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Struggles by Non-Christians
What if you "know" that god does not exist
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<blockquote data-quote="zephcom" data-source="post: 71927459" data-attributes="member: 400000"><p>There is no need to apologize for not responding earlier. These forums are here to be used as time permits. The real world always takes precedence over forums.</p><p></p><p>You are right when you say that polytheism is the view that there is more than one god. Then you proceed to qualify those gods in a manner which the definition does not allow. Multiple gods who are exterior to the universe would still be polytheism. Two or more gods, no matter how one defines them, is polytheism.</p><p></p><p>That is the problem those Christians in the second and third Centuries who desired to elevate Jesus to Godhood faced. They had too many Gods to be monotheistic.</p><p></p><p>Actually any religion -could- be the real one. And that includes dead and forgotten religions. There just isn't anything about God that we know from the universe or morality which even requires a religion, let alone that it has to have lots of subscribers.</p><p></p><p>Textual Criticism can tell one much about documents like the Bible. It can provide educated guesses about which variations may be the oldest. It can provide data which suggests something has been added or subtracted from the texts we have. It can tell us whether the same person authored different texts or not. </p><p></p><p>What it can not do is recreate the original texts of the various books of the Bible. There is simply too much hand copying between the original documents and the existing copies of the Bible which are centuries newer than the original documents.</p><p></p><p>Short of a miraculous archaeology discovery of the original documents we will never know for sure what the original writings actually said.</p><p></p><p>And to the issue of Lazarus. You have pretty much quoted the applicable passages. I suggest they don't mean quite what you want them to mean. Certainly Jesus was there. Certainly Lazarus was resurrected because of Jesus. The real question is whether the POWER to resurrect belonged to Jesus or to God.</p><p></p><p>I think if you look again at the passages, you will see that Jesus gives the glory for the resurrection to God, not the Son of God.</p><p></p><p>I will reprint it here for convenience:</p><p></p><p><strong>40 </strong>Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”</p><p></p><p><strong>41 </strong>So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. <strong>42 </strong>I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”</p><p></p><p>The resurrection of Lazarus was a demonstration of the authority of God, not Jesus, so that those standing there would believe the Father sent Him.</p><p></p><p>But the more critical thing is that, if one believes the Bible, Jesus did NOT resurrect Himself. The Father resurrected Him. There are numerous passages which say this so rather than list them all, I will provide a link which does list them:</p><p></p><p><a href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God-Raising-Christ" target="_blank">24 Bible verses about God Raising Christ</a></p><p></p><p>So we are back to the question, if the resurrection of Jesus confirms that Jesus is God Incarnate, what about Lazarus? He was raised from the dead through the same power Jesus was...God the Father.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="zephcom, post: 71927459, member: 400000"] There is no need to apologize for not responding earlier. These forums are here to be used as time permits. The real world always takes precedence over forums. You are right when you say that polytheism is the view that there is more than one god. Then you proceed to qualify those gods in a manner which the definition does not allow. Multiple gods who are exterior to the universe would still be polytheism. Two or more gods, no matter how one defines them, is polytheism. That is the problem those Christians in the second and third Centuries who desired to elevate Jesus to Godhood faced. They had too many Gods to be monotheistic. Actually any religion -could- be the real one. And that includes dead and forgotten religions. There just isn't anything about God that we know from the universe or morality which even requires a religion, let alone that it has to have lots of subscribers. Textual Criticism can tell one much about documents like the Bible. It can provide educated guesses about which variations may be the oldest. It can provide data which suggests something has been added or subtracted from the texts we have. It can tell us whether the same person authored different texts or not. What it can not do is recreate the original texts of the various books of the Bible. There is simply too much hand copying between the original documents and the existing copies of the Bible which are centuries newer than the original documents. Short of a miraculous archaeology discovery of the original documents we will never know for sure what the original writings actually said. And to the issue of Lazarus. You have pretty much quoted the applicable passages. I suggest they don't mean quite what you want them to mean. Certainly Jesus was there. Certainly Lazarus was resurrected because of Jesus. The real question is whether the POWER to resurrect belonged to Jesus or to God. I think if you look again at the passages, you will see that Jesus gives the glory for the resurrection to God, not the Son of God. I will reprint it here for convenience: [B]40 [/B]Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” [B]41 [/B]So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. [B]42 [/B]I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” The resurrection of Lazarus was a demonstration of the authority of God, not Jesus, so that those standing there would believe the Father sent Him. But the more critical thing is that, if one believes the Bible, Jesus did NOT resurrect Himself. The Father resurrected Him. There are numerous passages which say this so rather than list them all, I will provide a link which does list them: [URL="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God-Raising-Christ"]24 Bible verses about God Raising Christ[/URL] So we are back to the question, if the resurrection of Jesus confirms that Jesus is God Incarnate, what about Lazarus? He was raised from the dead through the same power Jesus was...God the Father. [/QUOTE]
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