How does one determine the one true God?

[Elijah John]

How does a person determine the one, true God? Yes, assuming there is one true God, which God or version of God best qualifies, and why?

[Elijah John]

The scientific method?

Occam's razor?

Examining nature and inferring what you can of the creator?

Believe that thermodynamics is true, and no God is necessary?

Are there limits to the scientific method?

Also, who created the laws of physics and biology, including the law of thermodynamics? The great god "Chance"?

I think Occam's razor can indeed be reasonably applied to one's spiritual quest. The fewer claims, (the simpler the explanation) surrounding a given God, the more likely that God is the true one. That would seem to favor simple Deism. then absolute Monotheism. Or at least focusing on the Deity at the core of religions with more claims. A Deistic approach to Judaism or Islam, for example. Easier, than say, the Greco-Roman pantheon, since Deism, Judaism and Islam all posit one God.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 10 by JehovahsWitness]

How does that favor the Bible, more so than say, the Qur'an? Or are they both valid and two different revelations from the same God. Known to one as Jehovah, and the other as "Allah".

After all, Jehovah was once known as "El Shaddai" and "El Elyon".

And remember, Jehovah is on record as saying He would make a great nation out of the descendants of Ishmael as well as those of Isaac.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 10 by JehovahsWitness]

How does that favor the Bible, more so than say, the Qur'an?

Once one has narrowed possible written works of divine revelation by a god that accurately reflects the fundamentals of Creation one wiuld have to STUDY those books and if they do not fully harmonize settle on the one (those) that provides convincing evidence of divine inspiration.

Both the Quaran and the book of Mormon (to my understanding the only books other than the bible that claim divine inspiration) also claim to be additional scripture to the bible. They thus hold themselves up to the canon of the Hebrew and Christian scripture. If they fail to harmonize with the precedent established by the bible they disqualify themselves as being of divine origin.


JW



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Go to other posts related to...

GOD, TRUTH and ...THE BIBLE

[/quote]

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 10 by JehovahsWitness]

How does that favor the Bible, more so than say, the Qur'an? Or are they both valid and two different revelations from the same God. Known to one as Jehovah, and the other as "Allah".

After all, Jehovah was once known as "El Shaddai" and "El Elyon".

And remember, Jehovah is on record as saying He would make a great nation out of the descendants of Ishmael as well as those of Isaac.

The terms El (god) and El Shaddai (Almighy), El Elyon (Most high) are all titles. The God of Abraham consistently and frequently (about 7000 times in the Hebrew bible) identifies Himslef by his personal name YHWH (Jehovah/Yahweh).

EXODUS 3:15 NWT

“This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘Jehovah the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Gods name becomes therefore a "barometer" by which we can measure subsequent claims of divine inspiration. In short, logically, a fundamental requirement of any book that would subsequently claims to be sourced with the same God the one presented in the bible, would certainly be for that one to identify Himself as such by name in its pages .

The personal name of God does not appear a single time in the Quran.



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[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 14 by JehovahsWitness]

Or in the New Testament. Jesus alludes to it, but doesn't use it.

"Allah" is also a title. Means "THE God". The God o Abraham also known to Jews and Christians by the titles El Shaddai, El Elyon, Elohim, etc. In the Bible, and in the Qur'an, these titles are used as names.

Yes, YHVH is God's personal name forever, an eternal invocation, In spite of rabbinic prohibitions or disuse by Jesus and Paul, and their subsequent disciples. Jesus and Paul didn't use the Name either, should we conclude therefore that they worshipped a "different God"?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 15 by Elijah John]

This has been explained to you before.

Allah (im) is the same name as Elohim, only the dialect varies.
YHVH is simply a tranferrence from ancient languages that don't have vowels or a lower case into a modern language.

All words if transferred would be transferred this way, naively.

You would write the sentence above:
HL WRDS F TRNSFR'RD WHLD B' TRNSFR'RD THS WY, N'HVLH.

You are attaching mysticism to laziness and an artificial mysticism.
It isn't reverence, its showmanship.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 15 by Elijah John]

This has been explained to you before.

Allah (im) is the same name as Elohim, only the dialect varies.
YHVH is simply a tranferrence from ancient languages that don't have vowels or a lower case into a modern language.

All words if transferred would be transferred this way, naively.

You would write the sentence above:
HL WRDS F TRNSFR'RD WHLD B' TRNSFR'RD THS WY, N'HVLH.

You are attaching mysticism to laziness and an artificial mysticism.
It isn't reverence, its showmanship.

I do not dispute the fact that Allah and Elohim and it's variants are linguistically related. As are Arabic and Hebrew.

This is not to say I agree with your theory regarding the Tetragrammaton. I don't.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 14 by JehovahsWitness]

Or in the New Testament. Jesus alludes to it, but doesn't use it.

It is a provable FACT that the divine name apeared hundreds of times in the Christians Greek scriptures (and that Jesus and the Apostles are reported by said writers s having used that name ) but that some bible translaters subsequently removed that name from the bible, replacing it with titles such as LORD. Thus the Christian writers clearly met this most basic of standards of claims to convey messages from the God of Abraham

There are no claims, substantiated or otherwise, that the Divine name ever appeared even once in the Quaran.

JW




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[William]

William: Is there a One True Scotsman?

Why allow for the assumption in relation to God?

[Tart]

How does a person determine the one, true God? Yes, assuming there is one true God, which God or version of God best qualifies, and why?

This is actually a good question, my first response was a joke. but

God's are certainly all over... "Did God create man, or man create God?" is a quote i see often...

Certainly man created (some) gods, i dont think no one denies that... Is there any religion or philosophy that says all the gods in the world are true? Doesn't everyone deny some gods, that they were created by men? Like Abraham religions with Baal is an example.

Is there any philosophy were all God's are real? The only one i can think of is if, perhaps, my brain is in a vat, and all of existence around me is the design of some creator... everything... In that case, i didnt create any of the gods around me, and everything has been created... Even though i could just create a god myself... Though perhaps it would just be a concept i create, an empty word, and not a god...

Im studying ancient Greece as of now, and truly it is a foundation for knowledge in the west (and in the world). Greece is the foundations of science, philosophy, government, and perhaps religion even (the heresy Christians will see, but here me out)...

And the myths of Greece are actually credited for being the foundations of knowledge... (Or perhaps the are gods, idk)... I really believe that the Greeks fully believed in their Gods, though i question if they acknowledged them being objectively true...

And Logos, the "Word" is founded in Greece... And evolved to be the foundation of all our knowledge today, and has been accredited to being Jesus Christ as well (like in John 1)...

Like Logos, is the term where "Logic" comes from. It is literally translated as the "Word', It is where we get Biology ("bios" (life) + "logos" (Word)), Anthropology (“man,�, “word.�). Archaeology ("ancient", "word").

And in John 1 it says

1 In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word (Logos) was with God, and the Word (Logos) was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

It is just an interesting correlation...

Certainly, the Word may be God?? For what can exists without the Word? I suppose animals, and plants... But what beliefs can exist without the Word? What knowledge? What communication? Shoot, some say DNA itself is a word... If so, can anything exist without it? Is a chemical compound a word? An assortment of data? Could everything be credited as being the "Word"?...