[Northern Monkey]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

But who said all of these people open to other religions believe in one or many Gods?

There is no one answer is there?

Well by definition if you are Christian you believe in one god and his incarnations Jesus and the holy ghost but ultimately one god.Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

[Dollface]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

Take Hinduism for example.A modern polytheistic religion.If the religious people who are more open minded and tolerant of other religions believe that all religions are a path to the same god then what do they say about Hinduism a religion of many gods.There lies a contradiction.There can't be only one god but also many.

Actually, whilst there are many deities in Hinduism, Hindu's believe that there is one supreme god (Brahman)

RE was my favourite subject at school lol

[Dollface]

Originally Posted by Dollface

Actually, whilst there are many deities in Hinduism, Hindu's believe that there is one supreme god (Brahman)

.

[Rob!]

Religion and faith are two completely different things though.

Religion itself is responsible for pretty much all the hate and mass death going on in the world at the moment.

Faith never hurt anybody - the feeling of faith to a God doesn't need to be a physical entity in front of you. It just needs to be something that brings you personal comfort and reassurance.

[Marsh.]

Religion isn't.

Extremist murderers using religions as excuses causes the hate and mass death.

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Religion isn't.

Extremist murderers using religions as excuses causes the hate and mass death.

The excuse is still there as religion though. It has become cultish rather than merely a name for a collective group of people who share the same faith.

I'm not a belieber myself but I can appreciate and respect other's views. But people who believe that people need to die because they don't fit into their own religious ideology, such as gay people, other faiths etc is where the difference lies - in my opinion.

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Rob!

The excuse is still there as religion though. It has become cultish rather than merely a name for a collective group of people who share the same faith.

I'm not a belieber myself but I can appreciate and respect other's views. But people who believe that people need to die because they don't fit into their own religious ideology, such as gay people, other faiths etc is where the difference lies - in my opinion.

erm - what is this autocorrect? Is Justin Beiber in with apple or something?

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Rob!

The excuse is still there as religion though. It has become cultish rather than merely a name for a collective group of people who share the same faith.

Yes, but the people killing in the name of religion are still a very small minority when it comes to these religions as a whole. The actions of these extremists are also commonly going against the religion they claim to be fighting for.

Originally Posted by Rob!

belieber

Reported.

Originally Posted by Rob!

such as gay people

LET ME LIVE!!!!

It was 2009!!!!

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Yes, but the people killing in the name of religion are still a very small minority when it comes to these religions as a whole. The actions of these extremists are also commonly going against the religion they claim to be fighting for.



Reported.



LET ME LIVE!!!!

It was 2009!!!!

And yeah, believe me I know. I learnt about splinter groups on that Doctor Who episode

[Northern Monkey]

Don't get me wrong.Just because i don't believe a religion.I am not anti religion.I actually find it very interesting and a good look at how people thought in ancient times.

[Glenn.]

8 pages of this?

oh my invisible god

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Glenn.

8 pages of this?

oh my invisible god

Don't you have some feet to wash.

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Don't you have some feet to wash.

Isn't that a Christian thing too

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Don't you have some feet to wash.

Well I do them when I have a shower so they are clean and almond milk flavour shower gel smelling.

[Marsh.]

Jesus washed feet, keeping with the thread topic.

[Rob!]

Omg

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Rob!

Omg

Twins.

[Northern Monkey]

So what about the really old religions which came a long time before even Judaism?They died out with their respective cultures.Many of them believed in many gods with different abilities and duties.If they were not the true religions and don't exist because nobody believes them anymore then why are todays religions any different?
If a religion or concept such as polytheism can die out with its culture then it is not the true one is it?Again there cannot be only one god or many different ones.Religion only exists because people believe it.Proving that it is infact a man made concept.If it was'nt then it could'nt die out and would be eternal through all of time.Looking to the past helps to form the most plausable explanation.Religions can fade out with there believers.Therefore the believers are the ones who create god/s not the other way around.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

So what about the really old religions which came a long time before even Judaism?They died out with their respective cultures.Many of them believed in many gods with different abilities and duties.If they were not the true religions and don't exist because nobody believes them anymore then why are todays religions any different?
If a religion or concept such as polytheism can die out with its culture then it is not the true one is it?Again there cannot be only one god or many different ones.Religion only exists because people believe it.Proving that it is infact a man made concept.If it was'nt then it could'nt die out and would be eternal through all of time.Looking to the past helps to form the most plausable explanation.Religions can fade out with there believers.Therefore the believers are the ones who create god/s not the other way around.

Just because "belief" in those ancient religions died out doesn't mean any of them were totally wrong though, does it?

We're all fallible humans who don't actually know anything for certain, we just have our beliefs and our faith which is different for everyone.

Your definition of the word "proof" is interesting. Nothing's been proven.

[Northern Monkey]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Just because "belief" in those ancient religions died out doesn't mean any of them were totally wrong though, does it?

We're all fallible humans who don't actually know anything for certain, we just have our beliefs and our faith which is different for everyone.

Your definition of the word "proof" is interesting. Nothing's been proven.

It is proof because it has happened.Religions died with the people who followed them.That is irrefutable.They were created by people and died with those people.Man made.If they were not man made then they would not die out with their believers.A religion can only exist while there are people to believe it.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

It is proof because it has happened.Religions died with the people who followed them.That is irrefutable.They were created by people and died with those people.Man made.If they were not man made then they would not die out with their believers.A religion can only exist while there are people to believe it.

How is it irrefutable?

It's not in the slightest.

Not much "died out" as much as evolved anyway. The religions today are some form of those early religions.

It's not a case of people stopping believing because they were incorrect and starting a new one.

[Dollface]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

It is proof because it has happened.Religions died with the people who followed them.That is irrefutable.They were created by people and died with those people.Man made.If they were not man made then they would not die out with their believers.A religion can only exist while there are people to believe it.

But just because somebody doesn't believe something, doesn't make it non-true?

[Northern Monkey]

Originally Posted by Dollface

But just because somebody doesn't believe something, doesn't make it non-true?

In that case maybe Christianity is not true and the ancient Egyptian religion is.The concept of which totally contradicts Christianity.Many gods vs one god.

[Josy]

God isn't an object, he is love, therefore it's up to an individual person whether they want/allow god to exist in their lives or not.

[kirklancaster]

This thread starts with a false premise in that God is NOT invisible.

There is a difference in being 'invisible' and being 'unseen'.

YOU, my dear 'winder upper' L.T. exist, I exist, Toy Soldier exists, as do all the members of Tibb, but we are 'invisible' and communicate via this forum, only ELECTING to become 'visible' when we choose to, by sending our photos to each other, skyping each other, or even meeting in person.

God 'communicated' via his Angels to many people in the Old Testament, and to his Prophets and many others, by a form of what we now term 'telepathy' which they - in their limited knowledge termed 'dreams' or 'visions'.

Yet God DID physically appear on numerous occasions to others in the Old Testament:
Adam and Eve
Cain and Abel
Noah and his wife and sons.
Abraham
Sarah
Hagar
Ishmael
Rebekah
Joseph
Jacob
Solomon
Job
Isaiah
Micaiah
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Nebuchadnezza
Shadrach, Meshach,Abed-Nego
Belshazzar and company of ,1000 lords at feast
Daniel
Amos
Jonah
Habakkuk
Zechariah
Elijah
Elisha
David

And let's not forget the most famous example of man meeting a visible God; Moses, who came back down Sinai after receiving the Commandments, and was transfigured and his skin 'glowing' and 'shining':

Exodus 34:29

"29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.

31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them.

32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai".

And this is NOT the only time those who 'met' God were transfigured and became 'Shining Ones'.

In the New Testament, GOD appears before EVERYONE, from the Israelites to the Romans and others, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth - The Christ or Messiah.

YOU are looking and approching this subject through very ordinary HUMAN eyes, and within the very strict and narrow parameters of knowledge which even the most intellectual and learned of humans are unfortunately shackled by.

WHY - if God exists (and I KNOW that he does) - should we humans dare to know HIS mind, or understand HIS works?

The most intellectal, scientific or creative of us, fail miserably when attempting to understand a concept so unimaginable and unfathomable as God, and we close our feeble minds altogether, or hide behind Darwin's increasingly discredited and flawed 'Origin of Species' or the error-riddled sweeping presumptions of Dawkins, or we fall in 'lock, stock, and barrel' with the 'God was an Alien' types of theories, because Aliens (which I also firmly believe in the existence of) are more 'technological' and therefore dovetail more neatly into our 'scientific' mindsets.

The text of the Bible and other scriptures may at times appear self-contradictory or to paint God as a murderous, wrathful, and positively evil deity, but this is a HUGE error being repeatedly made on here by 'Religion bashers' and 'Atheists', because they are confusing the WORD of God with the word of God as corrupted and altered over thousands of years by countless corrupt MEN for their own very HUMAN ends.

In Walter Millers great post-nuclear dystopian Science Fiction masterpiece "A Canticle for Leibowitz", the monk Liebowitz finds a tattered fragment of an ordinary pre-apocolypse shopping list - including 'pastrami' - and this is subsequently hailed as a 'sacred relic'.

A mistake in perception and translation - yes.

But proof that whoever wrote that list EXISTED and that it had an original purpose.

Do not deny God's message because we are not yet equipped to understand it.

And don't blame God for Man's doing.