In The Atheist Religion thread, I raised a question about people having the feeling of communing with their god. Specifically, I asked the Christians what they thought was happening when a Hindu, for example, experiences the same feelings as a Christian does, yet they are praying to different gods.
Durnovarianus and Libertarian were kind enough to address the issue there, but I’ve started this thread to avoid hijacking the other. Libertarians answer to me was very brief, so I won’t try to guess as to how she would have expounded on it, but Durno said, I think, that he/she believes that God reveals only portions of himself to people and that the Hindus are actually prayaing to the Christian god, just a different aspect of him.
With all due respect for your opinions, this still doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s my understanding that the Christian god said that anyone who seeks him earnestly will find him and also that the only way to salvation is by believing in Christ as the messiah. The Hindus have been seeking god for over 4,000 years. If they are, in fact, praying to the Christian god but aren’t aware of it, then why has he not led them to Christ? It seems to me that either:
They are not praying to the Christian god, in which case I have to ask why a god who promises to reveal himself to all who seek him has not seen fit to lead these people to him;
Or
They are praying to the Christian god but he has decided not to clue them in that they must believe in Christ, thereby denying them eternal salvation.
Any ideas out there?
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
I am surely going to regret this later, but here goes.
I am a Christian and more specifically a Southern Baptist.
It is my belief that there is only ONE God. God gave us the bible by speaking to men on earth and then he sent his son Jesus to teach man the way and then to die and be the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.
So it is my belief that they are not praying to God, but to some god they believe in. The difference is I believe God is real and that all other gods are not.
I know this sounds arrogant and many will not agree with it, but that is my belief.
Why does God not reveal himself? Who said he does not. The problem is what is a revelation from God? Does God speak to you in an audible voice? Does he send signs? Does he speak to you through others? What would it be?
Maybe he uses the words of another to reveal himself. However, if the person that he is revealing himself to does not listen and respond, nothing happens. What about a sign? What sign is proof that God is speaking to you? If you write it off as being a natural phenomenon, then God is not going to make you listen.
That is why the Southern Baptist still send missionaries abroad and even to other places in the US. If we believe, and we do, that Christ is the only way to God, and we do not want anyone to not have the opportunity to know God, then we must tell them.
If they decline, then we should leave them alone, but if they listen and believe, then it has been worth whatever the effort.
There are no Gods, Christian or otherwise. The feeling of communion with God is artificial, and can happen whether you pray to God, Jesus, Vishnu, or Murray the purple moon-duck.
What about the people who’s religions are radically different from both Christianity and Hinduism? When ancestor-worshippers feel this communion, is the Christian God revealing Himself as uncle Fred?
No flame here, Jeffery. I very strongly disagree with you, but I certainly won’t ridicule you for your beliefs.
My conflict is this:
Many Christians will say without hesitation that God is ineffable and incomprehensible. Why did God make the platypus? Why is there so much evidence for evolution? Why are people homosexual? Why do really poopy things happen to people who sure don’t seem to deserve it? Answer: We can’t know the mind of God. He’s too immense for our mortal minds to understand. No problem. If we’re going to have a god, I’d much prefer Him to be transcendental.
And yet, many of the same people who admit that they cannot know the mind of God turn about and claim that they know precisely what God wants from His followers, and that their way is the only way.
I see this as a contradiction–if God is so huge we can’t comprehend His mind and motives, how can we say that any of us “know” the Truth about Him?
Well I certainly do not know the whole truth of God. But I do believe that he revealed the things that we need to know about him in the bible. This is what I base my beliefs on.
I know that you are not specifically asking me to answer your questions, but many things happen because of our God given free will. We choose to do things and those choices affect not only us, but others around us. This can cause bad things to happen to people that do not deserve them.
Just like you have to follow the instructions when using a computer and its programs, I believe that the Bible is the instruction book that teaches us about God’s nature and his “rules”.
No flames, Jeffery. I appreciate your honesty and have no desire to dis your beliefs. In fact, I find your beliefs as stated very consistant. You said that you believe the Christian god is the one and only true god and that whatever those other people are praying to isn’t god. Fair enough. But this is what lead me to my original questions, specifically:
When people who believe in gods other than the Christian god worship, and they attest to feeling the presence of god or communing with him–whatever you want to call it–what’s going on there?
and
I believe the Christian god said that anyone who earnestly saught the truth would find it. I think that people of all theistic religions are seeking god (some more earnestly than others, granted), yet these people do not seem to be being led to the Christian god. To an outside obsever, it seems that the Christian god is not keeping his word here.
I realize this topic has the potential to create a heated argument, but that is not my intention. I honestly don’t care what anyone believes and I have no desire to change anyone’s views. I am asking this because it seems to me a glaring contradiction and I’m interested in knowing how those of faith deal with this issue.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
In my opinion, the conundrum is linguistically based. There is one God. Those who believe in Him love Him, be they Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus, whatever. The “I” in “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” the “me” in “No one comes to the father exept by Me,” — these prounouns are not antecedents for a biological man but for a Loving Spirit. Every call to that Spirit is a call to the same place. Were that not true, Jesus could have never said, “I and the Father are One.”
It would be absurd to claim, on the one hand, that you are *the same person as Jehovah God * and on the other hand that you are some sort of rival Zeus.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
I think I understand your position, but what I still don’t get is this:
If they are praying to the Christian god, and if they do this devoutly and with pure heart, what will happen to them when they die, considering that Jesus has not entered into this equasion? And again, if they are praying to the Christian god, and faith in Christ is essential to salvation, why isn’t God stearing them towards Christ?
I probably sound like I’m trying to pin you down here, but I promise I’m not. If your answer is, “I don’t know, it’s just what I believe”, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t answer my question, but that’s not your problem.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
Something else just occurred to me. I don’t remember my Bible stories very well, so I hope you’ll correct me where I’m wrong.
I recall that when Moses was in the process of receiveing the 10 Commandments, the people got bored, made an idol, and worshipped it. Both Moses and God were pretty pissed. Now, I am going to assume that hte idol was symbolic of some god and that the people were not actually thinking that a lump of gold was the actual god. With that assumption, I’m left to wonder:
If there is only one God, the Christian god, and if all prayers go to him, whether or not the pray-ers know it, then what was the big deal with the idol? What would be the difference between this and a Hindu praying to Shiva? How can it be that people today who pray to Ganesh or Kali are actually praying to the Christian god but when Moses’ people prayed to their idol they were not praying to the Christian god?
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
Okay first I do not think that people praying to an idol or god other than Jehovah God are praying to Jehovah God. Does that make sense?
To try and answer your questions with my beliefs.
What does the presence of God feel like? I may can describe what it feels like for me, but that may not be what it feels like for you. I think man has the ability to feel something that is not there. Also, maybe it is the presence of God and they are just not receiving him.
As to the second question. What is earnestly seeking the truth? If I feel that I have found the truth (some other god) and I would likely quit seeking the truth. I know I do not seek out a different God than the one I follow, so I would guess most others do the same. If God sends a person to tell the seeker and they do not respond, then what should God to next? He may send multiple people, but at some point he will likely quit.
He does his part, but a lot of times the seeker does not do theirs.
Hmmm. Let me try again, this time maybe with a familiar metaphor: a rose by any other name …
Simply because a man does not pronounce the five phonemes found in the English word “Christ” does not mean that he does not worship the same Life-Love-Truth I do. God is One.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
If those other gods don’t exist, then how can people be praying to them? If someone prays to the creator of rain, and your God created rain, then isn’t the person praying to your God? What does it mean to pray to a “different” god?
Just what does it mean for a god to be “real” or “not real”? It seems to me that even if your God exists, it is only a abstract mental construct, much like magnetic field lines. No god has physical existence like a chair or car does. How can different mental constructs have different levels of reality? Different constructs may be more useful in describing the world, but that’s different from being more “real”.
Even assuming that God has indeed sent some sign of some sort (something which I find very doubtful), this seems like a disengenuous argument to me. Suppose I were to ask to borrow your car. You say “Sure, but you have to promise to return the car key to me.” I promise, and several days later you call me up, angry because I didn’t return your key. I reply that I did return your key; I hid it somewhere in your house. It seems to me that would be a fulfillment of the letter of my promise, but not the spirit. Or suppose I drop off a huge pile of several thousand keys, all visually identical to yours, and place your key somewhere in the pile. It’s not even hidden now! It’s in plain sight! You just have to try out every single key, see if it works, and find the one that does.
This seems very much like what you’re saying God has done. God has given people a message, but perhaps it is to hidden for people to find, or perhaps there are so many other messages that people don’t believe the correct one. Is this really in accordance with the spirit of God’s promise? It reminds me of that scence from Hitchhiker’s Guide in which Arthur Dent is told “What do you mean you weren’t told about your house being demolished? It was in plain sight in among all these thousands of other announcements in the basement of a building that no one’s ever heard of.” (I’m paraphrasing).
Oh, and in case anyone was looking for a serious answer from me:
I believe in a merciful God, Who will not hold something as insignificant as the form of reverence given to Him against a person. So long as a person has lived a life that has shown compassion to others, and has tried sincerely to be the best person possible, that person should not fear Judgement.
Of course, if the Fundies are right and God is the capricious despot they want him to be, then I and most of humanity is damned to eternal torment anyway. If I come to find this is the case, I will do everything I can to support the cause of Lucifer, for such tyranny and disrespect for human life cannot be allowed to continue.
Any God who wants my respect must have higher morals than I do.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
As to your questions in the OP, I think you have already had the various bits of the answer scattered around.
I agree more or less with what Libertarian says. If I try yet another paraphrase, perhaps it will make it clearer: Christ is always Christ, and salvation is possible only through Christ; it does NOT say however that even if you know, love and follow Christ, you necessarily call Him by that name. (It does not say either that everything you call by the name of Christ will automatically BE Christ).
As I said in my original reply to your question - which is why I have reposted it - there are many many spiritual powers which are NOT Christ / God, and if you are praying to one of those you are in trouble. It is also possible to be sufficiently misguided as to pray to a block of wood or lump of metal; that is downright stupid.
To your further question, my understanding is (a) that we are judged by the light we have had; and (b) that God knows perfectly exactly what factors have been important to each of us individually: there is no such thing as a blanket judgment. On this basis, it seems to me quite possible (a) that a devout Hindu without any knowledge of Christianity may nevertheless have come to know Christ de facto if not by that name through the conscientious practice of Hinduism, and cd therefore be saved; and even (b) that a Hindu who has been exposed to Christianity might for a reason which is sufficient before God have preferred Hinduism and still be saved anyway.
The point of all this. however, to an extent escapes me. If you were concerned for the salvation of Hindus, you would make damn sure that they had the full message of Christianity, since the Bible says virtually nothing about the mechanics of salvation of those who have not heard the Gospel but has a great deal to say on the efficacy of salvation for those who have and have believed it. If on the other hand you do not believe in salvation at all, or in universal salvation, I am not sure why we are having the discussion…
No one speaks here with the authority of the Lord.
I have faith in the love of God for man. That love is the Holy Spirit, and took the form of flesh, and became the man Jesus. It was an act of love, and fulfilled the purpose of redemption of the sins of all mankind. Anyone who tries to exclude someone from that miracle of salvation speaks beyond his authority.
I know many deeply spiritual people of different faiths. We celebrate our joy in the spirit of Love, and the hope of eternal bliss with that living spirit. I know him as Jesus. Some call him Brahma, others believe that a name is a limit which blinds us to the eternal. We are not troubled by theology. What you have done out of love, you do in His place, and in His name, whatever name you know Him by. Put your self aside, and surrender your will to will of Allah. Divest yourself of concern for worldly things, and seek the path to true peace and harmony and the unification of your spirit to the vast and loving presence of the entire Universe. You are not alone, unless you wish to be.
And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever might believe in Him, would not perish, but have life everlasting.
>And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever might believe in Him, would not perish, but have life
everlasting.<
Uh, God had a few more sons. Check out Genesis, chapter 6. THese sons of God came down to impregnate women.
While I am at it. What is holding up Jesus’s return. It should have been only a few years after he left. It’s been over 1900 years, we are still waiting.
My time here is very limited so I cannot go into this issue with any depth, however, the answer is simple and relates to the section I posted in the Earth is flat thread, the unity of truth. If any are interested in a great book on the subject (particularly Christians to give an answer for such questions) say so and I will e-mail you the name and author of the book.
Thank you,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
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