Topic: god and religon
shekargan's photo
Sun 09/12/10 04:10 AM
If God is one why do we need so many religons which exists around the world.

Teditis's photo
Sun 09/12/10 05:08 AM
Some think he looks good in a toga, some think blue jeans and t-shirt, others think a 3-piece suit... still others think he looks good in a dress?
What's it matter?
Hold fast to what you believe...

Ruth34611's photo
Sun 09/12/10 05:43 AM

Some think he looks good in a toga, some think blue jeans and t-shirt, others think a 3-piece suit... still others think he looks good in a dress?
What's it matter?
Hold fast to what you believe...

:thumbsup:

RainbowTrout's photo
Sun 09/12/10 06:12 AM
Because we like to brag. It is like the big fish. The fish was so big that even the picture weigh five pounds. The fish was so big it took two people even talk about it.

justme659's photo
Sun 09/12/10 06:17 AM
As a kid did you ever play the game telephone? It is where you line up a group of friends and one person at the begining of the line whispers a semtemce in the next persons ear. The sentence gets passed from person to person. By the end of the line the original sentence gets changed.

Imagine that same idea played around the world with millions of people over eons. Things are going to change, fracture and split from the original idea. The message gets changed to fit what different regons needed and translated at a certain period of time. And when it was finally written down and not passed from word of mouth there was a more concrete, unchangeable method of passing along the altered sentence. The result is different religions.

JMO

no photo
Sun 09/12/10 06:23 AM

If God is one why do we need so many religons which exists around the world.
No one can prove there is a God, So People flock to where they feel a need to worship and get solice. In the Old days People were told they would be damned and go to hell if they didn't attend church. Still happens today.

Oh Ya and someone has to pay for the Pedophile Priest's and The Air Conditioned Dog Houses.

God Himself, or Herself would be disgusted by the way most Churches are run today.

Mitch

Italy0219's photo
Sun 09/12/10 06:28 AM
Because people in general can never agree on anything and in general tend to screw up a story--remember the game "whisper down the lane" well that's exactly what happened, along the way everybody interprets God the way they think he should be, but all along there's only one God, and one story, he's there, it's just we're not sure which story is true, so just know that, he's there, do the best you can, he loves you for trying.

no photo
Sun 09/12/10 10:37 AM

If God is one why do we need so many religons which exists around the world.


Question:
"Why are there so many religions?
Do all religions lead to God?"

Answer:
The existence of so many religions
and the claim that all religions lead to God
without question confuses many who are earnestly
seeking the truth about God, with the end result
sometimes being that some despair of ever reaching
the absolute truth on the subject. Or
they end up embracing the universalist claim
that all religions lead to God. Of course,
skeptics also point to the existence
of so many religions as proof
that either you cannot know God
or that God simply does not exist.

Romans 1:19-21 contains the biblical explanation
for why there are so many religions.
The truth of God is seen and known by every
human being because God has made it so.
Instead of accepting the truth about God and
submitting to it, most human beings reject it
and seek their own way to understand God.
But this leads not to enlightenment regarding God,
but to futility of thinking.

Here is where we find the basis

of the “many religions.”

Many people do not want to believe

in a God who demands righteousness and morality,
so they invent a God who makes no such requirements.

Many people do not want to believe

in a God who declares it impossible
for people to earn their own way to heaven.

So they invent a God

who accepts people into heaven
if they have completed certain steps,
followed certain rules,
and/or obeyed certain laws,
at least to the best of their ability.

Many people do not want a relationship

with a God who is sovereign and omnipotent.
So they imagine God as being
more of a mystical force
than a personal and sovereign ruler.

The existence of so many religions
is not an argument against God's existence
or an argument that truth
about God is not clear.
Rather, the existence of so many religions
is demonstration of humanity's rejection
of the one true God.
Mankind has replaced Him with gods
that are more to their liking.
This is a dangerous enterprise.
The desire to recreate God in our own image
comes from the sin nature within us
—a nature that will eventually
“reap destruction” (Galatians 6:7-8).

Do all religions lead to God?

Actually they do.
All but one leads to His judgment.

Only one—
Christianity—leads to
His forgiveness and eternal life.
No matter what religion one embraces,
everyone will meet God after death (Hebrews 9:27).

All religions lead to God,
but only one religion will result in God's acceptance,
because only through His salvation
through faith in Jesus Christ
can anyone approach Him with confidence.
The decision to embrace the truth
about God is important for a simple reason:
eternity is an awfully long time
to be wrong.
This is why
right thinking about God
is so critical.

© Copyright 2002-2010 Got Questions Ministries.


Abracadabra's photo
Sun 09/12/10 12:06 PM

All religions lead to God,
but only one religion will result in God's acceptance,
because only through His salvation
through faith in Jesus Christ
can anyone approach Him with confidence.


But that's just one religion. In fact, the particular religion that you speak of here is merely a fragment of a much larger religious folklore that has ultimately broken down into many fragments.

The religion began very much along the lines of a "Zeus-like" male Godhead who actually did some quite horrible things of his own. Not the least of which was to teach humans to judge each other and stone sinners to death and to even stone their very own unruly children to death. This same God condoned slavery, and even taught people the proper way to keep slaves. He condoned and supported male chauvinism and even stated that female slaves are only worth half as many sheckles as a male slave.

Before I can even consider the concept of "Jesus Christ" being associated with this jealous male-chauvinistic Godhead, I would need to believe that God is truly a highly immoral entity based on my own personal feelings of what it even means to be "moral". I certainly wouldn't turn to the Old Testament for moral values. Because, quite frankly, they don't appear to me to be very wise or righteous at all.

This God was also appeased by blood sacrifices as atonement for sin, that is a very "Zeus-like" behavior that is common in many mythologies that originated in the Mediterranean region. I personally don't believe in a creator that would be appeased by a blood sacrifice. So I renounce that Old Testament Version of "God" to have no more merit than Greek Mythology.

Now, when it comes to Jesus there are many things to consider.

First all, Jesus isn't part of this religion as a WHOLE. The religion as a whole fell apart into many different sects. Judaism was the original, although even it was already widely diverse. Some Jews viewed Yahweh as a Zeus-like Godhead, whilst others views Yahwah in a more abstract pantheistic view. So even Judaism itself was already quite diverse.

The the religion fell apart into many sect. From this basic Abrahamic Folklore we get modern Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, and the man protesting denominations of protestantism.

You said in your post that many people don't like the religion the way it is give so they make up their own versions of it. Well, that would definitely apply to Protestantism since it is nothing more than a protest against Catholicism. They didn't like the idea of a Pope being in charge of things, and they much preferred the idea of becoming Paper Popes themselves. Just so they could interpreting things THEIR WAY.

Then there was Jesus. What did Jesus truly represent? Well, that's a highly controversial question isn't it. Clearly all the Abrahamic Religions do not agree on who Jesus was or what he represented.

My own feelings on this is that even the Gospels of the New Testament clearly show that Jesus did not agree with the teachings of the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus took a stance very much like my own. He renounced the judging of others, he renounced the stoning to death of sinners very cleverly by demanding that only those who are without sin cast the first stone. However, this obviously could not have been the original intent of the God of the Old Testament because all men are supposed to be sinners, so to have even given such a directive in the first place would have been utterly foolish.

So Jesus could not have been the Son of a personified Yahweh. Jesus didn't even agree with the teachings of the Old Testament. The Old Testament also taught people to seek revenge as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but Jesus rebuked that and instead taught men to turn the other cheek and forgive.

I like the teachings of Jesus, not because I agree with him, but because he agrees with me. When I read his teachings I realize that I cannot possible "follow" them, because they are indeed the very way that I personally feel. So it's impossible for me to "follow" the teachings of Jesus since his teachings are mine.

In the meantime Jesus was indeed crucified for blaspheme. So what now? Was this the plan of a God who requires blood sacrifices before he can forgive sins? huh

I think not. Such a violent picture of a God is already disgusting as far as I'm concerned. It flies in the very face that God is "all-wise" or even "divine" No divine God should be appeased by blood sacrifices IMHO. So I can't imagine God being pleased to have his only begotten son nailed to a pole to pay for the sins of man. And if this act did not "please" God then this God would have been forced into a situation to do things which do not "please" him. Such a God cannot possibly be all-powerful nor all-wise.

So the very idea that the true creator of the universe would even be remotely associated with any religion that requires a blood sacrifice be made before he can forgive people their sins necessarily has to be a false religion, IMHO.

As far as I'm concerned all of those quotes you keep posting from the New Testament are nothing more than the words of men who believed in the Old version of a Zeus-like Godhead who is appeased by blood sacrifices, so they told their version of the the story of Jesus biased toward what they believed. I personally don't trust them to quote Jesus verbatim. And even so, if you read what they wrote carefully, you'll see that even they don't quote Jesus directly to ever claim to be the Only Begotten Son of God. John makes the claim himself the Jesus was the Only Begotten Son of God, but nowhere will you find anyone quoting Jesus to have made any such claim.

If you look carefully, you'll see that everything that Jesus taught actually expresses the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and not the teaching of the Torah. And Mahayana Buddhism was at its peak at the time Jesus supposedly lived. If Jesus was educated in spiritual philosophies he most certainly knew of the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and that is what he taught and was crucified for.

Jesus was not the sacrificial lamb of an angry Zeus-like male-chauvinistic Godhead who demands to see a blood sacrifice before he is willing to forgive men their sins.

Buddhism is probably the closest religion we have to TRUTH.

Although, having said that, I should confess that ultimately we are all agnostic (i.e. without knowledge of the true nature of reality), and therefore atheism could also potentially be the TRUTH.

However, the idea that our creator is some Zeus-like jealous male-chauvinistic godhead who floods out sinners on moment whilst having the animal kingdom saved in a homemade ark, and then has his only begotten son nailed to a pole so he can forgiven sinners the next, is highly unlikely.

Not only is this mythology unlikely, but if it is true, then our creator is far from being "divine" but is more akin to a demon who has Alzheimer's disease.

How can you trust a God who would have his only begotten son nailed to a pole? huh

If this God can't figure out better ways to solve his problems than this, then how could he possibly be said to be "All-Wise"? spock



msharmony's photo
Sun 09/12/10 12:17 PM

If God is one why do we need so many religons which exists around the world.


I think all we NEED to survive is food and water and air and rest and shelter,,,

but we want for alot of things to fulfill our lives in some way or another

I think the Word of God has been turned into so many different religions because it is so complex and each detail is interpreted so differently by different people.

For instance, where catholic religion gives a certain moral authority to one person (the pope) whose identity changes over the years,, the baptist religion gives moral authority to christ alone.

there are only subtle differences in the different religions really, but enough that they each get their own titles,,,kind of like the political parties,,,lol


Abracadabra's photo
Sun 09/12/10 12:37 PM

I think the Word of God has been turned into so many different religions because it is so complex and each detail is interpreted so differently by different people.


But that's just the thing. All religions aren't based on a supposed "Word of God". Where would we get such a "Word" anyway? From the ancient Hebrews? Why choose their folklore for a basis of the creator of ALL mankind? huh

I personally feel that if there were a personified individual Godhead who wanted people to know that he/she/it exists, then the wisest action such a God could take would be to reveal itself to us and thus erase any ambiguity.

I see no reason at all to believe in a God who demands to be "obeyed" yet refuses to reveal himself. Such a behavior does not seem to be every wise, IMHO. A God who demands to be "obeyed" let he pass judgment on people, has an obligation to make his existence known. Assuming he wants to be a just and righteous God. Anything short of making himself known would be unjust and unrighteous. Passing judgments on people who have to guess which religion to extol would be a totally unjustified act. Thus any God who behaves in this manner would be a totally unjust God.

So it seems to me that we can dismiss any and all religious folklore that contain these conditions as being clearly man-make myths.

msharmony's photo
Sun 09/12/10 12:39 PM
and then again 'who said life is easy'

for me, there is no sacrifice(including studying and trying to understand Gods complex word) so great as that Jesus made for my soul

for believers, its not focused around God making it easy for US, its focused around US giving God his glory which we cant do if we are HANDED whatever we want with no sacrifice or work,,,,

Abracadabra's photo
Sun 09/12/10 12:51 PM
No one said anything about making anything easy.

I was talking about justice.

There's no justice in judging against people who GUESS wrong.

Therefore any God that is dependent upon PURE FAITH as a means of avoiding his wrath, is an unjust God.

It has nothing to do with making anything "easy". It's entirely about whether or not a judgmental God who plays hide-and-seek is a just God.

A God who forces people to guess is a God who plays craps with human souls. It's a gambling God who plays a guessing game with YOUR SOUL.

msharmony's photo
Sun 09/12/10 01:06 PM

No one said anything about making anything easy.

I was talking about justice.

There's no justice in judging against people who GUESS wrong.

Therefore any God that is dependent upon PURE FAITH as a means of avoiding his wrath, is an unjust God.

It has nothing to do with making anything "easy". It's entirely about whether or not a judgmental God who plays hide-and-seek is a just God.

A God who forces people to guess is a God who plays craps with human souls. It's a gambling God who plays a guessing game with YOUR SOUL.


this is not my understanding of Gods word,, only those who REFUSE God face his 'wrath',,,those who have not come to know him can have grace through Jesus by living a life that would please him