A twist on "why do you believe?"

[LjasonL]

My question is: Why don't you believe in any other gods?
What does your god have that the others don't?

Obviously this doens't apply to those who don't believe in any higher power whatsoever.

[RickwithaTbird]

I believe (that means I believe to be a fact, not that I have faith) that there is a God who is protecting and watching over us. I believe this because over the last few years I've been asking for the power to believe, and I got it. But first came the power to see the help he provided when I had no power to help myself, then came the belief. Do I believe that it is the God of Christianity? I don't BELIEVE that. I will accept it if it is true, when the time comes for me to know. But I can't compare and contrast other gods to my god because I don't know who my god is. I just believe and trust in him, whoever he is, because he has shown to me his presence.

[MagicRat]

This is a good topic.

IMO most 'people of the book', (Judeo - Christian - Moslem) believers would say that God, Yahweh (sp) and Allah are one and the same. It is just the ritual of worship and the culture of religious observance that is different. Therefore, they do not choose one God over another.

It may be reasonable to ask "why do you choose your religion over others?"

Adherents to other religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, anamist religions, etc) may say that that God does not exist and/or believe in no God at all, yet still adhere to a religion.

As for me, although I find religion fascinating, I am an athiest and I find the murderous extremism of some religious people ( throughout history and today) just reinforces my lack of belief in any God.

[LjasonL]

Originally Posted by MagicRat

IMO most 'people of the book', (Judeo - Christian - Moslem) believers would say that God, Yahweh (sp) and Allah are one and the same. It is just the ritual of worship and the culture of religious observance that is different. Therefore, they do not choose one God over another.

But what about, say, the greek gods? Why believe in allah and not zeus?

[RickwithaTbird]

lol... nobody believes in Zeus anymore! If zeus was real, I think he would have done something by now about the fact that nobody thinks he exists.

If he does exist, let him strike me dead right now lol...

[LjasonL]

Originally Posted by RickwithaTbird

lol... nobody believes in Zeus anymore! If zeus was real, I think he would have done something by now about the fact that nobody thinks he exists.

If he does exist, let him strike me dead right now lol...

So what reason is there to believe in god and not zeus? That's what I'm getting at...
Why don't you believe in zeus, and why is the god you do believe in different?

If god exists, let him strike me dead with this post

[LjasonL]

...still here

[Toksin]

Originally Posted by MagicRat

As for me, although I find religion fascinating, I am an athiest and I find the murderous extremism of some religious people ( throughout history and today) just reinforces my lack of belief in any God.

"free will".

Unfortunately religion tends to get hijacked by people with their own agendas.

[Damien]

cause the stories of the other gods would mean they'd have done something. there's no way they'd just let us be. they had influence and continuous involvment in people's lives.

that's all i got. im too tire to care about typng some speech. maybe later. still, a little different, i guess...

[RickwithaTbird]

Originally Posted by LjasonL

So what reason is there to believe in god and not zeus? That's what I'm getting at...
Why don't you believe in zeus, and why is the god you do believe in different?

If god exists, let him strike me dead with this post

So wait... are you saying you believe in Zeus?

I'm just saying that if there is only one god, and NOBODY believes in him anymore, I think he would do something about it. I mean, I've never met anybody who believes in and worships zeus.

I don't know who my god is. I think it's God. I believe a lot of what is said in Christianity. Where I get confused is where all these devout christians have different interperetations of the same things, and they claim them to be exact. The only reason I am not 100% sure it's the christian God is for that reason. One small example is the whole story with the apple. First of all the bible never says apple. It says fig. And it's pretty obvious that people just kind of skim through the bible and make up their own variations of it, then they go around acting like they know what they're talking about. This is the foundation of my skepticism. It builds up to me questioning more and more of what I hear about Christianity, and quite frankly I don't think there is a church out there that really knows what they're talking about when they preach to the masses. That's why I don't go to church. I believe that they are only causing mass confusion among the devout believers. I mean, the things I hear people say are just ridiculous.

I believe in God I just don't believe in man, enough to take his word on religion. That's why I don't know who my god is. But I believe he knows who I am, and I believe that if I want to know him and I ask him for guidance he gives it to me. That's why I don't believe in anything that is purveyed to me by man. I only believe what god purveys to me himself. I feel his presence.

[LjasonL]

Originally Posted by RickwithaTbird

So wait... are you saying you believe in Zeus?

I don't believe in any god, but I do believe all the mythologies (including zeus and the christian god) are based from a single archetypal constellation imbedded in the subconscious of all humans, what Jung called the 'collective unconscious' and the various different ways it has been manifested are the result of cultural differences. So in a sense I believe they may carry some truth in that they explain 'wisdom' that can only be conveyed through metaphors and symbolism. Basically, I think people should concentrate more on what is said than who says it or how they say it.

Damien, in the old testament god actively participated in the lives of people, and even in the new testament with physical miracles he executed and the whole impregnating a virgin thing.

[MagicRat]

Originally Posted by Toksin

Unfortunately religion tends to get hijacked by people with their own agendas.

Amen, brother..................

[Shpyder]

Originally Posted by Toksin

Unfortunately religion tends to get hijacked by people with their own agendas.

That within itself is true and well stated, and it is perhaps a secondary premis to coddle and promote existing primary political agendas; icing on the cake, if you will.

Bin Laden, for instance, requires that all US forces must leave Saudi Arabia, stop supporting Israel, and the Kingdom must be de-throned. This is an unmistakable politcial schedule and gives him his primary drive; the Koran and it's nit-picked, out-of-context literature is something that grants him, in his mind, the moral legitimacy for his actions on trying to actually promote his political agenda, and hence, is secondary in a hierarchy of events. Though he is often portrayed in the media as a raving lunatic, and in the world today, the word "terrorist" is reserved for fanatic Muslims, he is nothing more than a classic gangster, though his scale of coercion and "racketeering" is much more grandiose and horrific that any of the traditional mob bosses dreamt of.

Sorry. A little off-topic.

[Shpyder]

Originally Posted by LjasonL

My question is: Why don't you believe in any other gods?
What does your god have that the others don't?

Man is limited in his mental capacity, and evolves slowly. In the world today, Man has come a long way in terms of technology, but has yet to shed his primal instincts of greed, power and destruction, which is why today's times are most troubling: you have advanced, powerful weapons in possesion of a very primal creature. Bush. Ahmedinijad. Bin Laden. Olmert. Same difference.


Thus, where man freely admits that the Gods and their likenesses were conjured up by non other than Man himself (Zeus, etc), given Man's limited capacity, raises obvious questions to the legitimacy and authority of such Gods. Divine power must be mystical, elusive and vague for people like me to grasp, as odd as that sounds. Stories conjured up by romantic poets of the Old of great gods with their selective hierarchies, chain-of-command, and powers, are nothing more than just that: stories. How they differ from the stories of the prophet's of the book (Moses, Jesus and Mohammad) is something I cannot explain. Perhaps the visions these prophet's had granted their unifying, single and all-powerful God more authority than several bickering gods which a poet sat down, and dreamt up.

Asked, what does my God have what other's don't? The answer would be this: all-inclusive power and supreme singularity. No need to have meetings on Mt. Olympus. No bickering between minor and major Gods. "Sepcial powers" or abilities would not be dispersed is a fashion that true goodness may only come if all worked together. No. One boss, one judge.

Asides from the above, which was nothing more than personal opinion, I offer a more objective approach. Judaism and Islam focus vehemenetly on the existence of a single God. Infact, in Islam, the greatest sin is "shirk", or accepting a God any other than the One. This concept is all but hammered-in every page of the religious texts to the point of saturation. Christianity, through St. Paul, may add the Holy Spirit and other divinities to the mix, but the concept of a single being reigns supreme in all three world religions. Mother Earth, the Great Spirit, Karma, Nature, etc, all point to a single supreme being. Even Hinduism and the mythologies, among others, have an all-powerful champion on whose shoulders everything rests, ultimately (Krishna, Jupiter, Zeus, etc.).

In conclusion, there is little more than personal belief that causes people to believe and hold strong to that which they cannot detect with any of their given senses. And yes, then there is your standard Augustinian question: if God is all powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, why is there evil and suffering in the world? Augustine seems to have answered it. I cannot. And yet I believe. Logic and concrete rationale take a step back, and they are replaced by everything other than the objectivity a rational man seeks.

[quincyguy]

Muslims do NOT believe on the God of Abraham.
If they do, then ask yourselves why they kill Jews!!!!

A few days after being judicially tortured to death in plain view if his own mother (!), Jesus met His schocked and afraid buddies and told them He'd
be leaving them soon, and rose to be with His Father.
ALL OF THESE GUYS SUFFERED HORRIBLE DEATHS later on.
Would they have suffered such for a lie?

Gott mit uns