My debate in Christian Forums in full swing

[greneknight]

But my understanding of God allows for me to pray that prayer.

Really? I seem to remember you stating you do not believe in a supreme being. But then, I'm old and easily confused, I probably misremembered.

@ greneknight: That's interesting. I'll probably stay tuned to that.

But, here's one thing which I found to contradict with your stated belief (as padraic mentioned as well).

In this forum, you told me:

For me personally, although I'm an altar boy, I can't accept in my head a supernatural being. I think of God as a metaphor for goodness but he (although we use a personal pronoun and that's purely language), does not exist as an entity any more than goodness exists as an entity.

But, in that forum, you wrote:

One point we should note is that Jesus himself is God. Jesus was the one the rich young ruler directed his “good teacher” at. Strictly speaking, Jesus is good because he is God.

In the former, you said that you think of God only as a metaphor for goodness and that he doesn't exist as an entity. In the latter (in the other forum), you're saying that Jesus himself is God, which logically negates your belief that God is just a metaphor since you know that Jesus is not a metaphor, but a living entity.

Just wanted to know how you would reconcile the two statements above.

Hi Rayaan and Padraic,

I will answer both your questions here. My beliefs are of course fluid and they are still developing. A lot of what I have decided now as my "final" beliefs are actually quite new and you'll be surprised to know how recent some of my beliefs are. So what I'm going to say now is what my views are at this moment.

God is a metaphor for goodness and truth. Culturally, I'm a Christian and the metaphor takes the shape of the Holy Trinity. Jesus is a crucial element in the metaphor. Jesus is God and He is good. How is this inconsistent with what I believe in and why would there be a need for reconciling anything?

The problem comes with most people because they have a DIFFERENT understanding of "God". So, when I say, "Jesus is God", they take Jesus to be an entity and God to be another real entity.

A lot of misunderstanding is definitional. I happen to define God in a very different way from most people.