Do Christians Worship Different Gods?

Remember that to the Lord a day is like a thousand years. So what you are saying is that you are quite prepared to believe in a God that is wrathful one day and loving the next. Jesus never sanctioned killing Roman soldiers even though his homeland was being brutalized by the Romans, yet you seem to think that genocide was sanctioned by God over a land claim.I believe in a God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, not a God who is one kind of god one day and another the next.What is the justification that the Bible is to be read as if it has been dictated word by word by God? There is that verse in 2nd Timothy but what does it mean to be inspired. We say that Beethoven was inspired when he wrote his 5th symphony but does that mean that God gave every note to him?If God had actually given the Biblical authors the text word for word inspiration wouldn't come into it. However, if God inspired someone to write out the history of their culture using their own understanding it would then be inspired.Sure Hell exists. God is a God of love and He will not force anyone to choose the path of unselfish love that He calls all of us to. There will be those who choose to maintain a life of selfish love and God will honour that choice. That is the loving, not the wrathful thing to do. Jesus understood that somehow, through Himself God was returning to His people. Jesus was in essence a Temple replacement. But which God was returning? Was it the spiteful vengeful God that sanctioned genocide and death for problem kids, or was it the God that gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the one that said we should humbly love kindness and do justice? Jesus' message is that there is only one of the two that exist and it is clear from His message which one it was.

Sometimes I think it might have more impact if we would get our noses out of that old book and get out there doing what it tells us to do as well.

I'll try another approach with you. How about we look at what the wars that experience today are doing to the people of our own countries when they come back home. Do you really think that God would want His chosen people to be involved in the stoning death of their difficult children, or in the mass killing of every man woman and child of another community?I don't see the idea of that not being an aspect of the God I worship as sentimentality. First off I could repeat what I said in my last paragraph. Aside from that I don't see it being a matter of casting anyone anywhere. It is a matter of people choosing an existence with God characterized by unselfish love or an existence apart from God characterized by selfish love. I'd suggest reading Lewis' "The Great Divorce" or if you like the Narnia series "The Last Battle". Sure, he is writing in his words of his joyful experience of a loving God. But in doing that you are making God in your image. It is an image where you can get definitive answers to the questions that you have, by finding a verse in the Bible that will support what you wanted it to in the first place and say see I've got it right. In fact however your understanding of the Bible can fit a world view where you can use it to support violence or denounce it and say that God supports you. So you have decided that the old adage hate the sin but love the sinner doesn't fit God after all. You worship a God that hates the sin and the sinner. I know this is not your thinking, but if you follow through with your view of scripture I suggest we should be seriously thinking of nuking non-Christrian nations. I believe in a theistic god - a god that is intimately involved with us. My view of scripture doesn't preclude that at all. God works through His created being and He used His created beings to write out their stories. He has given us reason, discernment, wisdom and His Spirit to understand scripture and to seek Him out.If it was so easy that everyone understood that God existed and that He had created a legal system complete with penalties and rewards we would have lost our ability to choose goodness for its own sake. For what it is worth, I suggest reading N T Wright. The Challenge of Jesus is a good place to start.

Not really. It is a metanarrative of God and His creation. It starts with creation through Moses, Abraham, the prophets, Jesus, the church, (where we are now) then New Creation.I would agree that the Bible's authors wouldn't have understood it that way when they wrote what they did. No. They wrote their stories with the truth as they understood it, with it being both culturally and personally conditioned. The Bible has to read with the understanding of who the target audience was. Jesus' ministry was to first century Jews and the epistles to a variety of groups and so on. I also know that I will never in this lifetime have a full understanding, or anywhere near it, of all of this. I worship a loving God, a God of forgiveness, a God of mercy and a God of justice. I worship the God who visited His creation through the man Jesus the Messiah. If I'm wrong then so be it. Essentially the resurrected Jesus. I am firmly convinced that was an historical event nearly 2000 years ago. Sure, and aren't those natural forces magnificently designed. I'm not really. You can look at that Japanese tsunami and think what an evil that was. Well yes, but on the other hand look at all the goodness that flowed from the hearts of the people and countries that came to their aid. Look at the work done in the medical field to eliminate suffering, look at the technological advances that have helped eliminate suffering, look at the humanitarian efforts that eliminate suffering etc. God IMHO, has chosen to work through us, His created beings and bit by bit we make progress.We all know that at some point time for us will come to an end, (even if it is when the Sun burns out), and I believe in God's justice to sort all of that out in a new life in a new creation with resurrected bodies. I don't think that there is much doubt that there is something to that. In my own experience I have found that my faith has caused me to rethink much of what I had believed previously, so I'm not in complete agreement. However, we do have a natural tendency to create God in our image, (as we can often see in the Bible, although we can also see that Paul had a total rethink of things),but hopefully if we really do open up ourselves I think we are quiet able to becoming more understanding of what it is God wants of us. Funny you should say that. I'll just repeat what I posted to Iano in my last post.

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If it was so easy that everyone understood that God existed and that He had created a legal system complete with penalties and rewards we would have lost our ability to choose goodness for its own sake. For what it is worth, I suggest reading N T Wright. The Challenge of Jesus is a good place to start.

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IMHO the one Christian essential is the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Paul even agrees that if that hadn't happened then we would be wasting our time. I know this throws you guys into a spin but I actually have virtually no doubt.Here is a talk on the resurrection for anyone who is interested. Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus - N T WrightIt isn't taking it out of context if the Bible is understood, not as being dictated by God, but by humans inspired to record their stories which would include the times they get it right and the times they get it wrong. In some ways it is probably more accurate to say that I interpret the scriptures through Jesus. I stand by what I said. Jesus showed considerable respect for women, including women who were rejected by their own cultures. I also think Paul gets a bad rap. There are several mentions in his epistles of women whose leadership he supported. I know there is the quote about women being silent in church but that is a letter written to a specific church. The best explanation that I have heard is that the women and men sat separately as that was the culture, and as education wasn't available to the women they were unable to understand the language of the service. AS a result they would, in my view quite naturally, be talking and disrupting things.I don't have explanations for everything but I think also that the Bible has to be taken as a whole and one thing you might do is contrast the Jewish monotheism with the religions of their pagan neighbours and you might want to contrast Christ's message compared to the Romans. I'd say the Judeo-Christian faith has been at the leading edge from the start. It many cases its followers not so much so. Being Christian doesn't mean you aren't human. In some ways I agree. However here are two things about the Christian faith I believe.The resurrected Jesus is the beginning of a recreated world, God's heaven dimension and our Earth dimension coming together. I trust the in the end there is justice for all.Also, I believe that Christians who truly embrace God's love for others in their own lives will be guided by the God's spirit to reflect His love into the world.I imagine that all sounds rather strange to you but if one accepts the idea that our intelligence is more likely to have come from an intelligent rather than an un-intelligent source then none of that is particularly farfetched and actually makes sense of a great deal of what we experience in this life.Thanks for your well thought out post. (The only problem is when I opened my e-mail today I had 9 of them and I have no idea how I'll work my way through them. I actually do have a life other than EvC. )

The wars today, (at least the wars the western world is involved in), are not about killing every man, woman and child in the country. The OT wars that we are talking about were. So your view is that the wars that advocate genocide are sanctioned by our loving God but the wars we are involved in today aren't. Interesting. To be honest iano I find that a statement coming from a Christian chilling. Frankly, it reminds me of that guy in Norway. Can you honestly tell me that if you were convinced that God wanted you to either be involved in stoning your child to death, or that God wanted you to go into the neighbouring town and slaughter children it wouldn't affect you?Also do you believe that God spoke to every individual soldier in those ancient wars or were they just following what their leaders said when they were told that God had wanted them to go in and slaughter everyone? Do you not think that they might have wondered about it? Well one boundary He would definitely be crossing is that it is completely contrary to what we see of Him in the message of Jesus. Isn't the message of the Bible that the Jewish people were chosen to take God's message of the Ten Commandments and loving your neighbour to the world? Now instead of loving their neighbour you believe that God is telling them to go out and slaughter them. You would have Him crossing the boundaries that He has set. Well a lot of that sort of talk in the NT is about what the Romans will do if the Jewish people don't abandon their revolutionary ways. Aside from that though, if Hell is an existence where the inhabitants are all guided by selfish love then I can understand the language that Jesus uses. It isn't that the writers saw it as erroneous, it was their perceptions brought about by cultural and personal biases that were erroneous. I see no way of reconciling genocide etc with the message of Jesus. It isn't necessary to cut out anything in the Bible. It is a matter of how we understand it. Then to go back to the OP we worship different gods. I see nothing holy in genocide or in stoning my child to death. Actually the trinity isn't all that difficult. You have a God who created everything and who has a spirit. We have a body and a spirit, soul, consciousness or whatever you want to call it. Jesus was a man through whom God visited His people by inspiring Jesus through inspiration and revelation with the power of the great truths. Jesus became the embodiment of God. There is absolutely nothing I can say to that. I frankly never dreamt you would respond that way. You misunderstood me. God has not given us or the ancient Jews certainty, and the point of that is that if there was certainty then that would negate our free will, and the freedom to reject or accept His message of love, truth, forgiveness, mercy, justice etc.At any rate you've made it abundantly clear that individual Christians do worship different gods.I missed the NT Wright question.Here is a link on the authority of scripture. How Can The Bible Be Authoritative?Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

I'm afraid that I don't ever equate genocide with holiness. I apologise if you saw that as a jibe. I just saw it as a paradox that didn't seem reasonable. I'll try and be more careful. I have a friend who grew up in Nazi occupied Holland. She would have been horrified with the idea of the Dutch march into Germany slaughtering every man, woman and child that they came across.God leading-by -law should be a part of everyday life today, but that law is that we are to love our enemy; not slaughter them. As far as witnessing the carnage in Egypt you are taking that story as literally historical.Just for the sake of argument I'll post this quote from the book "Miracles" by C S Lewis. (I've posted it previously on this forum.)

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My present view--which is tentative and liable to any amount of correction--would be that just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminates in God's becoming incarnate as Man, so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history ... nor diabolical illusion ... nor priestly lying ... but, at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. The Hebrews, like other people, had mythology: but as they were the chosen people so their mythology was the chosen mythology--the mythology chosen by God to be the vehicle of the earliest sacred truth, the first step in that process which ends in the New Testament where truth has become completely historical. Whether we can say with certainty where, in this process of crystallization, any particular Old Testament story falls, is another matter. I take it that the memoirs of David's court come at one end of the scale and are scarcely less historical than St. Mark or Acts; and that the Book of Jonah is at the opposite end.

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The Israelites were people chosen to take God's message as in the ten commandments and god's love to the world. They could hardly do that if they were isolated from the other nations. Jesus was the fulfillment of that plan. Sure there is a price for sin. Sin has consequences. It isn't that God has to reach out and commit genocide or individually punish us. Sin has actual physical consequences in this life; sin causes damage to our mental state and sin separates us from God. There is a price to be paid for evil. The Jews used an apocalyptic style of writing that we wouldn't use today. Please be more specific about what you're referring to in the NT. But Israel wasn't just about preparing for Jesus. They were to be God's agents to spread His message for all nations.Essentially though you are saying that the ends justify the means. I don't believe in a god like that. However, let's look at the ends. How did it work out by the time Jesus arrived. The Jews were living as exiles in their own land under the brutal rule of the Romans who utilized a brutal Jewish regime to keep them in line and paying their taxes. They had a wide range of beliefs and lived with a rigid class structure. So just how well did this genocide of nations, and the use of capital punishment work as far as keeping them in a "fit state". I think that I could make a much stronger case that because they did these things against the will of God they wound up in the "abhorrent state" that actually existed at the time of Jesus.Think about it logically, if what you said about God needing to utilize those methods to prepare the nation for Jesus is true then God’s plan failed miserably, and all that slaughter accomplished nothing positive. They were anything but prepared for Jesus. Remember how He was nailed to the cross at the insistence of the Jewish authorities.I don't believe in the view of Jesus as God who, while He walked on Earth, had knowledge of eternal time as would the Father to who He prayed. The terms "Son of God" and "Son of Man" were messianic terms. The Messiah is the anointed one of God that would be the one to lead them out of exile, (as I pointed out that as long as they were in Roman occupied territory they were still in exile), the Temple would be rebuilt and Yahweh would be King. The messiah would be an earthly figure. Also however, many believed that Yahweh Himself would return at some point. My understanding that Jesus saw His vocation as being the man through whom God the Father, (again to whom He prayed - it isn't reasonable to think of Him praying to Himself), was revisiting His people. He saw Himself in the role of the Temple. He became the sacrifice, (and said that He desired mercy not sacrifice), and He forgave sin. The Jews believed that God resided in the Temple but Jesus took that role on Himself. He became the embodiment of the Father. I see the Spirit of God who lived in Him as being eternal. I think we are actually in agreement here. I would add though that I don’t see the mission as winding up with Jesus in the next life. I think the Christian mission is to be agents of God’s love, forgiveness, mercy, joy, justice etc to the world. It isn’t then the works that make me right with God but the fact that those things of God warm my heart and that selfishness, greed, suffering etc do the opposite.Again, as Micah said; what God wants of us is to humbly love kindness and do justice.The point of this as far as the OP is concerned that point is essentially we worship different gods. Your God is a God that justifies violence to the point of genocide to defeat evil on Earth. The God I worship would say that the way to win the battle against evil is the way Jesus did on the cross and that is with love and forgiveness. It is a very difficult message and I realize that things in world affairs are seldom black and white and there are seldom easy answers. The thing is that brick by brick, with every act of humble kindness and justice we are building for when time as we know it comes to a close, Christ comes again and God`s great act of recreation takes place.To quote my favourite theologian: if you fight evil with evil then evil is bound to win.I think this is on topic. I hope you agree Percy.

Hi IanI don't want to debate the first part of your post as I don't want to go off topic so I'll comment on the questions that pertain to the second question in the OP. No, absolutely not. The only way that argument could be made if God Himself, without involving people were to eradicate a particular group. For God to use His chosen people in a genocidal mission would cause the hearts of His people to become hard, and not only that, He would be asking them to do exactly what He is telling them not do in other places in the scriptures. God is not going to say "love your neighbour" one day and then tell them to go out and slaughter everyone of them the next.The point is of course that we are still called to love our neighbour and this has to have an impact on question 2. Paul in Romans 12 tells us that we are not to take revenge and in fact we are to give them food and drink. How does this impact our world view? As far as I'm concerned the question is flawed. God created us with free will. We all make the wrong choices but God is a redemptive God. What He is asking of us as humans and specifically as Christians is that we be part of that redemptive process. Personally I would say that the world described in the Sermon on the Mount will come to fruition. However, Jesus isn't talking about this life - He is talking about when God's great act of recreation takes place.I think that one of the category mistakes of the fundamentalist belief is the focus on salvation. The point about being saved is not about putting God in a position that He has to take you to heaven. Being saved is about being saved because there is a job to do, and that is to take God's truth, love, joy, peace, forgiveness, justice, mercy to the world. We are called to be little Christs for the sake of the world, not for our own sake. How we feel about this of course affects our world view, (question 2 from the OP), and how we interact with the world. I agree with the first part.The story of Ananias and Sapphira was a story out of the church in Jerusalem, told in Acts 5. If you then go to Acts 15 vs 10 we find Paul and Barnabas criticizing the Jerusalem church for putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples that no one could bear. The story of their death just says they fell down and breathed their last. Taken in context it certainly appears that they were executed and later Paul and Barnabas chastised them for it.I'm working at staying on topic here and the point of all this is that our disparate view on the understanding of the basic Christian message has a profound effect on our world views. You believe that it is conceivable that nuclear genocide would be an option that God might sanction. I disagree. Widely divergent views I would say.

Holiness hates evil - Holiness condones genocide (In some circumsatnces) - Genocide is good. (In some circumstances) I actually said their mission was to take God's love to the world and it comes from Genesis 12.

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3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

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If God was actually wrathfull, the only reason He would have for making me know about it would be to keep in line by fear in similar way to keeping slaves in line. It would not be the way of the God I worship who wants us to choose His way because of love. It is a metanarrative telling the history of those through whom God is revealing Himself and His desires to the world, as told by those people with all of their faults included. I've given you the reason that in the Bible stories it just about always has God doing the slaughtering for Him. It means having the people He supposedly loves walking into people's home and slaughtering children. What is the message that gives to them and what does it do to their hearts and minds.It also has God being pretty non-specific about which sinners he chooses to do away with. How about sinners in the different nations including those amongst the Jews themselves. Why doesn't he take out Hitler for example? Is it possible that Hitler was just doing what God had asked him to do? I know you don't believe that but how do you tell the difference?How would the average ancient Jew understand God telling them to love their neighbour but at the same time slaughter them? Kind of a mixed message don't you think?God is God so if He wants to slaughter a whole nation then it's within His power to do it. OK, the message from that is might makes right.The God I worship wants us to choose Him because we love Him and what He stands for. I see no reason to love a God that sanctions genocide and the killing of our own children when they are rebellious teenagers.As for the last part of your question about sinners deserving to live it then begs the question of why did God kick this whole thing off in the first place. We are all at our core essentially selfish. Why not do away with all of us? So now it sounds as if you were saying that God had the Jews committing genocide etc in order to harden their hearts, so that centuries later the Jewish leadership would be opposed to Jesus and have the right mindset to crucify Him. I don't see this as the canyon at all. It goes much deeper than that. I believe in a Trinitarian God but I also believe that Jesus was wholly man and wholly God. If you view Jesus as God physically coming to Earth it does kinda beg the question of just who was the Father that Jesus worshipped. Absolutely You are then suggesting that I should worship a God who essentially says do what I say and not as I do most of the time, but not when I want you to commit genocide on my behalf.

The point is that evil cannot be eradicated by more evil. Evil can only be overcome by love, and that love is the gift of God. It is consistent with Christ's message as well. I don't want to sound self-righteous but to be honest I don't think too much about the next life as I'll deal with that when it comes. What I'm trying to deal with is being the man that God wants me to be today and tomorrow.Frankly that is a huge problem for me with fundamentalist thinking. The focus is so much about me and my salvation. The whole Gospel message is that we are to be less concerned with ourselves and more concerned with our neighbour. Fundamentalists thinking is IMHO 180 degrees from the Gospel message. Look at what Paul writes about the armour of God. Paul is not inconsistent with the Gospels. Most of the Epistles are written to aid in establishing the new church. The Gospels are essentially about the story, life and teachings of Jesus. The OT is the history of the Jewish people, that do include revelations of God as told in their own style. If righteousness can involve genocide then I want no part of it.Read through this account of the Spanish in S. America talking about what wonderful things they were doing for the Christian faith. Was this of God? The Battle of CajamarcaThis is the sort of thing that can happen with a perverted view of Christianity IMHO. You make the point perfectly. You worship a God who says do as I say, not as I do, and in addition when he wants you to break rule one he'll get back to you.

Great question. It goes back to the question of whether we worship the same God but describe different attributes to Him.
As jar said all three worship the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.So essentially my answer is yes.Christianity is different because of the fact that Jesus is understood as being God incarnate and the Jewish Messiah, but that doesn't have to be barrier to recognizing the one creator God that the three Abrahamic faiths have in common.However the question of God and what he wants of us is consistent, depending how we read the Holy texts. For example my view is quite different than iano's view just as the militant jihadist's view is different than the moderate Muslim, so it depend on who you talk to.This is my take on it.The verse in Micah (6:8), which is in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, that I believe constitutes the essential truth of what God wants of all His created beings is that we humbly love kindness and act justly.This is from the Qur'an. Surah 3: 133-134

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And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a garden as wide as the heavens and earth, prepared for the righteous Who spend [in the cause of Allah ] during ease and hardship and who restrain anger and who pardon the people - and Allah loves the doers of good

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So if we concentrate on the parts that are consistent within the texts of all 3 faiths we should all be good buds. If we could just focus on the message of love and peace and then have a friendly discussion of our theological positions I believe God would be thrilled. There is no logical reason that this couldn't happen but logic more often than not seems to go out the window.

Blast. You know what you've done? You have caught me agreeing with both sides of the discussion. I see it this way. I believe in the God of the OT. (Yahweh)I am a committed Christian. However, I believe that as humans we continue to try and give attributes to Him that fit what we believe. That certainly applies to me as much as anyone else.I showed in my last post to you, (utilizing Micah 6:8, a verse common to both Christians and Jew,s as well as Surah 3: 133,134), that all three religions, using their holy texts can be brought together in a common belief that God is a loving God and wants us to love all of His creation as He does. This would then allow us gather around a common table and cheerfully debate other doctrinal points. This is how I reconcile my view that we all worship the same God.In my discussion with iano I have just come to the conclusion that although we both call ourselves Christians and have the Bible as our holy text we have come to very different views of the god we worship and so I came to the conclusion that we worship different gods. Frankly I find his beliefs disturbing and dangerous. I agree. I think that is to be expected if only for reason that I talked about earlier in this post. Absolutely, but it isn't necessary. If we get beyond the idea that we need absolute answers to our understanding of God, and if we get over the very human need to belong to a like thinking group I think we can make progress. Biblical fundamentalists try and read the Bible literally. It can't be done of course but they try. That way they can have absolute answers. I am firmly convinced that the Bible is not intended to be read that way, and for that matter I suggest that there is no reason to think the Bible should be read that way, other than to provide definite answers to troubling questions and in order to belong to a cohesive group. The Bible tells us that Jesus was the word of God and now it seems that they are trying to replace Jesus with that same Bible. Up to today I agree, but we are a work in progress. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

The trouble is as always with people. If it wasn't religion we would find something else to argue over, and we do. We are divided due to nationality, race, skin colour, employer etc. People are extremely tribal.The thing is our argument is circular. If one comes from it that there is no god(s) then of course you are right and never can draw us together as there is no unifying truth that can ever be reached. If however there is a god that does care about our morality then it makes sense that in the long run religion can be a tool to draw mankind together. I fully understand what you are saying and I agree that it is the right question to ask. I can pick positive things out of the Qur’an but I don't feel anywhere close to being qualified to discuss it. I see the Bible as being a metanarrative - the story of God inserting Himself into the lives of His people. It is the story starting with creation, through Moses, Abraham, the prophets, Jesus, the church and finally new creation or the re-creation of this world. I do believe that the Bible is of God, written by people with personal and cultural biases, so that we can have a greater understanding of why and who we are.I contend that we have to look at that context and through that we can understand what it is that God wants us to know and what is it that he desires of us. I contend that my Micha 6:8 verse, taken in the context of the whole metanarrative sums up the one part of the answer completely. What does God want of us - humbly love kindness and do justice.We are creatures who understand reason and I believe God wants us to use that reason, whether it be through theology, philosophy or science to understand the big picture of life. Only if you treat the Bible as something that is transcribed directly by God. In context and with reason it becomes something else altogether. Actually becoming a Christian has changed my beliefs about this life considerably and I much prefer the person I am now compared to what I was.Also, I don't just believe that it is the Bible. I think God works through all of us and becoming a Christian seems to have made me more open to hearing Him. But we all have a personal morality. It is the source of that morality that is the issue. I don't see it as cherry picking. I see it as taking the whole Bible in context, and as a Christian with a view of understanding the whole metanarrative through the Gospel message of Jesus, Then with reason I believe that the truth is there to be had. It won't be truth as we see in 2+2=4, but more philosophical in nature. It is early Jewish mythology which doesn't mean that the writer didn't intend to take it literally. It is a bit though like Jesus telling the story of the "Good Samaritan". He meant it literally which is not to say that He meant that it actually happened that way. I originally became a Christian largely due to the influence of C S Lewis. Now however if I want to reason out my faith, and I agree that my thinking is circular, I start with the resurrection and work out from there. If there is no resurrection there is no Christianity. I have read a number of debates on the issue and I am convinced of the truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Once I have that on board I can go from there and come to conclusions about how the Bible should be understood. I see the NT as being historical although not without error in the details, such as different timing on events etc. ..... or something that is.

No. It is a matter of how the Bible should be understood. For example there are stories of God telling His people that they are to slaughter every living thing in another community. If we see this as a telling of the story of the Jewish people, written by Jews of that period with their personal and cultural biases, then we can understand it as them justifying their acts by attributing their motivation for it to God. If God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow then we can feel confident that it was not God commanding them. If we read the Bible as a metanarrative with Jesus as the "Word of God" we can see that genocide is completely contrary to what God would have us do. The fact that there probably aren't two theists on the planet who would agree completely on everything concerning God. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to get as clear a picture as we can. In the end though there is an ultimate truth which presumably we will get a clearer picture of in the next life. I don't think that any holy text should have absolute authority. Our beliefs as individuals and as societies should be freely chosen. It works for us to the north of you as well. I agree. I think we should always question or we never understand. It is just that sometimes the Christian faith makes the Bible the focus of their faith and worship. I think that this often coincides with a belief that it is belief of a specific doctrine that makes you right with God as opposed to a humble, just and loving heart. IMHO God is a god that wants us to freely choose the way that is characterized by a humble loving justice. To give us book that He dictated so that everything would be conclusive runs contrary to the concept of a way of life freely chosen.

I recently finished "The Evolution of God" by Robert Wright. I understand the argument that you are making but even Wright concedes that this whole process could be driven by some intelligent prime mover. There is no doubt that culture does create god(s) in the image that suits them but that doesn't preclude the idea that there is an intelligent deity that by continually working through human minds and human imagination is refining our understanding of Him and His desires for our lives. Just because the Bible isn't transcribed word for word by God doesn't mean it isn't sacred. I do believe that God inspired people to right down their stories, and their beliefs which would include inspired truths about the true nature of God. Sure these writings that are both personally and culturally conditioned would include that which is part of their story but not of God. I don't see this as the place for it but I have read several debates on the concept of the bodily resurrection and agree that there are arguments on both sides. I find the pro argument more persuasive. Those against basically start with the premise that it isn't possible and start on that basis.Mohamed is supposed to have ascended spiritually as opposed to dying and coming back in a resurrected body. I had never heard of Genghis Kahn being resurrected and even after googling around I still haven't heard of it except from you. Wiki doesn't mention it. Of course, but if God does exist then we should probably have more than a passing interest in his nature. I agree. In some ways though we might disagree with what it means to be fallible. For example in recent history we had the Viet Nam war. If you were to read the account of the war as told in an American history book and then compared it to a Vietnamese history book you would likely find significant differences. They likely infallibly display the writer's POV but they are likely both not completely accurate depictions of what actually transpired.

Actually when you look at the world today as opposed to even relatively recent history people of different faiths are much more integrated than they have ever been. Yes, there are those that rub each other the wrong way and we wind up with problems, but primarily we are living next door to each other and we get along.God's message of love, peace and the Good Samaritan is taking hold. There is a clear trajectory throughout the Bible pointing away from slavery and the place regressive attitude towards women in society. We think of slavery as we knew it in the UK and the US. Slavery at the time of Christ was quite different and it wasn't for life. You can take specific quotes from Paul written to specific churches but in other places you see Paul talking about women in leadership positions in the church. Sure I already had moral instincts. We all do. As far as my becoming a Christian is concerned there is no argument I can make that is cause anyone to think differently about it. It is my own experience which doesn't mean anything to anyone else but things just changed for me. True. Morality exists and there is no empirical evidence to tell us whether we have morality from a moral prime mover or if it just developed through totally natural materials. Are conclusions are completely subjective. The Hebrew Scriptures is the story of the early Jews written for the world. Abraham was to be the father of many nations. Jesus was the fulfillment of those scriptures. Jesus said that love of God and neighbour was the basis for all the laws and the prophets. It isn't just cherry picking.If God were to make everything crystal clear we would be losing our opportunity to freely choose the way He wants us to go. We have choices to make in this life. We choose selfish love or unselfish love and we don't empirically know if it really makes any difference to us or in the long run to humanity.