No where in the world did that come from? What does that have to do with anything? Here we are speaking of Jesus being the word of God and you shoot out in left field talking about God being jealous of the word. Please ask again in a different way, for the way you asked makes no sense.

An all-wise, all-intelligent God shouldn't need to "force" anyone to believe. He should supposedly be intelligent and wise enough to say whatever needs to be said to "convince" people that he is telling the truth.

Moreover, why would an all-wise, all-intelligent God speak to commoners from a position of no authority?

Surely God could have easily made his son become King of the land. Then from that position of absolute authority not only could he have spread his message to all mankind without being challenged, but he could have even hired his own scribes to write down his own "bible".

The mere fact that Jesus was no associated with that kind of power and authority is pretty much proof positive that he was not the son of any all-powerful God. He couldn't do anything but preach from a status of no authority. From everyone else's perspective he's nothing more than a single individual just spewing person opinions and views. There was really no reason for anyone to believe anything he said.

I'm not shooting off in left field.

You seem to forget, that the whole reason that you needed to have Jesus claiming that we are gods was to justify the notion of a "jealous God" who tells us not to place other Gods before him.

So for your explanation to work, God would have had to have been jealous of Jesus, or "The Word", since you apparently claim that Jesus and "The Word" are one in the same thing.

Cowboy wrote:

That proves nothing. If Jesus would have been say King. People would then feel they HAD to believe Jesus is the only begotten child of our father. Then if one HAS to believe, then what reward is there for believing and having the faith that he is? What would then be any different from the garden of Eden? People in the garden of Eden had absolutely not choice but to believe in god. Same effect would happen if Jesus would have been an authority figure in the culture. Because Jesus is king, he rules with a staff and rod.

The paradise that is created for us is a GIFT. A gift is earned through love. If one has no other choice but to believe, what then is the gift a reward of? Our lives is a chance to show our faith and love to the father and show that we trust in him and are obedient. We must show this because if we weren't obedient and trustworthy then we would be no better then Adam and Eve, and remember they were kicked out of the paradise for their disobedience. So again we must show that we are not like them and are obedient.

Cowboy wrote:

Thou shalt have no other god's before. As in we are not to put anyone else on this planet before our father.

I have no doubt about this at all. Had you been living in ancient Greece you would have accepted the reality of Zeus as God because that picture of God would have been taught to you as being true.

I've moved beyond that and decided to actually question these things for myself.

Otherwise you're just stuck with whatever religion you just happen to be born into.

The paradise that is created for us is a GIFT. A gift is earned through love. If one has no other choice but to believe, what then is the gift a reward of?

Can you explain to me how in the world a gift is supposed to be earned? By definition, a gift is:

"something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation"

If you give someone something, you do it cause you love them, you care about them, and want them to have whatever it may be you wish to give.

It's not given because they jumped through x number of hoops, or are even just a good person, it's simply given out of love, with no strings attached. It cannot be earned, because if it could be it would no longer be a gift.

Furthermore, in the Christian belief system, you pretty much DO have no other choice but to believe. Sure you can choose not to, but......if you do that you die forever. So you basically are forced upon the threat of death to believe in your God. It's all about fear and intimidation, and little about love.

here is the deal, we are humans and we sin and therefore we DIE,,,that is the REALITY not a threat

the blessing is the opportunity to rise above that REALITY


its akin to catching a disease that is fatal and then being given the opportunity to have a life saving surgery

the surgery is a choice, if one is too scared or too stubborn , they do not have to have it,,,that is not a threat

but if one has the faith and the belief in medicine, they can take the chance that their fate might be changed


that is the chance the believer/nonbeliever takes with their own life

its not a threat

Let me ask you something, simple question here. If you were a parent, what would be the better thing to tell your child? That they were a good person worthy of love, respect and all things good, or that they were evil and had no good in them apart from you and deserved death if not for you?

Common sense tells you that the former would obviously be more beneficial to the child right? Yet you're gonna claim that God, the parent of all of us, creator of all around us, and one who is on an entirely different spiritual plane then we are, is gonna see us as the latter? Does that really make sense?

So yeah, it's a threat. What christianity, and religion as a whole really does, is make us seem lesser than we really are, to tie us down to the belief system. It enslaves us to it, instead of really freeing us and giving us the ability and confidence to do anything we want to.

Let me ask you something, simple question here. If you were a parent, what would be the better thing to tell your child? That they were a good person worthy of love, respect and all things good, or that they were evil and had no good in them apart from you and deserved death if not for you?

Common sense tells you that the former would obviously be more beneficial to the child right? Yet you're gonna claim that God, the parent of all of us, creator of all around us, and one who is on an entirely different spiritual plane then we are, is gonna see us as the latter? Does that really make sense?

So yeah, it's a threat. What christianity, and religion as a whole really does, is make us seem lesser than we really are, to tie us down to the belief system. It enslaves us to it, instead of really freeing us and giving us the ability and confidence to do anything we want to.

I tell my child noone is perfect, the equivalent of noone fitting Gods definition of 'good'

I also tell them they dont have to be perfect to be loved, the equivalent of Jesus sacrifice to our imperfect existence

I tell them when they make good choices they are less likely to have a bad end, similar to the advice of the bible on getting to a specific type of end


I tell them it is in THEIR hands, just like the Bible tells me, to make good choices and not bad


and I have, being brought up in church and loving God and reading my bible, have all the 'freedom' I need


so yeah, as a parent and one who adores her parents, it makes perfect sense to me

actions have CONSEQUENCES, thats the bottom line, whatever source it comes from

Yes actions do have consequences, DOWN HERE. What you claim God does though is, even if one sees Him and realizes His power and glory, and begs for forgiveness, He will turn the person away and send them to die. That's not very loving. You would NEVER do that as a parent to your kid, no upstanding parent would and yet God does? Really?

when did I claim such a thing?

its like hitting the lotto, I have no certainty of who will be turned away or not, I only know the minimum requirement I WAS GIVEN to receive Gods grace

You don't have to claim it per se, but your belief system says this will happen. It makes no sense whatsoever, what loving parent, what loving person would ever do such a thing? They wouldn't, and if they wouldn't, there is NO way God would.

where does 'my belief system' say this,,,

No one on this planet is a "God".

So you've got a supposedly all-wise, all-intelligent God being ambiguous in his communications.

It makes no sense that an all-wise and all-intelligent God would say ambiguous things.

So does it make sense that this would be the word of an all-wise, all-intelligent perfect God?

No.

Does it make sense that mortal men would say ambiguous things like this?

Yes.

It's simply Cowboy. Every time you read something from the Bible you need to ask yourself those to questions:

Is this something a truly all-wise, all-intelligent perfect God would say?

Or is this something that is so misleading that it must have come from mortal idiots?

It's my personally conclusion that in this case the answer to the first question would be no, and the answer to the second would be a resounding YES!

So which is more reasonable to believe?

Well, clearly it's more reasonable to believe that these are just man-made rumors and fables.

It's that simple Cowboy.

You need to bend-over backwards and twist things to the hilt to try to make a case for these writings as having come from some supposedly all-wise, all-intelligent, perfect God.

I don't need to stretch anything at all to recognize that it's just the meaningless ramblings of mortal men who are trying to create a religion to trump all other religions.

It's my conviction that had a truly all-wise God said something along these lines She most likely would have said:

"I am the only God, there are no other Gods to worship"

No need to be "jealous" of non-existence "Gods".

It's crystal clear to me that these fables are made up by men.

Besides, as I have already shown they falsely accuse other cultures of rejecting God by worshiping "false Gods" which opens up a whole can of logical oxymorons.

No one on this planet is a "God".

So you've got a supposedly all-wise, all-intelligent God being ambiguous in his communications.

It makes no sense that an all-wise and all-intelligent God would say ambiguous things.

So does it make sense that this would be the word of an all-wise, all-intelligent perfect God?

Christianity in general teaches that people will be turned away does it not? Don't try and pull away from it now.

You have a length of an entire life time, how much more time would one need? And no it doesn't teach that people will be turned away. You make the first step to either turning away or turning toward our father in heaven. YOU choose to either worship our father or TURN away. How can one turn away from you after you've already turned away from them? They wouldn't need to turn away from you, for you would have already done that.