I was sitting here in the sofa after dinner, relaxing and catching up on the discussions over at another forum. There, in one of the religion-based threads, a JW person posted excerpts from this drivel. Nothing sensational in that, the JWs over there do that all the time. But the excerpts this JW posted got me thinking. Christians regard themselves as monotheistic, claiming there is but a single god. But at the same time, their own mythology is full of other god-like entities, like Satan and the angels, as exemplified by the JW shit the JW person posted. Their god is all-powerful etc., yet still sees fit to hold court with other supernatural beings. Like lesser gods. The godâs little helpers. And several variants of the christian faith actively promote humans to god-like entities in the form of saints, etc., and actively pray to them to provide services, favours, and protection. Thus they effectively expand their pantheon for every dead person they promote to saint.
The above leads me to the following naĂŻve question: How come they donât see the internal contradiction and continue insisting they have a monotheistic religion? Can the wise people in here provide me with some insight here?
Yes! Even the bible itself and its first commandment, âThou shalt worship no other gods than me.â attests to the fact that other gods exist and are real. This makes Christianity Henotheistic and not Monotheistic.
Yahweh himself was once worshiped along with El and Asherah. " God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel , according to an Oxford scholar. In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah.
The early Israelites were polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal.
Because their god is absolutely perfect and never makes mistakes. Therefore, if there is a contradiction in any form, it is not their place to question it. Who are THEY to question their all-knowing perfect god? If they donât understand it, then it is because they are not all-knowing like their god. Bottom line, there IS NO contradiction in their minds. It is simply Manâs inability to comprehend the actions of a god that often works in mysterious ways.
Yeah, this was also treated in The Invention of God by Thomas Römer which I read a few years ago. According to what I can remember from Römer(*), YHWH started out as a desert storm god in the arabian deserts, and ended up as YHWH through a series of amalgamations and transformations. And Römer also argues that the israelites worshipped a physical god figure, i.e. a statue or sculpture that was present in their main temple. When this was destroyed during the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the ensuing exile of the jewish elite in Babylon, they had to reform and adapt their thinking and worshipping to a non-physical, omnipresent god. However, whatever process that ended up with the israelites worshipping only one god is something different from what Iâm asking here. Here, Iâm primarily interested in current practices and thinking. But of course the history of the israelite god along with its supposed recorded history in the jewish scriptures will influence contemporary thinking.
(*) Itâs been a while since I read Römer, so I might be off in the details here. Any corrections are welcome.
So any contraditions are perfect, being the result of a perfect contradictory mind, contradicting its way through the pages of the Bibble(*), confusing its readers into confusingly accept contradiction as a central and important tenet of their teachings, gaslighting them into believing contradiction is consistency, 1984 style. Right. Got it.
(*) was originally a typo, but I thought Iâd keep it.
I heard it was a volcano god, otherwise we are on the same page. Moses goes to the top of the mountain to talk to the volcano god. There is likely evidence of both. (Rumbling Clouds fire from the mountain or fire from the sky⊠letâs not split hairs.)
BINGO! Now youâre catching on! Just like the Bibble god made me perfectly imperfect to be an example to his faithful followers on how they should NOT behave so that he can achieve his Perfect Plan. Nevermind that god gave all his human pets Free Will to do/think/believe as they please. Despite the âfactâ that he knows EVERYTHING a person will EVER do/think/believe, because he PLANNED all those actions/thoughts/beliefs (as part of his Perfect Plan) for EVERY individual EONS before those individuals even existed. And that Perfect Plan CANNOT BE CHANGED by we puny humans. HOWEVER⊠Make sure you pray to god to ask him to heal your sick child, or provide you with money to buy food, or allow your favorite sports team to win their next game.
See? Simple, right? No contradictions whatsoever. Sure, YOU might see these things as contradictions, but thatâs only because you are not perfect and all-knowing like god. Therefore, you cannot fathom the mind of god and see âThe Big Pictureâ of his âPerfect Planâ. Of course, there is also the problem of that nasty Satan stirring up shit and purposely confusing people to draw them away from god. But thatâs another story all on its own. (STILL part of godâs Perfect Plan, though.)
Uh, if you donât mindâŠarenât you casting dispersions by using a line like that?
I mean, I donât want to be a drag or anything, but, sometimes people are persuaded by the a-lure of goinâ fishinâ with skydaddy while unicorn-monkeyass-biblefish anxiously awaits the opportunity to dine on their souls if they get snaggedâŠI meanâŠcan you really blame them?
Damn! Are you ever gonna let me off the hook? Iâm working without a net here, and the scales are not balanced in my favor. Sometimes feels like Iâm getting filleted for no good reason. So donât be trying to school me in the ways of swimming upstream against the current, okay?
Meh, fish donât get insulted by trivialities of Bibble-babble contradictions. Anyway, red herrings presented here in this forum turn red because of your puns, not because they just saw the oceanâs bottom.
Well I just have to weigh in here and mention that I have, on a number of occasions, practiced âcatch and releaseââŠjust to let âem grow a bitâŠon the other hand, the expression âthere is no codâ,can be a terrifying thing for those dependent upon the creels full of âspiritualâ nourishment provided by the great fisherman fisher of men, manfisher of all man fishersâŠand what need does a fish have of doorknobs I ask youâŠ
Oh, dear Cod⊠⊠Weâre gonna have a whale of a time convincing anybody weâre anything but shellfish around here. We canât help it, though, because we do these things out of pure halibut. And we are almost as funny as a dead sea scrolling through time. However, for better or worse, we are not ones to clam up just because others might not be in tuna with our particular views. Sure, some of us may be filled to the bream with crappie, but at least we donât conch out and shore up at the slightest change in the current. Moreover, gull-ible we ainât. Like sands through the lighthouse, so are the ebbs of our tides.
I would be interested in somehow determining the net worth of all our deep-water thoughts and shallow shenanigans. But, perhaps, that is something best kept at bay. Nevertheless, it is difficult to fathom why so many barnacles still cling desperately to the non-corporeal hull of their Good Ship Cod and allow it to navigate their lives. Without that imagined rudder to guide their course, they flounder helplessly in even the most gentle of waves lapping at the beach of life. So they remain within the safety of their lagoons and calm-water ponds, never daring to seek the wonders and thrills of the rivers and oceans they were always taught harbored gale force winds awaiting to bash them against the rocky shores.
⊠Weâre gonna have a whale of a time convincing anybody weâre anything but shellfish around here. We canât help it, though, because we do these things out of pure halibut. And we are almost as funny as a dead sea scrolling through time. However, for better or worse, we are not ones to clam up just because others might not be in tuna with our particular views. Sure, some of us may be filled to the bream with crappie, but at least we donât conch out and shore up at the slightest change in the current. Moreover, gull-ible we ainât. Like sands through the lighthouse, so are the ebbs of our tides.