What makes Yahweh convincing or unconvincing?

[marco]

We've read of Yahweh in the OT. My own view is that he seems to be a fabrication, and there are a few good reasons why he would be fabricated in that particular fashion.

But others may read and be utterly convinced Yahweh is genuine.


a) What persuades you Yahweh is false?

or

b) What persuades you he is true?

[Dimmesdale]

Personally, for a while I believed in Yahweh to an extent (at least found him convincing), not because I studied the NT or OT exhaustively, but because I had a "born again" experience. This "born again" experience made feel on top of the world and euphoric and made me very much inclined to BELIEVE, even believe Jesus died for me... Jesus himself said one must be born again "in spirit" or something along those lines. Essentially, I took this "born again" experience as a type of conversion, and I'm sure many people have had one, when they were "saved."

Now, I've since decided that this experience was not the "Holy Spirit" moving in me, but rather a chemical reaction in the brain (caused by stress), producing such effects in me. However, the question remains: how come I had such a life shift in me happen? How come I felt great guilt and anger lift off of me?How come I became so much inclined to believe the Christian gospel? Was it just because I was raised up near it or was it for some other reason?

Perhaps there is something hardwired in us to believe in the Christian God. Perhaps something in the universe corresponds to it. Personally, I now see Yahweh as a projection of human egotism. But because humanity and all the rest of life is synonymous with the ultimate One, this projection is universal and powerful in scope, and so I wouldn't be surprised to think there is some sort of Yahweh "principle" that exists in tandem with the universe and it's structures......

[marco]

Personally, for a while I believed in Yahweh to an extent (at least found him convincing), not because I studied the NT or OT exhaustively, but because I had a "born again" experience. ……..Now, I've since decided that this experience was not the "Holy Spirit" moving in me, but rather a chemical reaction in the brain ……..



Perhaps there is something hardwired in us to believe in the Christian God. Perhaps something in the universe corresponds to it. Personally, I now see Yahweh as a projection of human egotism.

Thanks for such a thoughtful answer, 7homas. The relief felt is the same as the relief at confessing and getting things off one's chest. As a small boy I once confessed to a priest that I had "stolen a sword." In fact I has taken some wood from a building site and made a wooden sword with it. I used to feel quite light-headed on meeting the fresh air, having been cleansed of sin. Now I see it was adult folly to burden a little child with the idea he was a sinner.

The fear aspect of Yahweh maybe convinces people; you don't want such a terrifying god against you. The NT experience of loving a man who died for us, or loving the innocent babe in a manger - this amounts to the same quest for relief. An act of charity towards another human gives us the same feeling of well-being.


It is easy to add all this up and come to a generous and wise God. But maybe God is in other people. Or he may be the bond that binds ants together so that they, though many in number, form one body.

[Willum]

Here's what I've got:
The things generally go from simple to complex. Starting out with the ultimate complexity is just silly.
There is not a single need for Yahweh to exist.
Who would respect the naturalist musing of vainglorious 2300 year old goat-herders?
Yahweh is evil.
There are so many gods.
The Roman's policy of usurping other people's gods nicely integrates into the Yahweh omnipotence timeline, he magically became omnipotent as soon as Judaists found out there was such a thing.
The abject ignorance the Sadducee kept the people of Jerusalem was easily usurped by an invading power that set the Pharisee in its place.

Evolution.
That's to start...

[marco]

Yahweh is evil.

I take on board all you say; Yahweh wears borrowed clothes. I think his main function was to frighten folk. There was no point in having a god who whimpered, which is why Muslims don't accept Jesus died on the cross. No self-respecting prophet would do so.

Yahweh is made in man's own image and unfortunately the men who made him were rough, tough brutes who might kick women aside or bury babies alive. It would be surprising if Yahweh had any redeeming features. I suppose when he ordered Abraham to kill his son it was an act of niceness to send a poor ram to be killed instead - pointless, but nice.

[Divine Insight]

a) What persuades you Yahweh is false?

There are many reasons. But two of the most profound are the following:

1. Yahweh commanded men to make blood sacrifices to him in order to atone their sins.

I question the intelligence of such a directive. This seems much more likely to be nothing more than a superstitious belief created by humans in an attempt to appease an imaginary God.

2. Yahweh commanded men to stone sinners to death.

Why should an omnipotent God ask men to do his dirty work for him? This is yet another red flag that screams that there is no God behind these doctrines.

Finally, I don't want to go through everything as it would take too long, but in general everything this God does is an ignorant barbaric reaction:

A few examples:

1. He curses the serpent to crawl on its belly and eat dirt.
2. He curses Eve with greatly multiplied pain and sorrow in childbirth (the very act of procreation)
3. He turns Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for disobeying his directives.

It's just too much ignorance and not enough (if any) intelligent solutions to anything.

In Christianity the whole plot to have Jesus brutally crucified at the request of Yahweh's very own corrupt priests and then have this held up as the centerfold of this God's religion is a level of barbaric ignorance that I just can't even begin to imagine as being the behavior of any truly intelligent supreme creator.

So for me, the idea that Yahweh is an actual God is truly absurd. And of course, this leaves Jesus without any divine authority as well. So once Yahweh has been ruled out, Jesus can't be true either.

[1213]

...
b) What persuades you he is true?

Bible and this world as Bible describe it.

And you may now ask, why believe the Bible?

And the answer is, because I think it has knowledge, wisdom and truth that I think people would not otherwise have.

What do you mean, you probably ask?

And the answer is for example these:

1. The story how earth was formed. Without God, people would not know the things that explain why earth is currently what we can observe.
2. The knowledge about what happens to Jews, for example:
I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
Leviticus 26:33
It shall happen, when all these things are come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations, where Yahweh your God has driven you, and shall return to Yahweh your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul; that then Yahweh your God will turn your captivity, and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples, where Yahweh your God has scattered you. If any of your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heavens, from there will Yahweh your God gather you, and from there will he bring you back:
Deuteronomy 30:1-4
3. And the truth and wisdom are especially in what Jesus told. But may be visible only for those who are disciples of Jesus.

[StuartJ]

Yahweh - like every other version of "God" - is NEVER shown to exist outside the human imagination.

Yahweh may be a "real" imaginary ethnic deity ...

But the CLAIM that Yahweh is the original, one and only, universe-creating, planet-flooding, virgin-impregnating, capital G "God" is false.

The idea of God had entered human imaginations long, long before any human imagined the possibly-not-even-Jewish Yahweh.

[Tart]

b) the spirit

[Tcg]

a) What persuades you Yahweh is false?

It was a long process and it involved a number of realizations. The primary reason was that it became obvious that all religions and their gods evolved to deny existential facts humans weren't willing to face honestly.

The primary one of course is the desire to deny death. Yahweh was and is simply another god invented by humans in their desire to pretend death isn't final.

It's not really Yahweh's fault. He is yet another tool in a long line of gods created to provide comfort to those afraid to face life, and more importantly death, as it really is.