Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
I do believe most of what you are saying here. However, stemming from the same source does not make the Gods the same.
Islam in no way believes that Jesus Christ IS God. Christianity does.
Many Jews believe in the Messiah but don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. The difference is distinct though between that and what Islam teaches.[/quote]
If we treat Gods just as part of the religion (along with beliefs, traditions, etc), I agree. If we treat God as a universal entity responsible for creation though, I still have difficulty with accepting the idea of three of these.
Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
I do believe most of what you are saying here. However, stemming from the same source does not make the Gods the same.
Islam in no way believes that Jesus Christ IS God. Christianity does.
Many Jews believe in the Messiah but don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. The difference is distinct though between that and what Islam teaches.[/quote]
You’re quibbling over doctrine. Trinity, divinity, etc. The source as you put it predates the doctrine. That 3 major religions shifted in different directions and differ on doctrine is not prima facie evidence that they worship a different God.
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
We don’t believe there are Three Gods - we believe the Jews worship the one True God, we Christians worship the same true God and Jesus as the Messiah, while the Jews still await the Messiah. The Muslims on the other hand worship Allah - a false god according to our faith because his character is not that of the true God as revealed in the Bible or Nature.
You are oversimplifying the issue - there are fundamental differences between the God worshiped in Islam and the God warshipped by Jews and Christians - your inability to distinquish these is telling.
How do we distquish on the phone between all of the white males aged 34 living in San Franscico named Willy? BY their individuality as expressed through their character, their revealed nature (voice, inflection, etc), and their actions.
It is the same with Allah and Yahweh - they have completely different character traits, act in different manners, revealed themselves in different ways, instruct their followers to do different things and reveal the path to salvation in completely different way - there is no possibility that these two beings as revealed within their own faiths could ever be the same entity.
Push. Let me start by saying that I am a believer in case you thought otherwise. So my question is out of curiosity rather than trying to punch a hole in a belief. But you post doesn’t really address my question (if it was meant to in the first place). It only addresses the issue of communication between Eve and the serpent.
I was asking where the belief that the serpent was Lucifer, or Lucifer speaking through the serpent, as Genesis 3 never even mentions Lucifer or Satan. All I could come up with was Revelation 12:9 (among a few other verses in Revelation).
What are your thoughts on this?
[/quote]
I understand.
You do have to rely on it indirectly. The myriad of teachings about Satan throughout the Bible almost force one to believe the one possessing the serpent in Eden had to have been Satan. It could’ve been no one else if you stop and think about it. No other explanation makes any sense at all.[/quote]
Please provide references for this interpretation of the one you call “Satan”.
By the way:
“Similar trees appear in other religions. The same story with male, female, serpent, and tree can be found - 22 centuries before the version of the story we know from the Bible - depicted on a Mesopotamian cylinder seal. In the closest, most relevant comparison, the iconic image of the tree guarded by the Serpent appears on Sumerian seals; it is the central feature of the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology, where the guardian serpent receives the name Ladon. In Buddhism, the Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree. In Vedic Hinduism, the Tree of Jiva and Atman is usually interpreted as a metaphor concerning the soul, mind, and body. In the Norse sagas, the ash tree Yggdrasil draws from the magic spring of knowledge.”
Chthonic serpents and sacred trees
In many myths the chthonic serpent (sometimes a pair) lives in or is coiled around a Tree of Life situated in a divine garden. In the Genesis story of the Torah and Biblical Old Testament the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is situated in the Garden of Eden together with the tree of immortality. In Greek mythology Ladon coiled around the tree in the garden of the Hesperides protecting the entheogenic golden apples.
NÃðhöggr gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil in this illustration from a 17th century Icelandic manuscript.Similarly NÃðhöggr (Nidhogg Nagar) the dragon of Norse mythology eats from the roots of the Yggdrasil the World Tree.
Under yet another Tree (the Bodhi tree of Enlightenment), the Buddha sat in ecstatic meditation. When a storm arose, the mighty serpent king Mucalinda rose up from his place beneath the earth and enveloped the Buddha in seven coils for seven days, not to break his ecstatic state.
The Vision Serpent was also a symbol of rebirth in Mayan mythology, fuelling some cross-Atlantic cultural contexts favored in pseudoarchaeology. The Vision Serpent goes back to earlier Maya conceptions, and lies at the center of the world as the Mayans conceived it. “It is in the center axis atop the World Tree. Essentially the World Tree and the Vision Serpent, representing the king, created the center axis which communicates between the spiritual and the earthly worlds or planes. It is through ritual that the king could bring the center axis into existence in the temples and create a doorway to the spiritual world, and with it power”. (Schele and Friedel, 1990: 68)
The Sumerian deity, Ningizzida, is accompanied by two gryphons; it is the oldest known image of two snakes coiling around an axial rod, dating from before 2000 BCE.Sometimes the Tree of Life is represented (in a combination with similar concepts such as the World Tree and Axis mundi or “World Axis”) by a staff such as those used by shamans. Examples of such staffs featuring coiled snakes in mythology are the caduceus of Hermes, the Rod of Asclepius, the staff of Moses, and the papyrus reeds and deity poles entwined by a single serpent Wadjet, dating to earlier than 3000 BCE. The oldest known representation of two snakes entwined around a rod is that of the Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida. Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head, eventually becoming a god of healing and magic. It is the companion of Dumuzi (Tammuz) with whom it stood at the gate of heaven. In the Louvre, there is a famous green steatite vase carved for king Gudea of Lagash (dated variously 2200â??2025 BCE) with an inscription dedicated to Ningizzida. Ningizzida was the ancestor of Gilgamesh, who according to the epic dived to the bottom of the waters to retrieve the plant of life. But while he rested from his labor, a serpent came and ate the plant. The snake became immortal, and Gilgamesh was destined to die.
Ancient North American serpent imagery often featured rattlesnakes.Ningizzida has been popularised in the 20th C. by Raku Kei Reiki (a.k.a. “The Way of the Fire Dragon”) where “Nin Giz Zida” is believed to be a fire serpent of Tibetan rather than Sumerian origin. Nin Giz Zida is another name for the ancient Hindu concept of Kundalini, a Sanskrit word meaning either “coiled up” or “coiling like a snake”. Kundalini refers to the mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation leading to altered states of consciousness. There are a number of other translations of the term usually emphasizing a more serpentine nature to the wordâ?? e.g. ‘serpent power’. It has been suggested by Joseph Campbell that the symbol of snakes coiled around a staff is an ancient representation of Kundalini physiology. The staff represents the spinal column with the snake(s) being energy channels. In the case of two coiled snakes they usually cross each other seven times, a possible reference to the seven energy centers called chakras.
In Ancient Egypt, where the earliest written cultural records exist, the serpent appears from the beginning to the end of their mythology. Ra and Atum (“he who completes or perfects”) became the same god, Atum, the “counter-Ra,” was associated with earth animals, including the serpent: Nehebkau (“he who harnesses the souls”) was the two headed serpent deity who guarded the entrance to the underworld. He is often seen as the son of the snake goddess Renenutet. She often was confused with (and later was absorbed by) their primal snake goddess Wadjet, the Egyptian cobra, who from the earliest of records was the patron and protector of the country, all other deities, and the pharaohs. Hers is the first known oracle. She was depicted as the crown of Egypt, entwined around the staff of papyrus and the pole that indicated the status of all other deities, as well as having the all-seeing eye of wisdom and vengeance. She never lost her position in the Egyptian pantheon.
The image of the serpent as the embodiment of the wisdom transmitted by Sophia was an emblem used by gnosticism, especially those sects that the more orthodox characterized as “Ophites” (“Serpent People”). The chthonic serpent was one of the earth-animals associated with the cult of Mithras. The Basilisk, the venomous “king of serpents” with the glance that kills, was hatched by a serpent, Pliny the Elder and others thought, from the egg of a cock.
Outside Eurasia, in Yoruba mythology, Oshunmare was another mythic regenerating serpent.
The Rainbow Serpent (also known as the Rainbow Snake) is a major mythological being for Aboriginal people across Australia, although the creation myth associated with it are best known from northern Australia. In Fiji Ratumaibulu was a serpent god who ruled the underworld and made fruit trees bloom.
I ask, were all these serpent and tree stories literal? Or just the one of the Bible. I briefly referenced it prior, but would you prefer to examine the authorship of Genesis before we commence with the Gospels?
What’s more likely here? Genesis being an edited version(s) of older decidedly “uninspired” works or, Genesis, et als, being the direct inspired word of God - except God has no new stories, he’s just telling older ones?
Push. Let me start by saying that I am a believer in case you thought otherwise. So my question is out of curiosity rather than trying to punch a hole in a belief. But you post doesn’t really address my question (if it was meant to in the first place). It only addresses the issue of communication between Eve and the serpent.
I was asking where the belief that the serpent was Lucifer, or Lucifer speaking through the serpent, as Genesis 3 never even mentions Lucifer or Satan. All I could come up with was Revelation 12:9 (among a few other verses in Revelation).
What are your thoughts on this?
[/quote]
I understand.
You do have to rely on it indirectly. The myriad of teachings about Satan throughout the Bible almost force one to believe the one possessing the serpent in Eden had to have been Satan. It could’ve been no one else if you stop and think about it. No other explanation makes any sense at all.[/quote]
I would agree about the teachings forcing you toward that conclusion.
However, lets following the line of thinking that things in the garden WERE different. If Adam and Eve could communicate with the beasts, it is entirely possible that the serpent was just a bad beast. The serpent was, in fact, punished by God for what it had done. Had it been Lucifer controlling a serpent, would that give cause to punish that beast directly? Obviously Lucifer fell out of Grace with God, but I haven’t seen where it says it was for tempting Eve.
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
We don’t believe there are Three Gods - we believe the Jews worship the one True God, we Christians worship the same true God and Jesus as the Messiah, while the Jews still await the Messiah. The Muslims on the other hand worship Allah - a false god according to our faith because his character is not that of the true God as revealed in the Bible or Nature.
You are oversimplifying the issue - there are fundamental differences between the God worshiped in Islam and the God warshipped by Jews and Christians - your inability to distinquish these is telling.
How do we distquish on the phone between all of the white males aged 34 living in San Franscico named Willy? BY their individuality as expressed through their character, their revealed nature (voice, inflection, etc), and their actions.
It is the same with Allah and Yahweh - they have completely different character traits, act in different manners, revealed themselves in different ways, instruct their followers to do different things and reveal the path to salvation in completely different way - there is no possibility that these two beings as revealed within their own faiths could ever be the same entity.[/quote]
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
We don’t believe there are Three Gods - we believe the Jews worship the one True God, we Christians worship the same true God and Jesus as the Messiah, while the Jews still await the Messiah. The Muslims on the other hand worship Allah - a false god according to our faith because his character is not that of the true God as revealed in the Bible or Nature.
You are oversimplifying the issue - there are fundamental differences between the God worshiped in Islam and the God warshipped by Jews and Christians - your inability to distinquish these is telling.
How do we distquish on the phone between all of the white males aged 34 living in San Franscico named Willy? BY their individuality as expressed through their character, their revealed nature (voice, inflection, etc), and their actions.
It is the same with Allah and Yahweh - they have completely different character traits, act in different manners, revealed themselves in different ways, instruct their followers to do different things and reveal the path to salvation in completely different way - there is no possibility that these two beings as revealed within their own faiths could ever be the same entity.[/quote]
And as I pointed out earlier, one could (and has) use the above logic to argue the God of the OT and NT are not one in the same.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
There’s no evidence that they didn’t either.
THINK![/quote]
Definitely agree, but I still can’t justify it without some extreme evidence. This is just my view on it.[/quote]
Bottom line is with a universal flood at one point utterly destroying the globe a lot of the geophysical, biological evidence from the period of time from the Fall to the Flood is gone.
Before the Fall the earth, the universe for that matter, existed in a perfect state and it is tremendously tough to nail down all the things that would’ve been different. Even if some of those “things”, i.e., evidence, survived until the Flood they too would’ve been destroyed.
Now I know you’ll come along and say, “How convenient” but that’s the way it is from a biblical perspective.
Catastrophism not uniformitarianism rules the day - then…and now. Even ardent evolutionists are conceding that the history of the earth, the universe, is one rife with great cataclysms. With a world view like this…again…the present is not the key to the past.[/quote]
Just out of curiosity, when was the flood exactly? Reason I ask, is I’ve been pondering the idea that the flood discussed in the bible be referencing the big bang. Or do you believe in the “water flood”?
Remember, both Christianity and Islam stem from Judaism and just different interpretations of the same idea. What I don’t understand is that, as believers, how can you honestly say there are three “Gods” out there that really exist? I think what you are meaning to say is there are three “interpretations” of God out there, but all stem from the same source (Judaism’s God).
[/quote]
I do believe most of what you are saying here. However, stemming from the same source does not make the Gods the same.
Islam in no way believes that Jesus Christ IS God. Christianity does.
Many Jews believe in the Messiah but don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. The difference is distinct though between that and what Islam teaches.[/quote]
You’re quibbling over doctrine. Trinity, divinity, etc. The source as you put it predates the doctrine. That 3 major religions shifted in different directions and differ on doctrine is not prima facie evidence that they worship a different God.
[/quote]
Heh. How does one even respond to this? You don’t allow for the nature of the Trinity. We’re to ignore Jesus as God, who died on the cross for our sins. Also, to be set aside, is that we are redeemed through Christ. Just ignore all that doctrinal clutter (which tells us the nature of God), and voila, same God! Let’s ignore paganism having many gods, and voila, they too worship the same God. I’ve asked it before, but why do atheists have a theology, absolutes on what God must or must not be? Very bizarre.
Oh and thanks for all that wonderful material from wikipedia . . .
From a Christian perspective we would see that all of those serpent tales as the corruption of the original story as told by those who exchanged the true God for a lie.
Stated,
“…Islam and Christianity worship the same God…”
Do Christians and Muslims believe that there is one God? Yes-as do some Hindus, animistics religions, and even the demons (James 2:19). Yes, they all believe that there is one God.
Yet do Christians and Muslims believe in the same God? No-for Jesus considers himself as fully God and fully man in his earthly life. Christians, and Muslims believe in one God, but not in the One God. They both believe in one God, but not the same God.
To love and worship the same God as the Christians do, you must believe that Jesus Christ was preexistent with God before the creation of the world (Col. 1:15). That He was a person existing from eternity, distinct from but in eternal fellowship with God the Father. And that He was divine, having the same nature and essence as the Father (Col. 2:9).
Jesus Christ was not created; He is eternal, and He has always been in loving fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Scriptures declare that Jesus is God (John 20:28). This is the foundation of the Christian faith and is of utmost importance for our salvation. Without Jesus Christ being divine, He could not have made atonement for the sins of the world.
Jesus Christ’s deity means that the believer must act toward Him in exactly the same manner as he must act toward God the Father. He must believe in Him, reverence and worship Him, pray to Him, serve Him, and love Him.
He who denies that Jesus is the Christ is denying the incarnation of Christ, undercutting the truth of God became man. Such a person is a liar-this teaching would nullify the entire message of the N.T.
The doctrine of the Incarnation may be considered the foundation stone for all other N.T. truth. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) is the great statement which proclaimed God’s plan for nullifying the effects of the fall. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, He was not the Son of God. And He could not be the promised Messiah-Christ. He was not just divine, like God; He was deity himself, the very essence of God in human flesh. To deny this is heresy of the grossest sort.
Those who preach doctrines concerning the Father yet deny Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, deny the Father as well (I John 2:22).
Only when we accept Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God can we love, worship, and have fellowship with the same God (I John 1:7)
The Christian Doctrine believes that Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten Son of God.
The Islam Doctrine believes that Jesus was just a man and a prophet.