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The Biggest Question

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Hi........

I am not a person who is degreed in Religious Studies, but merely one who reads a lot and has been both Christian and Muslim.
Don't mind about not being degreed, Ellen. Degrees in religious studies don't seem to help scholars find their heaven or even any accurate knowledge. :)

These days my sentiments lie more closely with Islam.
OK..... each of us must follow our hearts and minds.

From my own personal experience, it seems that the Christian experience has not led toward true fear of the Creator, and love for each other.
True fear? Kindness and decency would be fulfillment enough, I reckon.
I do meet lovely Christians, but I know lovely agnostics and atheists too..... and have known lovely Hindus and Muslims.

Will I become a Jew? I don't know, because I seek only as much knowledge about the Creator as he will permit.
Ah, yes...... I searched but the roads led nowhere, I knocked but the doors were secured. I called out but the gateways were deserted. I asked but no one replied. And so I forgot about it all and just enjoyed the day with what lay around. :)
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Oh certainly! I'm always happy to help out a beginner (although I'm sure if you kept reading, you'd have found it yourself eventually).
The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. :)

It sounds like you're not interested in any of the non-Gospel scriptural references to Jesus being God (such as his name being called Immanuel--"God with us"--in Isaiah 7:14, or "Mighty God" in Isaiah 9:6)--you're only interested in Jesus portraying Himself as God or the Son of God, right?
I don't think that his friends called him Jesus, even. Certainly not Immanuel or mighty God.

So the clearest reference is probably in John 10:30, where Jesus plainly states, "I and the Father are one." I've heard some people mistakenly say that Jesus wasn't calling Himself God here; He was just saying that He and the Father were in agreement. But that's not how his Jewish audience understood Him--they took up rocks to stone Him for blasphemy! And when Jesus asked them why they would stone Him, they said, "because You, a mere Man, make Yourself [out to be] God" (v. 33). And Jesus didn't argue with them, or say, "No I don't!" because their accusation was accurate--He really was claiming to be God.
Most Deists perceive you, yourself, Axe Elf, as God, or at least a very small portion of God. But then everything is a small portion of God.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Hi........


Don't mind about not being degreed, Ellen. Degrees in religious studies don't seem to help scholars find their heaven or even any accurate knowledge. :)


OK..... each of us must follow our hearts and minds.


True fear? Kindness and decency would be fulfillment enough, I reckon.
I do meet lovely Christians, but I know lovely agnostics and atheists too..... and have known lovely Hindus and Muslims.


Ah, yes...... I searched but the roads led nowhere, I knocked but the doors were secured. I called out but the gateways were deserted. I asked but no one replied. And so I forgot about it all and just enjoyed the day with what lay around. :)

At 72 I'm coming to that conclusion.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
At 72 I'm coming to that conclusion.
A good age to be!
I am content with just 70yrs...... I will show respect to you seniors! :)

I would not go back, though. To go back to childhood with what I have learned would do me no good at all....... sitting here as 'who I am' with 'what bits I found' and 'what I know' is exactly the right time and place for me to be.

I discovered that I am and have been just a child all the way through life......... and that's ok. :)
 

Hawkins

Well-Known Member
To my understanding, Muslims regard the Trinity as Idol worship because there can be no Son of God.

So, there's the rub. Maybe I'll meet Allah SWT in honest ignorance?

What humans don't know is an exclusive way for all mankind to get to a truth of any kind. This exclusive way is called human witnessing.

======
People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is.

Human witnessing is the fundamental way for a truth of any kind to be conveyed among humans. There are several key factors in the process of human witnessing. In the end when taking a closer examination, only Christianity can be the truth, or there's no truth at all.

Under most circumstance, humans are incapable of doing direct examination of a truth (though they themselves don't realize this). They have to rely on a "middle man" to get to a truth indirectly. Our history, our science, daily events of this world all operate this way. Thus you don't need direct evidence to treat the existence of black holes as a scientific fact. 99.99% humans don't examine scientific evidence, only the 0.01% scientists do. In this case, our scientists stand as the "middle man" between a truth and the 99.99% majority of humans. The majority of humans only need to put faith in our scientists to get to a scientific truth.

Of course, we can examine the direct evidence of a scientific truth if we want to, as the nature of science is that it subjects to repeatable examinations. History however doesn't bear such a repeatable nature. We can't examine the evidence of history under most circumstances, especially about the deeds and speeches of a historical figure. The only way for us to get to the deeds and speeches of a historical figure is by putting faith in what have been written down by our past historians. This is how a historical truth can be conveyed.

Similarly for daily events of this world, we don't examine direct evidence of each occurrence. We instead put faith in our media (with reporters and journalists as the "middle man") to get to such a kind of truth.

What we actually examine is rather the credibility of the "middle man" (who is standing between the majority and the truth itself). We can get to reliable scientific results simply because our scientists are reliable "eye-witnesses" of the scientific truths. Their works are subject to repeatable examinations anyway. Similarly we can examine the works of our media of reporters and journalists if what reported are recent occurrences. We however can't query the reliability of our media, say, 100 years ago, simply because we can't examine events occurred 100 years ago to tell how reliable our "middle man" is.

That's actually why, it is generally difficult to query or question history written long ago. History is something "rare". It means that if we choose to reject what have been written due to the fact that we can't examine the credibility of both the "middle man" and the occurrences themselves, it could mean that we have no history.

Now how can we trust the Bible with its authors (the "middle man")? There is nothing better can be done when the following being done,

1) 10 out of the 12 Jesus' direct disciples (they are eye-witnesses) martyred themselves to testify the truth of Jesus.
In the ancient world, nothing can be made more credible than the "middle man" being willing to die for what has been witnessed.

2) Bible is a multiple account witnessing
One of the factors makes our media reliable is that we have multiple free media for us to do the cross-referencing. CNN, Fox News and etc. they don't report a single occurrence very differently. They may have different opinions on how this occurrence shall be explained though. Usually they are consistent in terms of reporting an incident by acquiring information from the eye-witness accounts of that incident. Say, in reporting a car accident they all say the same. However, they may have different opinions on what caused that accident. One of the reliability evaluation comes from the cross referencing of multiple accounts of these "middle men".

In the same fashion. The Bible was testified not by only one "middle man" martyred himself, but by 10 out of the 12.

3) How consistent the contents are
Human documents usually can't last across the border of paper invention. It means that under normal circumstances, after information being transplanted to their paper form, humans lost almost all the original documents which were on ancient scrolls or tablets. Thus we can't compare today's version at hand to its original version written in scrolls and tablets. We may find discrete scrolls but not the scrolls of the whole book. For an example, a history book of 1000 pages was written 2000 years ago. We can have our current version of this book in paper form. But we should have lost its original copy which is supposed in ancient scrolls. we may find some discrete pages of this book but we can't find all the 1000 pages of the same book in scrolls.

This is the usual situation of ancient human documents. However, the Bible doesn't belong to this "usual situation". We have a whole library of Dead Sea Scrolls for us to compare today's OT Bible against its ancient version in scrolls. We can be assured that the same information we read today from our OT Bible remain the same information as they were written some 2000 more years ago. This consistency is needed or otherwise it only means that "God doesn't say the same to today's humans as He said to ancient humans 2000 more years ago".

NT Bibles goes a similar route. We have plenty of ancient scrolls for us to be assured of a consistent NT. The NT scrolls may appear to be discrete, but since we have plenty of them for us humans to convey the same "gospel" consistently.

This is about the process of human witnessing from eye-witness accounts, those who martyred themselves for a truth to convey. Nothing else can be done better after the above being done, in terms of conveying a truth among human across a long history and from before the invention of paper till after.

Now Islam,

1) Mohammed is not an eye-witness of God. Moses is an eye-witness of God as he acquired his information directly from God. All the OT prophets behave this way. They are eye-witnesses of God Himself. Mohammed however claimed to hear from an angel. What he has written thus is not human accounts of witnessing but angel account of witnessing at best, and thus cannot be further backed by martyrdom of eyewitnesses. Seemingly Mohammed was clueless about what human witnessing could mean.

People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is. Mohammed didn't make a difference.

2) Quran was written after paper invention. Humans are capable of keeping documents after that point. Bible however requires the Dead Sea Scrolls as a miracle for today's humans to be assured of its consistency. There's a possible divine action involved in the case of Bible but not Quran.

3) There is an intangible guardian assigned to "protect" the contents of the holy book.
In Christianity, we can't add anything to or subtract anything from the Bible as we have a Church acting as a guardian. Mormon tried but it can't be deemed a success. God has assigned His earthly authority on earth in terms of protecting His Word. There is a process we call canonization, which was seriously and carefully done.

The first earthly authority is the Jews. Thus the Jews today are still keeping a correct OT Canon.
The second earthly authority is the Catholics. That's when the Jews failed to function as God's earthly authority. Thus the Catholics are still keeping a correct NT, but not OT Canon.
The last earthly authority is the Protestants. Thus the Protestants are keeping both a correct NT Canon and a correct OT Canon.

Again, this is another possible divine arrangement for only the Bible but not Quran. There's no such an earthly authority was assigned to guard its contents.

At last, Quran is a single account document from Mohammed alone.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
I'm Western, American, White Privilege, from po white trash roots. Once it was clear to me that there was a Creator, it was clear that pleasing him was my life task.

It seems clear that the God of Abraham, is the one. There is no intention to criticise any other belief system but they aren't for me, and my time is running out.

If I knew everything I wanted to know there would be no hesitation. Still in the early stages of reading Judaism, I can't draw any conclusions yet.

For now, for me, the biggest question is who is Jesus? Many Christians say that if I do not accept Jesus as the son of God, I will go to Hell. Sadly, those who are adamant about Jesus being the Christ, the Savior, often reject and condemn me because they don't get forgiveness due to contriteness and repentance. May the Creator have mercy. I wish that the God of Jesus had given him better representatives.

I'm most comfortable being Muslim because of the Modesty and the absolute adoration of the Creator Allah SWT. I have nothing to do with Muslims that fight and kill. Who are they? Muslims have varying ideas about Jesus (Isa Peace Be Unto Him) I think the prevailing belief is that he was the best Prophet, and came to Earth to do only the will of Allah SWT, and what Allah SWT told him to do. There may be more but that's the high points.

To my understanding, Muslims regard the Trinity as Idol worship because there can be no Son of God.

So, there's the rub. Maybe I'll meet Allah SWT in honest ignorance?

Yes, some Christians are harsh, but if you want to know who Jesus is, whom do you think you should ask, directly?
 

Axe Elf

Prophet
I don't think that his friends called him Jesus, even. Certainly not Immanuel or mighty God.

One day Jesus ran into the carpenter's shop and said, "Father? Did you call me?" And Joseph said, "No, I just hit my thumb with the hammer."

Most Deists perceive you, yourself, Axe Elf, as God, or at least a very small portion of God. But then everything is a small portion of God.

Yeah, that's not really Deism. Deists typically believe in a God that is largely separate and uninvolved in His creation. You're thinking more of pantheism. But hey, the more people who believe Jesus is God, the better!
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
What humans don't know is an exclusive way for all mankind to get to a truth of any kind. This exclusive way is called human witnessing.

======
People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is.

Human witnessing is the fundamental way for a truth of any kind to be conveyed among humans. There are several key factors in the process of human witnessing. In the end when taking a closer examination, only Christianity can be the truth, or there's no truth at all.

Under most circumstance, humans are incapable of doing direct examination of a truth (though they themselves don't realize this). They have to rely on a "middle man" to get to a truth indirectly. Our history, our science, daily events of this world all operate this way. Thus you don't need direct evidence to treat the existence of black holes as a scientific fact. 99.99% humans don't examine scientific evidence, only the 0.01% scientists do. In this case, our scientists stand as the "middle man" between a truth and the 99.99% majority of humans. The majority of humans only need to put faith in our scientists to get to a scientific truth.

Of course, we can examine the direct evidence of a scientific truth if we want to, as the nature of science is that it subjects to repeatable examinations. History however doesn't bear such a repeatable nature. We can't examine the evidence of history under most circumstances, especially about the deeds and speeches of a historical figure. The only way for us to get to the deeds and speeches of a historical figure is by putting faith in what have been written down by our past historians. This is how a historical truth can be conveyed.

Similarly for daily events of this world, we don't examine direct evidence of each occurrence. We instead put faith in our media (with reporters and journalists as the "middle man") to get to such a kind of truth.

What we actually examine is rather the credibility of the "middle man" (who is standing between the majority and the truth itself). We can get to reliable scientific results simply because our scientists are reliable "eye-witnesses" of the scientific truths. Their works are subject to repeatable examinations anyway. Similarly we can examine the works of our media of reporters and journalists if what reported are recent occurrences. We however can't query the reliability of our media, say, 100 years ago, simply because we can't examine events occurred 100 years ago to tell how reliable our "middle man" is.

That's actually why, it is generally difficult to query or question history written long ago. History is something "rare". It means that if we choose to reject what have been written due to the fact that we can't examine the credibility of both the "middle man" and the occurrences themselves, it could mean that we have no history.

Now how can we trust the Bible with its authors (the "middle man")? There is nothing better can be done when the following being done,

1) 10 out of the 12 Jesus' direct disciples (they are eye-witnesses) martyred themselves to testify the truth of Jesus.
In the ancient world, nothing can be made more credible than the "middle man" being willing to die for what has been witnessed.

2) Bible is a multiple account witnessing
One of the factors makes our media reliable is that we have multiple free media for us to do the cross-referencing. CNN, Fox News and etc. they don't report a single occurrence very differently. They may have different opinions on how this occurrence shall be explained though. Usually they are consistent in terms of reporting an incident by acquiring information from the eye-witness accounts of that incident. Say, in reporting a car accident they all say the same. However, they may have different opinions on what caused that accident. One of the reliability evaluation comes from the cross referencing of multiple accounts of these "middle men".

In the same fashion. The Bible was testified not by only one "middle man" martyred himself, but by 10 out of the 12.

3) How consistent the contents are
Human documents usually can't last across the border of paper invention. It means that under normal circumstances, after information being transplanted to their paper form, humans lost almost all the original documents which were on ancient scrolls or tablets. Thus we can't compare today's version at hand to its original version written in scrolls and tablets. We may find discrete scrolls but not the scrolls of the whole book. For an example, a history book of 1000 pages was written 2000 years ago. We can have our current version of this book in paper form. But we should have lost its original copy which is supposed in ancient scrolls. we may find some discrete pages of this book but we can't find all the 1000 pages of the same book in scrolls.

This is the usual situation of ancient human documents. However, the Bible doesn't belong to this "usual situation". We have a whole library of Dead Sea Scrolls for us to compare today's OT Bible against its ancient version in scrolls. We can be assured that the same information we read today from our OT Bible remain the same information as they were written some 2000 more years ago. This consistency is needed or otherwise it only means that "God doesn't say the same to today's humans as He said to ancient humans 2000 more years ago".

NT Bibles goes a similar route. We have plenty of ancient scrolls for us to be assured of a consistent NT. The NT scrolls may appear to be discrete, but since we have plenty of them for us humans to convey the same "gospel" consistently.

This is about the process of human witnessing from eye-witness accounts, those who martyred themselves for a truth to convey. Nothing else can be done better after the above being done, in terms of conveying a truth among human across a long history and from before the invention of paper till after.

Now Islam,

1) Mohammed is not an eye-witness of God. Moses is an eye-witness of God as he acquired his information directly from God. All the OT prophets behave this way. They are eye-witnesses of God Himself. Mohammed however claimed to hear from an angel. What he has written thus is not human accounts of witnessing but angel account of witnessing at best, and thus cannot be further backed by martyrdom of eyewitnesses. Seemingly Mohammed was clueless about what human witnessing could mean.

People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is. Mohammed didn't make a difference.

2) Quran was written after paper invention. Humans are capable of keeping documents after that point. Bible however requires the Dead Sea Scrolls as a miracle for today's humans to be assured of its consistency. There's a possible divine action involved in the case of Bible but not Quran.

3) There is an intangible guardian assigned to "protect" the contents of the holy book.
In Christianity, we can't add anything to or subtract anything from the Bible as we have a Church acting as a guardian. Mormon tried but it can't be deemed a success. God has assigned His earthly authority on earth in terms of protecting His Word. There is a process we call canonization, which was seriously and carefully done.

The first earthly authority is the Jews. Thus the Jews today are still keeping a correct OT Canon.
The second earthly authority is the Catholics. That's when the Jews failed to function as God's earthly authority. Thus the Catholics are still keeping a correct NT, but not OT Canon.
The last earthly authority is the Protestants. Thus the Protestants are keeping both a correct NT Canon and a correct OT Canon.

Again, this is another possible divine arrangement for only the Bible but not Quran. There's no such an earthly authority was assigned to guard its contents.

At last, Quran is a single account document from Mohammed alone.

I have practiced both Christianity and Islam. Mostly Christians harangued me to feel insecure and unworthy until I too professed belief in the Savior of Man and was baptized. Then those around me spent the next 33 years proving to me that it was all questionable, and I would never be worthy.

Islam is different for me because they adamantly obey the first Jewish Commandment. There is no one but Allah SWT, NO ONE. It is not possible to do the Islamic Prayers five times a day and not be changed. For me, the modesty; the Abaya (Long Dress), and Head Covering (Hijab) is comforting, and I am sad, and feel guilty that someone like Trump and his sympathizers could rob me of that. I will face Allah SWT alone with my disgrace.

At times, it seems that the whole of the human race is more intent upon character assassination than following whatever God they believe in.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Well, like I said, that would be different from Deism, now, wouldn't it.
PanDeism and PanenDeism are both kinds of Deism.

Deism is the belief in an uninvolved, unaware or disinterested Deity.
Theism is the belief in an involved, aware or interested God.

They are quite different from each other.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Yeah, that's what I said.

That's very different from a Deity that IS the universe; how much more involved could you get?
No.....
Deism is uninvolved.
Take yourself............ please look at the back of your left little finger. Look closely and you will see tiny hairs. Focus upon a single hair; your were unaware of that hair before, quite disinterested in it, I suspect........ that is a tiny bit like the involvement of the Deist God in such minuscule parts of everything as us.

And I very much expect that this Deity is very much larger than just our Universe....... it may be multiverses of multiverses large.

In any event, that's what I am, a kind of Deist....... :)
 

Axe Elf

Prophet
No.....
Deism is uninvolved.

Dude, if you ARE the universe, you're involved. Period.

Take yourself............ please look at the back of your left little finger. Look closely and you will see tiny hairs. Focus upon a single hair; your were unaware of that hair before, quite disinterested in it, I suspect........ that is a tiny bit like the involvement of the Deist God in such minuscule parts of everything as us.

Are you saying I'm not involved in the hairs on my pinky?

If you want to be a pantheist or a PanDeist--great. Like I said, the more people who believe that Jesus is God, the better. But Deists do not believe that God IS the universe.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Dude, if you ARE the universe, you're involved. Period.

Are you saying I'm not involved in the hairs on my pinky?

If you want to be a pantheist or a PanDeist--great. Like I said, the more people who believe that Jesus is God, the better. But Deists do not believe that God IS the universe.

No, Axe Elf.......... pantheists are Theists.
Deists are Deists....... :D

And Deists believe that EVERYTHING and EVERYFORCE and ALL ELSE is God, which means that you are a tiny weeny part as well.

That's why I'm being so polite to you. :p
 

Jane.Doe

Active Member
3) There is an intangible guardian assigned to "protect" the contents of the holy book.
In Christianity, we can't add anything to or subtract anything from the Bible as we have a Church acting as a guardian. Mormon tried but it can't be deemed a success. God has assigned His earthly authority on earth in terms of protecting His Word. There is a process we call canonization, which was seriously and carefully done.
FWIW, having studied dozens of different Christian beliefs, I've never met a single one (either group or individual) which was truly sola scriptura. Every single one has added something beyond what the Bible says and also deemed that thing to be important.

FWIW (2): I've also never met a nonChristian which did not add something to their holy writings (when applicable). This is a human nature issue more than any one particular group.
 

Axe Elf

Prophet
No, Axe Elf.......... pantheists are Theists.
Deists are Deists.......

And pandeists are pandeists. Glad we got that all straightened out.

And Deists believe that EVERYTHING and EVERYFORCE and ALL ELSE is God,

That might be correct, if it weren't incorrect. That's what pantheists and pandeists believe. You should really read up on this, so that you don't continue to find yourself in this unfortunate position of professing to believe in something that you don't actually understand. I'll give you a headstart from Wikipedia...

"Deism (/ˈdiːɪzəm/ DEE-iz-əm  or /ˈdeɪ.ɪzəm/ DAY-iz-əm; derived from Latin "deus" meaning "god") is a philosophical belief that posits that God exists as an uncaused First Cause ultimately responsible for the creation of the universe, but does not interfere directly with the created world."

See, if Jesus is God, and I am God, and we have some effect on the created world, then God has interfered directly with the created world. So a deist cannot possibly believe that God consists of things like you and me that have effects on the created world (at least not without adding the paradoxical "pan-" prefix in front of it, which I guess gives them license to have it both ways).
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
And pandeists are pandeists. Glad we got that all straightened out.

That might be correct, if it weren't incorrect. That's what pantheists and pandeists believe. You should really read up on this, so that you don't continue to find yourself in this unfortunate position of professing to believe in something that you don't actually understand. I'll give you a headstart from Wikipedia...

"Deism (/ˈdiːɪzəm/ DEE-iz-əm  or /ˈdeɪ.ɪzəm/ DAY-iz-əm; derived from Latin "deus" meaning "god") is a philosophical belief that posits that God exists as an uncaused First Cause ultimately responsible for the creation of the universe, but does not interfere directly with the created world."

See, if Jesus is God, and I am God, and we have some effect on the created world, then God has interfered directly with the created world. So a deist cannot possibly believe that God consists of things like you and me that have effects on the created world (at least not without adding the paradoxical "pan-" prefix in front of it, which I guess gives them license to have it both ways).

Interesting sermon for today, right there.

What you seem to miss out is that bacteria, mice, sparrows, comets, asteroids and grains of dust are part of God...... if you are any kind of Deist. Any kind.

But then, some Christians don't believe that Jesus is God, or in any Trinity, so the whole religion thing is a mixture of everything. But it's nice to read the odd sermon. :D
 
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