"Gods" do not derive power from the worshipper. They are power unto themselves.
In a sense, that is a fundamental fact of being a god.
As far as "you must believe in me or go to hell" that "rule' maybe what some people say...but when you really dig down into theology what the rule really is ...is this..."If you seek me, you will find me" Thats page one of the CCC.
So you may have some theories about god and stuff, and i think thats great. But you have a ways to go on it ...
As far as Christianity being about power...well, prior to the conversion of Constantine Jesus was characterized as a good shepherd. not a king. After Constantine converted is when the iconography changed.
But thats no big deal either, since religion is fundamental to civilization and was always associated with kingship...which is like division of labor...agriculture etc etc.
I think it is possible for more than one god to come on top. It was at one point the thousand god religion and the one god religion(not very popular times in history) but those branched off and look how many people fallow a monotheistic religion. Look at the impact on this world for it. So I believe this theory and this is just a little support.
Right Brysing
And in America we have the Son of Sam
Who heard voices telling Him to shoot females parked at make out points with their boyfriends He clamied Satan was speaking to Him through His dog telling him to commit these crimes
Debating is kinda one of the reasons people join boards like this
If you can't handle other view points they turn into arguments but you also never Learn anything.
I get rather amused at so many people saying that God is fact! God is a belief, not a fact.There has never been any real evidence of any God. Only a belief.
And that belief, in the form of organised religion,has caused more tragedy in this world than any other. It has caused wars, and the pointless killing of millions.
And the belief itself changes over the years.Especially Christianity. Look how many differing "Christianities" there are, from The Holy Bible to the Book of Mormon, and everything in between.
With every religion saying the same thing, "Believe what we believe and you will be rewarded. If you do not believe you will be punished". (But only after you're dead! Meanwhile give us your money!)
The two "arguments" that are the most futile; religion and politics!
You may believe in whatever you wish to believe in; but it will not necessarily be the truth!
Conflating spiritual experience with mental illness once again. Many Schizophrenics have auditory hallucinations which are sometimes given the form of a spiritual being. But that does not mean anyone who has an experience of hearing a voice is a schizophrenic.
One of the main differences between a spiritual experience and an experience derived from mental illness is the effect the experience has and the analysis of the experience by the person who has experienced it. Most schizophrenics can't conceive that these voices are possibly not real, that they are meaningless and should be ignored, some can't retain a level of skepticism and believe everything they say.
Sadly there is not enough evidence to demonstrate a solid cause of schizophrenia, however, there are tests which have a pretty solid accuracy rate, I would vouch that people hearing voices in a spiritual context would not fall into the shizophrenic category so often, seeing as the condition is extremely rare in the scheme of things.
Do you want to know why most people who take a good approach to occultism and hear voices of spiritual beings don't say anything in public? Because they get sick and tired of such erroneous conclusions.
Most occultists are skeptical, most understand that anything they receive during a spiritual experience may only be relevant to themselves and may have also arisen from themselves wholly or partially. They are perfectly intelligent, sane individuals.
Hearing voices can be caused by psychological factors, but that is not necessarily so, and is probably much rarer in the scheme of things!
It might be easier to label all spiritual experience off as nothing more than mere delusion for you so that it can fit within the atheist framework, but as you rightly point out, just because you believe something, doesn't make it so!
A delusion can be vary real to the person so deluded. It is as real to them as the visions of St Bernadette. As I have said, you may believe whatever you wish. But it will only ever be a belief, not a fact!
I agree that religious wars are rediculous, of all things, religion should never be used as an excuse to war, when you think of it, it defiles the original purpose of that religion, to unite people under one belief, when all religious wars do is divide those people even further. And when you say it is a belief, not a fact, I do know what you mean, and I do not mean to insult, but the way it is put sounds somewhat different than what is intended, in my opinion. You have your way of saying it, but I would say it in that there are 2 kinds of truths, universal and personal, universal accepted by most, if not all to be a truly proven truth. Whereas there are personal truths, they are only truths to some, not proven enough to be accepted by all. I do agree with the original point in that many people forget too much of he difference between a truth that is proven, and what is personal. Now, as for what you said, I kind of worded it wrong. What I meant was, what it was said we were promised. The theory I stated considers if the Christian god were real, but more in the sense of a what if. In this case, its more or less a what if the gods we believed in were all real, but were in a much different sense. Also I've gotten a few questions asking, "But gods are all powerful, how would this make any sense?" Not exactly like that but I think you see what I mean. My theory is if the gods were real, and are still powerful but not all powerful. In making this theory, I also considered what if they all existed and vie for power. The only question would be as to how they would over power their others, and with that, I theorized that maybe us simply believing in them feeds them power and our prayers to them also gives them more. Again, this is all theory, I hope this discussion continues and thanks to all of you so far for not making the discussion degrade into a debate, I think its an absolute waste of a fruitful discussion when it does.
