Soul Invictus

I am most familiar with the dogmatic creed of the Christians, so I'm primarily looking for responses from them, but this question truly is for any theists or anyone who cares to comment.

If there is any creedance to the idea of God, wouldn't it naturally follow that the most original interpretation of God via our archaeological findings be equally if not more valid than the popularly embraced Allah and Judeo-Christian Yahweh/Jesus/Jehovah manifestations?

Soul Invictus

What no takers? I know we have several theists on this board. I would like to think that not all of the views are by atheists.

Soul Invictus

Does no one care to offer any feedback? I can't believe it. There are several theists who frequent iidb.org and I was hoping to get someone who might have felt convinced enough in the faith to at least offer some sort of discussion...

Rational BAC

I have no problem with considering the validity of archaelogical findings. Why would anyone?

Maybe I don't understand the question.

wade-w

Soul Invictus:

Maybe if you clarified your question, you will get more responses. As it is, I'm not sure exactly what you are asking.

tensorproduct

What do you mean by original interpretation of God? The deist god? Or the gods of ancient polytheism?
Your question is very vague.

Calzaer

What do you think neo-pagans are trying to do?

Isn't the earliest concept of God a fertility diety (ie Venus of Willendorf)? Or is animism earlier?

sophie

One may tend to think that the earliest remonstrances to some form of GOD should give some indication of GODLY presence.

When you look at African GODS, the two most powerful ones are embedded in their minds and only communicated by word-of-mouth. Western folk looking for evidence would have a field day with the Africans and their GODS. Think about it!



The next question which may form in one's mind should be how are these GODS communicating with the Earthly folk? Any sensible researcher will surely be looking elsewhere rather than in scripts and handouts!

Kruzkal

You're right. Its sensible not to look in the bible for such answers.

__________________

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
-Edmund Burke

Soul Invictus

I guess I might my question was not posed as clearly as it could have been. A general populace of Christians air the sentiment that the prerequisite for experiencing God would be that of the Judeo- Christian experience....Yahweh,Jehovah, Jesus Christ, etc.

My contention is that since an understanding of a God consciousness whether deist, polytheistic, or monotheistic but more aged (e.g. Buddhism) existed prior to a Christian experience, that the Judeo-Christian adherent would have a challenging task of validating the oft-claimed "Jesus is the way" approach that comes with all too common proselytization techniques, as in this way being the exclusive way to reach God.

Where the archaeological findings would come into this would be for those that maintain the belief that the idea of God manifesting himself to man is historically precise with respect to the Bible. If one does this, then I would almost think that their reasoning would follow that either the Christian God was the first God, which would be faulty, or that the Christian God was the first legitimate God, which would refer to the purpose of this thread.

Hope that helps clear things up.

Invictus