capnkirk

Has anyone else ever considered that the continuing redefinition of god, as manifested in the ever-growing number of new Xtian denominations is most consistent with the premise that xtians invented their own god?

Aren't xtians just (re)inventing god every time they dispute some orthodoxy and form their own denomination? As this phenomena replicates forward through time, what are the implications looking backward? Doesn't this recognition strongly indicate that the "invention" reaches all the way back to the origin of Judaism?

Ojuice5001

Or perhaps it refutes, not Yahweh's existence, but his changelessness. The Supreme God (if it exists) is changeless, but perhaps Yahweh is not changeless, and therefore, not the one true god. I think Yahweh constantly changes his story to keep up with the times.

capnkirk

That's the magic of a placebo...it can be made into anything we need it to be.

Jobar

It's my observation that no two theists have precisely the same definition of god.

It may take considerable questioning to bring out the differences, and the disagreements may seem minor- but consider how many wars have been fought over tiny theological points.

I see no explanation for this which involves a god that is both caring and existent. Free will be damned; a god who thinks the Spanish Inquisition needed to have the freedom to torture hundreds of thousands of innocents is not deserving of *my* worship.

beastmaster

Absolutely yes!

What's more, the radical subjectivity of god-belief is strong circumstantial evidence that god is completely unknowable --> agnosticism.

Amos

Hello capnkirk, where I come from evolution is spelled out in the first three chapters of Genesis.

It goes like this. In Gen. 1 the idea of man was created by "God," in Gen. 2 man was formed after this same idea as "Lord God," and in Gen.3 "like god" was created to modify Lord God through the ages.

I've explained before how in Gen. 3 the ego consciousness is created to be the second identity that is needed to modify the true identity of man in the image of God (here called Lord God). So not only do we have evolution here but also the intelligence that makes evolution possible.

From the above it seems that the same people who argue for a round earth are still living in a flat world or they would see this for themselves.

Biff the unclean

Except that there is a certain degree of knowledge in the very fact that this is "completely unknowable."

The only reason we even care about the OT is that the NT speaks well of it. Otherwise it would be on the shelf next to Gilgamesh gathering dust.
However the NT started as radical subjectivity with Orthodox, Coptic, Gnostic and Gawrd knows how many other versions that never got off the ground. It only narrowed its focus under political pressure from Rome and from church hierarchy's use of deadly force. Even then Mystics, Cathari and any number of re-definitions of God snuck their way in.
So it has been screwed up from the get go.

But that doesn't leave us with a God that is completely unknowable. It leaves us with a God that is completely unknown, and a whole bunch of people busy fantasizing about it. This is not something they would be able to do if the God were non-fiction.

Since we know this about the authors of the stories we are not without knowledge of God, we know he is fictitious, so we can't be Agnostics.

ozero

Say what?

"Since we know this about the authors of the stories we are not without knowledge of God, we know he is fictitious, so we can't be Agnostics."

Just because the god of the christians and jews and moslems is
fictitious, doesn't mean the god of the Tlingit is. I most certainly
can be Agnostic. Well, I think I can. Maybe.

Just because the god you refuse to believe in doesn't exist
doesn't mean that no god exists. Watch yer logic.