RE: The ultimate question !
November 28, 2008 at 12:03 pm
(This post was last modified: November 28, 2008 at 12:06 pm by Daystar.)
(November 27, 2008 at 1:54 am)chatpilot Wrote: I have been an atheist for about 14 years and as the years go by and my knowledge on religious matters continue to grow I have become sure that God or gods do not exist.The one question that I have tried to answer is the one question that leaves religion in general without a satisfactory answer for the skeptic.
Eventually is the atheist not presented with the same conundrum? Matter had to have come from somewhere? Did it just spring up from nowhere?
Jehovah God wasn't created he is without creation. Revelation 1:7-8 doesn't say anything about it. Verse 7 refers to Jesus and verse 8 to Jehovah. They are not the same. Jesus had a beginning. He was created. Jehovah was not.
Jehovah didn't create himself.
(November 27, 2008 at 1:54 am)chatpilot Wrote: It is my honest opinion based on just pure study and observation of the worlds religions,that God was created first in the mind of mankind.Before you state that the above scripture was a referrence to Christ I will assure you that it is.But remember that Jesus was also called the Word and the bible states the following:
John 1:1-3
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2The same was in the beginning with God.
3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made
According to these verses we are speaking of one and the same entity.
John 1:1 is often mistranslated in an attempt to give support for the trinity. It should read the word was a god, rather than God.
"and the Word was a god (godlike; divine)"
Greek καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (kai theos en ho logos)
"and the word was a god" - The New Testament, in An Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome's New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London, 1808.
"and a god was the Word" - The Emphatic Diaglott (J21, interlinear reading), by Benjamin Wilson, New York and London, 1864.
"and the Word was divine - The Bible - An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, Chicago, 1935.
"and the Word was a god" - New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, Brooklyn, 1950.
"and a god (or, of a divine Das Evangelium nach kind) was the Word" - Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz, Göttingen, Germany, 1975.
"and godlike sort was Das Evangelium nach the Logos" - Johannes, by Johannes Schneider, Berlin, 1978.
"and a god was the Logos" - Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Jürgen Becker, Würzburg, Germany, 1979.
Here "a god," "godlike," or "divine" could be used but not God because the Greek theos is a singular predicate noun occurring before the verb and not preceded by the definite article. Its called an anarthrous theos. The God with whom the Word (Logos) was is designated by the Greek expression theos preceded by the definite article ho. That is an articular theos.
The articular construction of the noun points to an identity, a personality, but the singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb points to a quality about someone.
When John says that the Word was "a god" he doesn't mean that the Word (Jesus) was the God with whom he was with because that would be silly and the language doesn't imply that.
What is interesting is that as difficult as this may sound (to me anyway) it really isn't. There are many cases of a singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb that all translations have no difficulty with except for that one place because trinitarian translaters have a difficult time accepting that Jesus was a mighty god (Hebrew El Gibbohr - Isaiah 9:6) rather than Jehovah, God Almighty (Hebrew El Shaddai - Genesis 17:1).
Mark 11:32 - New World Translation - a prophet, King James Version - a prophet, An American Translation - a prophet, New International Version - a prophet, Revised Standard Version - a prophet, Today’s English Version - a prophet (also at 6:49 translations all real "a ghost," "a spirit," "an apparition."
John 8:44 - New World Translation - a liar, King James Version - a liar, An American Translation - a liar, New International Version - a liar, Revised Standard Version - a liar, Today’s English Version - a liar
The Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 92, Philadelphia, 1973, p. 85, 87 Philip B. Harner "with an anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning. They indicate that the logos has the nature of theos. There is no basis for regarding the predicate theos as definite. . . . In John 1:1 I think that the qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun cannot be regarded as definite."
(November 27, 2008 at 5:41 am)Tiberius Wrote: The only explanation theists give is that God is eternal, living outside of time. However, this also means that prayer is ineffective, since God already knows exactly what is going to happen (it can see all of time).
How is it that you have come to the conclusion that because God is eternal he knows exactly what is going to happen, because the Bible certainly doesn't indicate that.
