The Exclusivity of Christianity

[Trailblazer]

How can Christianity and Islam both be true religions when their teachings and beliefs contradict one another? In fact, many of Christianity's teachings and beliefs contradict one another.

The answer is simple. Both Christianity and Islam have strayed far from the original teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, especially Christianity. That is why the teachings and beliefs of Christianity and Islam contradict each other. Their scriptures do not contradict each other unless they are misinterpreted.

I said the scriptures do not contradict each other, but that does not mean the religions have exactly the same teachings.
If Muhammad brought exactly the same message as Jesus why would God have had to send Muhammad?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Nobody except the deity knows what the deity wants, so there is no point discussing it.

There is for me, but then again, we have completely different ideas about this subject. You keep giving the deity a pass and expect others to as well, but we don't. I don't. I continue to subject the story of the deity to the same criteria I would any other account, even of fictional characters. If you send a messenger with a message, you want the message known. You are the messenger of your messages, and you post them in RF. You can say that I can't know why, but I can say that I do. You wanted the words read and perhaps responded to. Why you wanted that requires a little more knowledge.

All of the believers rules for why his accounts of his deity are off limits to scrutiny are irrelevant to the critical thinker, who brings his own agenda, values, and methods to the discussion. The theist says you can't evaluate my god because you can't find him, whereas the critical thinker draws conclusions from that claim. The theist says you can't judge my deity morally, because his morality transcends man's understanding. Same type of argument, same answer. The believer says that the skeptic can't interpret scripture or contradict his understanding of it because he lacks the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the skeptic goes ahead and does so anyway, and quite well generally.

All of this verbal sleight-of-hand to try to conceal that this deity doesn't exist. I trust you've seen Sagan's dragon in the garage by now (if not and you'd like, I'll explain). Same thing. All kind of special exceptions are invented ad hoc and claimed for this dragon and just as believers do with their gods. And I bet you'd reject all of ad hoc dragon explanations just as skeptics do the ad hoc defenses theists invent as they go along.

A want is not a need. I might want a new car but I do not need a new car.

Yes I know. I used the word want and you changed it to need. I pointed that out to YOU.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I find the world meaningful to me. It's interesting, life-sustaining, beautiful, and I get an intuition of the sacred experiencing it mindfully. But it's none of things without conscious agents to experience it and have those intuitions in so doing. Thus, I don't think the universe has any meaning except to conscious agents, without whom, it wouldn't matter if the universe existed or not. The religious perspective is often that God had a purpose, but I don't define meaning to myself in those terms.

Well, yes .. it is all about conscious agents.
Without conscious agents, no meaning can be realised.

I do not believe that consciousness is an illusion, and have no reason to believe that I, along with other humans,
are the only ones to experience it.
It seems logical to me that consciousness has a source, and is not solely an illusion brought about by physical
processes.

 

[PureX]

The answer is simple. Both Christianity and Islam have strayed far from the original teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, especially Christianity. That is why the teachings and beliefs of Christianity and Islam contradict each other. Their scriptures do not contradict each other unless they are misinterpreted.

I said the scriptures do not contradict each other, but that does not mean the religions have exactly the same teachings.
If Muhammad brought exactly the same message as Jesus why would God have had to send Muhammad?

The mistake, I think, is in assuming that the religions are the messengers. When the religions are just the human byproducts of the Divine Message. They are just elaborately constructed 'placeholders' for the Divine ideals that exist within our hearts, minds, and souls as creations of God. And we don't all understand this in the same way. Because we are all different people with different experiences and different ways of cognating ourselves and the world around us.

I'm not against religions, as I know they help a lot of people, spiritually. But I think we make a grave error when we begin to treat religions as something more than what they are. As something not made and controlled by men.

 

[F1fan]

Nobody except the deity knows what the deity wants, so there is no point discussing it.

A want is not a need. I might want a new car but I do not need a new car.

The deity does not need anything from humans. That means the deity does not need to be need to be heard and understood, and the deity does not need to be known, believed, trusted, or worshiped. That is why the deity does not deliver a message that can be readily recognized by everyone.

“He who shall accept and believe, shall receive his reward; and he who shall turn away, shall receive none other than his own punishment.”
Gleanings, p. 339

It does not affect the deity if we choose not to know, believe, trust or worship Him. The deity has no needs because ----

“Your Lord, the God of mercy, can well dispense with all creatures. Nothing whatever can either increase or diminish the things He doth possess.”
Gleanings, p. 148

The deity is self-sufficient and independent of its creatures so it has no needs whatsoever. Whatever the deity gives us is only for our sake, not for the deity's sake. The deity's purpose in sending the Messengers is to give humans what they need in order to fulfill the purpose of their existence, which is to know and love God and serve others, and to acquire the spiritual qualities we need in this life and in the life to come.

“This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future. Let him that seeketh, attain it; and as to him that hath refused to seek it—verily, God is Self-Sufficient, above any need of His creatures.” Gleanings, p. 136

“Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures.” Gleanings, p. 166

“Consider the mercy of God and His gifts. He enjoineth upon you that which shall profit you, though He Himself can well dispense with all creatures.”
Gleanings, p. 140

“The one true God, exalted be His

Then there is no point in believing in a deity either because your actions would be no more significant than if you were an atheist. If you got right by the deity, if it even exists, it would just be a lucky guess. And you will die not knowing one way or the other.

 

[Trailblazer]

There is for me, but then again, we have completely different ideas about this subject. You keep giving the deity a pass and expect others to as well, but we don't. I don't. I continue to subject the story of the deity to the same criteria I would any other account, even of fictional characters. If you send a messenger with a message, you want the message known.

You don't know what God wants, not any more than I do. God probably wants us to get the message since God sent the Messenger, but so what?
My point was that God does not need for us to get the message since God has no needs.

You are the messenger of your messages, and you post them in RF. You can say that I can't know why, but I can say that I do. You wanted the words read and perhaps responded to. Why you wanted that requires a little more knowledge.

You cannot know why I do anything, not any more than I can know why you do anything.

Yes I know. I used the word want and you changed it to need. I pointed that out to YOU.

No, I did not change the word want to need.
I only pointed out the difference between a want and a need, so there was no need to point anything out to me.
I never said that you said that God needs anything, so there was no need to point anything out to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then there is no point in believing in a deity either because your actions would be no more significant than if you were an atheist. If you got right by the deity, if it even exists, it would just be a lucky guess. And you will die not knowing one way or the other.

There is no point believing in the deity unless it affects one's actions for the better. A moral atheist is better than an immoral believer.

If we got it right by the deity, we will know when we die, but if there is no deity and no afterlife we will die and know nothing.
If we did not get it right by the deity and there is a deity and an afterlife I don't know what will happen we die. That's up to the deity.

 

[PureX]

There is no point believing in the deity unless it affects one's actions for the better. A moral atheist is better than an immoral believer.

And none of us is as good a person as we know that we could and should be. So seeking a means of improving this situation is an advantage, morally speaking, to us all.

If we got it right by the deity, we will know when we die, but if there is no deity and no afterlife we will die and know nothing.
If we did not get it right by the deity and there is a deity and an afterlife I don't know what will happen we die. That's up to the deity.

The "rightness" that matters is the "right now". How can we be better humans, right now?

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Then there is no point in believing in a deity either because your actions would be no more significant than if you were an atheist.

Not if you join a religion that advocates or tries to change society in meaningful and positive ways. I mean, it is possible to partake in religious activities as an atheist, but chances are, most people who follow a religion do so because they agree with the message of that faith.

If you got right by the deity, if it even exists, it would just be a lucky guess. And you will die not knowing one way or the other.

Most people have a reason why they exist... That reason is a self-advocate of what they think God wants, if they are theist. For example, as a syntheist I believe I can help create the divinity of God by possessing and using key characteristics of what I think the divine is, and by explaining my positions of why I think those things are in essence, divine. For me, the reason why humans exist is to create God's divinity, but the reason why God exists in general is to be generous and alleviate or prevent suffering from happening. We act in accordance to God and become more divine when we enact its divine principles.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Then there is no point in believing in a deity either because your actions would be no more significant than if you were an atheist. If you got right by the deity, if it even exists, it would just be a lucky guess. And you will die not knowing one way or the other.

There are other myths from various civilizations that resemble the stories of Jesus in the Bible, as I explained in another thread (read it here). Based on everything I mentioned in my previous post, I don't think the savior story of Jesus should be given any more credence than all the other Christ-like figures from pagan religions that preceded both Christianity and the Bible. I'd also like to emphasize that Christianity is a very fragmented religion, with Christians generally divided on how to accurately interpret the Bible. You can ask a group of Christians the same theological question and get a variety of answers, some of which contradict each other. Christians hardly ever agree. In my opinion, we should take everything we're told about the Bible with a grain of salt.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You don't know what God wants, not any more than I do.

I wish you could be flexible enough in your thinking to assimilate the fact that I don't believe that this god exists. If this god doesn't exist, then it wants nothing. But the character in the story known as God does have wants. We are told what many of them are.

You cannot know why I do anything

Yes, I can.

not any more than I can know why you do anything.

Maybe, but you should be able to decide why I do most of what you see me do on RF. And you should be able to guess my reasons for much of the rest. My day started with Wordle and coffee with whipped cream. I'll be you can guess why. Then, it was 90 minutes of Internet Bridge followed by an email to my partner, who I am mentoring. Can you guess why?

No, I did not change the word want to need.

IANS: "Why would a deity with an important message that it wants known and believed but has to use a messenger to deliver it want to have its messenger be readily recognized as such? Do you really need that answered?"

TB: "The deity does not need anything from humans, not anything at all. It is humans who need what the deity reveals."

How is that you not changing want in my post to need in yours?

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

I wish you could be flexible enough in your thinking to assimilate the fact that I don't believe that this god exists. If this god doesn't exist, then it wants nothing. But the character in the story known as God does have wants. We are told what many of them are.

It was @Trailblazer who made this thread and she is a Baha'i and therefore monotheistic. She probably thinks about God every single day of her life, as her God is very important to her. In fact, the very original topic of this thread was about the exclusive claims made by Christians and their idea of God. So, please excuse her if she can't conceive a reality where God doesn't exist.

Yes, I can.

Maybe, but you should be able to decide why I do most of what you see me do on RF. And you should be able to guess my reasons for much of the rest. My day started with Wordle and coffee with whipped cream. I'll be you can guess why. Then, it was 90 minutes of Internet Bridge followed by an email to my partner, who I am mentoring. Can you guess why?

Because you wanted to kill your time in ways that were not arguing with theists over the Internet? That, overall, you are easily bored and need to find constructive ways to preoccupy your time? Well, some people find constructive ways of using their time by reading and understanding the words of what they claim to be prophets. Trailblazer's time is as valuable as mine, and is as valuable as your own. If she wants to use her time to help her understand reality in ways she cannot express herself, let her. There is no crime with being a Baha'i (at least if you aren't in a Muslim theocracy, which then, it's apostasy).

IANS: "Why would a deity with an important message that it wants known and believed but has to use a messenger to deliver it want to have its messenger be readily recognized as such? Do you really need that answered?"

TB: "The deity does not need anything from humans, not anything at all. It is humans who need what the deity reveals."

How is that you not changing want in my post to need in yours?

We are all messengers of God, knowing little by little the collective information of reality. Some just claim to know more than others. Baha'u'llah was well-educated and came from an influential and wealthy Muslim family. He forsaken that life to help benefit others. If the monotheistic God cannot express himself to humans directly, then it would make sense to me that a God like this would require prophets to help people understand that God, if this God, at all, wants to be known. I reject claims that this monotheistic God exists, mostly because life is so scarce throughout the entire Universe. I believe it is us humans that are meant to create God's divinity by doing his work for him and create the most life throughout the Universe. But I respect Trailblazer and her decision to be a Baha'i. She's been a Baha'i for a very long time in fact. However, going back to what I said before...

If religion never existed would people exist? I contend they would, although things would be very different.

Trailblazer agreed with me later by saying...

I agree. Humans would still exist, but they would not be civilized or moral if there was never any religion.

So she agrees with both of us by saying this. People don't need God, but many people want God, myself included. What that God is, entails, and means to people are different for each and every individual. But most people will agree that whatever or whomever God is, we all strive to be closer to that source of divinity. Humans can be moral and civilized without religion, but historically it would have been much more difficult without outside support from religion.

 

[Trailblazer]

I wish you could be flexible enough in your thinking to assimilate the fact that I don't believe that this god exists.

Why do you think I don't know that you don't believe that god exists? I know that since you are an atheist.

If this god doesn't exist, then it wants nothing. But the character in the story known as God does have wants. We are told what many of them are.

I do not believe in the character in the Bible story. The God I believe in might have some wants, but the only ones I know about are the ones Baha'u'llah revealed. For example, when Baha'u'llah said what He desires that is also what God desires since Baha'u'llah is a Representative of God on earth.

Yes, I can.

No, you only think you can. I don't even know why I do everything I do, because much of it is subconscious.

Maybe, but you should be able to decide why I do most of what you see me do on RF. And you should be able to guess my reasons for much of the rest.

Why would I care to know or guess why you do anything?
I might be able to guess why you do certain things but I would never claim to know.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Because you wanted to kill your time in ways that were not arguing with theists over the Internet?

Yes, correct. I like variety in my day.

That, overall, you are easily bored and need to find constructive ways to preoccupy your time?

I'm rarely bored, but otherwise, yes.

Trailblazer's time is as valuable as mine, and is as valuable as your own. If she wants to use her time to help her understand reality in ways she cannot express herself, let her. There is no crime with being a Baha'i (at least if you aren't in a Muslim theocracy, which then, it's apostacy).

No argument here.

Why do you think I don't know that you don't believe that god exists? I know that since you are an atheist.

Because your writing reflects an assumption that I do believe in that god. You wrote, "You don't know what God wants, not any more than I do." Why would you write that to somebody that doesn't believe this deity exists much less has wants? It has no wants. But the fictional character of scripture does.

I might be able to guess why you do certain things but I would never claim to know.

Really? Right now, I'm recording the network evening news on two stations. In a few minutes, I will be watching them while enjoying a buttery baked potato currently baking and a glass of wine. Eventually, I will shower and go to bed. Do you really have no idea why I would do those things?

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Really? Right now, I'm recording the network evening news on two stations. In a few minutes, I will be watching them while enjoying a buttery baked potato currently baking and a glass of wine. Eventually, I will shower and go to bed. Do you really have no idea why I would do those things?

Let me guess:
-You enjoy watching the news on TV.
-You need to eat something as a living organism.
-You like to drink wine for its taste.
-You feel good when you shower and it cleanses your skin.

So essentially, everything you listed were either wants or needs. Now, I'm not going to claim that anyone needs God, but both @Trailblazer and I, in our limited understanding that we have, both really want to know and understand God. For some people, their dependency on understanding God is as apparent as someone who is seeking to understand reality itself.

I think there are some cases which Trailblazer can be right though: For example, I have Spotify. I listen to music on Spotify because I really like music, but what music I choose to play is mostly subconscious - I could say that I choose the music I'm in the mood for, but there's probably more to work to understanding it than just that. There's a whole school of psychology focused just on the subconscious and decisions we make because of it.

Don't quickly dismiss her because much of what she thinks she does is either random or subconsciously biased.

 

[F1fan]

There is no point believing in the deity unless it affects one's actions for the better. A moral atheist is better than an immoral believer.

But if a person needs to believe in a deity just to behave better, they are still naturally capable of the behavior, they just need to decide a God exists that give them permission to be better. Talk about a confused mental state. The dilemma is that if a person only behaves because of an imaginary friend that it obeys, all the person has to do is reject that belief and get back to bad behavior. This is why 12 step progams fail. A better approach is to help people build self-respect and agency.

If we got it right by the deity, we will know when we die, but if there is no deity and no afterlife we will die and know nothing.
If we did not get it right by the deity and there is a deity and an afterlife I don't know what will happen we die. That's up to the deity.

But to believe is still self-deception. Honest people that might believe can't exvect their desires of an afterlife is reasonable to expect. Only those who are really deceived will believe all these ideas. No one can make a rational conclusion that an afterlife exists, there is no set of facts and data to warrant that judgment.

 

[F1fan]

Now, I'm not going to claim that anyone needs God, but both @Trailblazer and I, in our limited understanding that we have, both really want to know and understand God. For some people, their dependency on understanding God is as apparent as someone who is seeking to understand reality itself.

Who told you any sort of God exists?

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Who told you any sort of God exists?

I was raised in a non-religious household, and both of my parents converted to atheism after I became an adult, but I spent the majority of my time during my first summer vacation without supervision on the Internet and studying a variety of different religions, which all has their own ideas of God. I cannot remember the first time I heard about God, but ultimately I tied in the idea of God towards fate, believing at one point that they are identical or nearly identical. When I was a teenager my theology became syntheistic but I didn't have that word to describe myself so I tended to use the word agnostic for my belief system. But now that I've discovered and understood a variety of different theologies and religions, I can now more accurately describe my religious beliefs than ever before - even if other people don't know what it is I am expressing.

 

[F1fan]

Not if you join a religion that advocates or tries to change society in meaningful and positive ways. I mean, it is possible to partake in religious activities as an atheist, but chances are, most people who follow a religion do so because they agree with the message of that faith.

I worked in my grandmothers church food kitchen as an atheist. No one ever mentioned Jesus or any religious belief. The women did their duty for their fellow citizens. To my mind this is more of what a Christian is than worshippers with a head full of irrational concepts that are designed to serve the self's ego (like Jesus dying for their sins).

But you are right, racist Christians will find fellowship in the KKK, as that is the message of their faith. Yet my point is that belief in any version of God won't make a person any better or different than who they are.

Most people have a reason why they exist... That reason is a self-advocate of what they think God wants, if they are theist.

Why are humans living their lives for an imaginary being? How is that fulfilling? The more a person is invested in religion the more they have to shield themselves from doubt and their own ability to reason. We even see this with creationists as they go deeper into non-factual belief they have to find excuses to reject science and expertise. That is delusion. There is no functional path for people being religious UNLESS they treat the ideas as symbolic. Literalism is an eventual dead end.

For example, as a syntheist I believe I can help create the divinity of God by possessing and using key characteristics of what I think the divine is, and by explaining my positions of why I think those things are in essence, divine.

That's religious theater. You are creating an illusory "reality", which is called a fantasy. How is that useful? It's like a guy who asks his friends if they want to meet his girlfriend and he shows them a centerfold.

For me, the reason why humans exist is to create God's divinity, but the reason why God exists in general is to be generous and alleviate or prevent suffering from happening. We act in accordance to God and become more divine when we enact its divine principles.

Yeah, it's what you think. You seem to be on a treadmill and believe you are going somewhere.

 

[F1fan]

I was raised in a non-religious household, and both of my parents converted to atheism after I became an adult, but I spent the majority of my time during my first summer vacation without supervision on the Internet and studying a variety of different religions, which all has their own ideas of God. I cannot remember the first time I heard about God, but ultimately I tied in the idea of God towards fate, believing at one point that they are identical or nearly identical. When I was a teenager my theology became syntheistic but I didn't have that word to describe myself so I tended to use the word agnostic for my belief system. But now that I've discovered and understood a variety of different theologies and religions, I can now more accurately describe my religious beliefs than ever before - even if other people don't know what it is I am expressing.

At any point did you ever stop and consider the ideas of all these gods are not based in reality? You obviously were exposed to ideas of gods, as we all were. But for me I questioned what I heard, and I subjected the claims and the claimant's actions to scrutiny. None of it added up to any sort of actual truth. These people were absirbed in many different types of belief-centered tradition and did not show signs of thinking about what they were believing. It is like they are robots who don't understand they are robots.

I actually asked questions. When i was a kid I asked why we are in church, and i was told "for our salvation". That was followed by more questions, and the answers were always superficial, and in a circular reasoning type of thinking. the adults did not have answers. they never questioned any of it as I was as a child. Even as a kid i was fascinated why all these humans believed in ideas that are not founded on any fact. I was suspicious that many didn't realy believe. i was shocked that as I learned about what Jesus taught many Christians around me did not follow the teachings. Surely they should fear judgment and hell right? No. They acted like they had a ticket to heaven and could not be cancelled. No humility. So naturally I was just not impressed by believers and their beliefs. They were my reasons for doubt.