SugarOcean
¡pɹᴉǝM ʎɐʇS
Old Testament Isaiah 45 is a fascinating chapter.What happens if we all die and find out that Thor is waiting to judge us and doesn't care about repentence of any of that Christian stuff? Or any of the other thousands of god(s) that humans have worshiped?
5. "I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God I will gird you, though you have not known Me;
So to respond to your supposition, God tells us there is no other than "him". (God is not a gender. God is a holy spirit). Therefore, and there are Christians that will not agree with me and that's OK, no god nor goddess of any faith that predates Judaism and Christianity can be any other than the one God.
Perhaps, and this is my view, all the deities humans imagined for themselves and even as far back as the age of our primitive ancestors dwelling in caves, are not only the one God, but arrived in the psyche of those primitives precisely because they were so. Animism being the first link to creator. Then as we evolved into the more adept hominids so too did our focus of worship.
And with writing, from was seals, to skins, to parchment, and on unto the printing press, our advances as people and society made it appear as though our worship was bearing fruit. We emerged from the caves gradually learning how to survive more in this world, and always, always, deifying something along the way.
Whether it was the storms, the animals we hunted for food, the waters that nourished us to life, or the female power that reproduced our own kind after growing round, bleeding profusely and bringing forth a miniature replica of "us". And then was able to nourish that newborn from her own body. (There's a great book I highly recommend. "When God Was A Woman" , author Merlin Stone)
The point is, the human race has always revered something greater than ourselves because everything in our world had more power than we did.
Therefore, if I die tomorrow and Odin is standing beneath the shade of Yggdrasill and is smiling at me, I will know I have arrived to the beliefs my Norse ancestors held.
If White Buffalo Calf woman awaits, I will know I have arrived in the afterlife where the Great Spirit calls me daughter. And I return to my departed ancestors of the tribes.
When there is only one God no other god nor goddess can be any other than the one. Perhaps, and I believe this, all the deities of all peoples since our human existence began was the one leading, speaking, to us so that we can better survive here in this world of that spirits creation.
Jesus ministry was by and large shared in parables (Matthew 13:10). One parable that stands out for me is when he said, no one comes to the Father but through me. (John 14:6)
When Jesus was God incarnate, (And they shall call his name Emmanuel, meaning, "God with us" ...Matthew 1:22–23 ), I believe Jesus was saying in that verse that the source of all that is is calling parts of holy spirits being to return to the beginning, the source.
IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. [Isa. 9:6.] He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. (John 1:1-4 AMP)
When Holy Spirit (God) is source of all that is, was, or shall be, there is no thing that is any thing other than of and from Spirit. Jesus words in John 14:6 , for me, is the Holy Spirit saying all things that are of God return to God through opening to the belief in God. And that's not to believe in something set aside, elsewhere, or other. That's the invitation to realize, re-cognize, that Holy Spirit is us. We are all particles of creator living as and within human-formed.
And sin, redemption, and regeneration, per the Christian teaching? Is simply our coming to terms with who and what we are; fallible carnal human beings. We must forgive ourselves for what we have lived and know as our self. The darkness and the light. And we must forgive ourselves for what we don't like about our self. And what we've done all our life to that point of reconciling with our own ego. And then that "rebirth", regeneration, occurs because we know we are more than this.
And once we've taken a good honest strong look at our self , warts and all, which takes time, the re-birth occurs because we now know who we were and who we can become, once we reconcile ourselves to the reality that we are indwelt and always have been by that Holy Spirit because that is the source of all things, we are renewed within that new consciousness. That awakened awareness that we can be more than we were. We can be better than what we despised in ourselves. We can heal from what was done to us and what we did to others.
While Baptism is that rite, that ritual, that immersion into living water, that is psycho-spiritual in nature. (pun fully intended ) We submerge our old self that we've recognized for what he/she is, and we arise reborn, as if from the watery womb once more, to be who we now know we can become, fully realizing we are not separated from source. God, Odin, Thor, power, energy, creator. Rather, we are one with that and always have been.
The regeneration therefore is when we wake up to what we are on that cellular and spiritual level that then helps the mind transcend what was previously thought about this reality and our place in it. Which is far more than flesh can contain.
It is with regard to the fundamental Christian teachings.I mean, it's not really an either/or type of situation here.
Then again, I am not a Fundamentalist.
Now I'll close this veritable novelette. I don't like walls of text posts and here I am making one. My excuse is, I was inspired.