Alright, Jehovah Exists - Why Worship Him?

[Purple Knight]

Let's assume the God of the Bible exists. Taking aside that he has named himself God, why is he God?

What makes an entity God?

And if this entity exists, why worship him?

[Mithrae]

A god demonstrating omnipotence (or even 'power disproportionately greater than I could imagine') to me would quite likely see me attributing reverent honour to them. However, there's another way of looking at an omnipotent creator when you consider the Kardashev Scale.

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[The Nice Centurion]

Let's assume the God of the Bible exists. Taking aside that he has named himself God, why is he God?

The god of the Bible is not the god of mainsteam christianity!
As stated several times in this forum, the Bible (OT) preaches a badly hidden polytheistic view, with the main character god grasping for stars, while living in constant fear of iron. (Therefore Iron Man could punch him with more ease than he punches the Melter or the Living Laser!)
So the god of the bible existing wouldnt be "God",but one bad mooded fearful god among many other gods.

What makes an entity God?

And if this entity exists, why worship him?

Questions obsolete after I gave my above answer!

[JehovahsWitness]

The Hebrew Word "God" means "powerful one" ; if there is an omnipotent creator, He is God by definition of his omnipotence. Its like calling a black cat a black cat ... if its black and its a cat then it become less an appellation so much as a statement of fact.

So if Lucifer was omnipotent and created the universe instead, you'd worship him instead?

The Creator of life has the right to be worshipped as such; if he proved to be despicable but left us a choice then I'd refrain. If He left us no choice.... the question is redundant.

[JehovahsWitness]

Is not the god you call "JAH" and the god others call "Jehovah" one and the same god?

JAH is just a shorterned form of the name (JAH)ovah ... the name of God in the bible. Whether people are referring to the God identified by both terms in the bible... depends on what they believe about Him.



* the letter "J" ...is a 15th century English invention)

[JehovahsWitness]

Good is pure. Evil is inherently impure. If the Devil was always cruel, he couldn't lead a rebellion as his underlings would quickly grow to hate someone who was always cruel to them. He couldn't tempt people with things that provided pleasure, faced with a restriction that he never be nice to anyone for any reason.

Evil is the total lack of goodness not the total lack of intelligence. It would indeed be counterproductive to be cruel to those you want on your side, so he isnt; at least while it suits his purpose not to be.

2 CORINTHIANS 11:13-15

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness

Satan can lead a rebellion by pretending to be good and appealing to the selfish desires of others. He is not interested in love (because love is the very antithesis of what he is) but he knows its power and goes for the closest thing, infatuation. Satan can inspire infatuation and awe by his power, intelligence and beauty and like any cult leader, this leads to loyalty beyond reason which is good enough for him.

He couldn't tempt people with things that provided pleasure...

Biblically, this is about as false a statement as could ever be uttered.

[Willum]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #2]

Fact check.

Kindly show a reference that Hebrew for god is powerful one.

When you do that, be prepared for me to show you the actual word, and background.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #2]

Fact check.

Kindly show a reference that Hebrew for god is powerful one.

I am of course, like most of the other participants in this thread, presenting facts according to the biblical narrative since the OP requested comment on the assumption of the above.

Let's assume the God of the Bible exists. ....

Are you asking for a scriptural reference?

[Difflugia]

The Hebrew Word "God" means "powerful one" ; if there is an omnipotent creator, He is God by defintion of his omnipotence. Its like calling a black cat a black cat ... if its black and its a cat then it become less an appellation so much as a statement of fact.

I am of course, like most of the other participants in this thread, presenting facts according to the biblical narrative since the OP requested comment on the assumption of the above.

So the etymology's in the Bible. Fine. Where?

[Purple Knight]

Evil is the total lack of goodness not the total lack of intelligence. It would indeed be counterproductive to be cruel to those you want on your side, so he isnt; at least while it suits his purpose not to be.

That's my point. The Devil cannot always be cruel. He must know what kindness is because you show a picture of him offering bread. (I... think it's bread.) It may be for a larger nefarious purpose, and in this case it is, but taken by itself, it is a good act to offer a starving man bread. The Devil is therefore capable of good acts and at any time might commit them. He's not pure evil.

So maybe the Devil did create life somewhere. Maybe he has a pocket universe... and maybe this is it. Maybe the people outside Eden who Cain went out and mated with were created by the Devil. Some people think white people were essentially created by the devil.

Yakub died at the age of 152, but his followers carried on his work. After 600 years of this deliberate eugenics, the white race was created. The brutal conditions of their creation determined the evil nature of the new race: "by lying to the black mother of the baby, this lie was born into the very nature of the white baby; and, murder for the black people was also born in them—or made by nature a liar and murderer".

The relevant part of this tale to this discussion is how these devil's children are written off as evil because it's their nature, almost conceding that it is even right for them to follow that nature which is a part of their creation. They can't help it. They're just going to do how they do. They were made that way.

I say that this attitude is confusing people with moths. People have intelligence, conscience, and according to the Bible, free will. That makes people special. We can do what a moth cannot. We, even if made to bash our heads into that light bulb endlessly, can in fact decide to stop. If some or all of us were made by the Devil or some evil figure, we can choose to be righteous instead.

...And that gives us the obligation to. Don't you think?

Satan can lead a rebellion by pretending to be good and appealing to the selfish desires of others. He is not interested in love (because love is the very antithesis of what he is) but he knows its power and goes for the closest thing, infatuation. Satan can inspire infatuation and awe by his power, intelligence and beauty and like any cult leader, this leads to loyalty beyond reason which is good enough for him.

In that case you're saying that if there was some great follower of the Devil's, who could help the Devil's cause beyond measure, and this follower was about to die and Satan endured some great risk or pain to save him, well, that's just not real love. You'd be in a pinch there, because while this is certainly not unconditional love, this is also how God behaves, helping those who help him and hurting those who hurt him.

You're faced with saying at this point, well, God actually loves everybody anyway despite his behaviour toward them and the Devil doesn't really love the person he took great pains to save. It disconnects love almost entirely from any act one might ever do that helps or hurts somebody and makes love almost meaningless. I say almost because you still have God's ultimate goal being people saved, and the Devil's goal being antithetical to that - he wants people to not be saved.

[JehovahsWitness]

Evil is the total lack of goodness not the total lack of intelligence. It would indeed be counterproductive to be cruel to those you want on your side, so he isnt; at least while it suits his purpose not to be.

That's my point. The Devil cannot always be cruel.

I disagree; he can always be cruel, he just doesnt always have to appear to be cruel. A pedophile can give a child you candy or help it with its homework, but if the act is in preparation for a rape it is cruel, it ks not a good act its a lying, manipulative act.