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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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As far as the OP's question, what do expect when your dealing with a bunch of suspicious, bronze aged, wandering tribe of goat herders. Who had to invent a history for themselves to make them "superior".
Ah, but what if God reveals Himself to all of us all of the time? What if we are unable to understand what He is telling us due to cultural milieu, cultural restrictions?
Wouldn't that mean religious people always misunderstand god--at least to an extent--due to these cultural limitations? So wouldn't these beliefs "need" to be reinterpreted in light of current cultural conditions to "fix" previous misunderstandings if god is revealing "him"self all the time?
Reinterpreting religious beliefs based on current historical and cultural conditions happens all the time. People cherry pick religious texts and reinterpret them to fit what works for them in the moment. They want to find ways to justify what they want to hear and the actions they want to take, sometimes doing good for others, but often with disastrous results. Wars are fought in which both sides are convinced god is on their side.
Our connection with God is NOT through our sensory system. This is the main complaint of atheists who have made no provision for accessing God in any other way. This makes the interpretation of any contact with God subjective and limited to the knowledge, experience, culture, etc. of the individuals. However, the fact that ALL cultures DO HAVE such reported contacts or beliefs is consistent with God's existence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TransplantedPeach
I used to think that the presence of god(s) in most or all cultures was evidence of god's existence, but not anymore. That was when I was trying to rationalize reasons to continue believing. I didn't think different cultures having different ways to describe god was a problem. It seemed to me that with our knowledge of how culture works, different religions could admit it was precisely because of their different cultures that they developed different religions. Then they could come together and agree on the existence of god and to leave each other alone to practice their own beliefs. Of course, this would have also had the potential for peace... It all seemed so simple.... What wishful thinking...
Eventually I decided that if there really were a god, something would have happened to stop religion from being such a source of conflict. There were lots of other things that made me walk away, such as hypocrisy, unbelievability of narratives one had to accept on faith, how religion is used to control people and their bodies, just to name a few examples.
All your issues are with religions . . . NOT God. f course we humans screw everything up, misuse and abuse belief in God for our worldly agendas, etc. . . . none of that has anything to do with the existence of God. God's existence is not determined by what we believe about Him. What we believe has nothing to do with God's existence . . . just our ignorance and failings.
Ah, but what if God reveals Himself to all of us all of the time? What if we are unable to understand what He is telling us due to cultural milieu, cultural restrictions?
Do you really think Mozart would have been able to create the music he did if he had been born in Borneo 5000 years ago?
Well, my point is that, for people of a different cultural milieu, your god simply doesn't exist (much like their god[s] simply do not exist for you) and any phenomenon to which you might attribute to his revelation would be attributed to something else by said people of a differing culture. What if it is attributed to their polytheist pantheon? In a Universe of equally unprovable perspective, whose to say who is correct (if anyone is)?
I wasn't aware that Mozart's music was made possible by YHVH and/or Jesus Christ. I wonder if he knew that or if he would agree. Only Mozart knew from where his music originated, I would imagine.
There simply would never have been a Mozart born in Borneo 5000 years ago. Everything that Mozart was is a product of Viennese culture and likely the genetics that gave birth to that unique musical mind. However, just focusing on the culture, it would still obviously be impossible even if the instruments existed in Borneo 5000 years ago. I'm not sure how this proves a single point about revealed religion, however. It's difficult to argue that Mozart's output would not exist without the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god(s) (whether in Vienna or Borneo). Although, I'm respectfully aware of the fact that it might be common amongst Christian circles to attribute such genius to your god(s). I simply can't attribute all worldly beauty and talent to any one of various iterations of a storm-god of a single tribe. What would you think if the Japanese attributed Mozart's talent to the metaphysical 'reality' of their Shinto religion? To me, such belief would be exactly equivalent to attributing Mozart's talent to the Judeo-Christian god(s).
"The invisible and the non-existent often look very much alike."
Which is more probable?
I understand faith. However, your faith is rooted in a book that was written several thousands of years ago, by and about a very specific desert tribe( aka: not you) to explain their trials, fate, cultural rules, and imagined destiny. Why does that explain Mozart? Why does that explain the Borneo Mozart? That tribe and its sects have nothing to do with either Mozart or the Borneo Mozart.
I understand faith. However, your faith is rooted in a book that was written several thousands of years ago, by and about a very specific desert tribe( aka: not you) to explain their trials, fate, cultural rules, and imagined destiny. Why does that explain Mozart? Why does that explain the Borneo Mozart? That tribe and its sects have nothing to do with either Mozart or the Borneo Mozart.
I'm not a believer in god(s).
My point was that all these 'gods' seem to be invisible. No matter the culture.
Ah, but what if God reveals Himself to all of us all of the time? What if we are unable to understand what He is telling us due to cultural milieu, cultural restrictions?
Do you really think Mozart would have been able to create the music he did if he had been born in Borneo 5000 years ago?
Why would an all-powerful God fail so abysmally in getting his message past the culture and into the hearts and minds of the people?
As I said elsewhere many times: With an omnipotent God, nothing (and I really do mean nothing) happens anywhere in the universe unless God wants it to.
Which means either God is deliberately being coy and misleading thus sabotaging his own efforts at getting everyone on earth to worship him - or - God is not omnipotent and therefore capable of dumb mistakes in which case he isn't worthy of blind obedience - or - there simply aren't gods of any kind.
As for the OP's 4 year-old post, I have pointed out the strangeness of Yahweh's geographical isolation many times in my past writings. It seems to me to be unmitigated stupidity for an omnipotent God to restrict himself to some desert backwater and then trust that a dozen or so apostles will carry his word to every corner of the globe. Of course, this was in an era when travel was long, arduous, dangerous, and the language barriers rather insurmountable for most people. As I said before, up until recently, most people died within 10 miles of where they were born. In other words, no one traveled except for merchants and soldiers.
Thus to expect a Middle Easterner who might speak Aramaic to travel thousands of miles to China and spread the Gospel to Chinese-speaking locals who already have their own religions and culture. More than likely, the Chinese would look at the Christian prophet with disdain and make fun of him with his Chinese buddies - without the Israelite being any the wiser.
It's just ridiculous. Yeah, I know - someone is going to say something like, "But look around! Christianity is now known even in the rural countryside of technologically backward nations!"
Uh huh, but it only took nearly 2,000 years to get to that point. So it's still ridiculous.
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