The God of Peter, the God of the Old Testament

originally posted by: windword
The Biblical God made the claim to be the greatest of gods. Remember the contest in Egypt? The Israelites believed that there were other gods, otherwise, they wouldn't have made the Golden Calf and worshiped Baal.

The whole point of the contest in Egypt, and the similar contest involving Elijah, was to distinguish between the real thing and the fakes. This is the Rolex analogy all over again.
Israel made the Golden Calf at a time when their thinking was going astray, so what they thought at that moment is not the Bible's view; people who buy fake Rolex watches are presumably convinced that they are buying real Rolex watches, but their conviction doesn't alter the real situation.
The Biblical God claims to be the only Creator of the universe; so in the sense that "God" is defined as Creator of the universe, he claims to be the only God.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The whole point of the contest in Egypt, and the similar contest involving Elijah, was to distinguish between the real thing and the fakes. This is the Rolex analogy all over again.

Not really. There was still magic. It's just that Moses' and Aaron's magic was better magic than the Egyptians. If God was going to prove a fake, he would have exposed the man behind the curtain. He didn't. They still believed in those Gods, but that their God won the contest.

Israel made the Golden Calf at a time when their thinking was going astray, so what they thought at that moment is not the Bible's view;

Of course it's a tale of caution. But the Israelites weren't confused. They lost faith in the God of Moses and decided to conjure their old God(s), the Golden Calf. Remember, they just met this new God, Yahweh.

a reply to: windword
"Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts; I am the first and the last; besides me there is no God"- Isaiah ch44 v6
"Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker...I made the earth and created man upon it;it was my hands that stretched out the heavens"- Isaiah ch45 vv11-12
This is the God of Israel claiming to be the Creator of the world and the only God, which is what I have been saying all along.
You can believe those statements or disbelieve them; my point is that they are the Biblical view of the situation

a reply to: DISRAELI

Isaiah was written quite a bit later, during the captivity in Babylon. By this time the God(s) of Israel had evolved, and Isaiah was a catalyst for redefining the Hebrew God once again. The biblical God isn't a cohesive stable character, he consists of concepts arising from a number of cultures, coming together and forming an agreement of what God is, how to live and worship.

By the time Jesus came along there was a need to redefine the Hebrew God again, in a more acceptable and friendlier context. Jesus actually fits the bill perfectly for the "Teacher of Righteousness" that the Dead Sea Scrolls say lived 150 years earlier, and promised to return. There was an expected and predictable continuity to his influence and teachings in the natural evolution of the Hebrew God.

We've just accepted that Jesus was talking about the same God that vexed Abraham and Moses, but really, we've got an evolved character that has been edited and redefined as the Hebrew people changed and were forced to evolve.

During the day, the Hebrew God, Yahweh, was no more regarded by the world as the legitimate "One True God" than was Zeus, Ra, Brahma, Ahura Mazda, etc.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: knoledgeispower

God presides in the great assembly;
he renders judgment among the “gods”:

---------------------------

“I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.

biblehub.com...

Osiris and Zeus weren't people claiming to be gods. The biblical God laid no claim to the people of Egypt or the people of Greece. They weren't his people, not did he reach out to them. They had their own gods, the gods that were "allotted" to them, not fake gods.

Ok so go to the Pope and ask him about Osiris & Zeus & all the other gods. Ask him why those gods aren't worshiped by Catholics & Christians.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

Why should I care about anything the Pope has to say?

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: knoledgeispower

Why should I care about anything the Pope has to say?

If you are so adamant about their being other gods then the Pope will tell you if Zeus & other gods exist & why they are not worshiped by Christians & Catholics today despite them being gods.

He will tell you that only God exists & Zeus and the other gods are fictional beings. Therefore there is only one God.

I don't believe in the God that is in the bible because the bible is just a fictional story book with morals but there is a higher being out there.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

LOL! The Pope is going to tell me I'm wrong?


HAHA

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: knoledgeispower

LOL! The Pope is going to tell me I'm wrong?


HAHA

Do you think he is going to tell you that you are right? That Zeus & all those other gods you claim to exist, do exist? Highly doubt it as Catholics only believe there is one God & his name is not Zeus. Christians are a branch off Catholics & they only believe in one god & his name is Jehovah. Presbyterians, another branched off religion from Christians, only believe in one god & his name is Jehovah.

Sure other religions have different names for their god but it is still one god along the different denominations of the Catholic & Christian faiths. Just their interpretations of what that god wants is different.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

Sure other religions have different names for their god but it is still one god along the different denominations of the Catholic & Christian faiths. Just their interpretations of what that god wants is different.

If it's all just "God", if that's the case, why then does the Old Testament god guy get so pissed about "other gods", like Baal, for example?

Also, why do think that there's only one god? Where there's one, most probably there's another.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: knoledgeispower

Sure other religions have different names for their god but it is still one god along the different denominations of the Catholic & Christian faiths. Just their interpretations of what that god wants is different.

If it's all just "God", if that's the case, why then does the Old Testament god guy get so pissed about "other gods", like Baal, for example?

Also, why do think that there's only one god? Where there's one, most probably there's another.

I don't know much about the old testament so I've had to do some digging around. I was never taught in church about any other god except for Jehovah.

Now Baal is a Pagan god not a Hebrew God, as the old testament is of Hebrew origin.
It was this Israelite worship of Baal which was challenged by the Hebrew prophet Elijah in his famous conflict with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in I Kings 18, when he challenged the false prophets to bring down fire from heaven. When the prophets of Baal failed to do so, Elijah's God did so, resulting in the slaughter of the prophets of Baal by an angry mob.

It has been suggested that the famous story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and then forbade the sacrifice at the last moment, was told to the ancients as a dramatic and instructive narrative which commanded the Hebrews not to follow the pagan cults of the land. It was as if to say that even the great patriarch himself did not sacrifice his son, but it was only a test of his faith, and so too good Hebrews must not follow the practice of the people of the land however tempted they were.
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This tells me that there is still only one God, Jehovah & he didn't want people to worship false profits.
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Another goddess worshiped in the days of the Bible was Ashtaroth, she was probably tied to the Mesopotamian cult of Ishtar, which in turn was probably derived from the very ancient Sumerian mother goddess Inanna. The Hebrew Bible also calls this same goddess Astarte. The ancient Hebrew prophets denounced her cult many times, most likely because she was worshiped with sexual fertility rites. Certainly her cult predated the Hebrews by many centuries.
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Again, this tells me that Ashtaroth was not a Hebrew goddess, she belonged to other faiths so again Jehovah didn't want people to worship a false profit
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Another "god" mentioned in the bible is the pagan gods of the land, Molech, to whom he raised an altar near Jerusalem, although the Bible tells us that God twice warned him not to and in punishment for this his heir would be deprived of 10 of the tribes of his great kingdom. (I Kings 11:10). Molech was a god of the Ammonite peoples.
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Again, this god mentioned in the bible is not a Hebrew god but a Pagan god & Jehovah didn't want people to worship a false profit

Conclusion: The other "gods" mentioned in the bible were false profits that belonged to other religions not the Hebrew religion & Jehovah didn't want people to worship false profits.

I will state again that I do not believe in the bible because it is a fictional storybook with morals so I hold 0 credence to the claims of other gods because they were mentioned in a fictional storybook.

I believe there is only one higher being who has the ultimate power, if there are others, they wouldn't have as much power as the other so they would be like demi gods or whatever. Why I believe this, it's part from my old religious upbringing & part to my new found spirituality. Heck for all we know, the gods we all talk about, Jehovah/Zeus could be aliens that came to Earth & we mistook them for magical people (god like) because we had no way of understanding how they were able to manipulate energy & travel great distances.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

I know Christians say that there is only one god and all others are "false" gods. But to the people who were worshiping Horus, Mithra, Krishna etc., their gods were very much real and true.

Personally, I don't believe in a deity called God. But I do believe that if there is a god, there can be 2 gods, or even an infinite number of gods.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: knoledgeispower

I know Christians say that there is only one god and all others are "false" gods. But to the people who were worshiping Horus, Mithra, Krishna etc., their gods were very much real and true.

Personally, I don't believe in a deity called God. But I do believe that if there is a god, there can be 2 gods, or even an infinite number of gods.

It doesn't matter what people call the higher being, Jehovah, Horus, Zeus, Bob, Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's all the same higher being.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

it's all the same higher being.

Why do you think that? Are Horus, Mithra, Attis and Jesus all the same people, because their stories are all similar. Why can't they all be there own entity?