You assume that it’s not possible to judge Christianity to be false if it’s a monotheistic religion. Not true.
And as for your last sentence, there are people who think that belief in a monotheistic religions is just as primitive. Or at least illogical.
The key is demiGODS. They are gods, just not as big as the main few, the Father, the son. the holy ghost and the devil. They are big time gods.
You know, I’m surprised that no one at all on this thread has mentioned 2 Corinthians 4:4. While the name Satan doesn’t come up, I gather that a comparison of passages would lead to that identification.
From KJV, with emphasis added:
“In whom the **god of this world **hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
The author certainly seems to be saying that Satan qualifies as some sort of god. In fact, this particular one (in conjunction with an assembly of demons?) certainly seems to be in charge, at least for a time, in terms of locking up the majority of minds.
This is illogical in so many ways.
First, I don’t know of anyone making this argument. Second, it would only work if someone argued that these religions are false because they are polytheistic. If that were true, then it would follow that Christianity was false because it is polytheistic. However the old religions are false for lots of other reasons, so Christianity being polytheistic has nothing to do with its truth value.
What it does demonstrate is that the beliefs of Christianity were a function of the religious environment at the time, and were eventually redefined to be consistent with monotheism, but not perfectly. So the polytheistic influence is evidence of the human, not divine, roots of the religion.
I wonder about the importance. I am not saying the polytheism is a bad mark against catholicism. I am merely claiming it as an obvious fact. But it seems to piss some people off.
I’m not a Christian, but really, what’s so hard to understand about one God with three manifestations? When Zeus took the form of a bull, was he a different god than when he was some big bearded guy tossing lightning bolts? No, he was the same god in a different form. Likewise when God took the form of the man Jesus Christ (according to Christian scripture) he was still the same God.
Really, the “Son of God” stuff is more of an analogy or a metaphor to try to describe God/Jesus in human terms. Clearly it’s an imperfect analogy since God isn’t distinct from Jesus in the way I as a human being am distinct from my own child.
These “forms” are supposed to be simultaneous and identical, though, and limited to exactly three. If that doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because it doesn’t make sense.
Geez, methinks anyone who can’t paper over that problem should have his theology, law or English lit degree revoked.
Polycarp gave a workmanlike defense in the GD thread.
The trinity can be thought of as a roughly accurate depiction of an entity who simply cannot be known by man with precision, due to either insufficient cranial capacity or information. Objections to more fundamental assumptions of theism are separate matters.
Er, the forms are simultaneous, but does Xtian doctrine say they are really identical? Respiration, growth and adaptation are all aspects of animal life, but that doesn’t make them the same.
No, he is. That’s the whole crux of the “let not my will, but your will be done” bit, or asking “why have you forsaken me?”: it’s not the sort of thing Zeus the bull would say to Zeus the bearded guy, but it’s exactly the sort of thing a child distinct from another human being would say.
Zeus the bull simply is the bearded guy in a different form, which doesn’t give rise to (a) back-and-forth conversations, or (b) claims that it’s some ineffable mystery we mere humans can’t even understand; he just changed his appearance, is all. On the other hand, Jesus claiming he doesn’t know stuff the Father knows (or God stating in a booming voice that This Is My Son, With Whom I Am Well Pleased – or, again, Jesus emphasizing that he and God have separate wills, or talking up how one of 'em has forsaken the other, or whatever) requires more than a mere shapeshifter.
Did you know that the word Lucifer actually means the planet Venus, and it only because associated with satan/the devil because of a mistranslation?
That mistranslation brought with it all the connotations of being a fallen angel. In greccoroman mythology, Venus (Lucifer) was thought to be a god who forsook Zeus and was cast out from the heavens, which is why we see Venus (looks like a star) in the morning, not at night. So when a dude in the bible was talking about Venus and everybody thought he was talking about the devil, they all assumed that meant that the devil was an angel that was cast out of heaven.
If you remove that failed translation, there is absolutely no reference to satan’s backstory in the bible. He’s just a generic bad guy.
Also never mentioned in the bible: the antichrist.
It’s amazing all the things I took as fact when I was a Christian that don’t even come from the bible, but from people completely making shit up. I’ll just glide right past the irony at the end of the previous sentence.
That verse in the Old Testament was actually talking about the King of Baylon and metaphorically comparing him to the planet Venus (not the Goddess) which is briefly ascendant in the morning, and then blown away by the light of the sun. The “sun,” in this metaphor, being God. This early morning phenomenon represented itself in Canaanite mythology as the deified “morning star” trying daily to ascend above the other gods, and being cast back down.
“Lucifer” comes from the Vulgate translation of the Hebrew Helel (“Morning Star”) into the Latin name for the same star.
That doesn’t answer why satan signed his name as LCF when he wrote books.
The devil writes books???
I understand he’s published by Regnery under several pseudonyms…
I was referencing a movie. The Seventh Gate, I think. Eighth Gate? Seventh Seal? Whatever. I was 13, Johnny Depp was in it, and there was a lot of devil talk so I was very uncomfortable.
In some old book, something is inscribed and signed “LCF”, someone says, “Who’s that?” and someone else says, “…Think.”
Stupid, all around.
Yep. Detailed ones.
The Ninth Gate.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Devil There is a lot of teaching and scripture references to the devil and his spirit minions. After all who was it that lured Eve into original sin by taking the form of a talking snake. Just accept that there are lots of gods and the church and learn to live with it.
Zeus in the form of a bull didn’t refer to his old-thunderbolty-guy form as “my father”. Jesus does so repeatedly.
Anyway, if the use of multiple forms to represent a single supreme being is not antithetical to monotheism, then Hinduism is a monotheistic religion. The many gods of Hinduism are facets of the same gem - the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or creator, preserver and destroyer) which is itself simply three facets of Brahman or Hiranyagarbha, the singular force of creation and/or the physical universe.
Oh, yeah, lots of them.