To all the monotheistic people on this forum I would like to ask a question which has been confusing me for a while with thoughts along the line of:

In order to believe in the specific god you have chosen in monotheism you need to validly decide why all the other possible gods are not a valid option fit for worship

How do you guys explain NOT why your religion should be correct but how can you say that all the other religions, except your own (of course), are wrong ?

Edited 4/15/2014 00:56:14

Let us not forget that Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God. Oddly enough there are some in each sect which vehemently oppose these other religions as being false despite their shared God.

There is no God

A lot of religious people don't judge using logic like you. Many believe that all the monotheistic gods are the same, and each religion worships from its own angle.

That question is very hard to answer under this condition, because all answers would trace back to Jesus' impact on my life. Naturally, I don't know all other religions and a theoretical process trying out all other religions would be longer than a life-time.

But I knew an Indian once who lived with this thousand Hindu gods and he prayed to them to show to him, if they really existed. At some point on his search for an god that does answer his prayers, he came about Jesus, who did answer to him. And there he found his God. That is enough for most and it was enough for me as well to have Jesus answer to me.

Then the Biblical teaching make a coherent sense and a system corresponding to my experiences, but here I am again with violating your condition.

And Richard, I am sorry that you left this other discussion and I hope I was not rude to you and as much as I hate it to contradict you here again, but this is Islamic teaching what you are saying there and Islamic teaching only, that Christians, Jews and Muslim got the same god. It is not Jewish nor Christian teaching. The difference lies in the Spirit. Islam got its legitimation by this dogma, nevertheless they are killing Christians and Jews daily and their god is totally different in Spirit than the father of Jesus Christ. Then again Christians are teaching that their God and the God of the Old Testament are the same which the Jews do not believe. Though the Spirit is the same according to my experience.

It is indeed the same God. In fact, Jesus is seen as a holy prophet in Islam, just as he is in Judaism.

As for the bloodshed, it is the act of a misguided few just as the Jewish violence against Christians was in ancient times, Christian violence against Jews such as the Holocaust, Christian violence against Islam in the Crusades.

The Catholic church is drenched in the blood of violence, as is most every religion.

Oh yes Jesus he knows me and he knows I am right!!!
I have been talking to Jesus all my live!!!
Ohhhh yes he knows me and he has been telling me everything is going to be alright!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprQGmZ3Imw

won`t find me practising, what i am preaching ;)



Instead of joining into a futile discussion, I give you a pearl of music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ZF_R_j0OY

Fuck me in the ass , cause i love Jesus!

Edited 4/15/2014 02:09:34

One God cannot Support an Entire Multitude of Multiverses but a Number of Gods can support that Amount which is an Infinity of Universes.The Romans had many Gods and they conquered most of Europe,this is what I call the Monotheism Paradox

The question you are asking cannot be answered in a way you would find gratifying.

This is because religion is not based on logical and critical thinking. It is based on blind faith.

Their holy book tells them that their god is the only true god. It does not allow to question this, nor investigate it. And by that it tells them that all other religion are false.

OriginaLawlz

You cannot say that there is no god. Scientific research in all it's fields has not disproved the existence of god. It may have in some degree disproved the existence of the god from the holly books, but no one can say that there doesn't exist a supreme being that created the universe. And we may never know this. Which in turn doesn't mean we should turn to few scribbled pages in some ancient manuscript. The beauty of science is that it does not claim to know anything for a fact. It admits that every theory (that's why it is called a theory, beside a multitude of evidence it will never be called a fact) can at sometime in the future be disproved.

Edited 4/15/2014 02:33:06

I had a Catholic professor in my conflict studies course who pointed out that Christianity is by no means exclusively monotheistic, since the Trinity represents 3 as 1. This is something of a paradox as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one, but not one another. In other words the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit, but they are all God. That doesn't make it polytheistic, though.

The Abrahamic faiths draw from the basis that there was a Divine Creator who made all things and that this Creator and His will stand over all others. Our sole purpose then, is to glorify Him.

Btw Richard, Jesus is the crucial point of Abrahamic religions as Islam claims he's a prophet, Judaism sees him as a blasphemer (some sects claim he's a prophet and never claimed to be the Son of God) and Christians see him as the Son of God. If you consider the degree of faith that each puts into his respective belief, this is a fundamental difference that divides them, though it certainly doesn't justify violence towards one another.

I think it's a bit strange how you didn't mention Islamic violence against the Jews and Christians prior to the crusades, or did you forget that Israel during late Roman empire was predominantly inhabited by Christians and Jews before they were butchered?

Every religion, political ideology and culture is drenched in blood. Even the hippies, albeit mostly their own blood.

Alright, let's be straightforward here. It depends on what religion's viewpoint you are looking at it from. To decide whether the rest of the beliefs are invalid depends on which religion you are looking at. For example, Islam would consider the 'Christian God' the same as the 'Muslim God.' They believe there is only one god, and that Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in him. On the other hand, Christians don't follow that belief. You can see where I'm going with this. All religions are unique in their own way, and to decide which one is valid depends on your viewpoint.

Also, about the violence. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, all religions are involved in violence. Let's take Islam here as an example again. Terrorism is mainly blamed on Muslims. Why? Simply because a couple of terrorist groups call themselves 'Muslims'. I guarantee you that 90% of true Muslims don't consider those terrorists as Muslims, and rather as sinners who are not Muslims. The same holds true for almost all violence conducted by religious groups. (Except let's say Jihad for Muslims since I've used Islam as an example here).

Edited 4/15/2014 05:09:28

You are all not really answering the question which I postulated here.

Atheist are people who deny all religions

Monotheists are people who accept only one god.

How can monotheists if they are religious of nature so easily disregard the possibility another god - be it Allah, God, Zeus, Vishnu, Boeddha (not a god really), Isis etc. is wrong ?

You are so narrow minded and inflexible, is thinking in the abstract or determining an answer based on your feelings so unrelatable a concept to you that your eyes glaze over when you read answers from people who can?

To be blunt It depends on the monotheist, this may come as a surprise but theyre all different and have different motivations and judging processes.

Edited 4/15/2014 11:46:37

Who cares about what god you believe in.this isn't a contest about who is right, chances are no one is right. The important part is that we all make good decisions to make this world a better place

Am I the one who is narrow minded and inflexible ????

There are literally thousands of religions to choose from....I think the person who isn't even willing to consider all those other religions aside from his own is being narrow minded and inflexible UNLESS he has good reason to deny the validity of those other religions.

Henche the question how people rationalize for themselves that only their religion can be correct for somehow they must have made this decision.

Don't be stupid piggy, aranka makes a good point. I don't think it matters to us whether god exists, because it is a philosophical dead end, nothing more can be drawn from it. Even if you accept that God exists, nothing about life changes, because that single fact tells you nothing about how to live your life, or what happens when you die, or anything at all. Religions do that, they say god is like this or god is like that. And those people are obviously making that stuff up. Like aranka says, among monotheists there are as many different beliefs as there are among atheists or polytheists, beyond the one that they all share, "god exists". Therefore, the existence or non-existence of god is functionally irrelevant, "does god exist" is an unimportant question.

Furthermore, you have people claiming to speak to god or to witness miracles or whatever, that also happens in every religion. So a religious person who believes in miracles actually denies many more 'miracles' than they accept, just as there are more 'gods' they don't believe in than ones they do.

All glory to Zeus!

Most religious people haven't actually chosen a religion or a god - they have inherited them from their parents. As such, many of them don't even stop to consider that other religions/gods might actually be correct.

I think most people who do think about this fall into one of two categories. They either suppress those fears so that they don't have to worry about them, or they come to the conclusion that all of these different gods are actually the same God that people are approaching from different directions.

In my church we don't view other church's as being "wrong" but they don't have the whole truth. also on the subject of the trinity we believe them to be three separate beings but heavenly father to be god jesus christ to be his son who came to earth to atone for man kind so that we can repent to return to heaven and the holy ghost to be a messenger. to believe in a god you must have, as incaman said, blind faith" faith is believing in something you can not see. I can not go to lee way street and ring his doorbell but I believe that he is there and can hear my prayers. there is no way to scientifically prove the existence of god but the miracles that jesus performed and a testament to the power of god and he said that god existed the world exists there are many ways to prove he exists just not scientifically. that's why many people say that there is no way. That's just my beliefs though so take it how you will

YAAT

kinda missed it though, welcome back Aranka!