Who is the God of Abraham to you?

[firedragon]

Correct: it's about the god of Abraham self-demonstrating outside the bible and quran. Can it be done?

What do you mean "self demonstrating"?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

What do you mean "self demonstrating"?

Evident without literature. Can your god show himself - beyond a doubt - without lense of the Bible or Qur'an?

 

[firedragon]

Evident without literature. Can your god show himself - beyond a doubt - without lense of the Bible or Qur'an?

So someone saying God is evil is because "God didnt show himself"?

If God didnt show himself, how would you know if God is evil or not?

 

[robocop (actually)]

Yet you all can't agree on the definition of that god at all

I've read many scriptures. I'd say religions agree a lot more than most people think!

 

[Muffled]

Who is the God of Abraham to you? I've seen a couple of featured threads about the God of Abraham today but first we could ask who is He and can we define Him? So often when we discuss the God of Abraham we have vastly different concepts.

Is He a he, her or transcendent about human conception of gender. Is He knowable, unknowable and how can we know. Did He send Prophets, Messengers, Avatars or Manifestations? Do scriptures inform us of who He is? Which scriptures enlighten us and which lead us to confusion? Does He exist or not exist? What else should we know? Who is the God of Abraham to you?

I believe He is the creator of all things.

I believe God as a spirit has no gender but most often identifies with his male creation.

I believe He can't be fully known but we can know Him personally and from other people's experiences.

I believe He sent prophets.

If a prophet is defined by telling future events then a messenger is someone with a current message.

As defined as an embodiment of God then there is just one, Jesus.

I believe that depends on ow that is defined. If it means someone who brings the word of God to light then I believe that happens a lot but often people doing that are as wrong about God as they are right.

I believe Judeo-Christian scripture does best. The Qu'ran does next best. The Vedas and Sri Granth only provide a very limited amount of information without any confidence in the sources. I do not consider the B writings to be scripture but rather to be religious philosophy like Plato.

 

[Muffled]

As an atheist he is a man-made non-existent thing

I believe that takes a lot of imagination.

 

[Muffled]

Irrelevant to me as well, as a Hindu. I think most Hindus who do think he might be relevant have been influenced by several decades of propaganda by invaders aggressively promoting their view.

I don't believe an all powerful God can ever be irrelevant. If I have an old map that shows Prussia on it then it is currently irrelevant. If one has an extremely old text that does not describe God very well and is often in error and has no identifiable source, then that could very well be irrelevant.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

So someone saying God is evil is because "God didnt show himself"?

If God didnt show himself, how would you know if God is evil or not?

Not what's being said, at all.

Per the scriptures, the god of Abraham is entirely reprehensible. "Evil", in a dramatic word.

If this is not the case, and he is not evil as described, there should be evidence of Abraham's god outside the scripture.

 

[firedragon]

evidence of Abraham's god outside the scripture.

What do you mean by that? What would be "evidence" in this case?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

What do you mean by that? What would be "evidence" in this case?

How do you know your god, outside of what is written?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Who is the God of Abraham to you?

A Jewish tribal deity that unfortunately didn't just stay in the Middle East. I don't hate Christianity, though. It did its best to make Yahweh more compassionate and humane, as opposed to the totally abstract monotheism of Judaism and especially Islam.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm not judging, but people believe in the God that feels real to them.

But that does not mean that any God is real. Feelings do not determine reality.

 

[Trailblazer]

Someone who is a violent, bloodthirsty, cruel and iron fisted dictator per the Torah, Bible, and Quran.

Perhaps you should read other non-anthropomorphic scriptures that portray the Abrahamic God differently.

 

[Trailblazer]

Why should we love someone who would eternally damn someone over a short life of mistakes?

We shouldn't and He doesn't.

 

[firedragon]

How do you know your god, outside of what is written?

I thought you were answering for someone else. So asking me questions won't achieve that.

 

[Link]

God would be known if he didn't send Prophets or Messengers or Guides, but only to such few people, while majority of humans would definitely fall prey to Satan. Very few would see the true God and walk the true path.

It's out of his compassion, that he opened a door of light so the darkness of our sins don't destroy us, and called to it through his books of his Prophets and messages of his Messengers explaining the truth, and got us connect to him through intercession of the Guides of our time and got them to help us battle our sins and pull us to God.

Yes even without poles that pull us towards God, it would be possible to worship God and know him, but so few would have walked this path, and darkness and oppression would have filled the world to intolerable states and world would be even more horrifying then it is now.

 

[Trailblazer]

How can he hate evil when he himself has conducted acts that did inflict great evils and woes upon humanity? Genocide, permitting slavery, death over a great many "mind your business" things that aren't even crimes, and it's pretty easy to justify war in the Quran. Such as how groups like the Taliban are able to point to this and that as legit grievances to justify going to war against an oppressor (but they target specifically and strictly agents of the state).

The question is why you believe God did all or any of that? The Old Testament is anthropomorphic. God is not a human.

 

[Trailblazer]

I think seeing him as a Rakshasa is accurate; he tries to be good, but his pride and jealousy gets in the way.

Pride and jealousy are human traits. God is not a human but unfortunately the Bible humanized God.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The question is why you believe God did all or any of that? The Old Testament is anthropomorphic. God is not a human.

It's what the Old Testament records as Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah having done or commanded or permitted. If you omit one thing, you impose on yourself a steep slope as to "why that and not this".

Perhaps you should read other non-anthropomorphic scriptures that portray the Abrahamic God differently.

That changes nothing. His oldest religion following him is still heinously and inexcusably violent and repressive. And in that he is portrayed as both non-anthropomorphic as well as so anthropomorphic he is recorded as having conversations seemingly as a human or something humanoid with some like Lot.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's what the Old Testament records as Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah having done or commanded or permitted.

That does not mean that God actually commanded or permitted what is written in the text. Men wrote that, not God, and they were not even prophets.

That changes nothing. His oldest religion following him is still heinously and inexcusably violent and repressive. And in that he is portrayed as both non-anthropomorphic as well as so anthropomorphic he is recorded as having conversations seemingly as a human or something humanoid with some like Lot.

I don't believe any of that but you are free to believe it if you want to. God cannot be a human and a non-human at the same time because that is a contradiction. I don't care what the Bible says, it is not the only scripture ever written and it is not the most current.