Christianity is poly-theistic

And not in the silly Muslim way if interpreting the godhead.

For some reason, the idea of being mono-theistic vindicates some people, as though you can devote more religion to your god if you have less god to devote it to.

And so, Christians have this silly idea about this one god being the only one that they have to COUNT as a god.

There's "god", who is a god.
There's Lucifer, who is obviously a god (he has his own fucking realm, how do you not consider that a god?)
There's all manner of followers, from angels/fallen angels to humans.
There's also god's other personification, which somehow coexisted with him, while being him.... which may count as being a separate god.

God doesn't have to be THE finial god, and god can create other gods. A god doesn't have to go shitting out universes right and left to be a god, not all gods are created equal.

You can't just call the biggest baddest god in your poly-theistic hierarchy "god" and pretend that makes the rest not count. But it does SOUND like a pretty cool charge against poly-theists, that they're worshipping false gods and whatnot.

Being the biggest bully doesn't make him the only one.

 

I´ve brought this up in conversations with christians, and theyve told me that angels are creations, just like us, and just like animals. and that you have to be able to create to be god, and the angels cant create.

I dont know where they pull that from.. but thats the answer I got

 

Lucifer creates demons, does he not?

And he and his demons can manipulate people, control them, and even create manifestations. They create disease (despite science disproving this); they create lesions and leprosy, they create new languages =P

Also, the saints could do miracles, and can manifest themselves (especially Mary).

Aren't all these some form of semi-god, if not a full god?

I mean, if creation signifies godliness, NYC and Dubai prove humans' are gods; hell, the Internet does.

 

Actually, I'm pretty confident that he doesn't.. As the story goes, god created the angels. Some of them rebelled and became demons. Hell is not manufacturing more demons, nor is god creating more angels.

Whenever anyone in the bible (including Jesus) performed miracles, they would always acknowledge that god gave them the power, and they could do nothing by themselves. So in reality, they were only puppets of god and had no real power of any kind.

I guess it depends on your definition of god

There is a difference between creation and construction. Construction is building something with the resources already available to you. (resources created by god)

And creation is making something out of nothing, which only god can do.

 

A god does not have to create, simply be a more masterful manipulator than a human.

Gods are just higher life, depending on how you think of it. But deciding that the highest is god is like deciding that michael phelps is "swimmer", and as such, no body else can be.

So, if you could find a shred of reason for me to think anything in the bible is true, next I'd like to hear about how there is only one god, please.

And of course, this applies to any of the three abharamic religions.

I expect a parade of christians here to tell us how you just have to adjust your definition of god so that mono-theistic religions are held to a lower standard than poly-theistic religions, and that you need to see reality more like play-doh.....

 

Even close to the beginning of the bible, there is no claim made that there are no other gods. Note the 10 commandments...one of them is to "Worship no other gods before me."
^ A clear indication that it was acknowledged that there were "others"...it's just that I happen to think Jehovah is the greatest of them all, and it is in/on Him that I've cast all my bets, so to say. However, should you, or anybody bother to really read the word, again, there is not even a hint that there are no other "gods".

 

Just curious, where did you get this (false) impression that, according to the bible, there are no other gods?
How many "Christians" have you discussed this with?
Admittedly, this is not a topic for a sheeple type Christian...one actually would have to have a wee bit of common sense and know the bible; but one wouldn't even have to know the bible all that well (imo). However, back to my original question...why would you think that there is supposedly a claim that there is no other god?
To me, I claim God Yahweh Jehovah as my master...knowing fully well there are others that one can worship.

 

I'm curious Roorshack and Duck, have either of you actually read the bible or studied the religion beyond TV evangelists or accepting the common misconceptions which you have parroted here?

Silly me, I thought this might be a halfway intelligent thread about the differences between the two camps in Christianity regarding the Trinity (Baptist for example) and Oneness (United Pentecostal for example) denominations.
What was I thinking.

 

First of all, I agree with lynn, the bible is not nearly so evil as it's modern interpretations. And herman, I have not read most of the bible, but have studied it and it's religion and interaction with other religions thought history pretty seriously.

That said, interpretation is EVERYTHING.

There are still many splits in churches over supposed poly-theistic sects and the like. It's this stupid paranoid jealous wife beating persona that god puts out, like you could theoretically have other gods if they're not before him, but really, if you have other gods, he's afraid they're going to come between the two of you, so he'll just damn your whole church preemptively.

So while there may be fringe "christians" who may not be rabid, (and they would be found here, if anywhere.... but so are the totally insane ones. still waiting for them to drop in) christianity as a religion is a system of intrepertation of some texts, totally ignoring others, and using crappy copies where originals are generally unknown-a lot of delicate looking wording has been officially intrepertated to mean all kinds of things, when it was just really some guy paraphrasing or maybe even writing a parody of a part of the original text, or whatever. And the "christian" religion cuts out a lot of gnostic and related texts, which they brutally suppressed to put down a somewhat more logical(in many ways) evolution of the religion THEY wanted to control.

 

First of all, I agree with lynn, the bible is not nearly so evil as it's modern interpretations. And herman, I have not read most of the bible, but have studied it and it's religion and interaction with other religions thought history pretty seriously.

That said, interpretation is EVERYTHING.

There are still many splits in churches over supposed poly-theistic sects and the like. It's this paranoid jealous wife beating persona that god puts out, like you could theoretically have other gods if they're not before him, but really, if you have other gods, he's afraid they're going to come between the two of you, so he'll just damn your whole church preemptively.

So while there may be fringe "christians" who may not be rabid, (and they would be found here, if anywhere.... but so are the totally insane ones. still waiting for them to drop in) christianity as a religion is a system of intrepertation of some texts, totally ignoring others, and using crappy copies where originals are generally unknown-a lot of delicate looking wording has been officially intrepertated to mean all kinds of things, when it was just really some guy paraphrasing or maybe even writing a parody of a part of the original text, or whatever. And the "christian" religion cuts out a lot of gnostic and related texts, which they brutally suppressed to put down a somewhat more logical(in many ways) evolution of the religion THEY wanted to control.

 

Therefore.. To animals, we are god. Right?

Your definition of the word ¨god¨ is as self serving as that of the christians. Do you have an argument for why their definition is inferior to yours?

 

Just as I thought....

Your right, interpretation is everything.
So why do you make the erroneous assumption that YOUR interpretation, or that which you have been told and gives rise to the ideas which you espouse here are the correct ones? Ever consider the possibility that you are wrong? But how would you ever know if you have never actually read the subject matter. It ain't like reading the book jacket or cliff notes, ya know. But here you are, Cliff notes in hand, ready to decree the truths concerning a book you have NEVER EVEN READ.

Laughable

Maybe if you actually took the time to read the actual tome in question, you might be astonished at the number of popular misconceptions, misquotes, out of context quotes, and a multitude of other things that are generally accepted as being "Christian" or from the Bible that have no basis whatsoever in the text. The commonly accepted ideas about Christianity and it's beliefs are very, very far off the mark to say the least.

Again with the tired old bullshit about interpretations of copies of copies, blah,blah,blah......
Yet I'm sure you accept as historical fact numerous things that have much, much less veracity and have also been re-interpreted and copied many, many times over.

That being said, are you aware of WHY the Dead Sea scrolls were so significant of an archeological find?

Because the scrolls, which pre-dated Christianity and all that shit by multiple hundreds of years contained scriptures that were practically word for word the same as those that had supposedly been altered by Christians and the various early church councils. Kind shut the mouth of those that claimed the early church altered the text to fit the belief system.

Seriously if you are going to proclaim things with the unabashed certitude which seems to be your hallmark, at the very least have the common sense to know the subject matter your talking about before speaking.

 

*edit* double post

 

I assume what I do about the bible because of rather more intensive study than most people who condemn me to hell based on it's contents. I have put a great deal of study into it, I don't need to have read the laundry list that is Deuteronomy to know what major points are interpreted to mean, and why. And while I have NOT read Deuteronomy, I know that it forbids many things done by most christians.

Again, we're talking about the religion, not what YOU can read into it's texts. A religion cites texts or other artifacts as "proof", but that proof does not constitute the religion, the behavior, practices, and beliefs of it's followers are what constitutes the religion. Their interpretation.

They don't have to have edited every single book for us to know that important changes have been made, especially simply by the destruction or omission of texts from the bible. "christianity" is a fragment of a belief system fighting each other for the same god's love, or hate, depending on your exact orientation. The saved christian religion shows one little factions general platform.

"christianity" is the belief system of the world's second largest group of fanatical psychopaths, who are off destroying remote cultures in tribes that have just seen white people for the first time at this very minute. It's not how YOU think they should read their book, it's how they DO read their book, and say a lot of things about it, like that they're mono-theists and people who even acknowledge multiple gods are heathens.

And my ideas about what constitutes a god are based on the religions christianity began by facing off against.

 

Christians aren't bound by mosaic law. The law was a shadow of the law fulfilled (Jesus).

Jesus has said that not everyone who calls on the lord would be considered a Christian, so that rules out all the 'psychopaths' as they are described.

Concerning polytheism, I think it was described very well already in this thread why it would not be polytheism. The argument in Christianity is that God has ultimate control and that no being can do what they do unless God allows it. An analogy is that God is the engine and beings are the cars. Paul once described God as what we move in and gives us our being (Acts 17:28)

 

Everything in life is on an equal "playing field", everything comes from and returns to the same "place". If not all gods are created equally it's because an individual has chosen to give one more attention than the others.

For the most part it's easy to see that gods are metaphors for many things; human traits, psychological realms, metaphysical explanations, astronomy, weather, etc. They are all equal in that any one of them has as much relevance as the next. The way we have interpreted them is superstitious, leaving some to believe that some of them are more important or more real than others.

With the example of Jesus Christ, seemingly more relevant because he was likely a real person, whereas I doubt Zeus ever was. However the godliness that people have attributed to Jesus is equally as superstitious as that of Zeus, Ganesh, etc.

If you look at the gods that are treated as more important or more real than others, they were gods that were human at one point, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Krishna, etc. Therefore they're more relatable to human beings, and thus taken more seriously.

We're all extensions of the same thing, god if you prefer to call it that.

 

Concerning saints.

Not angels, which are actually are considered lower beings than humans if I remember my studies correctly, but glorified humans. Miracles based on a saint's intercession as stated before are a direct results of God's own power.

Lynnbrown, the earlist books found in the Bible truly do not exclude other Gods, but from my memory, I do believe the Hebrew theology developed from a tribal God, to a supreme God amongst many, to the singular supreme God we think of today.

 

What a load of crap.

As Def Zepplin points out, Christians are not bound by Mosaic law, just one of many "assumptions" that you hold that are completely and utterly wrong.

That just confirms the fact that you do not know what your talking about and trying to write off your lack of knowledge of the subject by pointing fingers and saying "see what those Christians are doing". Attempting to use that as a substitution for actual education is a weak and horribly flawed argument.

Maybe you should lose all the preconceived notions you have adopted over the years and actually read the book that is the foundation of the religion you would claim understanding of.

You are adopting the same mentality that the many mainstream Christian groups have concerning things such as evolution vs creation.
"I don't need to investigate it, I already am convinced my beliefs and ASSUMPTIONS are correct."

All I can say is that your post really shows how little you know about Biblical religions and Christianity specifically.

Dang rooshack, in some topics you present a very intelligent approach and demeanor, but I'm sorry to say your whole approach to this topic is a fail.

 

Why is the Nag Hammadi generally ignored by the Christian community as a whole? Much of it pre-dates the New Testament.

 

Don't know, don't really care.

It doesn't really relate at all to the point I was making about roor's comment about text being copied and altered.

The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in the early 1940's I believe. The reason why they are significant is because some of the prophetic passages in Isaiah so clearly point to Jesus as the Messiah, that many groups began to raise suspicions that the text we have today had been altered to support the "Jesus story". With the discovery of text that predates any supposed attempts to tailor the prophecies to fit the story, any such accusations fall flat.

I'm not here to defend or debate religion.
I just can't stand people claiming knowledge and expertise on a topic that they have actually never really investigated.
I've challenged the same stupid assumptions concerning drugs many times as well.
It's like somebody telling you how horrible and damaging marijuana is and claiming expertise and knowledge because they saw Reefer Madness.

I'm sorry, but one would think that in the "intensive study" of a subject such as religion, the person engaged in such study would have actually read the scripture or tome upon which the religion being studied is founded. If not then that hardly qualifies as "intensive study".