by booby 54 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
In the Gnostic gospels, Jesus exposed the OT God as a false, slanderous version of the Father....a lesser demiurge who was under the delusion that he was the Most High. It isn't hard to see his point.
That's why he said,
"They will do these things because they have not come to know either the Father or me." -John 16:3.
"Righteous Father, the world has, indeed, not come to know you; But I have come to know you, and these have come to know that you sent me forth." -John 17:25
Jesus came to show the TRUE Father as only He could, being the personification of all that God is.
Many of OT writers more often then not, got it wrong and wrote about and spoke about a God of anger, wraith and jealousy and Jesus came to clear that up and make it known that God is a God of Love, all the is good and light.
If the OT writers had gotten it right, if the Old covenant had worked, there would have been no need for Jesus to come, but God knew that this would happen and so, made the provision for it and allowed as, as always, to walk our own path.
Its not that YHWH was a false or different God, it's that the scribes wrote what suited them when they wrote it, as Jereimiah said:
8 “ ‘How can you say, “We are wise,
for we have the law of the Lord ,”
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
has handled it falsely?
thanks for the comments
Very early in my fade I came to the conclusion that I could never believe in or worship a god (Jehovah) who was way way more cruel and unloving than I a mere human could ever think of being.
Hopscotch
NO
The bible revealed 'almighty god' is the personification of a cruel despot. If we treated our children like he treats his children we would be locked up and never paroled.
Jesus was not reflecting this 'god'. If he was, it was a very muddy mirror thats for sure.
oz
as what Sir82 says!
I could never believe in or worship a god (Jehovah) who was way way more cruel and unloving than I a mere human could ever think of being.
Hopscotch, that's exactly how I feel!
God of love? The God the bible speaks about even allowed his own son to be tortured and killed. Who could watch such a thing happen, especially if they had the means to stop it at any given time! I doubt there is anyone on this board who would be able to do that - and in the name of love? I've never been able to get my head round that.
I was taught the God of the Old Testament and New Testament are one and the same. Therefore, to think such a God (and Creator of us all) could force some of his children to brutally murder the others, ripping open the stomachs of pregnant women, bashing babies' brains out against stones and raping young girls that had just watched their parents being horrifically killed, all the while threatening the 'chosen' children with death themselves if they did not carry out his sadistic instructions to the letter, then I feel much happier and safer being an athiest!
The bible revealed 'almighty god' is the personification of a cruel despot. If we treated our children like he treats his children we would be locked up and never paroled.
I think this comment sums it all up perfectly!
Jehovah as described in the OT does not personify love because he is made in the image of man. He is a human invention.
Since the beginning of human history people have tried to blame their acts of violence on a god. The Roman catholic church has one of the worse records. Recently both George Bush and Tony Blair said that their god had told them to attack Iraq. Look at what the Muslims blame their god for.
If I were to believe in a god, I would google until I found a loving, kind and friendly god to befriend. Alternatively I would create a god in my mind that lived up to my high expectations of what a god should be. Or I could share the god of PSacramento and Tammy.
Looking at the incomprehensible vastness of outer space, I would rather commune with the god of the universe than the god of the Israelites.
If we look at history we see that the God of the Hebrews YHWH, was not so different than the other gods of his day, this is because ancient man viewed God the same way, regardless of his "background".
Prophest came and went and tried their best to convery the "true" God to them, but people tend to listen to only the parts that like at the time.
At times it looks like their are contridiction in the bible, especially in how God acts in the OT VS the NT and this is because we tend to think of the whoel bible as being inspired and I don't think that it is, not in the same way. Inspired BY God and inspired TO WRITE ABOUT God are not the same thing.
EX:
Group A goes to war with Groub B, both offer sacrifices to their respective God(s), group A wins the fight and slaughters groub B and takes their women and land ( very typical for those times), what conclusions do THEY draw from this:
Groub A- Our God is great, he approved of our sacrfice and condoned our actions in victory since OUr victory was HIS victory too !!
Groub B - Our sacrfice was not accetbale to God and we were punished for it !
They both write thusly in their "history books".
Yes i think he does
