How Is Christianity NOT Polytheism?

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This topic contains 41 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by  Glen D 5 years, 7 months ago.

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  • #24348

    Unseen
    Participant

    I think the subject line says it all. Jesus frequently refers to his father and the Holy Spirit as though they are completely distinct beings.

    How is mainstream Christianity not a polytheism? Outside the mainstream, there are purportedly nontrinitarian sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons.  Go here for more info on this. You’ll probably find their logic dubious, but they claim to deny the trinitarian notion.

    #24366

    Beth
    Participant

    Even when I was a Christian I didn’t really understand the trinity. They’re all God but they’re also three separate things? Doesn’t make sense, and I doubt most Christians could explain it in a way that does make sense.

    #24373

    Clearsky
    Participant

    Good point,

    It was explained to me in quite comprehensive way.

    I still could not understand it,

    It could just be me, I guess as I don’t have a good grasp of theology.

    #24416

    Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

    Why would a monotheistic god say that? I mean did “He” know of other gods? Just two verse later He states that he is “a jealous God”. Who is He jealous of? Why, if He is the only god, would He be jealous of anything that He created?

    I can only conclude that He must know of other gods and that this Christian one suffers from an inferiority complex.

    Could a passing Christian apologist tell me where I am wrong please.

    #24427

    tom sarbeck
    Participant

    Reg, the other gods (of which there were to be none) were the pagan gods that other people in the region were still worshipping. Baal was one of them.

    Beth, about the trinity. It’s to test your gullibility. If you don’t question the trinity story, you’re gullible enoughn to join the religion.

    A man I knew in SF, call him Ed, told me his daughter was about to marry a Catholic and had to take a class to learn what would be required of her. Ed went with her and asked so many questions that the priest told him he would never be a Catholic. I don’t know if his daughter went through with it.

     

    #24750

    michael17
    Participant

    Reg. He calls us all gods including angels. The Trinity is questionable doctrine assumed from the baptismal proclaimation.

    We a simply talking about the three ways God manifests himself to man.

    #24752

    Hi Michae17. You put me in mind of H.L. Mencken.

    By Jupiter, where is the graveyard of the dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against us infidels; villages were burned, women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence. Michael, do they keep each other company in oblivion? The Hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose – all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them – temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.

    They were gods of the highest dignity – gods of civilized peoples – worshiped and believed in by millions. Except by you Michael as you too are an atheist to them all, just like me. All were omnipotent, omniscient and immortal.

    All are now dead.

    What is this God you speak of Michael that I cannot ever see a single manifestation of? Do you have to keep slaying dragons to keep sight of Him?

     

     

    #24753

    michael17
    Participant

    Reg. God uses poets and minstrels to allude to the truth, thanks for sharing. Oblivion from the  dead’s perspective is a blinking of an eye in duration since they have loss the faculty to register time. They arrive instantly to judgement day where “God stands in the congregation of the mighty and judges among the gods.”-Psalms. We will see God by dying and being resurrected to judgement, in the future before this earth  “shall burn with a fervent heat” -Peter

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    #24761

    Davis
    Moderator

    Reg. God uses poets and minstrels to allude to the truth, thanks for sharing.

    Yes. The greatest genius to ever exist, decides to teach his puny little children his wisdom through hundreds of metaphorical poems that result in anything but knowledge but boundless confusion, conjecture, opinions and an utter mess of claims, conflicted ideas and results that completely oppose one another.

    That’s fine. That’s really okay. If God’s wisdom is that insane then there is no problem with him sending people who are very bad at diseminating info to go forth and confuse everyone.

    However, God then goes on to do something that its inexplicably vicious and cruel and morally repugnant. He expects you to come to a very specific conclusion…while being pummelled with all this poetic nonsense. Inside an ocean of confusion and conflicting info and religions all spewing out their take on it…you have to make a specific claim and stand by it.

    If you do not to that, the loving, amazing, moral, caring, forgiving, wise, magnificent, all-great, perfect, spectacular God:

    WILL ROAST YOU ALIVE FOR ETERNITY

    So yeah Michael. God sends his message in a stream of babbling confusion, and then expects you to come to the right conclusion and then tortures you forever. Wow. I cannot think of a more suitable candidate for “Great Perfect Moral All-knowing Being”. I mean, a puny human can do a million times better on the “knowledge” side and the “moral” side than this biblical idiot.

    Oblivion from the  dead’s perspective is a blinking of an eye in duration since they have loss the faculty to register time.

    Michael. Is it moral to torture someone for 100 years because during their 70 years on Earth they didn’t arrive at a certain conclusion?

    What about 1,000 years. Is that remotely reasonable?

    How about 1,000,000 years. You lived in ignorance on Earth, didn’t believe something existed, died after 70 years living and yet the punishment is a million years of roasting. Is that, even slightly, a proportionate punishment? Remember, the flames get hotter and hotter. You never get used to them. And the 1,000,000 years as you said…is just the blink of an eye. There are trillions more to come. DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?

     “shall burn with a fervent heat”

    To some people, usually those who already believe, that sounds like poetry. God’s minstrels. To those who have never encountered this narrative, that sounds a whole lot like MANIPULATIVE SCARE TACTICS. BELIEVE WHAT I HAVE TOLD YOU OR ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It sounds a lot less like a God trying to spell out the truth and a lot more like a few clever people trying to start a religion and get as many people to believe it as possible. No????

    #24762

    @ Michael – They arrive instantly to judgement day.

    Instantly? Do they not remain dead until the Day of Judgement? If it is instantly then you Michael are already one of the Immortals. How does it feel to know you will still exist in 300,000,000,000 years time?

    If it ever comes to it will you ask Jesus or St. Peter or whomever is in charge of crowd control on the Day of Judgement (or Redemption or Wrath) to move me up the queue as standing in line is just Hell for me and I would rather just go straight there. Oh, wait cancel that as He might put me to the back of the queue when he knows that I hate queuing. Damn it he already knew because He can read my mind. In fact he always knew, even before I was born!!

    But seriously though Michael, how does it feel to be an Immortal. I suppose, like the angels, as an Immortal you are now a god too. Does that mean all “True Christians” become gods too or do you all just get to live forever after you die?

    Reg. He calls us all gods including angels

    Why would a “jealous God” who does not allow worship of any other gods, call us or his angels gods? Unless Christianity is indeed polytheism?

    #24775

    PopeBeanie
    Moderator

    Polymythism, as old as human language.

    #24790

    michael17
    Participant

    @davis

    Well the pagan interpretation of hell is as such. Scripture speaks of the second death after the resurrection to Judgement.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    #24792

    michael17
    Participant
    • @Reg

    Twinkling of an eye means being dead you did not sense the immense passage of time.It is like suspended animation 0r cryogenic travel to a distant star. Yes we are all gods but only the father of gods shoul be worshipped. Yet we are all his creations. But Christ was born of God and we can receive the new birth.  As a member of his body it is hard to argue that we shall not be glorified.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by  michael17.
    #24794

    OK. But how does it feel to know that this “new birth” will make you an immortal? Does knowing you will exist in 30 billion years time not feel strange?

    #24797

    Davis
    Moderator

    Well the pagan interpretation of hell is as such. Scripture speaks of the second death after the resurrection to Judgement.

    They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

    2 Thessalonians 1:9

    This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    Matthew 13:49-50

    “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

    Matthew 25:41

    If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

    Mark 9:43

    In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

    Jude 1:7

    ____________

    Forgive my bible quoting but, some of the most important job of reasoning with the religious, is pointing out what their scriptures actually say. These various quotes are not a pagan description of hell. This is SCRIPTURE! There is no ambiguity in the bible. The description of a nasty horrid hell is consistent in various books and mentions fire, eternal torture, flames that get hotter, never ending. Jesus himself warns people against sinning or face the punishment of eternal torture which he seems to have no moral problem with.

    Michael, you consistently quote scripture and evangelistic babble, and yet it seems, with no doubt in my mind, you are extremely unfamiliar with the bible. I mean, either you use the bible as a source of divine wisdom and evidence of God…or you don’t. This cherry picking of yours and claiming any passage of the bible you don’t like is some “pagan” view…is an intellectual impairment. So what is hell then? Why is hell nothing like it is described numerous times in several books of scripture with detail repeated again and again by multiple authors including, purportedly Jesus? And please don’t tell me hell is “absence of God”. Eternal burning torture is not the equivalent of the absence of something. It is punishment through pain.

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