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If Messiah was on earth today.

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
No - I'm saying there is absolutely no source to go to in order to figure out what the correct answers are. There's not even a way to determine IF THERE IS A TEST! That's what I am saying. So get your three straw-manning exclamation points out of my face.
That should not stop people from trying to figure out the truth. If there IS a truth out there, it is worth seeking, even if we make mistakes.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
It is a belief based on a knowledge of history.
It certainly is NOt based on history. Rolls eyes.
Do you believe Shiva is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?
Do you believe Atlas is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?
Do you believe Osanyin is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?
I believe that these deities are approximations. Humans have what I like to call a God radar. For some, their radar is broken. For those for whom it works, it is a very primitive sense, much like early "eyes" perceived only the presence of light/dark. Thus the information received by this sense is extremely limited and subject to misperception. It is completely understandable then that ideas about the Divine are so disparate in cultures around the world and down through time.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
That should not stop people from trying to figure out the truth. If there IS a truth out there, it is worth seeking, even if we make mistakes.
Yes, I am all for investigating to try and discover the truth about any particular circumstance. The problem with all this supernatural mumbo-jumbo is that no one - not a single person on Earth - can reliably point anyone in the direction we should be looking to investigate any of it. Where are we on empirical evidence of God or that someone (anyone) is/was "The Messiah" or of an afterlife, etc. etc. etc.? We don't have it. Meanwhile, actually strides and progress is being made in all sorts of fields based in reality. The arguments and evidence for any theistic belief about deity have been stuck on repeat for hundreds of years. That says A LOT, in my opinion.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
It is a belief based on a knowledge of history. Beliefs in Gods are not based on any knowledge.
It certainly is NOt based on history. Rolls eyes.
You can roll your eyes all you want to. History shows that man has created gods. Cultures all over the world, seeking answers, used GodDidIt until actual knowledge came along. You cannot dispute this.





Do you believe Shiva is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?
Do you believe Atlas is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?
Do you believe Osanyin is a God or the creation of man's imaginings?

I believe that these deities are approximations.

Nonsense. To the people who created them, they are just as real as your God. They, like you, believe their god to be the Real God and dismiss your god just as you dismiss theirs. That is indisputable.


Humans have what I like to call a God radar. For some, their radar is broken. For those for whom it works, it is a very primitive sense, much like early "eyes" perceived only the presence of light/dark. Thus the information received by this sense is extremely limited and subject to misperception. It is completely understandable then that ideas about the Divine are so disparate in cultures around the world and down through time.

You are again dismissing other people's gods. You are not alone in this. All religious groups dismiss other gods. All religious groups believe that people who believe in other gods (or no gods) are just misled or blind to the truth. That is indisputable.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
You can roll your eyes all you want to. History shows that man has created gods. Cultures all over the world, seeking answers, used GodDidIt until actual knowledge came along. You cannot dispute this.

Nonsense. To the people who created them, they are just as real as your God. They, like you, believe their god to be the Real God and dismiss your god just as you dismiss theirs. That is indisputable.

You are again dismissing other people's gods. You are not alone in this. All religious groups dismiss other gods. All religious groups believe that people who believe in other gods (or no gods) are just misled or blind to the truth. That is indisputable.
You are the one who is simply dismissing all the the gods as if they are simply imagination when they are not. They are all attempts to make out what poor vision can only see in part. The reason that people do believe in their gods is because to there is an element of truth to all these gods. It is atheism that is flat out wrong.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
You are the one who is simply dismissing all the the gods as if they are simply imagination when they are not.

Must you really misrepresent what I said to try to make your point? Do you not see and understand the difference between:
ecco: Gods are the creations of man's imaginings
IC5559: People simply imagine gods




They are all attempts to make out what poor vision can only see in part.

That poor vision is rightly called ignorance. I am not criticizing the ancients for not knowing what created them or lightning or swarms of locusts. They had reasons for believing that all the mysteries were caused by something out of their reach. By quantifying that "something" they satisfied their thirst for knowledge (GodDidIt) and found a way to attempt to control their fate by appeasing their gods.

The reason that people do believe in their gods is because to there is an element of truth to all these gods.

The real reason that most people believe in their gods is because their parents believed in those/that gods/god. If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Allah.

It is atheism that is flat out wrong.

As a wise man once said: I just believe in one less god than you do. Do you believe Shiva is God? Allah? Atlas? Of course, you don't. You are atheistic toward 99.9% of all gods man has created.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Must you really misrepresent what I said to try to make your point? Do you not see and understand the difference between:
ecco: Gods are the creations of man's imaginings
LOL that's exactly what you just quoted me as saying you said.

The real reason that most people believe in their gods is because their parents believed in those/that gods/god. If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Allah.
If that were the end of the story, you wouldn't have the children of atheists becoming religious.

As a wise man once said: I just believe in one less god than you do. Do you believe Shiva is God? Allah? Atlas? Of course, you don't. You are atheistic toward 99.9% of all gods man has created.
You haven't been listening. I think that Shive and Atlas are approximations of the true God -- they are the true God seen imperfectly. I'm sure you know the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. Muslims worship the same God of Abraham as I do despite their strange ideas about Muhammad and history.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
Must you really misrepresent what I said to try to make your point? Do you not see and understand the difference between:
ecco: Gods are the creations of man's imaginings
IC5559: People simply imagine gods

"IndigoChild5559 intentionally misquoting ecco...
Must you really misrepresent what I said to try to make your point? Do you not see and understand the difference between:
ecco: Gods are the creations of man's imaginings
Notice the missing half of the comparison: IC5559: People simply imagine gods

LOL that's exactly what you just quoted me as saying you said.

First, you misquote what I said. Then you omit the comparison between what I said and what you falsely attributed to me. That's very dishonest of you. Do you need to resort to dishonesty because that's all you've got?
 

ecco

Veteran Member
ecco: The real reason that most people believe in their gods is because their parents believed in those/that gods/god. If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Allah.



If that were the end of the story, you wouldn't have the children of atheists becoming religious.

Of course there are exceptions. Do you want to try to deny that most people end up in their parents' religious sect? Perhaps you want to try to pretend that most Irish Catholics don't have Irish Catholic parents. Perhaps you want to try to pretend that most Sunnis don't have Sunni parents.


Since you want to be picky, I'll add a word to my previous assertion:
If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would probably be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be probably extolling the virtues of Allah.​

Is that better?
 

ecco

Veteran Member
You haven't been listening. I think that Shive and Atlas are approximations of the true God -- they are the true God seen imperfectly. I'm sure you know the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. Muslims worship the same God of Abraham as I do despite their strange ideas about Muhammad and history.
I have been listening to your utter nonsense and on further reflection, it is just more male bovine excrement.

If you want to believe that Allah and Shiva and the Christian God are all one and the same, I suggest you begin to follow the Bahai religion.

In all reality, the OT God and the NT God are really not the same. If the early Christian church fathers hadn't kicked Marcion out, that would be a lot clearer.

As it is, many worship the God of the Tanakh exclusively while others worship only Jesus as God.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
"IndigoChild5559 intentionally misquoting ecco...
Must you really misrepresent what I said to try to make your point? Do you not see and understand the difference between:
ecco: Gods are the creations of man's imaginings
Notice the missing half of the comparison: IC5559: People simply imagine gods



First, you misquote what I said. Then you omit the comparison between what I said and what you falsely attributed to me. That's very dishonest of you. Do you need to resort to dishonesty because that's all you've got?
Are you serious? I didn't place it in a quote box or quotation marks. I correctly stated what you said in other words. I did NOT misrepresent you. You are so full of it.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
ecco: The real reason that most people believe in their gods is because their parents believed in those/that gods/god. If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be extolling the virtues of Allah.





Of course there are exceptions. Do you want to try to deny that most people end up in their parents' religious sect? Perhaps you want to try to pretend that most Irish Catholics don't have Irish Catholic parents. Perhaps you want to try to pretend that most Sunnis don't have Sunni parents.


Since you want to be picky, I'll add a word to my previous assertion:
If you were born in India to Hindu parents, you would probably be extolling the virtues of Shiva. If you were born in Iran to Shia parents, you would be probably extolling the virtues of Allah.​

Is that better?
Yes, it's actually much better. Our upbringing is like wearing glasses. We see the Divine through those lenses.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I have been listening to your utter nonsense and on further reflection, it is just more male bovine excrement.

If you want to believe that Allah and Shiva and the Christian God are all one and the same, I suggest you begin to follow the Bahai religion.

In all reality, the OT God and the NT God are really not the same. If the early Christian church fathers hadn't kicked Marcion out, that would be a lot clearer.

As it is, many worship the God of the Tanakh exclusively while others worship only Jesus as God.
First I'm not Christian, I'm Jewish. I do not believe that Jesus is God. In fact, this is a good opportunity for me to turn the same apple around and view it from yet a different direction. In other words give the same argument using a different point.

Judaism calls Christianity "shi tuf" meaning association. Notice how similar the word association and the word I have used, approximation, are. Back to shi tuf. Basically Judaism rejects trinitarianism and the whole idea that God would be incarnate as anything, including a man. So we think that Christians are, well, WRONG. But at the same time we accept them as "muddled" monotheists. This is because we see them as associating the One God with a particular object or being, and worshiping the One True God THROUGH that object or being.

Another example that Jews will use is the Egyptian monotheism. For the reign of Akhenaten, Egyptians switched to the worship of One God. It was the Sun God. Yet the plural form of god was suppressed. Again, the One True God was worshiped THROUGH the the associated object of the sun. This makes it a form of shi tuf, a muddled monotheism that is acceptable for non-Jews in Judaism.

All I am doing is taking this a step further, saying that even in the case of polytheism, each of the gods are masks of God. This is clearest in Hinduism, where they teach outright that the gods are all expressions of Brahman. Yeah, I'm stealing from Joseph Campbell here, athough I disagree with him on the details.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
Are you serious? I didn't place it in a quote box or quotation marks. I correctly stated what you said in other words. I did NOT misrepresent you. You are so full of it.
When you omit half of a comparison, you are being intentionally deceitful.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
First I'm not Christian, I'm Jewish.
Why did you bother posting that comment? Did I say I thought you were a Christian?


I do not believe that Jesus is God. Judaism calls Christianity "shi tuf" meaning association. Notice how similar the word association and the word I have used, approximation, are. Back to shi tuf. Basically Judaism rejects trinitarianism and the whole idea that God would be incarnate as anything, including a man. So we think that Christians are, well, WRONG. But at the same time we accept them as "muddled" monotheists. This is because we see them as associating the One God with a particular object or being, and worshiping the One True God THROUGH that object or being.
If you are trying to make a point, I don't see it.

Another example that Jews will use is the Egyptian monotheism. For the reign of Akhenaten, Egyptians switched to the worship of One God. It was the Sun God. Yet the plural form of god was suppressed. Again, the One True God was worshiped THROUGH the the associated object of the sun. This makes it a form of shi tuf, a muddled monotheism that is acceptable for non-Jews in Judaism.
If you are trying to make a point, I don't see it.

All I am doing is taking this a step further, saying that even in the case of polytheism, each of the gods are masks of God. This is clearest in Hinduism, where they teach outright that the gods are all expressions of Brahman. Yeah, I'm stealing from Joseph Campbell here, athough I disagree with him on the details.

That's a long winded way of saying you believe Viracocha is a real god. If you accept the Inca view of god, why won't you accept the Christian view of Jesus as God? That seems a little arbitrary.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Why did you bother posting that comment? Did I say I thought you were a Christian?



If you are trying to make a point, I don't see it.


If you are trying to make a point, I don't see it.



That's a long winded way of saying you believe Viracocha is a real god. If you accept the Inca view of god, why won't you accept the Christian view of Jesus as God? That seems a little arbitrary.
Clearly you aren't following me, which says a lot about your inability to always reason.
 
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