Why do you believe in God of Abraham?

Meandflower said:

If hinduism is really all-inclusive then why so many dalits (also known as "Untouchables," members of the lowest social group in the Hindu caste system in India) is not allowed to enter some hindustic temples?

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First, I was speaking of accommodation of different faiths, such as appreciation of Jesus's teachings, building bridges from Vedanta to Islam via Sufism , seeing how multiple perspectives can co-exist - even within sanAtan (eternal) dharma. Where others say "false religions false gods" we use our vivek - intellect - to see how other religions reveal aspects of the Divine. -- as long as it is a positive or major religion.

What you have mentioned could hardly be the case in a handful of temples that may be privately owned.

99% temples do not discriminate and simply cannot check someone's caste - it is irrelevant - it is simply impossible. Considering the crowds that enter temples everyday, and some even have free food where people sit together and eat - no one knows any caste there.

If you understand Hindi, here is a video - the persons shows how what you are claiming is logically not possible. :
If you scroll down , a few people from historical dalit castes have given testimonies to never in their life having witnessed discrimination in temples or society. Everyone helps each other.

WHY BELIEVE IN THE GOD OF ABRAHAM (JEWS, ISLAMICS, CHRISTIANS, BAHA'I, RASTAFARIANS, MORMONS, ET AL):



Same reason you shop at Ralphs. . . best deals, good coupons.



God's deals: God blesses, offers heaven.



God includes all (if they comply, by believing and being good). God revealed himself to all people (did that include American Indians, islanders in the Pacific, and Alaskans?)



All we have to do is sacrifice someone else (like Isaac sacrificed his son, or humans sacrificed Jesus).



If Satan offered a better deal, people would take that, and respect Satan's power. Is it just a matter of kissing up to power, or is it about believing that God is good?



God offers love (like the kind of love that destroyed the earth in Noah's time....including innocent people dying). Or is that love a lie that people tell themselves and tell others to gain converts?



If there is one God, why are there so many different faiths that say so many different things about God. Even within a single religion, there are many different versions of the bible, and many different beliefs.



Do we trust in the bible that has been rewritten many times, and altered? Many passages of the bible refute each other.



Or, do we trust what God, himself, says to us? Does that including talking in tongues (klksjflk) while writhing on the floor? Does that include the Heaven's Gate Church members killing themselves so that they can ride around in the Hale-Bopp comet for all eternity? Does that include the Jonestown massacre in which people killed themselves for their faith?



If we choose God (among all of the other Gods), do we then ignore God's laws and make wars and a torture camp, ignore the homeless, pollute God's environment, etc? Do we take over politics and force schools to teach our brand of religion? Science is not the enemy (it just cured COVID).



Is God really there for us? Does he answer prayers? Does he keep cancer patients from suffering?



Maybe everyone worships the same God (sometimes with lesser Gods too, as the ancient Jews did)? Maybe the different bibles and beliefs are merely about our limited capacity to understand? We don't see many dogs driving cars, yet we, with our limited intelligence, seem to judge and define God. Maybe people see different aspects of the same God, so he appears different in each society?



Maybe it is not an issue of understanding? Maybe God intended the many people of the world to have different languages and religions? Consider the Tower of Babel, for example.



Maybe Babel is a test to see if we could overcome language barriers, help fund food for the starving even if they are not in our country? Maybe God is trying to see how long it would take to fix the world?

Meandflower said:

If hinduism is really all-inclusive then why so many dalits (also known as "Untouchables," members of the lowest social group in the Hindu caste system in India) is not allowed to enter some hindustic temples?

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In some ways, nobody could touch them.

Meandflower said:

Questions to Abrahamic believers, believers in Judaism, christianity, islam, baha'i , rastafarianism, mormonism and other abrahamic faiths.

Why do you believe in God of Abraham?

Why do you think God of Abraham is the one true God of the universe/universes?

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If you ask that from a Muslim, the Quran affirms that

1. "The God" is the only God or deity.
2. And that he was the God of Abraham, Isac, Adam, Jesus, Muhammed, and all of everything.

Thats why Muslims believe he is God.

WHY BELIEVE IN THE GOD OF ABRAHAM (JEWS, ISLAMICS, CHRISTIANS, BAHA'I, RASTAFARIANS, MORMONS, ET AL):



Same reason you shop at Ralphs. . . best deals, good coupons.



God's deals: God blesses, offers heaven.



God includes all (if they comply, by believing and being good). God revealed himself to all people (did that include American Indians, islanders in the Pacific, and Alaskans?)



All we have to do is sacrifice someone else (like Isaac sacrificed his son, or humans sacrificed Jesus).



If Satan offered a better deal, people would take that, and respect Satan's power. Is it just a matter of kissing up to power, or is it about believing that God is good?



God offers love (like the kind of love that destroyed the earth in Noah's time....including innocent people dying). Or is that love a lie that people tell themselves and tell others to gain converts?



If there is one God, why are there so many different faiths that say so many different things about God. Even within a single religion, there are many different versions of the bible, and many different beliefs.



Do we trust in the bible that has been rewritten many times, and altered? Many passages of the bible refute each other.



Or, do we trust what God, himself, says to us? Does that including talking in tongues (klksjflk) while writhing on the floor? Does that include the Heaven's Gate Church members killing themselves so that they can ride around in the Hale-Bopp comet for all eternity? Does that include the Jonestown massacre in which people killed themselves for their faith?



If we choose God (among all of the other Gods), do we then ignore God's laws and make wars and a torture camp, ignore the homeless, pollute God's environment, etc? Do we take over politics and force schools to teach our brand of religion? Science is not the enemy (it just cured COVID).



Is God really there for us? Does he answer prayers? Does he keep cancer patients from suffering?



Maybe everyone worships the same God (sometimes with lesses Gods too, as the ancient Jews did)? Maybe the different bibles and beliefs are merely about our limited capacity to understand? We don't see many dogs driving cars, yet we, with our limited intelligence, seem to judge and define God. Maybe people see different aspects of the same God, so he appears different in each society?



Maybe it is not an issue of understanding? Maybe God intended the many people of the world to have different languages and religions? Consider the Tower of Babel, for example.



Maybe Babel is a test to see if we could overcome language barriers, help fund food for the starving even if they are not in our country? Maybe God is trying to see how long it would take to fix the world?

Meandflower said:

..
Why do you believe in God of Abraham?

Why do you think God of Abraham is the one true God of the universe/universes?

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My reason to believe is the Bible. And I believe Bible, because I see that things are and go as it tells.

Meandflower said:

Questions to Abrahamic believers, believers in Judaism, christianity, islam, baha'i , rastafarianism, mormonism and other abrahamic faiths.

Why do you believe in God of Abraham?

Why do you think God of Abraham is the one true God of the universe/universes?

Click to expand...

The God of Abraham doesn’t mean the concept of that same God that evolved among subsequent descendants of Abraham is an accurate depiction.

The purpose of the agreement with Abraham as sanctioned by Melchizedek was the anticipation of the incarnation of the Son of God on earth and among a monotheistic people.

The Israelites subsequently developed a nationalist, theological and cultural arrogance due to Abrahams selection. It went to their heads, they lost their way.

SeekingAllTruth said:

On our local news today a mother who stabbed to death her 3 YO, 2 YO and 6-month old was finally captured. I used to look to the God of Abraham for answers to why such horrors happen--I mean why didn't the mother have gd heart attack before committing this atrocity. Answers were never forthcoming. Everything was silence. One day I came to learn that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not real people, just a mythical figure around which legends of the founding of Jewish-ism were built, like Ragnar Lotbrok for the Vikings and Robin Hood for the Saxons. Even Jewish scholars today acknowledge this fact. So when you say God is inhuman you're not far from the truth. The best solution to a troubled mind about things like this is to just conclude God is deist. He simple doesn't give a damn about us. He leaves us out in the cold to either sink or swim. If you sink that's one less person to pollute the earth, sadly. But that's reality.

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My understanding is that a deist believes the physical universe was created by God and for that reason believes in God. I don't view that as a reason to believe in God. I think the physical universe needs no creator. Some things don't. God need not exist for the universe to exist. If God does exist, however, then the universe exists within God, not God within it. I'm not sure how God was discovered, but whether God is unfeeling I won't say. I have feelings, and somehow I have feelings about things very far away. I care about people who will exist after me and about ones before me. I care about animals and things. How could God not? Balancing this, my comment to Trailblazer in this same post explains I don't believe the theory that "God created because love must have something to love" which I used to believe. I'm a lot closer to being a deist than a "God is loveist."

Trailblazer said:

I believe that the future will be better. It won't be a cold place where children keep starving and get enslaved and other bad things happen, it will be a completely different world with a new race of men. However, the reason it will be better is because humans will make it better and humans will change, not because God will do anything. God does send Messengers in every age, but that is all He can be credited for, as if that is difficult for an omnipotent God to do. Other than scriptures that say that God is loving, I have no idea why Abrahamic religious believers believe that God is loving, that completely eludes me. I think it is mostly because they want to believe that because otherwise they could not believe in God and worship God.

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It is because of a couple of verses of scripture which can be misinterpreted: John 4:8 and John 4:16 both of which quote "...God is love..." I think John saying "God is love" is a commitment not intended as a definition of God nor an explanation of physical existence. It gets taken too far. In addition people always want to know 'Why' about things. Love is one possible answer, but it is an easy mistake to take the first answer and run with it. God as pure love is an interesting way to look at things, but it isn't a complete breakfast. A human person cannot relate to pure love, and that could be part of the reason.

Brickjectivity said:

My understanding is that a deist believes the physical universe was created by God and for that reason believes in God. I don't view that as a reason to believe in God. I think the physical universe needs no creator. Some things don't. God need not exist for the universe to exist. If God does exist, however, then the universe exists within God, not God within it. I'm not sure how God was discovered, but whether God is unfeeling I won't say. I have feelings, and somehow I have feelings about things very far away. I care about people who will exist after me and about ones before me. I care about animals and things. How could God not? Balancing this, my comment to Trailblazer in this same post explains I don't believe the theory that "God created because love must have something to love" which I used to believe. I'm a lot closer to being a deist than a "God is loveist."

It is because of a couple of verses of scripture which can be misinterpreted: John 4:8 and John 4:16 both of which quote "...God is love..." I think John saying "God is love" is a commitment not intended as a definition of God nor an explanation of physical existence. It gets taken too far. In addition people always want to know 'Why' about things. Love is one possible answer, but it is an easy mistake to take the first answer and run with it. God as pure love is an interesting way to look at things, but it isn't a complete breakfast. A human person cannot relate to pure love, and that could be part of the reason.

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I marvel at how a molten ball called earth developed such biodiversity in such organization. The odds of a single protein forming are off the charts let alone 8 billion people, wildlife and flora. Something had to be behind it, but this "something" then went AWOL. It lets the most gross inhumane things happen the most innocent of us. This is not my definition of love. You and I demonstrate more love than this entity. That to me fits the definition of deism.

SeekingAllTruth said:

I marvel at how a molten ball called earth developed such biodiversity in such organization. The odds of a single protein forming are off the charts let alone 8 billion people, wildlife and flora. Something had to be behind it, but this "something" then went AWOL. It lets the most gross inhumane things happen the most innocent of us. This is not my definition of love. You and I demonstrate more love than this entity. That to me fits the definition of deism.

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A creator deity, yes; but a transcendent deity perhaps not. It goes back to the question of causation. Your insistence that the universe is a creation is what makes God evil; but the argument that proteins are complicated doesn't imply creation. Take a lot of shoestrings, put them into a shoe box and shake it for a while. When you open the box the strings will be tangled. Did God tangle them?

Brickjectivity said:

A creator deity, yes; but a transcendent deity perhaps not. It goes back to the question of causation. Your insistence that the universe is a creation is what makes God evil; but the argument that proteins are complicated doesn't imply creation. Take a lot of shoestrings, put them into a shoe box and shake it for a while. When you open the box the strings will be tangled. Did God tangle them?

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If the shoestrings were all tied in bows when you opened the box you'd have to think twice about whether a higher power had something to do with it because odds/chance would be out of the question, I don't care how many trillions of years you shook that box.

SeekingAllTruth said:

If the shoestrings were all tied in bows when you opened the box you'd have to think twice about whether a higher power had something to do with it because odds/chance would be out of the question, I don't care how many trillions of years you shook that box.

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I understand. Shoe boxes and shoe strings do not do justice to either point of view although proteins are similar enough. Be that as it is, with modern understanding of the microscopic layer of life its perfectly reasonable to think life can form from something other than a creator. Its not known how our life has formed, but its possible to conceive of it happening naturally. We also have a tree of life pointing to a common lineage for most known life, and that points to some kind of single cell beginning.

ameyAtmA said:

What about families that lived tens of thousands of years before a mortal human called Abraham? What about genealogies to which Abraham is irrelevant? Unless Abraham is not a mortal human but is BramhA

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Like father Abraham, the families that died before Jesus (John 3:13) are still asleep in death.
That is why Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 11:39 (which includes Abraham at Hebrews 11:8-10) is they have Not yet received the fulfillment of the promise (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:18) promise about a coming future resurrection.
This is why Acts of the Apostles 24:15 uses the 'future tense' that there 'is going to be' a resurrection......

Genealogies Not directly connected to father Abraham connect us through son Isaac.
Through Abraham and Isaac comes Messiah, and Jesus as Messiah opened up the way for all.
Jews, then Samaritans, and then includes the gentile people of the nations.
Through Jesus there will be ' healing ' for earth's ' nations ' according to Revelation 22:2.
This is why we are all invited to pray the invitation of Rev. 22:20 for Jesus to come !
Come and undo all the damage Satan and Adam brought upon humanity.
Under Christ's coming thousand-year reign over Earth, even ' enemy death ' will be No more on Earth.
- 1 Corinthians 15:25; Isaiah 25:8

SeekingAllTruth said:

If the shoestrings were all tied in bows when you opened the box you'd have to think twice about whether a higher power had something to do with it because odds/chance would be out of the question, I don't care how many trillions of years you shook that box.

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Besides shoe strings, if all shoe parts were in a box, that box could be shaken forever and Not make shoe parts into a shoe.

firedragon said:

If you ask that from a Muslim, the Quran affirms that
1. "The God" is the only God or deity.
2. And that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, Adam, Jesus, Muhammed, and all of everything.
Thats why Muslims believe he is God.

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Christians trace their roots through Isaac, whereas Muslims through Ishmael.
So, there is a difference because in the Bible the promised Messiah (Jesus) comes through 'only' Isaac.

Brickjectivity said:

I understand. Shoe boxes and shoe strings do not do justice to either point of view although proteins are similar enough. Be that as it is, with modern understanding of the microscopic layer of life its perfectly reasonable to think life can form from something other than a creator. Its not known how our life has formed, but its possible to conceive of it happening naturally. We also have a tree of life pointing to a common lineage for most known life, and that points to some kind of single cell beginning.

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... and a single cell beginning (if that is the case) still shows life from existing life, and Not life from non-life.

URAVIP2ME said:

Christians trace their roots through Isaac, whereas Muslims through Ishmael.
So, there is a difference because in the Bible the promised Messiah (Jesus) comes through 'only' Isaac.

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Irrelevant.

URAVIP2ME said:

Besides shoe strings, if all shoe parts were in a box, that box could be shaken forever and Not make shoe parts into a shoe.

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Exactly. More like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and leaving behind an assembled battleship.

Meandflower said:

Questions to Abrahamic believers, believers in Judaism, christianity, islam, baha'i , rastafarianism, mormonism and other abrahamic faiths.

Why do you believe in God of Abraham?

Why do you think God of Abraham is the one true God of the universe/universes?

Click to expand...

Nothing else makes sense to me.

Brickjectivity said:

I understand. Shoe boxes and shoe strings do not do justice to either point of view although proteins are similar enough. Be that as it is, with modern understanding of the microscopic layer of life its perfectly reasonable to think life can form from something other than a creator. Its not known how our life has formed, but its possible to conceive of it happening naturally. We also have a tree of life pointing to a common lineage for most known life, and that points to some kind of single cell beginning.

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I can't conceive on such a large scale. I look at this pic of a simple protein molecule



and then realize that all those hundreds of thousands of atoms had to come together in just the precise arrangement over and over and over x's 10(*325) and I simply cannot believe it was random.