Religion
In reply to the discussion: OR couple whose daughter died untreated wants faith-healing beliefs kept from jury [View all]Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)we can touch him, talk to him, shoots some hoops with him (Secret Service permitting, of course).
We can objectively ascertain his views and beliefs by talking to him. We may not accept what he says, or may interpret it differently, but at least we can establish what he said and the context by reviewing actual video of him and/or speaking to him directly, and by such a consensus can be reached. Not everyone will accept this consensus. The lovers/haters will reject all parts they disagree with. They will agree they are talking about the same man, when in fact, they are talking about their idea of him, which supports your point, but ONLY because we have an actual, tangible, breathing human to interact with. Despite the disagreement about what kind of man he was, we will have tons of factual physical evidence with which we can reconstruct the man in his absence. With "God", we have no such thing.
Did Obama ascend into the sky on such and such a day in Marine 1? Yes, he did. How do we know? Well, we have hundreds of witnesses, but such evidence is unreliable. But what we also have is far more concrete, objective evidence. Video tape of his leaving, fuel records, flight logs, schedules, ATC tracking records, Secret Service logs, flight data recorders, police records, maintenance logs, photos/video from dozens/hundreds of camera phones. As such, we can prove, based upon overwhelming evidence from hundreds/thousands of independent sources that Obama took a ride in his chopper on this day, at that time with certainty bordering on absolute.
Did Jesus ascend into Heaven after rising from the dead? Well, the only evidence we have is the purported eye-witness accounts by 4 individuals written 40-70 years after the incident. The testimony in question wouldn't survive the scrutiny of a first year law student.
People claim to believe in god, or in their case "God". However, there are serious differences and contradictions between the "principle" monotheistic branches. There are believers (the more tolerant ones) who will say, well, we all are worshiping the same god, just filtered through our cultural perspectives. The same argument could be made by a believer in the "Christian" god as an explanation for the variety of sects with contradictory viewpoints, visions and dogma. (I would note that this open-minded individual could be murdered as a heretic by certain factions within his own religion) This is a great handwave to get past all of the problems presented by the internecine warfare that has been "Christianity" through the centuries, but it fails on the most basic level: We can't ask the "God" directly to clear this all up.
So, that means each person/group is worshiping/believing in their specific idea of "God". This idea is predicated on what source material they read, what interpretations they make/accept from these sources, and how rigorously they test these sources. The early "Christians" took the Jewish "God" and broke him into three separate gods, then retconned it later so that the Trinity of three gods were actually all the same guy.
Thus, absent the genuine article showing up for questioning and cross-examination we cannot say with accuracy that all "Christians" worship the same god. They may share SOME of the same theological structures, but they differ substantially on practically everything else. Hell, they can't even decide what source material is canon.