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blitzkrieg
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10 Dec 2021, 11:30 pm

I am a polytheist - I believe that there are many Gods with superpowers, but I believe the Christian God is the most powerful of them all, based on my lived experience.



ToughDiamond
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11 Dec 2021, 12:44 am

cyberdad wrote:

More like attribute everything to a higher power.

The ancient Greeks attributed lighting to Zeus but modern people stay say lightning damage to your home is an "act of god" :lol:

Indeed, I once read that the ancient Greek gods saw mortals as pets or playthings, but it seems to me that the main current religions have adopted a tendency to think their deities are more concerned with morality, rewarding and punishing for behaviour that often mirrors something very like a human sense of right and wrong. It's almost as if just being a decent person would be enough to earn a ticket to the good place, though the somewhat thorny criterion of "believing" is also given a lot of weight in scripture.



apex116
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11 Dec 2021, 10:29 am

And can not see similarity with "Zeus" and the Christian "God" in perhaps the same way we see "Allah".

Why is it we call "Zeus" mythical?



funeralxempire
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11 Dec 2021, 10:39 am

apex116 wrote:
And can not see similarity with "Zeus" and the Christian "God" in perhaps the same way we see "Allah".

Why is it we call "Zeus" mythical?


Not enough believers are left to offend.

Monotheists are hypocrites, they know all other gods are false but refuse to apply the same logic to theirs.


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Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


apex116
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11 Dec 2021, 2:53 pm

I really like this post as irrespective of denomination, you are all true followers of Christ in my view.



cyberdad
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11 Dec 2021, 8:36 pm

blitzkrieg wrote:
I am a polytheist - I believe that there are many Gods with superpowers, but I believe the Christian God is the most powerful of them all, based on my lived experience.


Ancient people believed in many deities and spirits. Monotheism in the last 2000 years is a form of authoritarianism subjected by those in power.

The only reason Christianity and islam are so global is because it became a state religions and was forced onto the people from the top-down.



ToughDiamond
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12 Dec 2021, 2:02 am

Strangely enough, one of the explanations I saw for the growth of Christianity was that people felt let down by the Roman religion because it failed to deliver its promise of rewarding proper attention to the gods within the individual's lifetime, while Christianity allowed them to pin their hopes more on building up a nice afterlife, which can't be proved futile or successful. But it was only a theory, and I don't doubt that leaders ever since Constantine had a strong bearing on the matter. Atheists are still often viewed with suspicion and disdain in rural parts of the world.



cyberdad
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12 Dec 2021, 2:20 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Strangely enough, one of the explanations I saw for the growth of Christianity was that people felt let down by the Roman religion because it failed to deliver its promise of rewarding proper attention to the gods within the individual's lifetime, while Christianity allowed them to pin their hopes more on building up a nice afterlife, which can't be proved futile or successful. But it was only a theory, and I don't doubt that leaders ever since Constantine had a strong bearing on the matter. Atheists are still often viewed with suspicion and disdain in rural parts of the world.


The only reason christianity became widespread to start off with was because of Emperor Constantine. Otherwise it would have remained an obscure jewish cult.



ToughDiamond
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12 Dec 2021, 7:11 pm

I think the problem here is that so much of it is a matter of opinion, and little or nothing can be proved. There are some who think history is about the actions of "great men" or leaders, others think it's more led by the grass roots. Quite what we'd need to do to find out for sure, I don't know.



kraftiekortie
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12 Dec 2021, 7:35 pm

I feel like grass roots tend to work better than monolithic government these days.

Though I do believe in the idea of a benevolent government overseeing, not interfering often, but playing a role when needed.



cyberdad
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12 Dec 2021, 10:49 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I think the problem here is that so much of it is a matter of opinion, and little or nothing can be proved. There are some who think history is about the actions of "great men" or leaders, others think it's more led by the grass roots. Quite what we'd need to do to find out for sure, I don't know.


A mix of all the above