God is a Monstrous, Evil, Bloodthirsty Tyrant

[koshergrl]

That's pretty much what I've said you've been saying from the beginning, and it proves you're an idiot.

As if you don't prove it every time you open your stupid mouth.

 

[Si modo]

Belief in God does not require agreement with what any particular religion says about God. Christians, Muslims, and Hindus all believe in God, but do not recognize one another's scriptures (for the most part) nor accept one another's doctrines.

Exactly. "God" is a personal thing.

If your God is a monstrous, evil, and a bloodthirsty tyrant, then that's your choice. If another's God seems to be a montrous, evil, and a bloodthirtsy tyrant to you, then that is THEIR choice.

It's called free will.

But what you WANT and what you BELIEVE doesn't make you right.

....

You couldn't be more correct.

.... There's ultimately only one God. And regardless of what you believe, that doesn't change. Just as my hair color is brown. One person might call it blue, another yellow...but it's still brown, and they're wrong.

But, that seems to contradict what you just said.

Anyway, I'm not trying your faith. I am happy you have one. I'm pointing out my difficulties in having one. Most of the time, I believe there is one God, but it's not always there. I'm agnostic, obviously. And, I would like to have the serenity that those with faith
sometimes seem to have.

Oh well. I'll keep working on that.

 

[koshergrl]

No I know you're not attacking faith.

I'm just speaking to your stance that different people have different gods...it's just a semantics thing. They don't have different gods, they may have different VIEWS of God. But there's only one God, and eventually, people will either be right or wrong about him, regardless how well seated their beliefs are, or how logical.

 

[hortysir]

The Jews wrote the old testament.

The people that wrote the new Testament were not what one would consider "Jews". They were apart of the Cult of Christ, which merged with the Cult of John the Baptist and tried desperately to convince peole that Jesus was the Messiah through their own interpretation of events of their time.

Regardless of what the "Jews for Jesus" and their ilk claims, you are no longer practicing Judaism if you believe in the New Testament. Regardless of the rituals you maintain, regardless of your heritage, you are Christian if you believe in the words and theology proposed in the New Testament.

In what ways does Jesus' teachings contradict Judaism?

According to Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah. The promised one to rule over Israel and the world foreveand ever in total peace.

According to the Jews, Jesus is no Messiah. The Messiah has yet to come and Jesus does not satisfy all of the conditions for the Messiah as well.

By the way, there maybe much more to Christianity than "what Jesus taught" since the words and events are being told by the Disciples. It is even possible that the Disciples concocted much of what is considered Christian Theology. Which leads to the problem of what did Jesus actually say versus what was posed to help establish the church.

The Jews simply couldn't accept the fact that Jesus fulfilled about 300 prophecies of the coming Messiah.
To accept that truth they would have to surrender their earthly kingdom.

Which conditions did Jesus not meet?
The odds of one Man matching just a dozen of these 300 prophecies is astronomical, let alone all of them.

I can concede some of your points about the teachings of Paul and the others as possibly not meeting Jesus' curriculum, though.

 

[amrchaos]

In what ways does Jesus' teachings contradict Judaism?

According to Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah. The promised one to rule over Israel and the world foreveand ever in total peace.

According to the Jews, Jesus is no Messiah. The Messiah has yet to come and Jesus does not satisfy all of the conditions for the Messiah as well.

By the way, there maybe much more to Christianity than "what Jesus taught" since the words and events are being told by the Disciples. It is even possible that the Disciples concocted much of what is considered Christian Theology. Which leads to the problem of what did Jesus actually say versus what was posed to help establish the church.

The Jews simply couldn't accept the fact that Jesus fulfilled about 300 prophecies of the coming Messiah.
To accept that truth they would have to surrender their earthly kingdom.

Which conditions did Jesus not meet?
The odds of one Man matching just a dozen of these 300 prophecies is astronomical, let alone all of them.

I can concede some of your points about the teachings of Paul and the others as possibly not meeting Jesus' curriculum, though.

Let us make sure that the prophecies you are referring to is about the Messiah and not for some other prophet like Benjamin.

Also, I already gave you one that Jesus did not meet, and you act as if you did not see it(The one about the Messiah subjugating the nations of the world and ruling the earth in peace forever and ever.) Jesus did not do that.

 

[amrchaos]

No, you have to first believe Genesis.

Which I do.

What does believing in Genesis have to do with believing in the Disciples? Do you believe that the Disciples wrote both old and New Testaments.

There is a fundamental difference between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism can be considered a people's religion. A religion that focus on telling their history, sets the laws and customs that set their cultures and society, and teaches how to live in a Jewish. Looking at Judaism in this light, it actually has more characteristics with Shinto and Hinduism than Christianity and Islam. This is because Shinto and Hinduism does much of the same for its people.

Christianity can be considered a Universal religion that takes the Jewish text and rewrite much of their beiefs and societal normals to attract a larger group of people and not just Jews. It is like a very watered down version of Judaism minus many of the rituals for hygene, practices and even the recordings of events of the community. The history that Christianity is even focused on telling is that of Jesus, the Disciples and early church. And not much of that is actually covered.

Think about it--about 2 years concerning Jesus and his ministry, the time afterwards that is covered in ACTS, and the rest is what, letters and speeches the Disciple gives based on their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. approximately 20 years, am I right, Judaism covers thousands of years.

I'll be right back.

 

[hortysir]

According to Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah. The promised one to rule over Israel and the world foreveand ever in total peace.

According to the Jews, Jesus is no Messiah. The Messiah has yet to come and Jesus does not satisfy all of the conditions for the Messiah as well.

By the way, there maybe much more to Christianity than "what Jesus taught" since the words and events are being told by the Disciples. It is even possible that the Disciples concocted much of what is considered Christian Theology. Which leads to the problem of what did Jesus actually say versus what was posed to help establish the church.

The Jews simply couldn't accept the fact that Jesus fulfilled about 300 prophecies of the coming Messiah.
To accept that truth they would have to surrender their earthly kingdom.

Which conditions did Jesus not meet?
The odds of one Man matching just a dozen of these 300 prophecies is astronomical, let alone all of them.

I can concede some of your points about the teachings of Paul and the others as possibly not meeting Jesus' curriculum, though.

Let us make sure that the prophecies you are referring to is about the Messiah and not for some other prophet like Benjamin.

Also, I already gave you one that Jesus did not meet, and you act as if you did not see it(The one about the Messiah subjugating the nations of the world and ruling the earth in peace forever and ever.) Jesus did not do that.

Yes, I'm referring to Messianic prophecies
And no, I'm sorry, I didn't see your mention of the Messiah ruling the world.
It's my understanding that Jesus will do that with His second-coming when He returns to build a New Jerusalem on Earth.

But, by not meeting one prophecy(yet), that doesn't negate the hundreds He did fulfill.

I get that a lot of people are not certain of "what's up there".
I am but an infant in my walk with God and don't presume to be the expert to turn to.
I believe that He just goes by many names, not that He doesn't exist at all.
I just can't fathom all of creation being a coincidence.

I don't think atheists are stupid, just not convinced enough to take the leap.

I think there are some that want to.
I think there are some, like Cammmpbell, that are so poisoned by either false doctrine or people that they are forced to dismiss any chance.
I think that are even SOME that are simply too self-centered to accept that they don't have the final say about every little thing.

Just as there is extremism in Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, and Judaism so there is also in Atheism.

 

[koshergrl]

No, you have to first believe Genesis.

Which I do.

What does believing in Genesis have to do with believing in the Disciples? Do you believe that the Disciples wrote both old and New Testaments.

There is a fundamental difference between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism can be considered a people's religion. A religion that focus on telling their history, sets the laws and customs that set their cultures and society, and teaches how to live in a Jewish. Looking at Judaism in this light, it actually has more characteristics with Shinto and Hinduism than Christianity and Islam. This is because Shinto and Hinduism does much of the same for its people.

Christianity can be considered a Universal religion that takes the Jewish text and rewrite much of their beiefs and societal normals to attract a larger group of people and not just Jews. It is like a very watered down version of Judaism minus many of the rituals for hygene, practices and even the recordings of events of the community. The history that Christianity is even focused on telling is that of Jesus, the Disciples and early church. And not much of that is actually covered.

Think about it--about 2 years concerning Jesus and his ministry, the time afterwards that is covered in ACTS, and the rest is what, letters and speeches the Disciple gives based on their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. approximately 20 years, am I right, Judaism covers thousands of years.

I'll be right back.

Excuse me, YOU are the one who said that in order to believe in the inerrancy of the Word, one had to believe in the disciples.

That was never my claim. I believe the Word is inerrant because it is the Word of God, as established in the OT. It has nothing to do with the reliability of the disciples. Obviously, they were sinful and imperfect human beings, as we all are.

But the BIBLE is not, because it is of GOD. So however faulty the disciples were, it doesn't matter. What we have in the bible is perfect. Do we understand it? No, not entirely.

We don't understand God entirely, either. And that's addressed in the OT as well.

 

[BluePhantom]

That means a lot coming from you, I have to say.

"I don't know what the hell God means but I know we've got it wrong!"

I guess that's supposed to be an intelligent argument?

Let me respond to that on this thread where it belongs instead of on the other thread where you posted it.

The point of the OP was to suggest, not that God doesn't exist, but that the traditional way in which we view God today is in error. I completely agree with that based on the undeniable fact that the scriptures have been altered dramatically through history and the originals no longer exist. As such the traditional view of God does not reflect the original scriptures which were given to man by God, but instead reflect the political goals of the church and the nobility over time.

As such, the traditional view of God, by definition, MUST be wrong since it is based on altered scripture, and without the originals it becomes impossible to know the true word of God. All we are left with is conjecture. Now why this is so hard for you to grasp is completely beyond me.

 

[BluePhantom]

I believe the Word is inerrant because it is the Word of God, as established in the OT....But the BIBLE is not, because it is of GOD. So however faulty the disciples were, it doesn't matter. What we have in the bible is perfect. Do we understand it? No, not entirely.

We don't understand God entirely, either. And that's addressed in the OT as well.

Oh ok...so which version of the Bible is inerrant then? Which do we use? The Septuagint? The Vulgate? How about King James? Luther's German Bible? New International Version? Revised Standard? How about Young's Literal? They all say different things so which one is the one that is inerrant? Hell the 10 Commandments aren't even the same from one to the other.

 

[amrchaos]

No, you have to first believe Genesis.

Which I do.

What does believing in Genesis have to do with believing in the Disciples? Do you believe that the Disciples wrote both old and New Testaments.

There is a fundamental difference between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism can be considered a people's religion. A religion that focus on telling their history, sets the laws and customs that set their cultures and society, and teaches how to live in a Jewish. Looking at Judaism in this light, it actually has more characteristics with Shinto and Hinduism than Christianity and Islam. This is because Shinto and Hinduism does much of the same for its people.

Christianity can be considered a Universal religion that takes the Jewish text and rewrite much of their beiefs and societal normals to attract a larger group of people and not just Jews. It is like a very watered down version of Judaism minus many of the rituals for hygene, practices and even the recordings of events of the community. The history that Christianity is even focused on telling is that of Jesus, the Disciples and early church. And not much of that is actually covered.

Think about it--about 2 years concerning Jesus and his ministry, the time afterwards that is covered in ACTS, and the rest is what, letters and speeches the Disciple gives based on their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. approximately 20 years, am I right, Judaism covers thousands of years.

I'll be right back.

Excuse me, YOU are the one who said that in order to believe in the inerrancy of the Word, one had to believe in the disciples.

That was never my claim. I believe the Word is inerrant because it is the Word of God, as established in the OT. It has nothing to do with the reliability of the disciples. Obviously, they were sinful and imperfect human beings, as we all are.

But the BIBLE is not, because it is of GOD. So however faulty the disciples were, it doesn't matter. What we have in the bible is perfect. Do we understand it? No, not entirely.

We don't understand God entirely, either. And that's addressed in the OT as well.

No--in order to be Christian, you must believe in the writings and claims of the Disciples of Jesus..

Believing in Genesis has nothing to do with believing in the Disciples Christ. The two material is seperate. Understand, If you assumed that the OT is the word of god that does not necessitate that the New Testament is the word of God. In order to claim that the New Testament is the word of God, then you must assume that the Disciples are telling the truth.

I think that is what I said before. If it was incomprehensible, then pardon me.

Just in case I did not make myself clear. The New Testament is the work of the Disciples and is being attached to the Old Testament. The Two Testaments may not be of the same source. The only way to claim such is to believe in the writings of the Disciples.

 

[hortysir]

No--in order to be Christian, you must believe in the writings and claims of the Disciples of Jesus..

Believing in Genesis has nothing to do with believing in the Disciples Christ. The two material is seperate. Understand, If you assumed that the OT is the word of god that does not necessitate that the New Testament is the word of God. In order to claim that the New Testament is the word of God, then you must assume that the Disciples are telling the truth.

I think that is what I said before. If it was incomprehensible, then pardon me.

Just in case I did not make myself clear. The New Testament is the work of the Disciples and is being attached to the Old Testament. The Two Testaments may not be of the same source. The only way to claim such is to believe in the writings of the Disciples.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

To believe in Jesus as the Messiah is to believe that He was there during creation.

 

[amrchaos]

I believe the Word is inerrant because it is the Word of God, as established in the OT....But the BIBLE is not, because it is of GOD. So however faulty the disciples were, it doesn't matter. What we have in the bible is perfect. Do we understand it? No, not entirely.

We don't understand God entirely, either. And that's addressed in the OT as well.

Oh ok...so which version of the Bible is inerrant then? Which do we use? The Septuagint? The Vulgate? How about King James? Luther's German Bible? New International Version? Revised Standard? How about Young's Literal? They all say different things so which one is the one that is inerrant? Hell the 10 Commandments aren't even the same from one to the other.

Actually, many of the different versions of the Bibles come from one source(The writings of the Disciples which is in Greek, Latin and I think Hebrew as well)--they are just different translation of it.

If you want copies of the originals, contact the Catholics, Orthordox or even the Cypotics for it. I believe they have the originals and copies of the original works.

 

[amrchaos]

No--in order to be Christian, you must believe in the writings and claims of the Disciples of Jesus..

Believing in Genesis has nothing to do with believing in the Disciples Christ. The two material is seperate. Understand, If you assumed that the OT is the word of god that does not necessitate that the New Testament is the word of God. In order to claim that the New Testament is the word of God, then you must assume that the Disciples are telling the truth.

I think that is what I said before. If it was incomprehensible, then pardon me.

Just in case I did not make myself clear. The New Testament is the work of the Disciples and is being attached to the Old Testament. The Two Testaments may not be of the same source. The only way to claim such is to believe in the writings of the Disciples.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

To believe in Jesus as the Messiah is to believe that He was there during creation.

That is what the Christians believe. Now how about the Jews who do not believe in Jesus?

 

[hortysir]

No--in order to be Christian, you must believe in the writings and claims of the Disciples of Jesus..

Believing in Genesis has nothing to do with believing in the Disciples Christ. The two material is seperate. Understand, If you assumed that the OT is the word of god that does not necessitate that the New Testament is the word of God. In order to claim that the New Testament is the word of God, then you must assume that the Disciples are telling the truth.

I think that is what I said before. If it was incomprehensible, then pardon me.

Just in case I did not make myself clear. The New Testament is the work of the Disciples and is being attached to the Old Testament. The Two Testaments may not be of the same source. The only way to claim such is to believe in the writings of the Disciples.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

To believe in Jesus as the Messiah is to believe that He was there during creation.

That is what the Christians believe. Now how about the Jews who do not believe in Jesus?

One of the two are going to be surprised, the other disappointed

 

[BluePhantom]

Actually, many of the different versions of the Bibles come from one source(The writings of the Disciples which is in Greek, Latin and I think Hebrew as well)--they are just different translation of it.

If you want copies of the originals, contact the Catholics, Orthordox or even the Cypotics for it. I believe they have the originals and copies of the original works.

No one has the originals. We have the earliest known copies but we don't have any of the originals. They don't even know if the copies they have came from those who it says wrote them. It was very common in those days to write something and assign a name to it that everyone knew in order to give it more credibility. The book of Revelation for example is commonly said to have been written by John the Apostle. Most Biblical scholars though doubt that it actually was. It may have been a different John or it may have been written by some jack ass that wrote it down and put John's name on it in order to give it more weight. That stuff happened all the time.

Another problem, of course, is the words themselves. The meanings of words change through time as cultures change. In the 1920's for example if you said to someone "I am feeling very gay today" they would conclude that you are in a good mood. Say that to someone now and they will reach a far different conclusion. Sometimes you run into translations that in no uncertain language prohibit concepts that didn't even exist at the time.

This is the problem with the scriptures as I referred to earlier. Something as simple as "the number of the beast" in The Revelation. Well we always thought it was 666. Well then we discover papyrus 115, an earlier version of The Revelation it where it's 616. So which is it? One would assume the earlier version would be more accurate, but we really don't know. Now the number of the beast is somewhat irrelevant, but the point is that there are very critical elements that have been changed over time and it's altered the very pillars upon which Christianity was based.

I am not attempting to make the argument that Christianity is "bad", or that God doesn't exist, or even that Jesus wasn't the Messiah. I am simply saying that the scriptures which exist today are not the original words of God as given to man and there is simply no way to get around that one.

 

[hortysir]

BP,

I was going to bring up the case of different meanings of words in a recent 'Heaven & Hell' thread.

Someone had mentioned an eternal burning.
I heard a sermon some time back, so I can't remember if it was originally a Greek or Hebrew word, that said that meaning of that particular word was similar to how a tree would burn "forever" - until it was burnt up.

I get the confusion some have as I struggle at times.
I simply read, meditate, and re-read and meditate some more until the Spirit guides my heart

 

[BluePhantom]

BP,

I was going to bring up the case of different meanings of words in a recent 'Heaven & Hell' thread.

Someone had mentioned an eternal burning.
I heard a sermon some time back, so I can't remember if it was originally a Greek or Hebrew word, that said that meaning of that particular word was similar to how a tree would burn "forever" - until it was burnt up.

The word that is probably being referred to is Gehenna which was the city dump of Jerusalem. Death was not always the penalty for breaking the law. Sometimes it was exile and if you were exiled from the city you had two choices: 1) Take your chances in the desert and good luck to you, or 2) Go live in Gehenna where they burned the trash of the city and the bodies of criminals, non-believers...anyone who was unclean.

Over time the scriptures where changed to refer to "hell" as a place of eternal torment, primarily because the church couldn't get the peasants to stop participating in pagan rituals. So what they did was change the rituals into significant events of Jesus and told them that if they assigned any other meaning to it they would be damned for all eternity. Hence winter solstice or "yule" became Christmas, Spring Equinox and the festival of Eos (a fertility goddess whose symbols were bunnies and eggs [fertility symbols]) became Easter, etc.

Basically, the church made it up to terrify the shit out of the peasants so the peasants would do what they were told.

I get the confusion some have as I struggle at times.
I simply read, meditate, and re-read and meditate some more until the Spirit guides my heart

I would say that's all one CAN do anymore. I spent a lot of time trying to find the earliest copies of Biblical manuscripts and reading them in their original languages, researching the history of the times, researching the culture of the times in order to get a very good understanding of what a given scripture probably means and meditating on that and writing my own translation, but boy that takes a lot of time and unless you are surrounded by scholars who can help you dig through all that it becomes almost impossible.

I would say the best we can do right now to know the true desire of God is to spend a lot of time in meditation and opening ourselves up to God's influence and allowing truth to be revealed to you. In that way the relationship with God exists on a very personal level (which of course means it will be different for everyone).

 

[Dragon]

If your God is a monstrous, evil, and a bloodthirsty tyrant, then that's your choice. If another's God seems to be a montrous, evil, and a bloodthirtsy tyrant to you, then that is THEIR choice.

It's called free will. And, freedom OF religion.

You're missing the point. No one is being denied the right to worship a monstrous, evil, bloodthirsty tyrant if that's their choice; however, if they're going to do that, they should do it honestly and not go around presenting a mealy-mouthed pretense that this creature is a God of love, even while he's making most of the human race scream forever under hideous tortures.

I don't suggest that traditional Christians should be denied a right to worship this monster. I merely point out that a monster is what he is.

 

[Si modo]

If your God is a monstrous, evil, and a bloodthirsty tyrant, then that's your choice. If another's God seems to be a montrous, evil, and a bloodthirtsy tyrant to you, then that is THEIR choice.

It's called free will. And, freedom OF religion.

You're missing the point. No one is being denied the right to worship a monstrous, evil, bloodthirsty tyrant if that's their choice; however, if they're going to do that, they should do it honestly and not go around presenting a mealy-mouthed pretense that this creature is a God of love, even while he's making most of the human race scream forever under hideous tortures.

I don't suggest that traditional Christians should be denied a right to worship this monster. I merely point out that a monster is what he is.

Uh huh. In your opinion. And, to what end?

What's it to you what another believes? It's just a belief. It can't hurt you.