Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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@unknownuser said:
Please post a vid on YouTube.
I would, but it still is a religion, so no cotton fiber in my tummy today. 
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As a Christian I appreciate the message he's trying to get across. The dichotomy between the sort of works based system of the world and relationship based system of God. However, I would tend to side with the atheists on this one in saying that this sort of popular movement to suggest Christianity isn't a religion is simply well intentioned equivocation. I hope atheists don't miss the point that's being raised here, but I think it's clear that Christianity fits any normal definition of the word "religion" and to suggest otherwise is just a sort of rhetorical dishonesty.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
(...) I think it's clear that Christianity fits any normal definition of the word "religion" and to suggest otherwise is just a sort of rhetorical dishonesty.
Word.
Marian, less talking, mo' eating.
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Dear colleagues, it is evident that some of you have not yet studied the whole Bible, but quickly jump in for contradicting…
I recommend that after you finish reading the Holy Scripture, go through books explaining how God works, like “KNOWING God”, by J.I.PACKER, book with following content:I KNOW THE LORD
1 The Study of God
2 The People Who Know Their God
3 Knowing and Being known
4 The Only True God
5 God Incarnate
6 He ShallTestifyII BEHOLD YOUR GOD!
7 God Unchanging
8 The Majesty of God
9 God Only Wise
10 God’s Wisdom and ours
11 Thay Word Is Truth
12 The Love of God
13 The Grace of God
14 God The Judge
15 The Wrath of God
16 Goodnessand Severity
17 The Jealous GodIII IF GOD BE FOR US…
18 The Heartof the Gospel
19 Sons of God
20 Thou Our Guide
21These Inward Trials
22 The Adequacy of GodAfter that, it will be much easier for you to understand my ‘language’…!
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@solo said:
Similar to understanding mental illness after visiting an asylum.
You are erroneous, ‘Solo’, because you start with preconceptions!
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@solo said:
.... so I bid y'all farewell until the next controversial topic.
did Satan create The Federal Reserve?
[EDIT] did Satan or Satans create...
and did you ever notice santa and satan are pretty much the same
..oh.. and is satan a god? but just a naughty god? -
Satan was my cousin's dog.
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Here's Satan and God in the midst of their eternal battle
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@ ‘Rich O’Brian’ (and other, similar…), You play with ‘fire’…!
At Galatians 6:7 is written:
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows!”P.S.: Take into account the fact that Satan does not agree to be underestimated and incited...!
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I look forward to spending eternity hangin out with Satan, beats the hell out of hanging around with close minded, brainwashed, proselytising, harp playing fundaMentalists like you.
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@box said:
I look forward to spending eternity hangin out with Satan, beats the hell out of hanging around with close minded, brainwashed,
..."I look forward to spending eternity" with God!
I believe in the only true God (John 17:3) revealed in the Scriptures as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). I believe in the oneness (Deut. 6:4), the trinity (Matthew 3:16-17) and the trinity unified as one God (Matthew 28:19).
God is a spirit (John 4:24), infinite and perfect in all His attributes (Psalms 139:1-12), the One that CREATED ALL THINGS (Rev. 4:11), and keeps all things through the power of His Word (Hebrews 1:3).
In Him we live, we move and have our being (Acts 17:28).
He is the SOURCE, the SUSTAINMENT and the FINALITY of all things (Romans 11:36). -
@box said:
I look forward to spending eternity hangin out with Satan,
...I believe in the real existence of the Satan/Devil (Job 1:6,etc.)...
He is a being which was created, originally holy, then fallen through pride and rebellion against God, and became the enemy of God and man (Ezechiel 28:12-17).
He is the one who instigated man into disobedience (Genesis 3:4-5; 2 Corinthians 11:3).
He is 'the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ (Ephesians 2:2); the "accuser" of the holy ones (Revelations 12:10); the falsifier of God’s works (Matthew 13:25,38,39).
He was restrained at the cross (Colossians 2:15), and is destined in the end to be striped of all his power and to be thrown in the ‘lake of fire’ (Revelations 20:10). -
There's no such being as Satan. He's just the Middle East equivalent of the Norse god Loki....whose daughter is called Hel. Hel was cast into the subterranean domain of Nifleheim...to Hel's Hall (Helhalla), where she rules over all those not worthy to enter Valhalla. On the day of Ragnarök, Loki will lead his three children (Hel, Fenrir, the giant wolf; and Jormungandr the serpent ) together with an army of giants to do battle with the gods...good vs evil. Sounds fairly familiar...and I ain't talking about Lord of The Rings. I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.
All cultures have these myths. That doesn't mean they have any basis in fact...merely that people aren't that different and all try to explain the dichotomy between good and evil, good fortune and bad in their own way. The Native American version would be the Trickster.
If you ever feel like reading something other than the Bible, you could do worse than starting with this.
Of course, Norse mythology also features Trolls...which some of us suspect a certain contributor to these boards might number himself amongst.
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@alan fraser said:
There's no such being as Satan. He's just the Middle East equivalent of the Norse god Loki....whose daughter is called Hel, who was cast into the subterranean domain of Nifleheim...to Hel's Hall (Helhalla), where she rules over all those not worthy to enter Valhalla. On the day of Ragnarök, Loki will lead his three children and an army of giants to do battle with the gods...good vs evil.
Alan, you're quite the Nord nerd.
I can't speak to much to the specifics of these similarities (they don't sound all that similar to me, but whatever) but an alternative explanation of these stories is that perhaps there's an underlying truth to all of them. Sort of a theme that's been passed down throughout the collective consciousness through stories and oral tradition which have been adapted over time by various cultures. What would you say about that possibility.
Of course, Norse mythology also features Trolls...which some of us suspect a certain contributor to these boards might number himself amongst.[/quote]
haha. Does Norse mythology give us any clues on how to dispatch such a creature should we HAPPEN to run across one?
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
...but an alternative explanation of these stories is that perhaps there's an underlying truth to all of them. Sort of a theme that's been passed down throughout the collective consciousness through stories and oral tradition which have been adapted over time by various cultures. What would you say about that possibility.
-Brodie
No there isn't. There really isn't. I already stated that. They are similar attempts...very possibly all based on earlier myths...therefore somewhat related...to explain good and evil. But that does not mean that they have any grounding in fact or truth. Thunder is not produced by the Thunderbird flapping his wings any more than it's produced by Thor striking his hammer.
What's more, there are plenty of eminent churchmen that would agree with me. Satan hardly appears in the Jewish tradition....certainly not as the great bogeyman he's been made out to be by layer after layer of deluded masochistic christians. These people have taken the original idea of Sheol...which can mean something as basic as being undergound (as in a grave)...somewhere where all the dead go, irrespective of whether they've been good or bad...mixed it in with the old Greek myth of Hades...taken the Hell from the Nordic tradition and invented this lunacy that is preached today as fact.[flash=640,390:3tkkkwww]http://www.youtube.com/v/WtIREJVPfQY?version=3[/flash:3tkkkwww]
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Try new improve Atheism [now with added religion!] http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html
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@alan fraser said:
No there isn't. There really isn't. I already stated that. They are similar attempts...very possibly all based on earlier myths...therefore somewhat related...to explain good and evil.
So we're not so far off then. You're willing to say that they are 'very possibly all based on earlier myths' attesting to the potential for a common denominator. Our disagreement then is that I allow for the possibility that perhaps that common element holds a historical element whereas you seem to suggest this is impossible. Is that an accurate representation of what you're saying?
@unknownuser said:
But that does not mean that they have any grounding in fact or truth. Thunder is not produced by the Thunderbird flapping his wings any more than it's produced by Thor striking his hammer.
What's more, there are plenty of eminent churchmen that would agree with me. Satan hardly appears in the Jewish tradition....certainly not as the great bogeyman he's been made out to be by layer after layer of deluded masochistic christians. These people have taken the original idea of Sheol...which can mean something as basic as being undergound (as in a grave)...somewhere where all the dead go, irrespective of whether they've been good or bad...mixed it in with the old Greek myth of Hades...taken the Hell from the Nordic tradition and invented this lunacy that is preached today as fact.There's a giant gap between where the concept of Satan is today, vs. what we can say Bibilically. I'm unwilling to defend a concept of Satan developed in the middle ages which has persisted through our culture to this day if that's primarily where you're going. However, I'll agree that Satan certainly plays a larger role in the new testament and the idea of the after life is further developed. But I don't quite see how you can so conclusively say that 1st century Judaism and before were just taking ideas from Nordic myths and such.
At least with the phrase Hades which isused in the Bible, there was some semantic borrowing but that doesn't mean they were adopting the greek idea of hell - far from it. I heard someone recently suggest that their boss was on a 'jihad' when it came to getting some task completed. He was adopting the language and we know what he meant - to suggest he was implying his boss was a radical muslim would be to miss the point. As for borrowing the term "hell" from Nordic tradition, you should know that the word "hell" isn't in the Bible so it's a pretty irrelevant point. The two primary words we translate as hell are "hades" and "gehenna," the later of which was essentially a trash dump with a sordid history outside of Jerusalem. Most of what we know about hell comes from Jesus and he tells us precious little about it. And often when he does speak of it, he's making a completely different point so it's unclear whether he's at all giving us a clear picture of what it's like or if he's simply adopting the contemporary idea of hell in Jewish culture in order to have a context for his real point.
-Brodie
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Alan, I'm not sure if that video was in the original post but I must have missed it. I can't think of a way to overstate how far off John Spong's theology (not that he claims to have one) is from mainstream or orthodox Christianity. He's the sort of oddity that the media is intrigued by for simply that reason. His views don't represent a large part of theologians much less Christians.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
But I don't quite see how you can so conclusively say that 1st century Judaism and before were just taking ideas from Nordic myths and such.
I never said that. I said that the generations of idiotic christians that built upon the Jewish foundation did that.
@unknownuser said:
At least with the phrase Hades which is used in the Bible, there was some semantic borrowing but that doesn't mean they were adopting the greek idea of hell
Hades is in the Bible because it was translated from Aramaic into Greek...and that's where the problems started. You can't translate using other, roughly equivalent concepts without the concept itself being bastardised. It was further bastardised when translated from Greek to English.
Either Christianity is based on some fundamental "truth" imparted to the chosen people, or it's not. If it's not, then it is man-made fiction. There is no room whatsoever for an elaboration of the original Books of the Torah that essentially form the Old Testament.
Yet the Jews did not have anything like medieval vision of satan or hell. There is no fallen angel doing battle with god. In the jewish tradition satan is essentially acting under god's orders trying to trick people to test them. The origin of the word satan means the 'hinderer'. He's not god's enemy...he's literally a devil's advocate.
The present notion of satan and hell is, as the bishop states, an invention of the church for the purpose of control. He may be atypical over there, but he certainly isn't over here. I've heard the Archbishop of Canterbury say essentially the same thing in an interview with Richard Dawkins. What you don't realise is how far off kilter American christianity is with much of the rest of the world.
@TIG
Alain De Botton speaks a lot of sense. It's probably easier to implement over here, though, than in the States...because religious people over here are much less didactic. Nor do they feel the need to constantly wear their faith on their sleeve...especially if running for political office.
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