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Author Topic:   Do Christians Worship Different Gods?
GDR
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Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 1 of 2 (629612)
08-18-2011 11:25 PM


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:
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
However Jesus says in Matthew 6 vs 14:
quote:
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
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:
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people." 3 So Moses said to the people, "Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the LORD's vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel." 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. 7 They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man.8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba--the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder.10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps.11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals,12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army--the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds--who returned from the battle. 15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
And what does Jesus say in Matthew 5:
quote:
43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
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:
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
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.

Adminnemooseus
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Message 2 of 2 (629621)
08-18-2011 11:59 PM


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Thread copied to the Do Christians Worship Different Gods? thread in the Bible Study forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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