He called God a false god. Why?

I guess this will have to be the place for this.

In this thread Paul_Richard made this statement...

Bummer that his protection and guidance doesn't extend to the thousands of innocent children around the world who have been sexually assaulted -- and in some cases, raped -- by pedophile Christian priests, ministers, and nuns who preach in his name no less.

Okay...so maybe he is just practicing some kind of divine detachment in this case, if there even is such a thing. But that still makes him a pedophile enabler in his own churches.

Not a god at all in my estimation as well as that of many others.

Compassion dictates evolution, not Group Entity propaganda from the Mid and Lower Realms of Spirit

(On page 4)

I asked him to show a little respect towards my religion, as name-calling is not necessary. He kept hijacking the thread and turned it into an attack towards Christianity and in the end he turned to name calling in my direction.

I didn't want debate him on my religion, because, as I said, I don't care what he does or doesn't believe in, I cannot keep quiet when he calls my God a "false god". I know exactly where this thread is going - I've been down that road many times - and in the end we'll end up where we started. Nowhere. But just to make a point that I'm not scared of him or his weak intimidation methods, I'll do this.

So, Paul_Richard. What is your point? Now you can't stay with name-calling. You'll actually have to bring up some arguments for once.

Why do you have a problem with God/Jesus/Christianity?

I don't think you can have a problem with any of those myths if you do not adhere to them, perhaps he was angry at the people who do horrible stuff in their dieties' names? Just a thought. Most of the time, a religion is considered good/bad by what its followers actually do, rather than what its scriptures say they should do. Two major factors that kinda peev me are the Inquisition and WWII (the church backed Hitler). I am interested in hearing the other guy's arguments though.

Originally posted by Gemwolf

So, Paul_Richard. What is your point? Now you can't stay with name-calling. You'll actually have to bring up some arguments for once.

Why do you have a problem with God/Jesus/Christianity?

Yes, I have a BIG PROBLEM with people proclaiming that any prophet is the only road to salvation and stating or implying that said prophet is omnipotent, for the reasons I have already stated -- which you quoted.

My question to you is...

What evidence do you have for us to PROVE that your deity is not a FALSE GOD?

Originally posted by FallenOne
I don't think you can have a problem with any of those myths if you do not adhere to them, perhaps he was angry at the people who do horrible stuff in their dieties' names? Just a thought. Most of the time, a religion is considered good/bad by what its followers actually do, rather than what its scriptures say they should do. Two major factors that kinda peev me are the Inquisition and WWII (the church backed Hitler). I am interested in hearing the other guy's arguments though.

That's absolutely right.

We judge a religion mainly by the followers as well as by the compassion (or lack thereof) of the purported deity

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
Yes, I have a BIG PROBLEM with people proclaiming that any prophet is the only road to salvation and stating or implying that said prophet is omnipotent, for the reasons I have already stated -- which you quoted.

My question to you is...

What evidence do you have for us to PROVE that your deity is not a FALSE GOD?

I still see no reason why you call Him a "false god". Not believing in Him doesn't make Him "false". If I didn't believe the earth to be round, would that make the fact false? No. It would merely mean that I don't believe the fact.
Same goes for the existence of aliens. There is proof of their existence. Yet so few people believe.
You know all the facts and proof there is of God's existence, and it would be pointless for me to repeat it all. What you make with that "proof" is a completely different matter. All in the eye of the beholder? There's an elephant sitting iin the corner.

As we established and you agreed - sexual abuse are in all religions, believes and cultures.
But no. You specifically pointed to Jesus. To Christianity. You have a big problem with Christianity. That is the question. Why? Why blame Christ for the world's problems? Why not blame Satan, Buddha, Mohammed or the Atheist - who might just as well be the USA?

Originally posted by Gemwolf

As we established and you agreed - sexual abuse are in all religions, believes and cultures.
But no. You specifically pointed to Jesus. To Christianity. You have a big problem with Christianity. That is the question. Why? Why blame Christ for the world's problems? Why not blame Satan, Buddha, Mohammed or the Atheist - who might just as well be the USA?

I specifically pointed to the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, because someone in the other thread espoused that the path to God could only be through him -- with the implication of an opinion of his omnipotence.

I ask for a second time...

What evidence do you have to PROVE that your deity is not a FALSE GOD?

Or to put it another way...

What evidence do you have for us to PROVE that your deity is a god or GOD?

Scriptural references and purported deeds in the Bible aren't enough. You need to give us evidence in the HERE AND NOW.

????

Forgive me, but this is an argument that cannot be won. All this will result in is a series of back and forth accusations and implied hostility. Neither of you are likely to be truly swayed by the other's arguments, so what point is there in bickering back and forth? Accept that you disagree on some fundamental issues and move on, because at the moment this seems less like a discussion of issues relating to conspiracies in religion, or indeed religion in general, and more like a personal disagreement. Perhaps this would be better served in the Faith, Spirituality & Theology forum over at BTS.

[edit on 3/10/05 by Jeremiah25]

Originally posted by Gemwolf

But no. You specifically pointed to Jesus. To Christianity. You have a big problem with Christianity. That is the question. Why? Why blame Christ for the world's problems? Why not blame Satan, Buddha, Mohammed or the Atheist - who might just as well be the USA?

You can't blame satan, if you don't believe in the hebrew god.

You can't blame Buddha, all he did was sit under a tree and tell everyone to play nice.

You can blame Mohammed. He started his religion on a weird concoction of jewish, christian, and local arab myths. and a big black rock from space. He did that so he could gain followers to wage war and gain land. Very similar to the way the early Jews got their land.

I don't understand your comment about Athiests being the USA. To my knowledge, freaks like Pat Robertson and the lot reside here (USA), as do many of his coocoo followers.
This is one of the more crazy religious nations out there. The USA is to Christianity as Iran is to Islam. Simple.

You shouldn't take to heart what other people believe or don't believe, we're all entitled to our opinions. From what I gather, he wasn't attacking your god, just 'his' followers, while also adding the question of...'why follow at all if there's no proof? (of course, everyone sees proof as something different). I see it as those 2 seperate matters. But that's just me.

I also belive that there are two (or more) versions of Christianity. The two I know of are the early Gnostics (who did not believe that Jeses wsa devine, but rather, an enlightened teacher [similar to Bhudda], to my knowledge anyways), and that of the Roman Catholic Church (of wich all the other versions spun off of). If you look at the churches history, they're one of the most violent organized religions on the planet (by what the people did). The other two, Judiasm and Islam (also the other most violent), claim to adhere to the same god. That's probably why a lot of people are fed up with it. All the violence under it's name.

Ok, I'm rambling now...but anyways, you see where I'm going. Don't think he's talking about your god (which may or may not exist [another of his questions that you seem to confuse with his disliking him [or maybe I'm wrong on that part?]]), think he's talking about what was done under his name. And there is a lot of horror done under his name through those 3 religions than any other group. At least, that's my beef with them.

Jeremiah25,

I am willing to "agree to disagree."

FallenOne,

Good post.

Originally posted by Gemwolf
Not believing in Him doesn't make Him "false".

and so believing would not necessarily make something true either, no? and you can't exactly compare something that can be proven (the world being round) to something as tangible as God, or Jesus or whatever. im not trying to attack you here, but unfortunately you just have look at both sides. if your belief gives you hope and makes you feel good, then great, and its good to defend those beliefs too, but sometimes you just gotta accept that not all can be proven. maybe thats what makes it strong, who knows, life goes on.

def.out

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
I specifically pointed to the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, because someone in the other thread espoused that the path to God could only be through him -- with the implication of an opinion of his omnipotence.

I ask for a second time...

What evidence do you have to PROVE that your deity is not a FALSE GOD?

Or to put it another way...

What evidence do you have for us to PROVE that your deity is a god or GOD?

Scriptural references and purported deeds in the Bible aren't enough. You need to give us evidence in the HERE AND NOW.

????

Aha. I see as with the other thread your skills at arguing did not yet improve. You completely ignored everything I said in my previous post. Hmm.. This won't get us anywhere, will it?

Seeing only what we want to see, no?

See the biggest problem with religion is if you do not want to believe in God, you never will. Your own arguments for His existence can never be completely ironclad.

Nonetheless, well played. Not very original, though. The easiest question to ask a Christian. What proof is there that God - the God of Christianity - exists?

You know very well that I don't have physical proof of his existence other than faith. God cannot be explained by a mathematical calculation, a scientific experiment or a picture showing God. It doesn't work that way. If there were such proof, then there would be no question about Christianity, would there?

There can be no scientific proof, simply because God is not physical or material, He is spiritual and infinite. Science is the observation of material phenomena in this universe, and then applying our reason and logic to understand and control them. By definition, God cannot exist as part of this universe, cannot be composed of matter, and cannot even exist in time.

But even things in this world cannot really be proven with 100% certainty. Entire books have been written about how the U.S. space program has been faked by the government. All you have to do is set the standards of proof high enough, and absolutely nothing can be proven. Proof is a tricky subject. As the old Greeks like Euclid discovered, all proofs have to rely on at least several assumptions (which they called postulates) which cannot themselves be proven. So a person who demands hard proofs is doomed to failure.

In the real world, we base our lives, and all of our actions, on probabilities, not proofs. The sun will probably rise today, so we get out of bed. We will probably not be killed in a car accident this morning, so we head off to work. The food at the restaurant is probably not poisoned either by accident or by a homicidal maniac, so we eat it.

Since it is impossible to "prove," any amount of certainty about God has to come from your own spirit, from within your own heart, because it is the spirit of God that we are trying to find. The paradox is, you will only find this faith if God gives you the grace to find it.

That’s right. The "knowing" that God does exist, is a feeling you have inside. What proof do you have that you feel happiness, anger or love inside?

Words cannot describe this knowing and/or feeling.

Assume there is no God: then this world, and happiness in it, is extremely important. Indeed, it is all there is. So it is a great tragedy whenever anyone does not have a long and happy life here. The death of a child, or a painful life in a third-world country, is an unimaginable tragedy, which nothing can mitigate.

If you have seen your own child killed by a car, or have travelled in poor countries and have seen the misery of people starving slowly to death, your own sense of justice demands that there be more to life than the vale of tears we experience in this life. It is just not fair that the only life a small girl knows should end almost before it is begun, in an agony of injuries. It is just not fair that so many millions of people be born into circumstances that they have no control over, and that condemn them to unimaginable suffering every day of their lives.

Are we ready to say that this beautiful universe, which is so incredibly orderly, is also diabolically unfair? That would make us only a great cosmic joke. That is not acceptable.

Our sense of justice demands that these wrongs be righted. But by whom? Not by us, that's impossible: only by a Supreme Being.

We have a conscience that lets us know right from wrong. Yet in this world, the people who do not follow this guide and commit murder and cheat and steal and lie and are selfish and mean are often the ones who are the most successful. Honest, good people living quiet lives of loving and charity often have horrible illnesses, or lose loved ones, or are born into abject poverty. Our sense of justice tells us that there will be, there must be a future time of accounting, when the books will be balanced and the inequities of this world will be resolved. Yet with no God, no Divine Justice, this is impossible.

I understand that you are banking on our eventually finding a "natural" solution to how this whole universe came into being. But you are the victim of your own logic. You are rejecting a perfectly good solution, one that has satisfied millions of highly intelligent men for centuries (and no, this cannot be overlooked) in favour of a nebulous nothing that you cannot even imagine, just that it has not been discovered yet.

That is very unsatisfying. Your natural solution would have to satisfy certain requirements. It could not be of the same material that the rest of the universe is made of, or the first cause argument would apply to it also. Like God, it would have to exist outside of time to have been responsible for the beginning of time. It would have to account for love, and hate, and heroism, and enjoyment of beauty, and our conscience, and everything else that we find inside ourselves that are found nowhere else in nature. When all is said and done, we might as well call this eternal natural thing God and be done with it.

BUT
If it turns out to be all just a fairy tale, and you go out like a candle when you die, you will never know. There is no penalty for believing the wrong things all your life. In fact, psychologists will tell you that strong faith in God and leading a moral life is the best way to achieve happiness here on earth for ourselves regardless of what happens when we die. So it is a win-win.

On the other hand, suppose you choose not to believe in God or lead a good, moral life and you are wrong! You will have all eternity to regret turning your back on God. And in addition, your life here will (in all probability) be much less happy. It is lose-lose.

Originally posted by Gemwolf
On the other hand, suppose you choose not to believe in God or lead a good, moral life and you are wrong! You will have all eternity to regret turning your back on God. And in addition, your life here will (in all probability) be much less happy. It is lose-lose.

that is a lame excuse to believe in god, so that just incase you be "saved". believe unconditionally, or don't, its as easy as that.

what i find interesting is how a lot of christians dont understand that they don't really know anymore than what anyone else has been taught from birth anyways. sure it could be real, but it might also not be. you only know as much as you are told to know and believe. socrates said it best, "i know nothing".

Originally posted by Jeremiah25
Forgive me, but this is an argument that cannot be won. All this will result in is a series of back and forth accusations and implied hostility. Neither of you are likely to be truly swayed by the other's arguments, so what point is there in bickering back and forth? Accept that you disagree on some fundamental issues and move on, because at the moment this seems less like a discussion of issues relating to conspiracies in religion, or indeed religion in general, and more like a personal disagreement. Perhaps this would be better served in the Faith, Spirituality & Theology forum over at BTS.

My point exactly, Jermemiah. If you go to the thread where all of this started you'll see that I said exactly that, but Paul_Richard wanted to have the last word in this, and if I gave him that, he would have felt the "winner". I know that this is going nowhere. But some things you just have to stand up for. This is one of those things. The whole point of all of this, is Paul's lack of respect for other people and what they believe in.

Gemwolf,

You provided us with a surprisingly interesting and well thought out rebuttal.

However, in staying on track with the original issue, the question is not if there was or is a God, but instead whether or not Jesus is a god or God and you providing evidence to support that notion

I don't question that there was an Original Creator of ALL THAT IS. Only that a prophet from a traditional religion is aligned with same.

IMHO, The First Coming of The Original Creator has yet to occur.

Near death experience research indicates that no one ever truly gets away with anything. The checks and balances of reality exist in the discarnate dimensions. Those who serve others and strive to live by The Golden Rule are rewarded when they leave their bodies - by their ability to ascend into The Light Of The God Force. The higher the plane, the more energy available, the greater the expansion of consciousness, and the more spiritual the environment.

I respect others views on God and religion as long as they don't proclaim their "god" to be "The Only Way" and that their "god" is omnipotent.



[edit on 3-10-2005 by Paul_Richard]

Originally posted by deafence#

Originally posted by Gemwolf
On the other hand, suppose you choose not to believe in God or lead a good, moral life and you are wrong! You will have all eternity to regret turning your back on God. And in addition, your life here will (in all probability) be much less happy. It is lose-lose.

that is a lame excuse to believe in god, so that just incase you be "saved". believe unconditionally, or don't, its as easy as that.

Yes, indeed. I totally agree with you. I hate using that argument, but it serves to support one of the reasons why we do believe.

Originally posted by deafence#
what i find interesting is how a lot of christians dont understand that they don't really know anymore than what anyone else has been taught from birth anyways. sure it could be real, but it might also not be. you only know as much as you are told to know and believe. socrates said it best, "i know nothing".

Yeah. As with everything else in life you have to make up your own mind, ideas and believes according to the information given to you. That's one of the things of religion. It's called faith. The same can be said to the Atheist. "You know nothing."

deafence#,

It takes a very strong and uniquely spiritual person to lead a moral life of service to others without believing in a traditional god icon. The existentialists have the right idea but lack the needed spiritual focus.

socrates was wise in his choice of words because true 'know'lege is an absolute, and absolutes are few.

The god I pray to is the great I AM, the heavenly father. I close my prayers in the name of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. I can offer no proof that he is such, only faith.

Originally posted by lost

The god I pray to is the great I AM, the heavenly father. I close my prayers in the name of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. I can offer no proof that he is such, only faith.

Not quite sure how that helps anyone prove anything, since that what this thread is about, proving or not proving God's existance. And also why people are annoyed with it.

There is no such thing as a false God. The Deity stands alone as the creator of the universe and has no form to be imagined by us.

There are multitudes of humans throughout the ages which have been awarded the status of Godliness in the attempt to put a human form onto this Deity, (ie. the Greek Pantheon, Isis and Osiris, Lug, Thor, Jesus...and the list goes on) but they are all humans and not God.

When a form is conjured, whether it is a human, ram, bull, fish or a golden calf, it is an attempt to bring the image of God into something which is part of the natural world.

When a form becomes Godlike in the minds of people, there is a tendency to create a mythos about that form via statues, writings, art, etc. The establishment of such writings then become the basis for religions.

Religions, then, are the result of a 'formed God' coupled with the establisment of a cult based on the ideology explicit within its' accompanying literature.

Thereby, all 'forms' are false...because we cannot 'know' God, we can only sense Deity in our own hearts and minds. We cannot know how God is perceived by another any more than we could fathom what a Zebra senses as it scans the horizons of the Serengeti.

In this immense universe, we are like babies which have just opened our eyes. We are still dependent on our Mother (Earth) and cannot leave her (yet). In our infantile understandings of Deity, we have projected our earthly images to this God, and I'm sure that God (the Creator) is far more interesting than whatever we earthlings have come up with yet.

Maybe we can only ever come to a personal knowledge of God, like a friendship between our soul and our physical being. All other means are vain, arrogant and doomed to failure eventually.

Besides, why agonize about who's God is greater, false, nicest, meanest, etc. when we will ALL find out after we die? Best to come to a personal understanding with your Creator by acting out our lives in the manner which feels right to our conscience.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
Gemwolf,

You provided us with a surprisingly interesting and well thought out rebuttal.

Wow, a compliment from you. You see, this is what I mean. You show just a little bit of respect, and my whole view of you changes. I've now gone from completely disliking you, to thinking that you're actually not such a bad guy. Thanks.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
However, in staying on track with the original issue, the question is not if there was or is a God, but instead whether or not Jesus is a god or God and you providing evidence to support that notion

Aha. Are we getting closer to the issue? It seems like you have a Jewish view on this? You don't think that Jesus of Nasareth existed, or if He existed, you don't think He was the Son of God? And even one step further, you don't believe that the only way to heaven is through Him?
Well, to that I might not have such a clear answer. Again, it's a case of Faith and making up your own mind.

Take any random person from history. King Arthur. Julius Caesar. Noah. Anyone. How do we prove that they actually existed? It's impossible! All we have are "records" of events, "historical places", etc. etc. How do we prove that Jesus was in fact the Son of God? The Messiah. We don't. The High Priests crucified Jesus for saying that He was the Messiah. And so fulfilled many prophesies. The events surrounding His life, and what happened thereafter is (in my opinion) enough proof that He is in fact the only way "in". As with everything else (as I said above) you are given certain "facts" and what you do with it, is your own business. If you decide it is facts, then you'll probably be a Christian. If you don't believe it to be facts, then we get a "Paul_Richard" ...

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
I don't question that there was an Original Creator of ALL THAT IS. Only that a prophet from a traditional religion is aligned with same.

IMHO, The First Coming of The Original Creator has yet to occur.

Aah. I see. You do have an opinion. Your statement is not based on any fact. Yes. Certain circumstances and events lead you to believe this is true. As the opposite with me is true.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
Near death experience research indicates that no one ever truly gets away with anything. The checks and balances of reality exist in the discarnate dimensions. Those who serve others and strive to live by The Golden Rule are rewarded when they leave their bodies - by their ability to ascend into The Light Of The God Force. The higher the plane, the more energy available, the greater the expansion of consciousness, and the more spiritual the environment.

I'm not sure where this fits in, but I see no problem with it.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
I respect others views on God and religion as long as they don't proclaim their "god" to be "The Only Way" and that their "god" is omnipotent.

Well, doesn't having a view include proclaiming something? You don't really respect their religion and view on God, if you don't respect their view that Jesus is the only way, do you?

Questioning it, is I'm sure by all means valid, but attacking it?

Omnipotent: Having unlimited authority or power. God is said to be omnipotent, controlling all forces and phenomena of nature. Man often behaves as though he is omnipotent; however, he is self-deceived.

I don't understand? You believe in an Original Creator, and you believe that he (and he alone) would come again.... Isn't the "Original Creator" omnipotent? Or is he one of many "gods" with powers?
Jesus is just as much omnipotent as God (the Creator), because Jesus is included in the Holy Trinity... And on this point, I suppose you have strong opinion about the Holy Spirit as well?

masqua

All in all, that's a good post. But you also can't start to drift in a 'creator' 'god'. I believe that when our ancestors saw weather or natural phenomenon, they deemed as a 'force to be reckoned with', god of wind, etc. I don't think it was their belief the occurance was because of an actual being (at first, then the masses started to link the powers with their anscestors).

And for the 'all supreme'. I think it's best described as the Egyptian Maat or the Indian Brahman or the Tao...just a collection of our souls, and a Universal factor (The Universe) that happens to just work the way it works. Not as a being, but as a force.

[edit on 3/10/2005 by FallenOne]