We all worship the same god

The Learned Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 120

powerup wrote:

I can't see how we can tell the difference from one invisible entity to another.
They both seem to be genocidal and bloodthirsty.
So what are the differences Norm?

Well the names for one thing: Allah has his origins in pre-islamic moon deities and the god in the bible seems to be descended from a Canaanite war deity YHVH (no vowels in ancient Hebrew and don't know the exact pronouciation...it's not Jehovah for sure as there is no J in Hebrew and it sure ain't Allah)

The natures of the deities are different - their characters are not quite the same. Allah is attributed as having no limits - bible god seems to be unable to lie or sin...(well, there are contradictory verses but most xtians and jews would not define their god as being able to lie or sin)

Whilst the Jews have strictly one God (despite several being mentioned in the hebrew...Elohim, JHVH, Adonai etc) like the muslims only have one, christians (mostly) believe in a mysterious three in one entity.

The bible god doesn't seem to reward anyone today for murdering people (unlike in the past with the mythical israelite conquest of canaan...which never happened as history shows a gradual shift in canaanite city states to priest led judaism of sorts)

Another evidence of them not being the same god is the vast disparity in concepts of sin and redemption between islam and christianity (not to mention judaism too...which doesn't even have a doctrine of original sin). Concepts of heaven and the afterlife are also different too. Yes this is more doctrine but if it was the same deity it would have a few core similarities surely.

It looks to me like the Jews had their little tribal religion going and it suited them until it was hijacked to become more universal by the christians (who killed the jews and banished them when they didn't accept addendum to their own ethnic beliefs). Then the muslims came along and did the same thing to both judaism and christianity...and they killed the jews and tried to kill and conquer the christians when they didn't accept mohammad as gods new chosen messenger...

It's all a big mess and people are fighting over myths and nonsense....no firm contemporary evidence for either Jesus or Mohammad exists (we do have evidence for Israel's existence at least around 1000BCE though interestingly).

Have a look for yourself though as I am far too lazy to quote my sources right now Wink

Newbie First Class Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 44

A bible concordance would be a good place to start.
Invisible entities can be called anything, Michael, Allah, Yahweh, Ba'al, Yehovah, Satan, Lucifer, god, Jesus or the headless horseman.
I still can't tell the differnce between any of them.
It must be reliant on cultural upbringing, I guess.

The Learned Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 120

powerup wrote:

A bible concordance would be a good place to start.
Invisible entities can be called anything, Michael, Allah, Yahweh, Ba'al, Yehovah, Satan, Lucifer, god, Jesus or the headless horseman.
I still can't tell the differnce between any of them.
It must be reliant on cultural upbringing, I guess.

As far as I am concerned we are discussing fictional entities, no different to debating Greek or Norse mythology or perhaps a fiction TV series or movie. Smile

N.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:59 am

Norm_uk wrote:

powerup wrote:

A bible concordance would be a good place to start.
Invisible entities can be called anything, Michael, Allah, Yahweh, Ba'al, Yehovah, Satan, Lucifer, god, Jesus or the headless horseman.
I still can't tell the differnce between any of them.
It must be reliant on cultural upbringing, I guess.

As far as I am concerned we are discussing fictional entities, no different to debating Greek or Norse mythology or perhaps a fiction TV series or movie. Smile

N.

There is a difference; people still believe these modern myths are real and reject the implications of these obvious parallels.

Master of Logic Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 9384

I hate it when people claim, "It is different" and use detail to distract that the overall motifs were around prior.

The Mesopotamian tribalistic religions all had the same overall motif, "My deity(s) will save me(the chosen people).

There are plenty of motifs that came prior to the Hebrew religion. The Epic of Gilgamesh has first person motifs as well as a flood story. The code of Hamarabi(sp) mentioned "an eye for an eye" long before.

The ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten attempted to make Ra a monothiestic god. After his death the Egyptians got back to their polytheism and attempted to errase this first attempt at monotheism. He was despised for trying to change the popular religion.

Other motifs in the Egyptian polytheism later to be picked up in the bible. Trinity motif.....Ra, Osirus and Horus. Ascension into heaven, judgement of the dead and miracles like curing blindness. The Rx symbol that we see today on pharmacies signs is Thot the healing god spitting in the eye of Horus to cure his blindness after Horus got into a fight with Set. "Set" to some theologians is the prototype of "Satan".

The point is not that the religions are different, that is a NO DUH.

But no religion is original. The current stories and books we read today came from prior stories where details and names were changed and adapted to create new stories.

The best way to start a new religion is to take old characters and motifs, change the color of the can and name of the drink, but it is still a soda.

That is why we see names like "baal, Asurha and El" in the Hebrew OT and even the original language in Genesis says, "Let US make THEM in OUR image".

The early Hebrews were merely a splinter sect of the Mesopotamian polytheism. They borrowed old names including the new hero Yahwey and simply made a monotheistic religion out of an old polytheistic one.

There is no direct link between, say, the ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews and no theologian would claim that. The point of this post is to show that stories get filtered down through time and shift to different cultures and exchange hands multiple times but still get passed down.

You can look at it this way. Take a dollar bill out of your wallet. You know it exists and you might even know where it was printed, but you don't know all the hands it has been in except the last hand that passed it to you. And in some cases you pick up a dollar that has been written on, and certainly the look of the bill has changed over the years. Religious motifs can be passed down and filtered through multiple cultures and change so drastically that even though the motif is in tact, the details are different.

This makes much more sense than the hocus pocus claims of any polytheism or monotheism. Humans throughout their history have always been capable of believing in absurd claims and writing them down as a religion passing them off as fact.

Intern Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 231

Hi, guys. Is anybody on this topic? Is it closed?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:37 am

Hello old friend, long time no see.

No, threads are not closed. Feel free to post.

Intern Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 231

Definitely agree with Brian 37.
And according to Sitchin and his latest book “The End of Days” all religions boil down to us humans worshiping demigods on earth.
That is, an alien invader who could [genetically] bread with humans and still preserve its species longevity.
It is said in the Bible, and Sitchin confirms it, that Marduk, by the name of Nimrod in the Old Testament, lived almost two thousand years – real earth time.
He would have been born some 400/500 years (not quite sure about that) before Abraham and was found buried in Babylon some 500 years BCE. If this is not a tale, then religion has its origins when superstitious men started venerating those demigods.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:18 pm

Well.. I wouldn't quite Sitchen as if he's a reliable authority. Many of us are very well aware of his crapola.

Intern Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 231

I reckon the Annunaki’s “visit” to our planet is a possibility; obviously extremely subjective story, is it? But the “gods” came from somewhere; that I can believe. And Armageddon is their final solution for our “unbelief”. There wasn't a better plan, gentlemen.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 550

What kind of God can't make himself believed by everyone? Wouldn't he just have to make his presence more known if he existed? Not like the subtle Christian, Jewish or Islamic god who, in early years performed miracles reguarly but doesn't anymore.

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:55 am

Julio wrote:

But the “gods” came from somewhere; that I can believe.

Chalking up god origins to something other then human imagination is probably folly.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 550

MockingGods wrote:

Julio wrote:

But the “gods” came from somewhere; that I can believe.

Chalking up god origins to something other then human imagination is probably folly.

True. And look how many Christians attribute everyone else's god(s) to superstition! Surprised

Intern Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 231

“We all worship the same god” is a true statement.
And the reward will be ARMAGEDDON.
There wasn’t a better solution for our hypocrisy.
I mean, I worship, say, JEHOVAH, the Russellite god, pay him my tithe and offer him my possessions.
In “The End”, he is going to give me a place in the “New Earth”, where I can play my accordion the whole day!
Thanks, Jehovah!
My first song will be a “Lamentation” to remember the millions of INNOCENT children instantly incinerated in that worldwide conflagration.
Oh, no, no, accordion player, oh, no! No “lamentations” here in the “New Earth” you hear?! No lamentations, you hear, I repeat!
Incinerated babies were only accidental casualties, like in any other war. What do you think?
There were too many atomic bombs scattered around the globe, and Jehovah had to get rid of them.
There wasn’t a better plan, you see.
Nuclear ordnance is not a blunt weapon: it is to be used in all its might at the right occasion: ARMAGEDDON is coming!
It has to come: we all worship the same god.
Ah, it makes sense, doesn’t it?
If you worship JEHOVAH, like any other ordinary Russellite, that’s the coming future.
You cannot escape it.
Jehovah doesn’t have a better plan than to INCINERATE babies by the million, sorry. Sorry, he says.
Of course, he could have incinerated the world many millennia ago when the problem was much smaller, but, you see, gods tend to postpone THE JUDGMENT DAY!
It is much more spectacular, and the ovation is lauder. Gods appreciate some acknowledgement by the crowds.
Well, not so many of us left, after FIVE THOUSAND nuclear bombs ignited, is it? And the evil radiation?!…
But, be as it may, the few Russellites left behind can then finally have “peace on earth and good will among men” [women, still unaccounted for].
By the way, I once asked one of those subversive Russellites, if after converting to their cult I could “inherit” the new earth and be there playing my accordion at leisure. To which he agreed.
Next, I asked him: and when the accordion gets too old and too used to play?
You go get another one.
Where, I asked?
There will be somebody making new ones, he said.
Will the new ones play as nicely as the old ones?
Why not, he retorted?
And the keys will still be made of PLASTIC, I asked?
The brainwashed Russellite hesitated to offer his answer. I had caught him in his stupidity. But I could not let him go without the punching line: WHERE WILL YOU GET THE PLASTIC FROM?
He left a disgruntled VICTIM of his [subversive] CULT. The “New Earth” wasn’t exactly as new as that! Plastic comes from an old industry!… with lots of pollution.

Intern Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 231

My Russellite friend, Mike [his true name], has been trying for years to convert me to his CULT.
I give him latitude to do that, you see.
But he cannot answer some straight questions I always pose.
One of them is whether the converted Russellites in the “New Earth” will use TOILET PAPER to do the necessary cleaning.
He thinks I’m always mocking his “true religion” and refuses to help.
I told him the other day that toilet paper comes from a factory, which needs raw material and then mechanical transportation. Electricity is also indispensable in the process.
Therefore, I argue, the “New Earth” isn’t that new, I’m afraid.
Unless, I suggested, the RUSSELLITES in the “New Earth” do it like Jesus always did it.
Jesus was always confronted by the Pharisees for being unclean like a pig, and never washing his hands after defecating in the bush.
The next thing was to bless children with those contaminated hands, for goodness’ sake!
For the Pharisees that was the ultimate insult to their clean methods.
They observed Jesus and the disciples going around villages and counties dropping their faeces everywhere and next cleaning their backsides to grass and/or to their tunics.
That happened when Jesus performed the second miracle of the “multiplication of bread and fishes”, after a “seminar” of beatitudes for THREE DAYS (Matthew 15 – go check it).
After THREE DAYS of defecating behind a big rock, Jesus and the 12 disciples went to distribute bread and fish to FIVE THOUSAND brainwashed spectators (who also went behind trees to empty their bowels)!
I could tell you the rest, but leave you to imagine the Pharisees’ comments!


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