Denominations

[Menotu]

Under the Christian umbrella, there are many denominations believing in the same god. But they tend to have differing ways to get the same end result.

An outsider comes along and looking in with no bias (having never heard of such a concept), he says "Wait: if you believe in the same god, and want the same thing, why are you arguing among each other? Shouldn't the same god have told you all the same thing? Why all the different denominations?"

Once the outsider reads the four gospels, they will understand a bit more:
"Wait: your god talked to a few different guys over different years and told them the same story, but different?"
You may say "Well, it was interpreted differently by these different people."
The outsider would then say " OK, but this god...he didn't change his story yes? So why didn't he tell each of these people the same thing in a manner in which they would write the same thing? Even if it was a different writing style, the jest of the story would remain true, right?"

So the outsider already has his eyebrow raised in suspicion.

Then he sees all the different denomination and their specific means to the same end (once saved always saved, Purgatory, Hell, asking for constant forgiveness, Jesus reappearing in the Americas and South Africa, people ascending, Adam/Eve/Ruth, etc) and he asks you the following set of questions:

"How can you accept these differences from a god that, you indicated, hasn't changed?
Why do you have to have faith in all this confusion and, at times, contradiction, in order to have something to believe in?
Why can't your god provide to you - all of you - the same story that's believable, especially considering he can do anything he wants?
Why does your god allow all these denominations?"

Is there a definite answer other than "'cause God says" or the like?
Is there something that we can point to that says "My thinking is right because...."?
Or is it all a personal belief system?
And if that's the case, why all the concern over what others believe in (or not), how they live their lives and what they do in their families?

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 8 by Tcg]

Okay Ive changed my list from "and" to "or" to avoid indication of judgement. The point being all that exist do so because in my opinion God allows it not necessarily because he approves it.

If a God existed, and if that God were omnipotent, there would be absolutely no difference between allowing and approving. If one accepts the existence of such a God, one must accept that God not only approves it, but indeed causes it.

Why GOD allowed evil HE did not approve of nor wanted at all:

1. He created us all to fill heaven with people in a full loving communion and communication with HIM and each other, a unity of fellowship best characterised as a marriage.

2. It is axiomatic that true love and a real marriage cannot be forced upon anyone but only chosen by their free will. We must choose by our free will to be married, to accept a marriage proposal, for it to be real and love can't be forced by any means, only accepted.

3. It is also axiomatic that a free will cannot be constrained in any way, that is, an option can't be restricted by GOD from our choosing it just because HE does not like it or we cannot be said to have a free will. If we cannot choose to reject HIM and HIS marriage proposal becasue HE forces us to do only as HE wishes, we do not have a free will.

4. Therefore our free will with the ability and opportunity to reject HIS claim to be our GOD and to reject HIS offer of marriage was an absolute necessity even though the outcome was not what HE wanted and was totally against HIS desires.

There was no way to fulfill HIS desire of a heavenly marriage with us without the opportunity for some to reject that purpose and so cause evil to come into existence in HIS creation against HIS plan and approval.

Your conclusion is wrong since it is based upon the false premise that HE can force everything to HIS will when in fact the true love and true marriage HE desired with HIS creation cannot be so forced.

Here we have another human inventing another flavor/denomination of the Christian religion.
It has been demostrated by two of our very own posters how we got all the differing denominations that we have.

Tturscott, your example is very on point and appreciated.

OP: Shouldn't the same god have told you all the same thing? Why all the different denominations?

The answer is because humans are at work, not the gods. This has been demonstrated here in this very thread.

[EarthScienceguy]

Hist Gustav Siegfried Eins. This is Gustav Siegfried Eins. Es spricht der Chef. The Chief is speaking.

It was just before five in the evening on May 23, 1941, and the Chief's radio career had begun.

What the Chief said over the next six minutes or so was something that Nazi troops listening to their shortwave radios had never heard before. Using foulmouthed language, graphically pornographic descriptions, and extremist rhetoric, this new voice described incident after incident of incompetence and corruption infecting the Nazi cause.

Criticism of Nazi officials was rarely, if ever, uttered in public. Normally, tightly controlled German radio stations broadcast only approved news, German folk music and classical music. But here, on broadcast bands policed by the government, was a self-proclaimed, devoted Nazi and old guard Prussian military veteran spewing hatred for Nazi leaders. Night after night, starting at 4:48 P.M. and repeating hourly, the Chief delivered his sulfurous on-air denunciations. He skewered their repeated failure to live up to Hitlers world-conquering ideals.


His profanity-laced tirades lambasted Nazi officials buffoonery, sexual perversity and malfeasance, condemning their indifference to the German peoples deprivations while lauding the devotion to duty shown by our brave troops freezing to death in Russia. The Chiefs reports of corruption and immorality were mixed in with news about the war and life on the homefront.

In his first broadcast, the Chief blasted Rudolf Hess, previously Hitlers deputy fhrer and closest confidante. As soon as there is a crisis, he snarled between barnyard epithets, anti-Semitic and anti-British rants, referring to Hess' recent unexplained solo flight to Scotland, Hess packs himself a white flag and flies off to throw himself and us on the mercy of that flat-footed bastard of a drunken old cigar-smoking Jew, Churchill!

At the conclusion of his broadcast, the Chief soberly read off a long numeric series " apparently a coded message " addressed to Gustav Siegfried Achtzehn, itself flagged as code for G.S. 18, just like the Chiefs name, Gustav Siegfried Eins, was interpreted as G.S. 1. Nazi security office codebreakers went to work and broke the cipher. Each night after that, the broadcast ended with a numeric sign-off. Once decoded, they typically read off locations, such as the Odeon Cinema, the River Street tram stop, the Eastern food market, and other vaguely identified place names, presumably for secret meetings " though none was decoded with enough precision to pinpoint a specific place for the Gestapo to investigate. Clearly, a dark cabal of disaffected Nazis extremists, likely drawn from the German military, now conspired against the state.

But none of it was real.

This is what enemies do. They feed the opposing troops disinformation to break morale and to try to lead as many astray as they can.

Christians are in a war. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

The only weapon that the God allows are enemy to use is disinformation. He has also gave us the resource to combat this disinformation campaign and that resource is the Bible.

But it is even more complicated and even more detrimental then those entities that are unseen are the enemies that are seen that are in the Church. Not all "Christians" are Christians.

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? 28 He said to them, An enemy has done this. The servants said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? 29 But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.

There are also none Christians in the Church that are leading people way from what the Bible says.

Yes, there are different theologies but not all theologies are the same. In Revelation 2 and 3 Jesus hands out rewards to 7 different churches each of these churches has a different theology, some of these churches are commended but most are condemned.

[ttruscott]

We chose by our free will to be sinners. When HE planted us as sinners into the world of mankind HE had already predestined the future state of our lives after our deaths

If Gods planted me into the world as a sinner, with a predestined position in the afterlife, where exactly does the free will come into it?

I hold to a heterodox view that we were all created before the creation of the physical universe and while in that state everyone made free will decisions that established their eternal relationship with YHWH forever. Only those who by their free will chose to be sinful in HIS sight were MOVED, sown or planted into the world by conception as human.

We chose our FATES before the creation of the world and then after the creation of the world HIS elect who sinned were given predetermined LIVES on earth predestined to end in holiness and in heaven.

[ttruscott]

My understanding of ttruscott's belief (please correct me ttruscott's if I am mistaken ) is you exercised your free will before you were born during your prehuman existence. Everything thereafter is just gravey.
JW

Not bad if you accept the painful discipline of Heb 12:5-11 as gravy,

[Clownboat]

Hist Gustav Siegfried Eins. This is Gustav Siegfried Eins. Es spricht der Chef. The Chief is speaking.

It was just before five in the evening on May 23, 1941, and the Chief's radio career had begun.

What the Chief said over the next six minutes or so was something that Nazi troops listening to their shortwave radios had never heard before. Using foulmouthed language, graphically pornographic descriptions, and extremist rhetoric, this new voice described incident after incident of incompetence and corruption infecting the Nazi cause.

Criticism of Nazi officials was rarely, if ever, uttered in public. Normally, tightly controlled German radio stations broadcast only approved news, German folk music and classical music. But here, on broadcast bands policed by the government, was a self-proclaimed, devoted Nazi and old guard Prussian military veteran spewing hatred for Nazi leaders. Night after night, starting at 4:48 P.M. and repeating hourly, the Chief delivered his sulfurous on-air denunciations. He skewered their repeated failure to live up to Hitlers world-conquering ideals.


His profanity-laced tirades lambasted Nazi officials buffoonery, sexual perversity and malfeasance, condemning their indifference to the German peoples deprivations while lauding the devotion to duty shown by our brave troops freezing to death in Russia. The Chiefs reports of corruption and immorality were mixed in with news about the war and life on the homefront.

In his first broadcast, the Chief blasted Rudolf Hess, previously Hitlers deputy fhrer and closest confidante. As soon as there is a crisis, he snarled between barnyard epithets, anti-Semitic and anti-British rants, referring to Hess' recent unexplained solo flight to Scotland, Hess packs himself a white flag and flies off to throw himself and us on the mercy of that flat-footed bastard of a drunken old cigar-smoking Jew, Churchill!

At the conclusion of his broadcast, the Chief soberly read off a long numeric series " apparently a coded message " addressed to Gustav Siegfried Achtzehn, itself flagged as code for G.S. 18, just like the Chiefs name, Gustav Siegfried Eins, was interpreted as G.S. 1. Nazi security office codebreakers went to work and broke the cipher. Each night after that, the broadcast ended with a numeric sign-off. Once decoded, they typically read off locations, such as the Odeon Cinema, the River Street tram stop, the Eastern food market, and other vaguely identified place names, presumably for secret meetings " though none was decoded with enough precision to pinpoint a specific place for the Gestapo to investigate. Clearly, a dark cabal of disaffected Nazis extremists, likely drawn from the German military, now conspired against the state.

But none of it was real.

This is what enemies do. They feed the opposing troops disinformation to break morale and to try to lead as many astray as they can.

Christians are in a war. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

The only weapon that the God allows are enemy to use is disinformation. He has also gave us the resource to combat this disinformation campaign and that resource is the Bible.

But it is even more complicated and even more detrimental then those entities that are unseen are the enemies that are seen that are in the Church. Not all "Christians" are Christians.

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? 28 He said to them, An enemy has done this. The servants said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? 29 But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.

There are also none Christians in the Church that are leading people way from what the Bible says.

Yes, there are different theologies but not all theologies are the same. In Revelation 2 and 3 Jesus hands out rewards to 7 different churches each of these churches has a different theology, some of these churches are commended but most are condemned.

To the bold.
It is sad, but that is what religions do. They provide their followers with enemies to unite against. Cults do the same thing. Unity is good for the organization afterall.

Homosexuals and those who worship the wrong god are often easy targets.

Being agnostic/ignostic or atheistic would help you to have less enemies.

Many people need religion and need somewhere to go when they die. I understand this. I just wish religions weren't so devisive while providing this need to some of our fellow humans.

(I also wish our fellow humans would stop projecting this need of theirs on to the rest of humanity).

Cool story though.

[ttruscott]

Here we have another human inventing another flavor/denomination of the Christian religion.

I guess you have forgotten I claim to have been taught this theology and do not claim to have made it up...otherwise I guess you'd be calling me a liar and you are too correct with the rules to do that, eh?

Jesus called those who refused to follow His new revelations about the Messiah snakes and vipers...

[Adstar]

[Replying to post 1 by Menotu]

The reason for the denominations sits with men who have different ideas as to what Gods message means.. It is not because God gave different messages.. The fault is with men not with God..

Also many of the denominations are not divided on Core Doctrines of Salvational Importance.. But they have spit in minor issues of no salvational Importance..

An example of a core doctrine of salvational Importance would be the teaching that Jesus was raised from the dead... If you look at the statements of belief of these many denominations you will find the vast majority will state that Jesus was raised from the dead.. So in this important teaching that are all in agreement..

An example of a disputable doctrine of no salvational Importance would be woman wearing head coverings while praying or while attending a church ceremony.. Some denominations will have this as their interpretation of scripture and teach their woman to wear a head covering while praying or attending church.. Most of the denominations will not teach this and not tell woman to wear head coverings in church..

So you can have 100 denominations all of them believe and teach the Core Doctrines of Salvation but they can all be different in their interpeting of non-core issues which a disputable matters.. People being people and thus faulty can and do split because of trivial matters that they believe are important.. But in fact the important doctrines can remain solid in the split congregations..

Now is denominations a good thing? No it is a bad thing.. And those who divide over trivialities will need the atonement of Jesus to secure for them forgiveness for this sin..

[Diagoras]

I hold to a heterodox view that we were all created before the creation of the physical universe and while in that state everyone made free will decisions that established their eternal relationship with YHWH forever. Only those who by their free will chose to be sinful in HIS sight were MOVED, sown or planted into the world by conception as human.

We chose our FATES before the creation of the world and then after the creation of the world HIS elect who sinned were given predetermined LIVES on earth predestined to end in holiness and in heaven.

Heres an interesting statistic:

There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.

If we for a moment accept the claims that: everyone starts out as some sort of pre-universe spirit, each of those spirits is given a free choice to establish an eternal relationship with a god, and that all of those who reject this relationship are somehow given a physical form, then:

All humans who have ever lived, PLUS all those who will ever live on Earth from now until the last human represents the sum total of sinners.

We dont have a reliable way of estimating how many more humans will be born until the species is wiped out (either by a divine judgement, natural catastrophe or by man-made war), or when that day will occur. We could (again, for the sake of argument) assume that the judgement is coming fairly soon and stick with 108 billion souls (rounding up) as an absolute minimum for the pre-universe creation.

This seems an awful lot of creation to be going on, as presumably there were at least a few spirits who did take up the tempting offer of an eternal relationship with a god. Stands to reason, if youre created with the intelligence and free will to choose a god, and that gods right there in front of you offering something like eternal paradise, then the odds seem to be stacked in the gods favour to end up with a decent proportion of spirits in the Remain camp, so to speak.

With 108,000,000,000 souls voting Leave (knowing that theyre in for maybe seventy years or so of earthly existence, of which they can have absolutely no preconception of what that entails - recalling that the universe itself has yet to be created), we have to wonder just how many spirits there are in this metaphysical realm. Far fewer? That would suggest Gods offer to be peculiarly unattractive. Even if it was a 50/50 deal, then two hundred and sixteen billion souls were created (all at once? Who knows?) - and remember, this is the absolute minimum number.

Every time I hear of it, I think of more and more of its absurdities, and get more and more baffled as to how it could ever be believed to be true. Im curious about how much work has to into maintaining this concepts internal logic in the face of fairly simple objections.

[SallyF]

[Replying to post 1 by Menotu]

The reason for the denominations sits with men who have different ideas as to what Gods message means.. It is not because God gave different messages.. The fault is with men not with God..

For that to begin to be remotely true

One would need to demonstrate that the version of "God" referenced actually existed.

To the best of my knowledge, not a soul has EVER done that.

THEN

One would need to demonstrate that the messages referenced came from the god referenced.

To the best of my knowledge, not a soul has EVER done that.

The fault - I offer - lies with the humans who wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote again and added and subtracted and amended and emended and interpreted and re-interpreted and on and on and on.

With not a jot or a tittle of clarification from the "God" that supposedly gave the messages in the first place

Which, for me, is one of the many very good reasons for expecting that ALL versions of "God" are simply human make-believe.

If the message-giving god were anything more than imaginary

We may reasonably expect clarification from the god.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 28 by Diagoras]

Playing devils advocate here, it seems to me there are too many unknown variables to dismiss the idea based in math.

What if God made an infinite number of "souls" and they 108 billion + made their decision to rebelle in a nanosecond just after the earths creation (or he made the earth foreknowing it would be a loading station for 108 billion humans?)...see what I mean? Given an omnipotent God any numerical combination can be made to work...