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Is The God Of The Old Testament The Same As The God Of The New?

Jacob wrestled with an angel.

@JahaRa

There is lots of evidence.

Like a court case, it is presented before us.

You have judged to not believe it is proof of G-D.

I have judged to believe it is proof of G-D
What evidence is presented?
 
God granted us free will. (Genesis). Or maybe we stole it. He tried threatening us to behave (Later Genesis, Exodus) , didn't work. He's tried to preoccupy us with ritual and guilt (Later Old Testament) , didn't work. Then he sent us Jesus with counsel but no threats. That's worked for some - but then the humans tried to drown Jesus's advice with hatred, schism and threat - starting with the New Testament after the Gospels.
So god is so impotent he can't control his own creation. That sounds like a kid trying to raise snakes or fighting dogs. Makes no sense in relation to the description that god is "all knowing", cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to rattle your brain like it does mine I guess. "God tried" is a silly explanation. Instead, explain Why God doesn't just smite everyone who doesn't obey or believe etc. There is no reason to think an omnipotent creator would create a being that is allowed to break that being's rules. Which to me means either someone lied about the actual rules or there is no omnipotent creator paying any attention to us (not that it doesn't exist, but that it doesn't care).
 
The main point is to try and encourage humans to stop behaving like stupid violent monsters obsessed with power, possessions and control,
I know more christians acting like than than atheists or non-christians. So you point is moot as far as the religion is concerned and that includes people who claim that Jesus Christ saved them. It is one thing to actually follow a teaching (which I suspect you do as you have indicated you accept other religions have similar teachings) and another to just proclaim loudly what a good christian you are. Those are the ones that give christianity a bad name because while they loudly proclaim their goodness, they are committing a lot of atrocities.
 
Ah! so you, a person who doesn't have the inside view of the traditions, are telling people who do have that inside view and knowledge what The Answer Must Be? That's a very absolutist, fundamentalist way of looking at the world. Can you expand on this please?
I have the "inside view of the traditions" and I agree with @Starry, the bible is the word of Men, not any deity. You can accuse people of not knowing the traditions as your excuse to ignorance but it is not true for me. I was indoctrinated into those traditions from birth, but I am a thinker and a questioner and when the only answer I get to my questions as a child was "it is God's will" then I started reading for myself and recognize a work of men claiming to be speaking for a made up god. It made sense way back when judaism first started, people had to work hard to survive and smarter people had to make sure the community stayed healthy, so they decreed that you must not marry your sister, nor your cousin, and you must not eat pork, shellfish and other problematic foods, many other decrees to keep the community safe and healthy. So it was a deity that was used so that no one had to question or explain why. Now we are leisurely compared to those ancestors and the Romans were very leisurely and greedy, they found religion to be a very easy way to continue their dying empire, and look, it still exists, the Roman empire, all over the world.
 
@JahaRa - There is very little external evidence for either belief or disbelief (or cherry picking one's beliefs) which is available to others, can be reproduced, can be documented, etc. The kinds of evidence an individual finds acceptable depends much on the pre-existing assumption set which is the basis for formulating a hypothesis/argument or designing an experiment.

I find your post #63 indicative of your having very different assumption sets than I do. Also, I find it unnecessarily argumentative and offensive (the Deity "can't control," "makes no sense") to believers. All your points are noted, addressed, and answered in Freshman level college classes in religion or religious studies. I was taught these issues and answers in secondary school in the US. Other believers have been taught in religious classes via their place of worship.

I think it is possible to disagree with someone about the existence of God without insults or offense.
 
@JahaRa - There is very little external evidence for either belief or disbelief (or cherry picking one's beliefs) which is available to others, can be reproduced, can be documented, etc. The kinds of evidence an individual finds acceptable depends much on the pre-existing assumption set which is the basis for formulating a hypothesis/argument or designing an experiment.

I find your post #63 indicative of your having very different assumption sets than I do. Also, I find it unnecessarily argumentative and offensive (the Deity "can't control," "makes no sense") to believers. All your points are noted, addressed, and answered in Freshman level college classes in religion or religious studies. I was taught these issues and answers in secondary school in the US. Other believers have been taught in religious classes via their place of worship.

I think it is possible to disagree with someone about the existence of God without insults or offense.
So, you are saying you have chosen to take offense by the way I express myself. I am probably not kind in my expressions of my opinioins, but you get to choose offense, I did not offer it. I state things the way I know how and perhaps sometimes it is clumsy. It is none of my business what others believe but I can express my opinions and beliefs just like anyone else and I am not the only one who is clumsy in that. As for religious classes, I don't understand what you are saying, answers to my points are provided in college and high school classes? Answers that are dependent on belief?

I agree that we have very different assumption sets.

My response # 63 was responding to something Cochise said. Did what she/he say resonate with you? I took it differently, more like repeating answers gotten for asking the same questions I asked.
 
What evidence is presented?
Without wishing to get into an endless argument...I see:

The continued existence of my spiritual nation in the face of huge odds.

Over a million people all claiming to have simultaneously been given the ten commandments.

Seven colours in a rainbow.

Seven holes in a face.

Seven days in a week.

The fulfilment of biblical prophecy during our lifetimes.

The extraordinary properties of water.

The orbits of the sun and moon.


As I made the point in a previous post, you would not interpret these as any sign of a deity existing, whereas I do.


I post that list of a few things, amongst many others not listed, and leave this thread.
 
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So, you are saying you have chosen to take offense by the way I express myself. I am probably not kind in my expressions of my opinioins, but you get to choose offense, I did not offer it. I state things the way I know how and perhaps sometimes it is clumsy. It is none of my business what others believe but I can express my opinions and beliefs just like anyone else and I am not the only one who is clumsy in that. As for religious classes, I don't understand what you are saying, answers to my points are provided in college and high school classes? Answers that are dependent on belief?

I agree that we have very different assumption sets.

My response # 63 was responding to something Cochise said. Did what she/he say resonate with you? I took it differently, more like repeating answers gotten for asking the same questions I asked.

No, please don’t put words into my mouth. The rationale of “So, you are saying you have chosen to take offense by the way I express myself“ is part of the category of “I get to write what I want and if you don’t like it that is your problem.” This forum has standards and goals of civil discussion. As a member of this forum, one is expected to support civil discussion, and this implies at least trying to not be offensive. Anyone can inadvertently annoy or offend someone else (certainly including me ), but when this is pointed out, that person also has the choice to acknowledge, apologize, change the tone of the writing, etc.

In the US, one may take religious studies classes in college at non-religious colleges, such as Harvard or state universities. These classes explore these topics, and not from a faith-based perspective. Here is one from the state you live in:

Religious Studies Program | The University of New Mexico (unm.edu)

I attended a Roman Catholic high school, and these topics were taught, both from a faith-based and nonfaith-based perspective.

I am also leaving this thread.
 
So god is so impotent he can't control his own creation. That sounds like a kid trying to raise snakes or fighting dogs. Makes no sense in relation to the description that god is "all knowing", cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to rattle your brain like it does mine I guess. "God tried" is a silly explanation. Instead, explain Why God doesn't just smite everyone who doesn't obey or believe etc. There is no reason to think an omnipotent creator would create a being that is allowed to break that being's rules. Which to me means either someone lied about the actual rules or there is no omnipotent creator paying any attention to us (not that it doesn't exist, but that it doesn't care).
As I have tried to explain, you have a fixed picture of God in your head. I don't.

I've repeatedly said I don't believe God is omnipotent and yet you use that argument against me. You may have an argument against Christian fundamentalists, especially those who believe all the Bible is true, but that ain't me.
 
I avoided this thread for a long time because I thought it was another socio-historic analysis of the change in how god was perceived over something like 1500 years. The god in the testaments was written by man. The old testament spans about 800 years and books have been written on the change in the divine attributes over that time period. The new testament as someone noted above is a total reboot, and as I remember you don't hear much about god, more about Jesus. God is different for each person who thinks about him/her. Shows that my mother was right - no politics or religion at the dinner table.
 
Wasn't it Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius, or one of those guys, who said something like: if evil exists, but God is unaware of it and must be informed by way of prayer, then he isn't all-knowing. If he knows that evil exists, but is unable to prevent it, then he's not all-powerful. If he knows evil exists, and could prevent it if he wanted to, but doesn't, then he's not all-good. Then why call him God?

Just askin'.
 
That was Marcus Aurelius.
 
Note that Marcus Aurelius was not specifically talking about the God of the Old Testament, or of the New. He was not a Christian or a Jew, and indeed he persecuted Christians (although not in a particularly fanatical way - Marcus Aurelius is remembered as being a 'Good Emperor', and ruled during a relative golden age of Roman civilisation).

Aurelius' philosophical musings originated from Stoic thought, and explored the characteristics of a hypothetical deity from a theoretical viewpoint. The god of the Stoics was an undefined entity with attributes one could perhaps determine by logical processes. This can lead to disillusionment, as in Aurelius' case; but some of these Stoic philosophical musings influenced later Christian theologians, often as the groundwork for more complex (but not always coherent) ideas.
 
Yeah, it was Epicurus.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8199-is-god-willing-to-prevent-evil-but-not-able-then
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
The Epicureans were supposed to be agnostic, but they thought atheism was silly too.
 
I'd have sworn that it was Epicurus who said it.

In his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion David Hume attributed this statement about "the problem of evil" to Epicurus. This attribution has been popularly repeated ever since.

However, this attribution remains a subject of debate. According to The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil this statement of the problem doesn't appear anywhere within any of Epicurus' surviving works. It would seem the earliest documented record of this statement is one from Outlines of Scepticism by Greek sceptic philosopher Sextus Empiricus.
 
Yeah, it was Epicurus.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8199-is-god-willing-to-prevent-evil-but-not-able-then
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
The Epicureans were supposed to be agnostic, but they thought atheism was silly too.
Yes, that's the statement that I was thinking of.
 
It sounds as though this quote is known from people re-quoting because the original document did not survive. However, whoever of these was the writer, it was written by a pagan who was thinking about the gods of his environment, and it is presented as an example of philosophical reasoning method not at all necessarily as a statement of belief. Like Nagarjuna's "can't actually reach any point because at any moment you still have half the distance to cover." Nevertheless, it states the basic question about god - any god - and unlimited writings on the subject have resulted.
 
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I ran across a report from UNICEF that on the average 2 children are killed everyday in the Ukraine.

How can any god or religion allow these bad things to happen to good people ?
 
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