# Is God ever a foreigner? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 13, 2011, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517 "2011-10-13T10:35:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/41 "2011-10-14T20:12:22Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > A spirit is like looking at the air,no image! But according to the Psalmist 82d in kjv everyone is god. Not true. [It refers to some people as "gods,"](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2082&version=NIV)but this isn’t the same as declaring that everyone is God. Besides, I think it’s pretty clear from the context that the Psalmist is speaking ironically, i.e. these people may act like gods, but they aren’t. That’s precisely why the Psalmist emphasizes that these people know nothing, stumble around in darkness, and will die as any other mortal would. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/42 "2011-10-14T20:27:48Z")
To **paperbackwriter** et al: I stand corrected, and I recant, to at least some extent. I wasn’t thinking of depictions of Jesus—who was an actual human being with a physical, bodily existence, but who also was/is God, according to Christian belief—because I got the impression that that wasn’t what the OP had in mind. And even so, you’re right: there have indeed been depictions in Christian contexts of God the Creator, the eternal spirit, such as the Sistine Chapel frescoes or the [famous William Blake painting](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Blake_ancient_of_days.jpg/220px-Blake_ancient_of_days.jpg). I suppose I could try to argue that such depictions are symbolic, rather than an attempt to show what God “really looks like” in the same way that pictures of people are supposed to resemble the people they’re pictures of. But maybe that’s missing the point of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/43 "2011-10-14T21:32:47Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > America must not be blessed or people wouldn’t always be saying God Bless America, it it is alredy blessed then why keep on asking. The words God Bless(anything) seems unnecessary. Unless people think God doesn’t lnow what they need. A child of a good father doesn’t have to keep asking the father(if he knows everything) and has fed his child, and provided the necessities,nor granted anything that would harm them and humans can only guess at what a child needs! Could you explain this to me in English? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/44 "2011-10-14T21:37:07Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > [Onan](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2205/what-exactly-was-the-sin-of-onan) didn’t have children; that was kind of the point of his sin. You may be thinking of the curse of Ham and its far-fetched interpretations, as discussed in [this Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2194/whats-up-with-the-biblical-story-of-drunken-noah-part-2). Sorry, it’s not that I got the stories conflated so much as I got them merged. I thought Onan had his own children by his own wife, but the levirite law kicked in and he didn’t impregnate his brother’s wife, thereby causing his biological children to be cursed. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/45 "2011-10-14T21:40:31Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Actually, that’s the _Second_ Council of Nicea that you’re referring to. The Council of Nicea, without any numerical qualifier, refers to the one which was held in AD 325. The Second Council is accepted by Catholics and certain Orthodox groups, but not by Christendom at large. You are correct, of course, except that both the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic denominations accept 2nd Nicea as ecumenical. The [Assyrian and Oriental Orthodox Churches](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_Council#Acceptance_of_councils_by_denomination) are the only ones to categorically reject 2nd Nicea, and Protestant denominations tend to pick and choose what they accept from the first seven councils (with 2nd Nicea’s anti-iconoclasm being generally unpopular). > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > To **paperbackwriter** et al: I stand corrected, and I recant, to at least some extent. No problem. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/46 "2011-10-15T00:48:02Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Not true. [It refers to some people as "gods,"](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2082&version=NIV)but this isn’t the same as declaring that everyone is God. Besides, I think it’s pretty clear from the context that the Psalmist is speaking ironically, i.e. these people may act like gods, but they aren’t. That’s precisely why the Psalmist emphasizes that these people know nothing, stumble around in darkness, and will die as any other mortal would. Jesus backed up that idea when accused of blasphemey,he is quoted as saying,"It says in your law,"I said you are gods, then he goes on to ask why they accuse him of blasphemey because he calls god his father , when their fathers did. The psalmist was speaking to more than one person , hence he says god in the plural. A matter of intrepretation. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/47 "2011-10-15T00:52:05Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Could you explain this to me in English? Very simple, if America is blessed, then no need to ask, if it is not blessed after all the years and times people ask, then God isn’t going to Bless America,and saying God Bless america is a demand not a request, one is telling God what to do! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517/48 "2011-10-15T00:55:57Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > Very simple, if America is blessed, then no need to ask, if it is not blessed after all the years and times people ask, then God isn’t going to Bless America,and saying God Bless america is a demand not a request, one is telling God what to do! As a post script, if the psalmist meant only the few people that were listening to him then any of the Bible’s writings only referred to the early people who it was supposed to have been told to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-ever-a-foreigner/599517.md?page=2)