian roots. Our moral code has been largely formed from that heritage. If I believe in the God that as portrayed in parts of the OT, the one who is in favour of genocide, then I as private citizen or as the leader of a country will have a very different approach to things like Iraq and Afghanistan than I will if I believe in God as portrayed by Jesus. The God as portrayed by Jesus tells us that we are to love our enemies, that we are to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.
Chuck77 writes: Jesus said in Matthew 7:13,14 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." That can fit any theology you want it to
Chuck77 writes: Thw world could care less about God. Actually the vast majority of the world cares very much about God, but not necessarily your particular view of who He is.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Bailey writes: What effect did the worldview adopted by Joshua’s Yuhdean followers have on their political, and overall, decision making and their respective consequences? Let's put it this way. Did God actually tell Joshua to commit genocide? Sure they won the battle but in the end the early Israelites still kept following pagan gods. Jesus lived in Israel under Roman rule. He preached a message of revolution alright but it was a very different revolution than what Joshua would have aspired to. Jesus taught essentially that the way to win the revolution was to shun militant revolution and embrace peaceful revolution that would be won by, once again, by loving your enemy, turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. It was about turning the hearts of the enemy. Then as now people want quick solutions. We want things resolved now. Politicians want to change the world in their tenure in office. To God a day is like a thousand years. The type of revolution that Jesus espoused was not going to win the world over in His too short life time. Jesus' solution is a revolution that will win the battle that will take many generations, but in the end it will be decisive.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Dr Adequate writes: Well, that depends on what the defining characteristics of God are. If (for example) we define God as the creator of the universe (something that you presumably believe) then you and the fundies, and indeed Jews and Muslims, are thinking of the same person, you just have different opinions of him. I agree but as I stated in the OP I was going to go along with Straggler and call it worshipping a different god.
Dr Adequate writes: Of course, there is the question of whether you do have the same definition of God. Fundies often talk as though they think the definition is: "The being literally described by the Bible". But do they really think that? Suppose one of them found himself before the heavenly throne and a Being perfectly wise, just, powerful, et cetera, and he says: "Jolly well done for having faith in Jesus, but I gotta tell you, Genesis was actually a metaphor rather than a science textbook" --- would our fundie then exclaim: "Damnit, the atheists were right all along, there is no God"? I think not. Amen. (If you'll pardon the expression. ) That is another problem with the fundamentalist position. IMHO they make it all about the Bible instead of about God. Does it make any sense at all to think it matters whether or not God created the world 6000 years ago in 6 days as opposed to creating it 4.5 billion years ago? It is a matter of interest but what on earth can it possibly have to do with what God wants us to do with our lives? With the fundamentalist point of view, if the Bible isn't all factual then none of it can be relied on. It is the equivalent of the atheistic view sometimes expressed that if God is real then why doesn't he make himself clear. They want definite answers. They want to be able to point to something in the Bible that will give them clear answers. The clearest answer that we can get is that we are to love kindness, act justly and to live humbly. I agree that when we worship the living God we can have our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit so that we are better enabled to carry out the task of reflecting God’s love to the world. (I’m not saying that will make me more loving than my atheistic neighbour but it should make me more loving than I had been before.) However, that doesn't seem to be clear enough for many and there is a desire for absolute clarity and so we wind up worshipping the Bible and demanding that it give us clear answers that we desire.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Granny Magda writes: It's an unanswerable question. Certainly you have a different concept of god to a fundie Christian and that fundie has a different god concept to the next Christian. But to say whether they are actually different gods or not, we would have to know whether or not these gods were real. Certainly there are multiple god concepts within modern Christianity. There are multiple god concepts within the Bible itself. The modern Christian has a completely disparate concept of God from the early Jews who wrote the OT and in most cases, a different god concept from the early Christians who wrote the NT. But are they different gods? Who knows. Until someone provides evidence that any of these god concepts are valid, there is no meaningful way to address the question.
I agree with all of that but as I said in the opening paragraph of the OP I want to assume for the sake of the discussion that a god with a different attribute is a different god. To restate my point differently it is my view that the god that is portrayed by taking all of the Bible as being transcribed by God essentially word for word accepts the fact that they worship a god that under some circumstances desires genocide and capital punishment by mass stoning for minor offences. The God as revealed through Jesus Christ is a very different God. The God as revealed through Jesus Christ has filtered the OT in a way that enables us to understand what in the OT was of God and what wasn’t.
Granny Magda writes: I think you have this exactly backwards. You should be looking at how our individual worldviews shape our concept of god. I think that there is a lot to be said for that. I recommend a book by Robert Wright, (Straggler's a big fan) called "The Evolution of God". (Wright calls himself an agnostic materialist.) He would agree with you. It is however a lot like the debate on evolution between an atheist and someone like me who is theist who accepts evolution. Did it all happen naturally or was it designed? I believe that primarily through human imagination God has over the centuries continued to focus our understanding of Him and what He desires of us. So yes, as our world view changes so does our concept of God except that I believe that it is God that is causing our world view to evolve. I suggest that just as we have evolved physically we are evolving spiritually in our understanding of God.
Granny Magda writes: God is good. God is always good. But exactly how that goodness manifests is due entirely to the moral values of the culture in which the god is worshipped. An slave owner will think that God approves of slavery. A modern Christian will likely think that God reviles slavery. The author of Deuteronomy was a horrible, horrible bastard, so his god was a bastard too. You are a reasonable, moderate modern person, so your god is moderate and reasonable as well. Believers shape their personal concept of god to match their own worldview. There are studies that support this notion. As I said our understanding of God is evolving and along with that of course so are our moral values. There is no doubt that humans are inclined to create god(s) in their own image. However as God continues to work in our hearts to change us we are gradually drawn closer to a truer understanding of Him.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Straggler writes: As I see it (and I think you would agree GDR) Wright would advocate, if he advocates any form of god at all, a rather ambiguous and generic presence that is not really compatible with a specifically Christian (or indeed any other particular faith) notion of god. Rather it is something that is ultimately responsible for the apparent existence of objective moral inclinations (truths?) that are exhibited by intelligent beings. A sort of deistic "why" to the question of morality and altruism. I don't agree with everything Wright says at all. But his less than dismissive views of the ultimate source of morality as a proponent of evolutionary psychology are interesting and worth any skeptic at least looking at IMHO. I do agree with all of that. Thanks
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Granny Magda writes: Or, to put this another way, you search the scriptures and disregard anything that disagrees with your own personal morality. Anything that you personally disapprove of is labelled "godly". Anything that you personally disapprove of is labelled "human error". You find the NT useful in this regard because it has far less in the way of obviously abhorrent material. None of us have a lock on truth. I know I have changed my mind in the past on things theological and I no doubt will again in the future. It is a search for truth and I have concluded, (rightly or wrongly but surprisingly still with very little doubt) that Jesus represents ultimate truth. There is no quotation of Jesus in the Gospels that I have issue with, which is not to say I have a perfect understanding of everything that He is quoted as saying. Again, it is through the lens of that teaching that we can find value in all of the scriptures.
Granny Magda writes: Your model, where we gradually home in on God's true message is indistinguishable from a model where Christian believers simply modify their gods over time to accommodate their own individual moral codes and the current moral Zeitgeist. Absolutely. Again it's like evolution. It looks the same whether it all occurred naturally or if it was designed.
Granny Magda writes: To me this is just too... fishy. It looks too much like rationalisation. No-one ever seems to believe in a god that differs from their own personal morality. For example, no-one seems to believe both that God exists and that he is evil. To my mind, that is not a co-incidence. I think when you look at the attributes of some of the ancient gods you might think they were evil. The fact that there is a personal morality and that we recognize evil is pretty indicative that there is a moral code that exists as fundamental through all societies and exists apart from human constructs.
Granny Magda writes: I have a passing familiarity with Wright and his views. Like Straggler, I do see his position as being largely incompatible with anything that can usefully be described as Christianity, but it's interesting stuff nonetheless. As I said he calls himself a materialistic agnostic. However I don't see his views as being Christian or atheistic, but I also don't see them as being incompatible with either.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dr Adequate writes: Well, it seems to me that this is an attitude that would sit more easily with someone who thinks that gods don't exist. In that case the question of classifying gods becomes an anthropological one, and a god who created the world in six days and is a staunch Republican is different from one who didn't and isn't, just as one might say that Chinese dragons are different from European dragons. I agree but it just seemed to me that it might help the discussion along.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Bailey writes: The contrast provided through your comparison seems insightful although I have to offer my apologies as I seem to have been a bit misunderstood. I wasn’t referring to the early Yuhdean followers of Moshes' successor Joshua the militant conqueror, but rather Joshua (YahShua ha’Mashiach) The Anointed One (ie. early ‘christians’, etc.). You were misunderstood due to my ignorance. Sorry.
Bailey writes: Providing the school of thought which suggests they were culturally ostracized after having fled the 70 CE destruction of the 2nd Yirusalem temple and the Yuhdean province in general holds true (while adherents to Yosef Bar Kayafa’s Yuhdean orthodoxy waged jihad), value judgments can be made concerning what effects these two different views of the Yuhdean God had on the world view of those 1st century individuals. If it's ok with you I will keep using the name Jesus while acknowledging that your name is the accurate one. Jesus forecast the destruction of the 66-70 CE war. He said that this would be the result of launching a militant revolution. We are human and can fully understand the militant view point and would fully understand why His followers were ostracized when they rejected that approach. It took centuries, but the path of love and peace did eventually have an effect on the Romans.
Bailey writes: Those who refused the authority of the acting high priest Kayafas in favor of Joshua's (the Anointed One) admonitions found cultural denigration and religious persecution in one hand while palming continuous life in the other. Those siding with orthodoxy seem to have found pride going before destruction, and haughtiness before their fall. CS Lewis writes the one great sin is pride.
Bailey writes: I may quickly agree that our theological subscriptions can play an integral role in the development of particular ideologies and it is those same ideologies which are often found shaping our actions to a large extent. For better or for worse. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Buzsaw writes: GDR, obviously your somewhat of a Biblical novelist who does not understand the difference between the old dispensation of Judaism, the Levitical Law and Jehovah's intent to establish a nation which was to be his messianic nation where his coming messianic king would establish a kingdom of Jehovah on the earth and the new Christian church dispensation of salvation and grace being non-violent in all respects. So you are saying that God not only sanctioned but encouraged genocide in order that the early Jews could hold on to a piece of real estate. (How well did that work by the way?) You then also must agree that the quote from Deuteronomy was also from God and that God decreed that a rebellious child should be stoned by all of the men in the town. You also believe that God encouraged capital punishment for those who broke the Sabbath laws. Now however God tells us that all of that stuff is no longer valid and we are to love our neighbours as ourselves, and that we are to love our enemies. So what are we left with. 1/ We have a god who changed his mind.2/ We have a god who sanctions killing and destruction then, but says that the situation doesn't call for it right now. He'll get back to us if it becomes necssary again. 3/ We have a god who did what was necessary then, (apparently to no avail at least on an on-going basis) but with the new agreement he says it is no longer the route to go. 4/ We have a god who was misrepresented by the early Jews and has always maintained the his way for us is the way of love, peace, mercy etc. AbE I got up this morning and re-read this. Option 4 is badly worded. Jesus' whole teaching was based on the Hebrew Scriptures so there was a lot there that was right, and IMHO from God. However, as we still do today, there were those that twisted God's message to suit their own purposes. They didn't always get it right. I take option 4 and I assume you'll go with 3. Option 3 however still leaves us with a god that was in favour of genocide, the stoning of rebellious children, adulterers, (at least the female ones), and those that don't follow the sabbath laws. Let's for the sake of argument accept, (which I don't), that it was necessary that in order to keep the Hebrew nation holy by executing those that didn't follow the laws. Do you then still believe that God would sanction public stoning as a means of execution? Frankly I don't worship a god that would ever justify the things that we have been talking about. If that was actually the true nature of God then I think I'd just give it all a pass as I can't see the difference between heaven and hell.
Buzsaw writes: Jesus's 2nd advent, soon to come will be different. He, then, will come and destroy the armies of the world which will be assembled at Jerusalem to invade and destroy the Jews, so as for the Palestinians et al to come in and occupy. That is what Armageddon is prophesied to be about. This is a complete misreading of the scriptures but that is off topic in this thread. Edited by GDR, : No reason given. Edited by GDR, : Option 4 required explanationEverybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
jar writes: "Saved" and "Born Again" on the other hand have no connection to reality but are easy to sell. They are a great substitute for actually having to do anything worthwhile. I don't like the term "saved" either as it has the implication that if you aren't saved as defined by the person using the term you are destined for Hell. I figure that is God's business and not mine. I think I'll just stick with the idea in Micah that God wants us to humbly love kindness and justice and let God worry about the rest. I actually like the term "Born Again" but I find that, IMHO, the term is overused and misused. I do believe that when we make a decision to become Christ followers, meaning a heart decision as opposed to a head decision, that there is a change in attitude in our dealings with others and in our outlook on life. At least that was my experience. It wasn't sudden or dramatic but just kinda happened. I believe it is of God and His spirit but certainly that is just my belief. A sceptic could no doubt make the case for it being psychosomatic but so be it. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
jar writes: I have no problem with "Born Again" as long as it is understood that it is something that you do every minute of every day, over and over and over again.
I agree that it isn't a one time occurence that's makes everything alright. I believe it is a life time of hopefully, becoming more and more in tune with the still small voice that has been planted inside you.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Granny Magda writes: Yes, I can understand that. I respect the fact that you seek to find value in Christianity, but I still think that the way you are going about it is innately fallacious. Why is that? It does sometimes seem that sceptics are very critical of those that read the Bible as having been word for word dictated by God, but then when someone else comes along that says that they believe that is not the way we are intended to understand the Bible then that isn't correct either. We Christians just can't win. How would you suggest that a Christian should understand the Bible?
Granny Magda writes: Only if that designer specifically designed it to look exactly as if it were natural. Again, to me, this sounds like rationalisation. Not at all. I'm suggesting that the designer designed the natural so what else would it look like?
Granny Magda writes: But the people who worshipped them did not believe these gods to be evil, that is my point. Those people probably thought that sacrificing babies (or whatever) was harsh but fair. They thought their gods were good, even as they were doing evil. I don't see it that way. I see human sacrifice as a way of appeasing gods that they feared, which is quite different than thinking it was a good god.
Granny Magda writes: As far as I know, no-one ever believed in a god whose morality drastically differed from their own (outside of henotheistic models). From what I've read I don't think that the ancients attached a moral significance to their gods. They were just the way they were, and as I said it then became a question of appeasing them and of trying to get them on your side.
Granny Magda writes: The fact that Christian slave owners failed to recognise their own evil (and even went as far as to claim that God approved of slavery) would seem to refute this notion. There are many competing standards for "good" and religion does not seem to have done a very good job of defining better standards. Let's face it. Christianity has been used to justify all sorts of horrible things. It is like anything else that is good. It can be misused. In the final analysis the idea of "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a standard that is hard to beat.
Granny Magda writes: You really don't see Wright's god as being substantially different from the god described in, say, the Nicene Creed? I think there is a big difference between them. I think you misunderstood me. Wright is agnostic. I am only saying that his views are not incompatible with either Christianity or atheism.
Granny Magda writes: One of the main reasons, I think, that Christians seem to worship so many gods, is this tendency to totally revamp the whole concept of god, and then pretend that nothing has changed. The distant god of modern Christian moderates is vastly different from the one early Christians would recognise, and unimaginably different from the one the Jews revered. Nonetheless, most Christians seem to want to treat them as being, at some level, the same entity. I think that such believers are in denial. I think that we have a tendency to make God in our own image. I also think that there is a tendency by all religions to get their religion tied up with their sense of nationalism. (God of course is a Canadian but we try to keep it quiet in our quiet humble way. ) I think that it is really important to read the Bible in its historical context. It isn't just a series of books containing timeless truths. I think we have to understand, (the Gospels in particular), with the mindset of a 1st century Jew, as best we can. I think that people like N T Wright in particular have been very effective in doing that.
Granny Magda writes: Modern Christianity is as different a beast from ancient Judaism as one could possibly imagine and yet many believers seem to want to pretend that they are part of the same tradition. Better, in my opinion, to be honest and worship some new god, one that better serves modern needs. Of course then, believers wouldn't be able to make appeals to authority, based on ancient texts, so you lose a popular selling point, but at least you would have a more consistent god. You wouldn't have to do the dance of finding excuses for the excesses of Yahweh. In my view, the early Christians would have done better to simply ditch the horrible OT. Similarly, modern theists, with their vague, non-interventionist gods, would do better to ditch Christianity altogether and come up with a better system, one that doesn't require constant excuse making. I strongly disagree with that. Virtually all of Jesus' teaching came from the OT. It is all there. The thing though is that there is a lot more there as well. It is a narrative and within that is mythology, revelation, history told with a cultural bias, metaphor, poetry etc. It is only when you read it in a way that I don't believe it was ever intended to be read do we run into problems. If we try to read it as if God dictated it word for word then we wind up with the difficulties that I outlined in the OP.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Chuck77 writes: Ok, well, Jesus actually did come here to die for "me". So, yeah, it kinda is about us now isn't it? If not then who did Jesus actually come here and die a brutal death on the cross for? Jesus came to die for all. It's in the Bible.
Chuck77 writes: I don't follow. What do you mean? Jesus, again, came here for us because we needed a savoir. Yet, you think Jesus came here for Himself? Again, He came for all. In His resurrection He defeated death. Death is not the end. It's a beginning. He also came to establish His Kingdom on Earth, (the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew and the Kingdom of God in the other 3 Gospels), to take His message of truth, justice, mercy forgiveness etc to the world. We are to be His agents of that message. If we truly have taken that on board sure we are made right with God in order to fulfill that mission. It does not mean that those that don't have the right theology are to be damned to Hell. Mathew 13:49 "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous." Paul writes in Romans 2:5 "For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." Here is that last quote in context from Romans 2.
quote: Here is the sheep and the goats story from Mathew 25.
quote: There is nothing in there about having the right theology. What is there is about who it is that you really love. Is it all about you or is it about your love for the rest of God's creation. Christians don't have a lock on unselfish love and people who call themselves Christian are certainly capable of selfish love. The righteous person is the one who loves unselfishly not the one who gives intellectual ascent to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We don't become right with God because we acknowledge Christ, we become right with God because we accept in our hearts, (not just our heads), His message of unselfish love. I'll requote C S Lewis:
quote: Chuck77 writes: Yeah, I know. Im talking about the God of the Bible, the one TRUE God. Who are you talking about? That would be the one. Look I think that you misread what the scriptures say about Jesus and His message. I think that by reading the scriptures the way that you do that you detract from the message that God has for us. I am also sure that you would say the same about my views. But this of course is the question. Do we worship different a different God? If I understand you correctly you would read the whole Bible in such a way that the writers transcribed essentially word for word what God told them to write. This means that you accept that God not only sanctioned but encouraged genocide. It means that God encouraged death by stoning for rebellious youth, adulterers and those that broke the Sabbath laws. My God, the God of the Bible when it is read the way I believe God intended it to be read, is a God that is the same always and not one would encourage those things. Your God is a God that is ok with situational ethics or one that would agree that the ends justify the means. That is not the God we see embodied in Jesus. It is important. When it comes to conclusions about what God would have us as Christians do about things like going to war, capital punishment, social justice etc we are likely to come to different conclusions. Also the God that you talk about is a God to be feared for the wrong reason. Do you really think that God, the Father of Jesus wants us to turn to him because we fear that we’ll be punished if we don’t? My God wants us to turn to Him because we love Him because He is a God who loves not only us, but a God who loves all of His creation. I would agree that we worship the same God but we certainly seem to have different ideas on His nature.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Hi Granny
Granny Magda writes: What you seem to think you're doing is honing in in the bits that were divinely inspired. You have no reason to suppose that. All you're really doing is searching through the Bible for bits that you like. To search through and say "I like this bit" and "I disapprove of that bit" is perfectly valid. To go on to conclude that these bits are the divinely inspired bits is unsupported and logically invalid. I don't agree that is what I'm doing. As I say the whole Bible is a metanarrative from creation to new creation. (IMHO) Jesus came as a fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures and in doing so clarified the scriptures. It isn't difficult to sort out what was of God and what wasn't in the OT when we use the lens or the filter of the NT. Jesus calls us to love our enemy, so we can safely assume that God does not sanction genocide. We are told that we are to forgive so we can safely assume that the stoning of difficult children or even adulterers is of God. As they say, it ain't rocket surgery.
Granny Magda writes: I think that the Bible should be read simply as what it is; a collection of human works, interesting for their historical and cultural status, but not possessed of any special/supernatural content. You should read it the same way that you read and assess any secular work of philosophy or fiction. In one way I agree and in one way I don't. I agree that it is a collection of human works but on the other hand I do think that the authors, whether it was revelation through their own imaginations or the imaginations of others, did have insights into the nature of God that their pagan neighbours didn't have. These insights are woven into the telling of their stories.
Granny Magda writes: Um... designed? Instead, we see a world of material forces, often random, usually quite purposeless and frequently arbitrary and cruel. Certainly a designer could have designed all this, to look as natural and non-designed as possible, but there is no reason to suppose this. It's like saying "Sure this could be a cat, but the very fact that it looks so cat-like only goes to show that it might be a dog.". It's just a form of Last Thursdayism. Of course the world looks natural. What else could it look like? You say that it looks random and arbitrary but we live in a Finely Tuned Universe so it isn't all that arbitrary. I agree that the world often seems cruel and that isn't easy to explain. I know we throw around the term omnipotence a lot but it is pretty difficult in human terms to understand the intelligence of the creator of the universe so omnipotence seems reasonable. However the scripture is consistent that God does not desire suffering and points to a time of new creation where the suffering will end, but in the meantime for reasons I don't understand suffering continues and it is our job as His image bearing agents on Earth to do all that we can to alleviate it.
Granny Magda writes: But they must have thought that their actions were morally justifiable, or they would not have gloried them. Can you show me any example of a person worshipping a god that they considered to be evil?
My point wasn't that they worshipped a god they considered evil but that they worshipped a god created in their image that they hoped to get on their side for selfish reasons.
Granny Magda writes: But of course, you don't know that it's being misused. For all we know, the nasty bits from the Bible about murdering infants and slavery and such, might be the bits God was really keen on. All you lovey-dovey hippy liberal Christians might be the ones who have got it all wrong. Again, you are pre-supposing that good=godly, and I believe that to be unwarranted. Actually, I don't consider myself a liberal Christian. I see myself as pretty mainstream, particularly for you folk in the UK. The majority of theologians and NT scholars that I read are Brits with the main one being N T Wright. There does seem to be a group of Christians, primarily in North America who have determined for some reason that the Bible is to be read as if it were directly transcribed by God. Interestingly enough CS Lewis is often cited as one of their heroes but he never subscribed to that notion. I can only believe that it is because as humans we don't like ambiguity and so we turn the Bible into some kind of rule book. Yes I believe in the God = good view of things. First off that is the God that we see as revealed to us through Jesus Christ. Also, if I'm wrong, and that God is a god that does justify genocide and the stoning of children then I still don’t want to change my world view from what it is. I would prefer my human vision of things and would not want to spend eternity with a god like that.
Granny Magda writes: I can agree with all of that. Except for the Canadian bit. Everyone knows that God has the voice of David Attenborough. You and Straggler are a pair. There was a time when He may have been British, with a voice not unlike David Attenborough, but He long ago emigrated to the land of majestic mountains, rolling plains, magnificent forests, pristine lakes stretching from sea to sea and who can blame Him, and by the way he sounds more like Lorne Greene.
Granny Magda writes: Yes and that's my problem with it. It would have been far better to have dismissed the more noxious segments of the OT and to have moved ahead by building upon the best bits. Both Christianity and Islam have made attempts at modernising the OT, but both have, IMHO, failed because of their unwarranted attachment to a lot of outdated Bronze Age hate speech. Let's be very clear, the OT has caused a lot of suffering with this kind of material. It is still doing so. A quick look at the way the oppression of women is still excused by some by reference to the OT shows us how damaging these toxic teachings are. They should have been abandoned. The NT was the perfect opportunity to do this, but instead it sends mixed messages. Essentially I agree but it is only IMHO because people have tried to make the Bible into something that had never been intended. IMHO nobody in human history moved the cause for female equality further ahead than Jesus.
Granny Magda writes: I agree with what you're saying about how we should approach the Bible, but I think that your way still leaves you open to being left with many competing god-concepts. The need for constant interpretation leaves plenty of wiggle-room in which new gods can spring up every time anybody hits a disagreement. I think that the only competing notion is the one that I addressed in the OP, and in the end most of the fundamentalists that I know are just as horrified as I am about some of the things in the OT but essentially just decide not to think about it, and if forced to they say it was necessary then for God to cleanse the nations of things like human sacrifice. However the thing is, it isn’t just about getting your concept of God just right. Back to my favourite verse which says that what God wants of us is that we humbly love kindness and do justice. If God can, through whatever means He chooses, get that drummed into our heads then I think he would be a very happy God.Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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