question on the one-ness of God and religions

[gte692h]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

 

[wil]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

Namaste and welcome set of letters and numbers,

First we must realize not all believe in oneness. Many if not most believe in their stories and their scripture and often that it is the only right and true one.

My answer however is that we are human, our ablility level to translate what we understand from another consciousness is limited by our experiences and knowledlge. So when someone is talking to a burning bush, or gets enlightenment under a tree, or converses with an angel, or comes out of meditation with insight. Our language is inadequate to describe the understanding of it all that we had just moments ago.

Also ego, power, greed, jealousy, all these human traits get involved. And also how do I explain this so others won't think me nuts...

All part of this glourious venture in my book.

peace,

wil

 

[oldgordy]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

Perhaps the question should be who decided that each prophet was the one and only. Most, if not all that was written about prophets came well after their actual existences and their validity as the only way was more politically engineered than factual.
This is purely a personal opinion and not meant to demean anyones belief.
Oldgordy.

 

[Dream]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

This question that plagues you is unanswerable, unless you are a prophet yourself. You have to make a guess. Without regard to anyone's beliefs: Based upon the wonder and beauty in the world I don't think that its creator would send conflicting messages, but based on the suffering and need in the world how can I be sure they were not all sent. I prefer to think not, but it is more than I can determine; because I go between two poles when I think about this. I think for any creature there are two extreme ways of viewing everything, and both seem right at different times! When we are depressed we think one way; and when we are happy we think another way.

There is pleasure and there is suffering, but it only makes sense to view life as a gift, not as a curse. If we view it as a curse, then everything will be bad. If we view it as a blessing, then everything is good to us. Unfortunately, viewing life as either a curse or a blessing hinders our objective judgment; but your question about the creator depends upon having a point of view about it! Each view of life affects our perception, so we are not able to know whether our judgment of creation is balanced. It may be that all of the prophets came from the same creator, but nobody can say for sure (except for another prophet). All we can know is what we intend to do with our time.

This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: that all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end; and which is the convenient end seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine

-- from the book Gulliver's Travels in Lilliput

 

[citizenzen]

This is purely a personal opinion and not meant to demean anyones belief.

Your personal opinion makes a lot of sense to me.

Don't worry about demeaning people's faith. They get their feathers ruffled no matter how lightly (or not) you care to tread. Just speak the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Francis king]

personally, I don't think the prophets did make such claims- I think such claims were added later, by "church authorities" frightened of polytheism, which was too "pagan" for their likings... and that doesn't just apply to xtains, but all faiths, who all want theirs to be the only one...

 

[iBrian]

I kind of tried to address it here:
parable of the sea - interfaith.org

We all as humans experience the same world, but we each interpret that world according to our own personal and cultural idioms.

As humans have generally appreciated that there is a greater reality around themselves, which is not easily understood or fathomed, then any resulting explanations will necessarily be channelled through those personal and cultural idioms.

Of course, some people who felt they saw god described matters in especially cultural ways - some reinvented culture - some reinvented religion.

At all times, though, humanity through the ages has tried to explain what it has perceived to be the realm of the spiritual.

In some ways, you could say it's increasingly progressive - a progressive revelation so to speak - God speaking to different cultures, by different cultures trying to understand increasing complexities.

For what it's worth, though, every description of God, every page of every Holy Book, has been described by the limited form of man - and man is too flawed to comprehend God.

2c.

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

On my own part I simply am of the certainty that God the maker of everything exists, and being maker of everything He also made me, in the ultimate terms of course, aside from my being the offspring of my parents and the descendant of my ancestors.

As regards prophets, there are many of them.

I just choose what I can accept to be in accordance with my intelligence and my experience of life and my values, from their writings.

Since I have been a Christian all my life, I now choose what in the Christian faith makes for the best in human society today, and for the rest of the Christian religion consider them, the rest of Christian beliefs and practices, optional.


In other words, it is time for all men with a modicum of intelligence and learning to make up their own DIY religion to deal with God maker of everything.

But for convenience, just choose if you be from a Christian background a church where you feel comfortable and you can see that you are getting better in life in regard to your relationship with God and with fellowmen.


By the way, there is only one God maker of everything, because if there be several Gods, then they must have only one in charge of them all who all are then gods created by the One God, I will call these gods godlets, i.e., small gods created by the One God to His own glory and purposes, perhaps they are angels.

Why not many equal gods, because they will be frozen into inaction for being in discussion in all eternity, each one being almighty but each one's almightiness in regard to everyone else cannot but result in paralysis for them all.


Hahaha! Now you get the picture?


Besides, if you long to have many Gods, just be contented with the Trinity of the traditional Christians, three persons in one God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three in persons but one in substance.

How is that? It's a mystery, and it works very well.

The Godhead of the Father looks at Himself and what He sees is God the Son; they Father and Son love each other, and the love between them is the Holy Spirit.


That is Trinitarian theology for you.

No, no hahaha! here, I wouldn't want God to get mad at me, but He is laughing with me because He can appreciates humor, and humor like wine there is truth in it.




Susma Rio Sep

 

[citizenzen]

In other words, it is time for all men with a modicum of intelligence and learning to make up their own DIY religion to deal with God maker of everything.

Lord knows it only takes a modicum of intelligence. So why is it so hard for people to figure this out?

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

In other words, it is time for all men with a modicum of intelligence and learning to make up their own DIY religion to deal with God maker of everything.

Lord knows it only takes a modicum of intelligence. So why is it so hard for people to figure this out?

Because people are not accustomed to thinking, not accustomed to thinking correctly.

If reason is the guide of our thoughts and acts, passion is the tyrant we prefer to follow most of the time if not always.


Passion is of course very important, but we still have to hold passion in rein because, even with just a little thinking, passion is not rational, for example the passion of envy, vindictiveness, ambition, greed, all the socalled capital sins, they are catered to by mankind, and woe, mankind as if by routine uses reason to rationalize their catering of their passions, like the following passions:

Gluttony, lust, envy, fear, pride, indolence, avarice.​

Christianity has an explanation for the dominance of passions in human actuations, namely, original sin, the patented offense of our first parents, Adam and Eve's disobeying God's command to not eat of the fruits of the forbidden tree.


Hahahaha!


For Buddhists of the doctrinaire type, it is karma; that is their version of original sin.



Hahahahaha!


That is why in every religion that has any semblance of credibility in human society or beneficial contributions to mankind's survival and advancement, there is the exhortation to cultivate virtues and abstain from vices which are excesses of too much or too little of passions.

And yes, discipline.





Susma

 

[arthra]

I have a question that is plaguing me, I hope someone can refer me to some answers..

If there is one God, why would his prophets across the ages each claim that they are the only manifestation to be followed ? Why would God send down prophets each claiming that they are the only true path to God ?

thx

The Baha'i view is that each of the Manifestations or Prophets and Messengers of God say they are fulfilling the promise of the former and they each say they will "Return" in some fashion. Later it is their followers who fall in love with the particular Prophet of their time that assert each is the only one, etc.

- Art

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

The Baha'i view is that each of the Manifestations or Prophets and Messengers of God say they are fulfilling the promise of the former and they each say they will "Return" in some fashion. Later it is their followers who fall in love with the particular Prophet of their time that assert each is the only one, etc.

- Art

That is an acceptable explanation on why people who hold to one prophet maintain that their prophet is the genuine one sent by God, namely, because they fall in love with their prophet, so theirs must be the genuine one formally dispatched by God to teach mankind about God and how to relate to God as to please God, etc.


But the question is still knocking at our intelligence, is there any prophet really in fact sent by God or will be sent by God, and how do we know this prophet to be really sent by God?

Jesus is supposed to be not only of prophet status but even the Son of God made man, etc.

He worked miracles, raising even the dead to life, at least one, if we can count the resuscitation of Lazarus from the sealed tomb; and of course He Himself came back to life and showed Himself to His disciples, etc.

Anyway, do we now have a prophet who can work miracles that can be accepted by men of science, and who does not disappear from the human scene but is always around, to be available for interview and to perform miracles as needed to convince non-believers?

That is the trouble with genuine prophets working miracles, they always belong to the past, in pre-scientific, pre-technological societies; nowadays there are no prophets who can pass science tests with flying colors, by working miracles of like for example, multiplying bread and fish to feed the hungry of the world.


Paging or calling on people who do insist that their prophet is the genuine one sent by God for today, if there be such people, please check in into this forum and join us in the discussion.

Best, bring your prophet with you and we will interview him and even request him to do some miracles.



Susma