Is my God your God?

Originally posted by queenannie38

I am the Lord. There is no other God;
I am the only God.

so far, we can understand two things:

1. there is ONE GOD, no other
   
2. this ONE GOD made ALL people.

So far, so good.
But the Biblical statements you're quoting have a corollary which you are carefully leaving on one side.
In Isaiah and all the way through the Bible, the statement "There is one God" is accompanied by the implicit or explicit understanding that there are other gods- or at least other concepts, other names- which are claiming to be God and claiming to have made the world, but they are making that claim falsely.

As, for example in Exodus;
"You shall have no other gods but me...you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God." (Exodus ch20 vv3-5)
You cannot get past the logic of that- it is clear and direct.
There is "Me".
There are others which are "not-Me".
The Israelites are clearly and forcibly instructed that in their obedience to "Me" they must detach themselves from everything which is "not-Me".
Therefore you cannot, logically, subsume the "Me" and the "not-Me" together as part of the same entity. There is a difference, and we know that because the Biblical God himself says there is a difference.

Or in Ezekiel, where God complains;
"Son of Man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary?" (Ezekiel ch8 v6)
And what are they doing wrong? They're worshiping other gods, that's what theyr're doing wrong. God makes it clear that he objects to it. And if God objects to the worship of other gods, you cannot, logically, say that he and the other gods are the same.

You quoted a comment of mine, and the way you treated that comment shows up the flaws in your method of interpretation.
I remarked on the difficulty of a particular concept; you took that remark out of context, and made it apply to something else altogether.
And that's really symptomatic of your approach- you've given yourself away there. You take a Biblical quotation, ignore what it really means, and turn it around to make it suit your own purposes.

You are trying to define a God who will meet your own exacting standards of morality.
I'm trying to go by what the Biblical God actually says about himself.

what does it say?

it says:

I AM GOD and there is no other GOD

there are but two options with this.
either there are other gods or there is only one GOD.

which means either GOD is lying and there ARE other gods
or
GOD is telling the truth and GOD is the one and only GOD.

and in that very same chapter, GOD testifies to his own honesty and righteousness.

so, once again, we have but two options:
either GOD is lying or GOD is telling the truth.

if we go with your ideas, then that makes GOD a liar, since you say there are other gods but GOD says there are no others.

i hope you understand why i have to believe what GOD says over what you say - and with all due respect!
i know you know what i mean.


let GOD be true and every man a liar!
on that one there are NO options.
at least not as far as i can see.



as far as the two passages you show as proof there are other gods....

Exodus chapter 20 (the ten commandments)
the second commandment being "no other gods before me", in verse 3.
then the 4th verse starts a altogether new commandment that doesn't mention any other gods at all but rather the effigies and icons and such that people were prone to making back then, in their quest for GOD.
GOD says: don't make any images of anything and then bow down to that image.
and it is specifically referring to things in nature - objects and creatures.

which leads to the passage in Ezekiel.
same thing.
there is no mention of gods in that passage - just "images" and all manner of creatures such as reptiles and things like that.

they are worshiping animals, perhaps, or something like that? as well as the sun, later in the chapter.

but GOD knows those aren't gods - he made them all, too, just like we were made.

Originally posted by queenannie38
what does it say?
it says:

I AM GOD and there is no other GOD

there are but two options with this.
either there are other gods or there is only one GOD.
if we go with your ideas, then that makes GOD a liar, since you say there are other gods but GOD says there are no others.

My understanding of the headline quote, in conjunction with his other statements, is;-
"There is ME- the only God
And there are things which say they are gods, and are not."

There is no conflict whatever between the first line in that summary and the second line, and I maintain them both.

This is certainly in conflict with the all-embracing statement that "all gods are the same". (I'm not quoting this as a statement of yours, but as a typical one).

There are certain details in what the Biblical God says about himself which distinguish him- and that includes certain events in the New Testament. But this is not the thread for getting into that level of detail.

My concern here is just the principle that "difference" exists.



[edit on 13-8-2010 by DISRAELI]

It is my understanding that the ORIGIN of all "gods" is the ONE TRUE GOD. It would be patently unfair, and ungodlike () for God to have revealed himself to only one group of people in one part of the world, and ignored the rest.

So while the individual understandings of the ONE TRUE GOD may have varied from region to region and culture to culture (and there is no reason why they shouldn't have, because even if the ONE TRUE GOD is eternal and unchanging, humanity's needs and understandings change, if not now (because of the increasing globalisation and eroding of cultural differences), at least in the past), the major aspects remained the same.

Of course, in the ensuing centuries and millennia some cultures may have drifted further and further away from the original (even as it was known to them), but even in this day and age, the original can still be located easily, whether in the form of YHWH, Brahman, Ahura Mazda, Aten, and even Zeus (even though current-day worship of this understanding of the ONE TRUE GOD may not be as it should be).

If in some unspecified date BC, a simple Persian man lived, and loved his Lord God with all his heart, and soul, and strength and mind, and loved his neighbour as himself, would his worship and life be considered any less than a pious christian simply because he referred to his Lord God by the name "Ahura Mazda"? Or would you do this Persian man an even greater insult and say "it is okay, because he was 'ignorant'"?!

To take it a step further, do you think that YHWH, or Brahman, or Aten, or Allah are the actual NAME of God? All the best names belong to God. Would I be worshipping another deity if I referred to God as "The Most High"? No.


As for my personal beliefs (and I leave this to the last, because it may bias some people towards my arguments above), yes, as a muslim, my God is the same as the God of the Christians, of the Jews, of Abraham, of Israel, of all mankind.

[edit on 13-8-2010 by babloyi]

reply to post by babloyi

It is my understanding that the ORIGIN of all "gods" is the ONE TRUE GOD. It would be patently unfair, and ungodlike () for God to have revealed himself to only one group of people in one part of the world, and ignored the rest.

Umm, God revealed Himself to the FIRST two people on Earth, Adam and Eve. He instructed fathers and mothers to always raise their children in the knowledge of Him. If subsequent generations turned from Him and never taught their children about Him is that HIS fault?

God did reveal Himself to mankind, over the next hundreds and thousands of years men turned away. Then 2500 years later it was narrowed down again, to just 8 people, Noah and his wife, and Noah's sons and their wives on the ark. Again, they worshipped and had knowledge of the one true God. Their subsequent generations and their children chose to turn away again. God didn't 'ignore' any of us,..

we ignored HIM.




[edit on 13-8-2010 by NOTurTypical]

Jesus spoke of a "god of this world" and that his people were something that were "in" the world, but not "of" the world. I would take that to mean that whoever believed in him did not subject themselves to a usurper god who seemed to be putting everyone under his rule, but belonged to a "kingdom" of God, meaning the true god that he was the prophet of, teaching people to love others instead of seeking ways to get over on others.
An example could be Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers who were profiting off what should have been a universal opportunity for the study of the real God, but became a temple of the false god of financial gain at the expense of charity and truth.
Pharaoh was a god and his prophets were the magicians, while Moses was appointed a god by Yahweh God with Aaron as his prophet.
We live in a world where there are kingdoms and principalities that include the "religious" institutions along with the governments, where true religion can not be found other than by the seeking on an individual level. The goal should be to enter the spiritual kingdom where God reveals himself, then to live in the material world with a knowing and feeling that others can benefit from and perhaps be able to enter into at least on some level, if not completely.

reply to post by jmdewey60
I've been thinking about the manipulations of chronology that you mentioned on another thread. There does seem to me to be deliberate manipulation of several things in the OT.

My theories:
1) Hebrew as a written language was deliberately created during "Babylonian Captivity" days by clerics to be a holy language for the holy book being written during that same time period. 600s-500s BCE or date back to Josiah 649–609 BCE

2) The Levites were the people who had Yahweh worship, which didn't become part of the accepted royal(Judean) religion until Josiah's day (scroll found in the unused temple)
Corollary: the child king Solomon, as described in 1&2 Chronicles is actually fashioned upon Josiah the child king.

3) Jerusalem, as a defensible walled city, didn't exist until Hezekiah's time. c. 715 and 686 BC

4) The general population of the land of Canaan were various Semitic people, Caananites, Amorites, Akadians, along with Hittites various Egyptian escaped slaves and military deserters. The curse against Canaan (gen 9:24-27) and genealogies (gen 10) were written specifically to cut certain groups of people out.

5) The religion of the general population was the typical religion "Canaanite religion was polytheistic or monolatristic, worshiping one god while acknowledging the existence of others."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion

6) The Exodus story (Gen 39-Numbers) was written almost completely during the "Babylonian Captivity" years as a model(guide book) of how the taking over of a land is to be done, and how to crush existing religions and peoples.

7) The real exodus occurred with Ezra and Nehemiah, the so-called return.

Yahweh, as a "one and only god of the universe" has only been around since about 600 BC. All other gods were then demonized as evil beings.

Since I am a pantheist, (all is God, male and female) who sacrificed His/Her individuality in order to become what we know as creation (including some spirit beings), I would say no to the OP. Any distinct entity claiming to be the separate from creation creator I consider to be a liar.

If such a being exists,(except as a liar), which I doubt, since all anyone has to go by is from writings written by people with an ulterior motive (which was the conquering of land and subjugation of and shutting out of other people) then I guess I'm truly damned. For some reason I don't feel particularly upset about being damned by such as he.

People really should know that Abraham made treaties with his neighbors in the name of El. Some who claim to be his descendants kill their neighbors and take land in the name of Yahweh.

That said; Since I am a pantheist I recognize that even Monotheists are part of what is and therefore have what it takes to be better than what it is they consider to be the creator. A good proportion of religious people have transcended their own religions whether they realize it or not. It isn't in words that people are children of God, but in deeds and intentions, the words count for nothing, except as the words are deeds.

Addendum
Christian Zionism in my judgment, is the most hateful, destructive of human life religion I've ever encountered. It is based upon fundamentalism which denies that the books were written by men. If Christian Zionism did not exist, first in England and now in the US, then Jewish Zionism would be powerless to take land from others, thus placing the existence of human life in jeopardy, that's all human life by the way.

Do you hear what I'm saying? Christian Zionism is the false prophet breathing life into a man made image, allowing it to both speak and dictate to the world who lives and who dies.


[edit on 14-8-2010 by pthena]