Do Christians Worship Different Gods?

As I mentioned, my favourite theologian is N T Wright He often says in his talks that he believes that about 1/3 of what he says is wrong but the problem is that he doesn't know which third it is. If you want absolutes then theology is definitely not the field for you. You seem to want a god(s) where you can go for specific answers to specific questions and a god(s) who will give you a specific list of rules and regulations.If God was that kind of god it would be a very different world. In my view the God that actually exists is one who wants us to choose Him freely. He has breathed life into us and given us the freedom to make our choices. It is like raising our own children. We love them, feed them, house them etc with the goal that will grow up in the way that we want them to, but we also raise them to be free to come to their own conclusions about life which may be very different than our own. Theology is not an exact science, but I believe that we continue to learn, just like raising children. My belief is that God has created us with the hope and expectation that we will respond to the concept of unselfish love, that we will find joy in the joy of others and suffer when others suffer. He has given us hearts that are able to understand that choice and respond freely to it.Frankly I contend that God has made it clear. I think that most people from the time they are quite young basically know that unselfish love is what we should aspire to, but it is so easy to take the other route and make your life one of "looking out for number one".I think that is the basic and clear message of God. Theology is in my view the study of how God has interacted, continues to interact with and will interact with the world in the future. It is also the study of ways that we God wants us to put our unselfish love into practice. (ie: stories like the Good Samaritin or the Prodigal Son.) I could try paraphrasing what N T Wright says in this 4 min video clip on the subject but I wouldn't do it justice so I'll give you the link to it. N T Wright on slavery and sexismFor some reason most of what I read is written by your fellow Brits. People like N T Wright, John Polkinghorne and Alister McGrath. On the other side I don't particularly enjoy Dawkins but I find Chris Hitchens a much better read. (Hopefully he can beat this cancer.)

But you are describing a God that I don't believe in either. I find so often that atheists on this forum keep reverting back to this straw man. It isn't a matter of following a set of laws. It is about what we choose. Here is a quote from C S Lewis.

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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.

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We know when we are acting and thinking selfishly. We know when we do things that benefit ourselves at the expense of others. The more our lives are about these things, the more selfishness just becomes who we are. Of course the converse is also true. The more we act and think unselfishly the more that becomes who we are. In the end those that choose selfishness will choose Hell and want no part of the other alternative.We all have a yearning for justice and this allows for justice to be done. I'll give you an example. A number of years ago very near to where I live a young boy named Michael Dunahee was abducted. The person who abducted him has never been apprehended and Michael has never been found. There is no justice for either the abductor or for Michael.However, it is hard to imagine a more selfish act than an act like this. I can't imagine this person as a person who would seek joy by bringing joy to others and as a result I can't see this person as choosing anything but Hell. It also gives Michael justice in that he has the opportunity to make his own choice. I do believe in an eternal justice, but not one based on getting your doctrine right and not on one that has you following a certain set of laws that will get you onto the right side of God. If it was like that it would not be an existence freely chosen and I do believe in a God that will honour our choices. No, we allow them to make their own choices as God does with us.Again I’ll just repeat my favourite Bible verse that I believe encapsulated the message that God would have us hear.
Micah 6:8

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He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God

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You want the direction that God wants you to take spelled out for clearly. I don’t see how it can get much clearer than that. Of course it isn’t a direction that involve a set of laws it is a direction for your heart.Edited by GDR, : I actually do know the difference between hear and here.

Just curious. How do you interpret the OT stories of a God advocating the slaughter of whole communities? What is the message that we should receive from stories like that?I'm not sure how much of this thread you've read but in the end iano and I came to the conclusion that essentially we worship different gods. I think we're singing from the same hymn book. It's great to have company. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

Look, the Bible is a series of books written by people inspired to write their stories. The NT is primarily the teachings of Jesus, the narrative of his ministry, death and resurrection and the letters of the early church. It isn't something that God has transcribed as a book of rules and regulations but a book that we have so we can better understand God and what He wants of us. You keep wanting some kind of human legal system that keeps you on the right side of the law.It just doesn't work like that. Sure we have the Bible but we also have an understanding of good and evil, fairness and unfairness, justice and injustice, selfishness and unselfishness etc built into us. You clearly know these things. How much clearer can it be? It isn't about keeping a set of laws to avoid punishment it is about instinctively choosing unselfishness and rejecting selfishness. We can if we want choose a life based on selfishness. It's our choice. I really recommend The Great Divorce - a wiki summary by C S Lewis. I don't pretend to know whether or not there are choices to be made after physical death but my point is that if someone chooses hell shouldn't God honour that choice? Look at the model of Jesus in the NT. One of His last acts was to wash the disciples feet which was an act normally performed by the lowest of servants. He made statements like the last shall be first and the first last. There are always going to be those whose pride would make an eternity in that environment intolerable. Why would a loving God force them to endure that? Let them to carry on with their pride and lust for power and influence into an existence based on that. The next life IMHO just becomes an extension of this life. If we choose to live a life based on selfishness in this life it has consequences and I don't mean in a legal sense. I contend that when you look at people who are always grasping for more wealth, power and influence looking for self gratification that there is never contentment in their lives. There is never a point when it is enough. They have created and chosen their own Hell and as I say, God will honour that choice. I don't pretend to have all the answers but I see it this way. Hell is separation from God and we are the architects of our own hell.I don't see the message and story of Christianity as something inspired by God so that we can individually avoid Hell. It is I believe a true faith that is intended to inspire its followers to a life that is based on humbly loving kindness, mercy and justice and then in turn that passing that message to the world by word but primarily through our actions. IMHO God would probably give His church a failing grade. Just the same the church is responsible for huge amounts of relief etc to the third world as well as things like food banks etc in our communities. (I'm not suggesting that all food banks etc are faith based but a good many are.)Edited by GDR, : No reason given.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

First off Buzz you only answered the part about the genocide and discarded the other pagan attributes of the god that you believe in.Frankly however I find the part you did answer very strange. Firstly you claim that God wanted the people he loved to engage in the slaughter of women and children. This is the God we call Father. Now as we are created in His image I have to assume that you would be quite content to see your children or grandchildren go into some town in Iraq and by their own hands slaughter the men, women and children of that town. The fact that this would no doubt scar them for life I have to assume would be inconsequential. I believe in a God that actually cares for us.Following that of course we can get into more modern times and look at Jewish history since the OT period. We have to remember that these are the people chosen by God to be the carriers of His truth to the world; the people God loved. By your understanding then God has allowed the nation He loved to be persecuted throughout the world, culminating in the holocaust just so that the western world would exhibit mercy and create a nation for them. Well Buzz I may not have your years of experience studying the Bible trying to discern hidden meanings that don't exist, and not seeing the forest for the treesThe problem with the early Jews as we see it evidenced in the OT stories is that they continuously allowed paganism to seep into their worship of Yahweh. They kept trying to turn Yahweh into a warrior king like the gods they saw their pagan neighbours worshipping. It was all about land and power. Still God kept trying to bring them back to be a people that would reflect His love to the world but they kept on insisting that He would be with them conquering their neighbours.They also, like you kept trying to pin Him down. They created laws that came from their own ideas so that they would be able to have definite answers. You have decided that the Bible is essentially dictated by God. You have no grounds for doing that whatsoever. You just want the Bible to read that way so you can announce that you have this inside track to God and then announce things like the ludicrous suggestion that God deliberately caused a storm to devastate Joplin Mo. because Obama hadn’t supported Israel the way you figured he should have.I suggest to you that you are allowing pride to cloud your thinking and you are doing exactly what the early Jews kept doing, which was to allow paganism to form their image of God. A god that utilizes genocide and slaughter, a god that wants difficult children and people that someone decides have broken Sabbath laws etc to be communally stoned to death is a pagan god. It is not the God that commands us to love our neighbour. It is not the God that Jesus called Father. It is not the God I worship.It all reminds me of a line in a song by Don Francisco which is, it doesn’t matter that you know the Bible if it’s all just in your head — the thing I need to ask you is have you done the things I said? You may have a lot of knowledge of the words of the Bible but I humbly suggest that you have little understanding of it. But then of course I’m just a novice.....

Thanks for the really well thought out posts. (Honestly, I'm not just trying to butter you up here. )I agree that we can't claim justification for our morality from the Bible as we can see that iano and others seem to be able to understand it in such a way that they justify a god who sanctions genocide.However, you also say that we don't need a god to tell us right from wrong. My point would be that He already has. It is my view that this understanding of right and wrong is part of the basic human nature which comes from God. Obviously that is just my subjective opinion and others hold the subjective opinion that the idea of right and wrong is something that developed through cultural or social means. To believe the latter though does require us to believe that morality has developed from a non-moral, and by extension non-intelligent, source. That just seems to me to be unlikely.In the end we don't actually know whether we know right from wrong because of God or not, but I agree that we get to decide how we shape the reality that we experience. IMHO that is the freedom that God has given us.

But that would change the whole character or nature of God, (at least how I understand Him). It is about that which is freely chosen.We know that robbing a bank isn't the right thing to do, but what if we knew that there was zero chance of being caught if we did. What God wants is that we would choose not to commit the robbery just because we know that is right and that is the kind of person He wants us to be.Another example would be in the case where we see somebody drop a 50 dollar bill in the parking lot and then get into their car to drive off. We all know that the right thing to do is to pick it up and return it to them. However, do we just wait for them to drive off and put it in our pocket?God wants us to choose the right thing just because it is the right thing. He wants us to choose unselfish love and reject selfish love. It isn't about keeping the law because we are afraid of the consequences but about keeping the law because it is the right thing. God simply wants us to humbly love kindness and do justice. I suggest that the Bible is very clear unless you insist on reading it in a manner that was never intended the way Buzsaw does. I’ve mentioned it before that non-theists on the forum are very critical of those Christians that insist on reading the Bible as if it were dictated word for word by God, but then when they argue against it insist that is the only way of reading it. How clear does Jesus have to be? Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, the separating of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, read Micah 6:8 in the OT. Sure there are human aberrations in the Bible but the common strand through the whole thing is that God is a loving God and He desires us to be a loving people. Like I said, if we see someone drop a 50 dollar bill in the parking lot and don't return it to them but keep it for ourselves we know that we have chosen selfishness over unselfishness. That is a choice. You keep insisting on a literal reading of the Bible. I don't pretend to have all the answers but I see it this way. For those who desire to love unselfishly, who find joy in the joy of others, who are quick to forgive would find Hell in a world where the other inhabitants are concerned with looking out for number one. For those who want to get ahead even at the cost of others, who enjoy controlling others, who are untouched by, or even find a certain satisfaction in the suffering of those who oppose them and are quick to take revenge when they can, would find their Hell in a world where the leader of that world is one whose idea of leadership is to wash the feet of his followers. My point though was for people like that it is impossible to find contentment because enough is never enough. I also suggest that life with God would be a misery and Hell would be a place where they can carry on with like thinking people. Without Hell there is no free will. I'll repeat a story I told earlier. Twenty years ago a little boy named Michael Dunahee was abducted from a park in the area in which I live. There has never been a trace found of him. The perpetrator of this horrendous crime has never been caught. Where is the justice for this man and where is the justice for little Michael. I believe that in the end justice will be done. It isn’t that the perpetrator would be assigned to Hell but it is that he will have chosen it because as I say an eternity with a God of love would be intolerable. Micah 6:8

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8 He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God.

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Matthew 12:7

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If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent.

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It isn't that difficult to understand. It is about having an unselfish worldview rather than a selfish one. If unselfishness is chosen for reward it is no longer unselfish. What appears to be unselfish is then actually done for selfish reasons.I think I’m running out of ways to say the same thing differently.

Don't forget that God is asking is that we humbly love justice. We aren't always going to get things right but we are to conduct our affairs with kindness and fairness as our motivation.The thing is Modulous you are looking for specific answers. Frankly I don't think anyone at any time thought that stoning someone to death was kind. They may have thought that the pagan god they were serving wanted them to do it, but I don't believe that they would ever suggest it was kind.The case for deliberating ending the life of a terminally ill patient is a much better example. My point would be that it is possible to hold either position and be kind, (unselfish love), or conversely be able to hold either position selfishly. It is the point I keep trying to make. It isn't that you choose one or the other, it is that God wants our choice to be made out of kindness or unselfish love. They get written that way because people over the centuries want clear unambiguous specific answers to questions. The world isn't always a clear unambiguous place. If everyone operated from a worldview or mindset of unselfish love then we could come to consensus on specifics. Absolutely. Christians are just as human as anybody else. There are all sorts of moral questions that I haven't been able to resolve.For example: What are we to make of the killing of Osama bin Laden? Was it revenge or justice?
Was it good or evil? What would God make of it? How would God want me to think of it?
My own reaction at the time was that it was justified and so it seemed that justice had been done. Again on one level that sounds and seems right, but at the same time I felt a sense of sadness. I wondered if the world had been made a better place for what had been done, or had something been lost?As Canadians for the last several years we have had our young people killing and dying in Afghanistan. Was it kind? Was it just? I find the answer incredibly ambiguous. Certainly there is good in that in some areas of the country women are being educated, and people have more freedom which is just and good. On the other hand innocents are dying. What would Jesus do?The only thing I do know is that in the end the only final victory in all of these things will come about from a position of love and kindness and that, again as my favourite theologian says, if you fight evil with evil then evil is bound to win.

I understand your point that if we all have a God given sense of right or wrong then what does it matter whether or not He actually exists or not.I don't see it as simple as that. If my beliefs are anywhere close to the truth then it makes a point. For one thing we know that there is a point to our existence. We all know that life on this planet is finite even if it means waiting until the sun burns out. If there is no God, then when the end comes there will not even be a memory left. However if God exists then it means there is an ultimate purpose even if we don't understand it completely. Humans in general feel a need for purpose and so I contend that seeing an ultimate purpose provides hope that we wouldn't otherwise have.Here is a C S Lewis quote.

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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

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I also contend that if the Christian message is correct we understand that the very fact that we have the ability to choose kindness instead of cruelty, justice instead of injustice etc is not solely based on our own merits. We have been the ability to make that choice and if there is a pre-existing morality then we should have a more humble attitude when we do choose to act kindly or justly. But where did the morality that provided the basis for that blood and will power come from? If we are nothing more than material beings,with nothing more than material origins why would morality even be construed as being a good thing? I look at my very existence as a gift from God. If that is correct then I have to see that as not only life changing but life giving. Edited by GDR, : Actually proof read it after it was quoted. Ugh

But it isn't a threat. He lets us choose. I'll repeat this C S Lewis quote.

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"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. "

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He inspired people to write their stories as they understood them. He didn't dictate the stories to them. But He did. He said that He was the fulfillment of the laws and the prophets. He then said that the great commands of loving God and loving your neighbour is the basis for all the laws and the prophets. The atrocities you mentioned don't fit into that category. OK, I'll try another approach by quoting C S Lewis again. In the last of the Narnia books, (The Last Battle) there is a story that metaphorically talks about the end of time in which a soldier of Tash, (a satanic figure) named Emeth in the belief that he is serving Tash enters into the Kingdom of Aslan. (The Christ figure.)

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So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable tree till lo! In a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like an ostrich, and his size was an elephant’s; his hair was like pure gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was more terrible than the Flaming Mountain of Langour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert.

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Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.

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But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.

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Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.

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Dost thou understand , Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.

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In the end it's all about who and what we love, and where we find joy. It seems to me that an entire civilization where everyone is busily looking out for him or herself sounds like Hell to me. Mind you misery loves company. Even when they don't want it? "The Great Divorce" by C S Lewis is a short and easy read. I really suggest you try it. If you e-mail me, (my e-mail address is in my info) with your name and address I'll have amazon.co.uk send you a copy. Cheers

I know what you're saying and I admit that life that has an ultimate meaning does bring a measure of comfort. But why should it? If we really are just a random collection of atoms and molecules why would we care whether there was an ultimate purpose or not, or find comfort in the idea?I'll take the liberty of repeating that quote by C S Lewis.

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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

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If Lewis is right and the universe has meaning, we pretty much have to conclude that there is more to our existence than just what we physically perceive as we know that at some point, even though it might be millions of years away this place isn't going to exist. I have gone back and fixed up the paragraph you quoted. Somehow I missed proof reading it. I can't believe that you could even understand what I was talking about. I don't accept that as a god of the gaps argument. Let's talk abiogenesis and say that a scientist someday well put together the right assortment of ingredients in a petri dish and create life. All that will show is that if in a strictly material world it is conceivable that by random good fortune those materials came together and then continued to combine through an evolutionary process to create life as we know it. The thing is though that science cannot tell us whether or not those ingredients came together as a result of a pre-existing intelligence or not.We have a pretty good understanding of the evolutionary process but all that we can know is what happened. We cannot know whether there was any adjustment to the process along the way nor can we know whether or not there was an intelligence that designed the process from the get go. I'm not sure that morality is necessary for the existence of intelligence and sentience. I think that it is a legitimate question to try and understand why morality, sentience and intelligence exist. Just because the conclusion is subjective doesn't mean that it is wrong whether it be your conclusion or mine. We are all just looking for truth the best way we know how.

I agree but I have been saying all along, and particularly in the post that you are replying to, that often the answers are ambiguous. What I am saying though is that if people agree that mercy, forgiveness, love, kindness, justice etc is the goal you have a pretty good basis on which to start a discussion about the right thing to do.

You keep telling us who Jesus wasn't jar. I'm wondering who you think he was. How do you understand incarnation for example?
Was He a prophet? Was He the Messiah and how do you understand that? Son of God?

I contend that we do choose who we are to become and that it is a fair choice. Every time we commit an act of selfishness it makes the next act of selfishness that much easier and that much more natural. Conversely, every time we act unselfishly we may the next act of unselfishness become that much easier and natural.God has given us the innate knowledge of the difference between good and evil or selfishness and unselfishness. We know that without having to refer to any holy text. We can see in this life the ramifications of our selfish and unselfish acts. We can see how our selfishness can bring sorrow to others and how our unselfishness can bring joy to others.We establish a trajectory in our lives towards selfishness or unselfishness and it is very difficult to turn that ship around, but it can be done and I believe that one of the ways of turning around is that God's spirit will be an agent to help us in that.In the end though, through a series of many choices in our lives establish who we are.I understand Hell as separation from God. I don't pretend to know what that would look like.I believe that God is merciful, that God is forgiving, that God is loving and that God is just. No I don't have all of the answers in absolute terms, but because I believe in these attributes of God I also believe that in the end there will be a perfectly just and loving conclusion. I'm just going to have to wait to see what that looks like, but in the mean time all I can do is try and work with God in making the little bit of creation that I control, namely my body, something that is humbly kind and just. (I have a long way to go but I'm a work in progress. ) It isn't a guessing game. We do know the difference between good and evil. The world has a different view of slavery now that it did in the 1st century world. Slavery wasn't for life, it was a way of paying off debts, it wasn't necessarily racially based and it actually meant that many were looked after when they had no other means of support. It was very different from the despicable slave trade of our more recent ancestors. It was to a large extent Christians such as Wilberforce and Newton that brought about the end of it.

Thanks jar Yes but all of the other would be messiahs were put to death which brought an abrupt end to their career. Yes the messiah was to be the anointed one of God and I also agree that the vast majority of first century Jews believed that the messiah would be one who would lead them in battle and restore them as top dog. However there is a different idea of the messianic figure throughout the Hebrew scriptures and particularly in Isaiah 53. (The suffering servant)So essentially I suggest that Jesus did fit a messianic thread through the Hebrew scriptures which I agree is a lot easier to put together in hind sight, but I believe that Jesus understood this from the scriptures. I'm partially on board with that. We would agree that anything like the idea that Jesus was just God and not man does a complete disservice to Him and His message. I have no doubt that Jesus saw Himself as Messiah. Consider His response to John the Baptist when He talks about the blind receiving sight etc and quotes Isaiah 35. I suggest that He also understood that through Him as Messiah that God the Father was revisiting the Jewish people. I believe that He understood that in the tradition of the Temple that He, Jesus, was the embodiment of God.The Temple was the place where the Jews believed God could be encountered, sacrificed to and find forgiveness. Jesus was walking around forgiving sins and saying things like I desire mercy not sacrifice. I agree that at the time of Christ these terms were messianic terms and didn't imply any kind of divinity. However, I believe that early on, after the resurrection the title Son of God as given to Jesus did imply a divine nature. I think that the title Son of Man did imply more. It does talk about an everlasting dominion that the Son of Man would rule over, but that still could be construed to be messianic and someone who has divine authority given to them by the divine. I don't think that He revised it as much as that He understood it differently than the vast majority of His countrymen. I absolutely agree that He rejected the idea of revolutionary change but I don't see it as being just about the afterlife. I think His message was more about the present and immediate future in that He was establishing the Kingdom of God in the present that would run to and into the New Creation that God will establish whenever it is that time as we presently experience it comes to an end. I think we agree on this. I don't see Jesus as walking around thinking of the good times with the Father at the creation of the world. I do think that He was aware that God worked through Him in ways that God didn't work through anyone else. I also think that He went to the cross in act of faith that His understanding of what He received in prayer and His understanding of the scriptures was actually correct, and that He hadn't made some horrible blunder.Cheers