Do Christians Worship Different Gods?

Do you have ANY idea at all what it means to be a CHRISTian? And what being born agian actually means?Do have any concept or idea at all what the Bible teaches about being Saved? Have you ever read the Bible?Are you a Christian and if so how is it that you think you need to be born again over and over and over?

Yes I am a Christian so you may as well get used to it.Yes I have read the Bible, many, many times.Yes I have helped start new parishes and build churches and teach kids and adult Sunday School.Yes I am the direct product of an education in a Christian School.Yes I know how the concepts of "Being Born Again" and "Getting Saved" are marketed in much of Christianity and quite frankly, it seems to be just silly at best and more likely both dishonest and making God look really dumb and evil.The reason that I know I must be born again, over and over is based on several things. The first is that I understand that Jesus was never a Christian, he was a Jew.Jesus was a Jew and so he understood the concept in the Jewish tradition.Jesus knew that no one is saved until after the die and are judged. It is only then, after you are dead, that you will ever find out whether or not you have been saved.Jesus understood that each year you are given a chance to start anew, to try again, to try to fix what you broke. It is a continuous effort of honest evaluation of your behavior, acknowledging your failures, repenting those failures, trying to make amends and trying to not make the same errors in the future.That is one reason I can say with a pretty high confidence level that even though both of us are Christians, I do not worship the God you seem to market.

Jesus came to die for all. It's in the Bible. 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.

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1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.2 Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done."7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.11 For God does not show favoritism.12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 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. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

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Here is the sheep and the goats story from Mathew 25.

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31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

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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:

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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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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.

Sorry! I outlined in Message 14 where I think you're going wrong; 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. Well, that's kind of a loaded question for me. I am an atheist. I don't believe in, like or approve of Christianity, so there is no way I think a Christian ought to approach the Bible, since I cannot say that anyone ought to be Christian.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. 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. 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? 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. I can agree with all of that. Except for the Canadian bit. Everyone knows that God has the voice of David Attenborough. 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. 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.Mutate and Survive

Hi Granny 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Is there some insurmountable difficulty for you in reconciling the furious wrath of God against sin with the love of God? I mean, the same Jesus who spoke of loving your enemies also warned of the wrath to come. Where there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Where there would be a casting out into outer darkness.He was certainly hinting at the idea that he and his (Old Testament) Father were one.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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.

I recall a Paul Hogan movie, post-Dundee, where God sounded like Charleton Heston.But I rather think that it makes a lot of sense for Him to sound like David Attenborough as He tries to get them to pull their noses out of that old book and let Him share with them the really neat stuff He did with Nature.

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.

GDR writes:

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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.

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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.

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Which is why I asked if there was an insurmountable difficulty in reconciling a God who is wrath against sin with a God who is love.I myself don't see it as as you suggest one must: God this way today and that way tomorrow - as if God can only be either one or the other. Rather, I see a God who is always holy (where holiness is in part defined by the reaction we see God as having towards unholiness in the Old Testament) and always loving (where 'always loving' is in part defined by his being patient and merciful towards rebels to a degree). I say 'to a degree': where patience and mercy in the face of rebellion are never-ending, there is only sentimentality and a permanent affront to holiness.-

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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.

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Okay. You've got no problem with sinners being cast into Hell. You should have no problem with sinners being removed from life once God deems their answer to the question "with or without God" has been given. Everyone is removed from the game by God at some point.So where the problem with God wiping out a lot of sinners in one place at one time (you call it genocide).Which boundary do you think he is stepping over precisely?

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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?

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Where the Psalmist speaks out of his heartfelt joy on account of the love-of-God-experienced I see a person speaking from out of themselves. And God as having inspired the Psalmist to recount this experience rather than the contents of his shopping list that day.I have no justification for taking this view other than that other views (which demand that I myself judge whether this piece of information or that piece of information is God's description of himself) ensure I will make a god in my own image an likeness.God isn't diminished at all in his love by his being wrath against sin. Indeed, the furiousness of his hatred of sin deepens an appreciation of the extent of a love which chose to stand in the way of wrath so that we might not face it.

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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.

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See above. I agree it's not dictated word for word. I just don't go anywhere near as far as you in supposing a multitude of utterly inaccurate descriptions of God being permitted entryEdited by iano, : No reason given.

HI GDR, Only because you've decided that it is. One could just as easily construct a "meta-narrative" from unconnected works of secular philosophy. I doubt very much that most of the Bible's authors would agree with your analysis. And in doing this, you are doing exactly what you advise against; taking the Jewish scriptures out of the context in which they were written. Out of interest, what would you do if the morality of the NT were to let you down? Through which filter are we supposed to view the (frequent) moral failings of the NT? Okay, fair enough. What specific insights do you think that the Bible has to offer that secular philosophers and other religions don't have? Of course the universe is finely tuned. What else could it look like? Seriously though, we could see some evidence of the supernatural. Any evidence at all, even a tiny bit. Instead we see natural forces operating devoid of any obvious controlling intellect. I'm sorry, but to me, that just sounds like you're giving up on the whole Problem of Evil, just assuming that there must be a satisfying answer even though you can't think of it. I could never be satisfied with that. That's pretty much what I'm saying too. I just find it far more suspicious than you do that these gods are so much in the image of their worshippers.There exists an interesting piece of research on this topic. Here's a bit from one of my old posts;

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Religious believers tend to think that God's beliefs are uncannily similar to their own beliefs. Here's an extract from the excellent Not Exactly Rocket Science blog;

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Psychological studies have found that people are always a tad egocentric when considering other people's mindsets. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colours their final conclusions. {Nicholas} Epley found that the same process happens, and then some, when people try and divine the mind of God. Their opinions on God's attitudes on important social issues closely mirror their own beliefs. If their own attitudes change, so do their perceptions of what God thinks. They even use the same parts of their brain when considering God's will and their own opinions.

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This leaves God looking suspiciously like an internet sockpuppet, that just agrees with whatever the believer thinks. The really damning thing is that by manipulating the test subjects in order to change their opinions (by exposing them to strong or weak arguments for an issue), Epley found that "God's" opinion appeared to shift as well. Essentially, if a believer asks "What would Jesus do?" they are really asking "What would I do?".

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Original paper here;

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Just a moment...

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Discussion here;

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It's well worth a look, not least becasue it may help to explain why Christians seem to worship all these different gods. Absolutely.Although I can't help but feel that if the number one head honcho of the universe really did send us a message, that it would be reasonable to expect it to be more useful and reliable and less ignorant and contradictory than the Bible. If the Bible were truly divine, there is a way in which I feel that we ought to be able to read it as the fundies do. Of course reality gets in the way of that, but I just can't imagine why God would obfuscate instead of giving us something truly authoritative. This leaves you in a bit of a pickle, doesn't it? If the If the NT is accurate and Jesus is divine, then you have your moral filter, through which to interpret the OT.On the other hand, if the NT is merely a human document and the claims of a divine Son of God are bogus, your moral filter is broken.You seem to be left in a position where you must assume the truth of the NT or your analysis just falls apart. And for that you have my profound respect. I both agree and disagree with this. People have done that, but plenty of the nastiness in the OT is precisely as it was intended to be. The authors did not give instructions on killing unruly children because they wanted people to love each other. They wrote that because they wanted people to kill unruly children. they thought that was the right thing to do. You can accuse modern Christians who might support that notion (and there exists a tiny minority who might) of being cruel monsters, but you can't accuse them of taking the instruction out of context. They're viewing exactly in context. You are the one who is taking it out of context, by insisting that we interpret the OT through the NT. I think that is incredibly naive. Jesus articulated next to nothing about women's rights. If he had, he might have changed the world for the better. Instead he was more or less silent on the subject. Virginia Wolfe he ain't. And Paul is an outright misogynist bastard. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest failings of the NT and one of the surest ways to see that the morality of the NT is not divine, but merely of its time and culture. When I last checked, there were hundreds of different Christian churches, each with their own idiosyncratic ideas about what God wants. I'd say that there are a great many competing Gods out there. That is a fine notion, but when you take a close look at it, it tells us that the religious book we choose or the God we follow doesn't really matter at all. All that matters is being good. That's all well and good, but it leaves the idea of laying claim to any particular faith looking somewhat pointless.Perhaps you're not a Christian after all. Perhaps you're a Baha'i. Mutate and Survive

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. )

Where are you getting that from? What scripture verses? That part about being born again over and over...Jesus wasn't a Christian? You do know that Christian stands for Christlike? That there were no Chriatians till after Jesus left earth? Yes jar, im aware that Jesus wasnt a Christian...LOL. So? I don't care about the jewish tradition and Jesus set up the NEW testiment. You know, the Testiment that is new, not the jewish law anymore? We are under grace now, not the law. You know? Wow, that is umm, silly to say the least. Im not laughing at you don't worry. Im feel bad for you that you are stuck in this dimension of evolution, saved after we die, starting churches when you think that we are saved after we die, etc etc. you are one confused individual.Tell me jar, if we are saved after we die(or not) why did Jesus die for us here on earth? What was the point? So we can guess what happens but not really know? 100% wrong. We are saved thru what Jesus did for us on the cross, period. Nothing to do with us or works. Huge fail. Well, I actually agree with this. We definitly do not worship the same God or savior.BTW, what is your definition of a Christian? How does one become a Chriatian in your mind?Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

GDR writes

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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?

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I don't see the idea of that not being an aspect of the God I worship as sentimentality.

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This 'another approach' involves posing my question to me: can I reconcile a God who is wrath against sin with a God who is merciful towards sinners? Let's see.Firstly. The wars today aren't (imo) wars directed by God in order that the kinds of issues that would impact on combatants today could be said to apply in a God-directed war.Consider a mindset in which righteousness figured uppermost and in which God was considered to always be acting justly - would that mindd suffer the same trauma as the mind devoid of those supports? How much of the trauma of war comes from doubts about the justness of the fight one is engaged in? What effect would killing a family have on you if lurking at the back of your mind was the notion that this war could possibly be about oil or other self-interest?Consider a mind that has God actually instruct in order that doubts re: righteousness-of-action are removed. Some might jump on the comparison but suppose the mindset that of a Kamikaze pilot: completely sold out on the cause of the Emperor.The issue centers on God's justness: if his killing of men, women and children is a just act then I don't see the insurmountable problem for one who is committed to following God and his decrees. Do you consider his slaughtering a nation unjust? If so, why so (bearing in mind them all sinners AND God effectively killing every other man, woman and child who has ever been killed right up to the present day)? Which (as I asked before) boundary do you think God have crossed here?-

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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".

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You point to Jesus as a model of love but appear to gloss over the rather severe langauge he uses when it comes to the fate of the unrighteous. Indeed, if Hell and warnings about same are your subject of interest, Jesus is the person who speaks about it the most.-

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Sure, he is writing in his words of his joyful experience of a loving God.

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...with God being the one to inspire the experience such that it could be written about. And God ensuring that account found it's place in scripture rather than a list of the contents of the psalmists shopping cart. A place for both God and man in formulating the bible thus.I can't see any basis for supposing the Old Testament writers to fill the pages with completely erroneous accounts of the nature of God - especially not if the OT and NT God can be reconciled.-

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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.

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Sure I can use the bible that way, so can you. But I am not forced to. I can take the bible OT and NT as Gods revelation of himself and can attempt to construct a model which takes account of the whole. A little bit like a good theory being able to accomodate all the observations.The alternative is to cut out whole swathes of the bible.Ultimately it's a question of whether you can juggle the whole thing or whether you find it too much of a handful and need to reduce the number of balls in the air. I don't mean to denigrate in this - if you don't feel you can model a smothin' n' smitin' God with a God of love then so be it. I find I can.Holiness, not love, would be his primary attribute in that case-

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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.

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As before, I don't imagine God to be like us - where we can only accomodate one thing or the other. Rather, I see God in his wrath hating sinners (objects of wrath) and God in his love extending mercy to sinners. If that's hard to envisage then I'd point you in the direction of the equally mind-bending notion of the Trinity.I see this world as a temporary plan-in-process. A place designed to find out whether we will chose God or not. That process results in a 'tension' or 'imbalance of forces' set up in God. Tension, because his wrath against sin can't fully be expressed due to the restraint applied by his love. His love can't fully be expressed either since sin abounds. When all is done, tension will be released: wrath will be fully expressed where appropriate and love will be free to express in fullest fashion where appropriate. God will be at 'rest'As for nuking non-Christian nations? If God directed it I'd see no problem with it. Doubtlessly he'd have a multitude of goals in so doing. I don't think I'd want to take it on myself however (unless of course, he gave an unmistakable direction).Especially not since I don't think there is any such thing as a "Christian nation" in order for there to be a "non-Christian" one.-

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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.

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Indeed. Which brings back to whether the OT God can be reconciled with the NT God. Perhaps you'll have addressed some of the specific challenges presented to your view above (e.g. how is God unjust in killing sinners)-

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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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It would seem that knowing for sure that God exists and that he has created a legal system complete with penalties and rewards didn't change a whole lot. Witness the Israelites in the desert. Sin is much deeper an affliction that can be countered with mere understanding.What's issue is Wright addressing here that I should read him for? (I've read the Great Divorce btw)