Religion and idolatry

[ignoramus]

and if he doesn't reply to you, you are obviously not worthy of him ...
(yes? no? maybe?)

Because god is in our "head", those who want or need him will make him whatever god they please him to be!

[Baqal]

@professor
-There is one sure way to find out which of the myriad religions and philosophies is true-
Humbly ask the God of Heaven - "Who are you?, show me the way".
I did ask this question when I was a Christian, and God was rather unresponsive. As a result, I was giving God attributes on my own that suit my personal opinions about Him. This is the problem - God is, by definition, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Whatever you say about him qualifies. If God is open to stacking opinions about Him via the people that are, allegedly, having a personal relationship with Him, God's personality varies from person to person. This shows a list of several possibilities:
1) God is communicating with the persons who claim to have sighted Him and the persons are unsure of his character because of their limited nature of understanding
2) God is not communicating with the persons who claim to have sighted Him and the persons have explained his character in a way to satisfy their own bias about the Creator
3) The "God" these persons claim to have spoken to is nothing but their ego notifying them about their own opinions about God's character
I, just like many other atheists that once were believers, realized the problem in this system of having a personal relationship with any god you can list.
If you are going to dismiss any other belief in a divinity because of your own revelation from God, that's fine. You have the right to believe anything you want. You just have to understand that these "God has revealed Himself to me" anecdotes aren't very convincing. For me, at least.

[professor]

Ignoramus,
There will be an answer, or answers, maybe not a blinding light and a voice,
but the words, "Seek and you shall find" are still true.

However, the proud will never humble themselves to find out.
Satan knows that God RESISTS the prideful, so his influence is in the air.

But God gives grace to the humble.
Humility is actually having an accurate view of oneself- it is based in truthfulness.
Pride is the opposite.

[The Grand Nudger]

As has been mentioned on these forums many, many times - there are those who seek and do not find. If you're willing to simply discard their experiences out-of-hand then I see no reason that I should not discard yours in the same manner.

Your insult rant -aimed at no one in particular but an idea of everyone in the abstract- has been noted.

[Mr Greene]

Or those that seek and find a bunch of liars are behind all the nonsense.

Worship is idolatry, end of story. Some don't like being called on it and try to shift the goalposts but that's all it boils down to.

[Baqal]

@professor
-However, the proud will never humble themselves to find out. Satan knows that God RESISTS the prideful, so his influence is in the air. But God gives grace to the humble. Humility is actually having an accurate view of oneself- it is based in truthfulness. Pride is the opposite.
And citing James isn't going to make your position more solid. It is kind of interesting how you take a biased assumption from your world view and use it to easily dismiss the position that doesn't agree with you. It doesn't work that way.

[Crossless2.0]

@professor
-However, the proud will never humble themselves to find out. Satan knows that God RESISTS the prideful, so his influence is in the air. But God gives grace to the humble. Humility is actually having an accurate view of oneself- it is based in truthfulness. Pride is the opposite.
And citing James isn't going to make your position more solid. It is kind of interesting how you take a biased assumption from your world view and use it to easily dismiss the position that doesn't agree with you. It doesn't work that way.

I see you're relatively new here, Baqal (welcome, by the way), so I'll spare you further drama. You've basically summed up Prof's MO in virtually any discussion. Whether it's the "truth" of his religion or any number of loony conspiracy/false flag "theories," Prof can be found manning the barricades in defense of irrationality at every turn. Nothing to see here.

[Baqal]

@Crossless1
-I see you're relatively new here, Baqal (welcome, by the way), so I'll spare you further drama.
As far as I'm concerned, you can be as merciless as you want. He-he.

-You've basically summed up Prof's MO in virtually any discussion. Whether it's the "truth" of his religion or any number of loony conspiracy/false flag "theories," Prof can be found manning the barricades in defense of irrationality at every turn. Nothing to see here.
If you say so, I was just searching for some genuine conversation with people that happen to read through this thread and have an opinion on the subject. I was not familiar with professor's methodology of making a point and then trying to defend it, since I am, as you said, relatively new to the forums.

[Minimalist]

but the words, "Seek and you shall find" are still true.

Yeah...stick your hand up your ass and you'll find your head.

[ThomM]

As the Torah states:
Exodus 20:2-5
2 I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
3 Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
4 thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;
5 and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.

If we open the Bible and read Exodus 20:3-6 we will see that it says pretty much the same stuff, except:
6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep My commandments.
This replaces the fifth verse of the Torah, and switches the word "mercy" for "love".

The Quran, much like the previous holy books, calls idolatry a sin and addresses that no Muslim is to have any gods before Allah.
The Women - سورة النساء
[4:48] Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And he who associates others with Allah has certainly fabricated a tremendous sin.

The Jinn - سورة الجن
[72:18] And He revealed that the masjids are for Allah , so do not invoke with Allah anyone.

The Quran also addresses that a belief in any other god other than Allah is a deception associated with Satan.
The Women - سورة النساء
[4:117] They call upon instead of Him none but female deities, and they call upon none but a rebellious Satan.

It may be clear that Yehowah and God by the Bible are the same entities, because they seem to state the same commandment. However, I don't see any reason for Yehowah to be jealous of any other deity. Doesn't he state that He is the only one, true god? Why is He worried about competition, then?
A Christian once said this in the YouTube comment section:
"Jesus is the only true Lord, as stated by the Bible, so worshiping anything else is idolatry."
Are you seeing how this sentence can be troubling for Christians that don't believe in the Trinity? From their perspective, worshiping Jesus is considered idolatry.
I can go and give you examples until the ostriches start to fly, but at the end, we will come to the following conclusion:
"Christianity can easily dismiss Hinduism as idolatry. Hinduism can dismiss Christianity as idolatry. Islam can dismiss both of them as idolatry, and so on."
What do you think personally? Do you think believers should be more careful when they attempt to dismiss another belief for being nothing but pure idolatry?

IT is ridiculous to expect any religion to accept another religion as anything but idolotry. After all - THE MONEY is at stake. Wjy should they be more careful - it is a CON game - for all of them.

However - IF there was one true god - out of the tens of thousands of gods of various religions - it would have to have ALL the powers claimed by all the religions on the earth - and the contradiction alone make that impossible.

So - when an Xtian uses the old CON - Can you prove that there is no god ?- I reply - on the contrary = there have been THOUSANDS of gods - and in fact there are also thousands of different forms of the xtian religion - and some of the gods can be proven to have existed. On the Island of Tanna in the South Pacific - they worship Prince Phillip as a god - and we can prove Prince Phillip Exists. The ancient Egyptians, Mayans , and Incas worshipped their rulers as gods - and we can prove - without question - that MANY of them also existed - lived - and we have absolute proof of that.

Apparently there is a power these gods had - that yours does not - the power to absolutely prove existence.