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In the ancient world, everyone except Jews acknowledged that there were *lots* of other deities. Even the religion that became Judaism started out with a multiplicity of deities. Also, most of the authors of the Old Testament acknowledged that other Gods existed.
Is it simply better to believe in a different kind of God? Why not simply give up on the idea that God is all powerful? Why not, in fact, adopt a “deistic” conception of God?
Why appeal to a divine causality for the start of all things when everything else can be explained apart from divine causality?
Deism says it's the philosophical position that rejects revelation as a source of religious knowledge.
I dare say that word and philosophy was made up by a person that never had a revelation. Ha!
Never had the Doors of Perception opened ---never had a moment of
Cosmic Consciousness, (coined By Dr. Bucke in the 19th c), was never visited by an angel or Krishna
or the Holy Spirit whomever from the spiritual realm /world, knocking their socks off.
But, was rather the proverbial frog from the pond (sweet little guy) - not the frog that saw the Ocean.
In the ancient world, everyone except Jews acknowledged that there were *lots* of other deities. Even the religion that became Judaism started out with a multiplicity of deities. Also, most of the authors of the Old Testament acknowledged that other Gods existed.
Is it simply better to believe in a different kind of God? Why not simply give up on the idea that God is all powerful? Why not, in fact, adopt a “deistic” conception of God?
Why appeal to a divine causality for the start of all things when everything else can be explained apart from divine causality?
In the ancient world, everyone except Jews acknowledged that there were *lots* of other deities. Even the religion that became Judaism started out with a multiplicity of deities. Also, most of the authors of the Old Testament acknowledged that other Gods existed.
Is it simply better to believe in a different kind of God? Why not simply give up on the idea that God is all powerful? Why not, in fact, adopt a “deistic” conception of God?
Why appeal to a divine causality for the start of all things when everything else can be explained apart from divine causality?
Changing one's beliefs that they so strongly feel a personal connection to tends to be a very hard task especially when you've gone through a lot of hardship and you have a strong fear of the unknown. An all powerful God that does good things is the "safety" net.
Secondly, the bible is super subjective. To this day, people are still arguing over the right interpretation over many passages and stories in the bible. Basically.....what makes sense vs a person's own beliefs.
In the ancient world, everyone except Jews acknowledged that there were *lots* of other deities. Even the religion that became Judaism started out with a multiplicity of deities. Also, most of the authors of the Old Testament acknowledged that other Gods existed.
Is it simply better to believe in a different kind of God? Why not simply give up on the idea that God is all powerful? Why not, in fact, adopt a “deistic” conception of God?
Why appeal to a divine causality for the start of all things when everything else can be explained apart from divine causality?
thats my whole position in a nut shell.
something more, not more deities. describe the system around us first. Then see if that descriptions matches the traits we are assigning to the god we believe in.
Let me ask you this diesel. Why do we have to deny everything just because we feel religion can be dangerous?
What makes you jump to the conclusion that some of us already haven't done so?
After failed attempts to be an atheist, I started to differentiate in my mind the frightening, angry Biblical character I was raised to believe in from the something wider and deeper I began to sense by referring to it in my brain as "Real God". I don't need to do that anymore, but it helped me break out of the constant anxiety and soul-crushing despair that belief in the God Of The Literal Bible had cast upon me from my childhood.
the biblegod is not god and to say it is the only god is false.
where does that leave us?
Generally speaking, if you wish me to take you seriously and have a reasonable conversation with me, please be polite. Referring to "biblegod" is offensive. You know it, because that's why you chose to use that term.
He's God. With a capital G, and the Bible is with a capital B. If you would like to say "The God of the Bible", that's a reasonable statement.
Having said that, if you don't believe in him, there really isn't much I can do to make you believe. I can talk about how the Bible is his Word, cite archaelogical studies to prove it, talk about textual criticism, etc...but I can't actually make you believe. So we're at an impasse.
I believe in God because he's God and I don't believe in any other god because he has said he's the only true God.
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