Old Testament God Vs. New Testament God

[Becks]

Hey not sure if I have the right forum for this but thought I'd try. Please direct me elsewhere for future reference.

 

I am just now realizing I can call myself an athiest. I kind of always thought of it as a "religion" and I stepped away from all religions a long time ago so wasn't too interested in finding out what it meant. I thought athiests where just angry people. ha! . Actually, when I decided I wasn't a Christian many years ago, I kind of just stopped thinking about Christianity and the bible etc. Except for the occasional disturbing dream/nighmare, which I talked about in a different thread, I pretty much ignored religion. Since I joined this site all kinds of tumultuous thoughts and feelings have been coming up to deal with. Guess that's why I was having those dreams! I have a lot of questions. I think I need to get things worked out!

 

I was just now reading in the Lion's Den a long thread initiated by a Christian. I first was surprised, being a new member, that Christians can or even want to get on here to debate.  Reading the athiest's responses brought to mind something I'd like to get your thoughts on. Why do athiests associate the christian god with the wrathful god in the old testament? Wasn't he Yahweh- the Hebrew god and yes, supposedly the father of Jesus, and yes, he was a monster. But I thought that in the new testament, Jesus came to take god's wrath away and bring peace and love. It almost seems there are two different god's here. I was a serious student of the bible in my teens. I went to a very tiny christian school (I was one of two graduates) and in my free time I was trying to teach myself Hebrew. Even then, I thought that the god of the old testament was justified in his wrath because he was so holy. Jesus was the bridge and basically calmed him down by that horrid death to allow us to approach him now as a loving father.  

 

Straighten me out guys. I think the whole lot is assine and I can't "believe" I believed it so deeply that my whole life up to a certain point was to live in that unreality to the fullest measure. I wanted to know god and please him with everything I had in me.

 

It's really sad to realize I'm 49 and don't know who I am or what I want in life. My whole life was to get ready for the afterlife so it didn't matter what I really did here as long as I was good and following the bible's rule. whatever.

[Blood]

Acceptance of reality is not a religion. It is actually the opposite of religion. 

 

Christians have a full spectrum of equally nonsensical beliefs about Jesus's relationship with "the father" (a word only very rarely used to describe YHWH in the Old Testament). One person's opinion is as good as anyone else's; we are dealing with mythology here. It's like asking to describe the nature of the relationship between Zeus and Dionysus. Or Batman and Robin. 

 

Gnostic Christians considered YHWH a malevolent deity who accidentally created the material world. Jesus is NOT related to him AT ALL in their theology. It is not even clear that some New Testament writers were referring to YHWH when they mentioned "the Father." 

[mymistake]

Welcome to atheism.  For the most part that means you go about living your life and doing whatever makes you happy.  You don't ever need to

 

think about religion ever again.  There are a few atheist groups but you don't need to join any of them unless you like the social aspects.  

 

 

 

 

I was just now reading in the Lion's Den a long thread initiated by a Christian. I first was surprised, being a new member, that Christians can or even want to get on here to debate.  Reading the athiest's responses brought to mind something I'd like to get your thoughts on. Why do athiests associate the christian god with the wrathful god in the old testament? Wasn't he Yahweh- the Hebrew god and yes, supposedly the father of Jesus, and yes, he was a monster. But I thought that in the new testament, Jesus came to take god's wrath away and bring peace and love. It almost seems there are two different god's here. I was a serious student of the bible in my teens. I went to a very tiny christian school (I was one of two graduates) and in my free time I was trying to teach myself Hebrew. Even then, I thought that the god of the old testament was justified in his wrath because he was so holy. Jesus was the bridge and basically calmed him down by that horrid death to allow us to approach him now as a loving father.  

 

 

Eh, the thing with Christianity is the doctrine of Trinity and claims that the Son and the Father are one.  It doesn't make much sense.  Christians are

 

stuck with events described in the Old Testament because the New Testament writers latched onto Hebrew mythology in order to give their new

 

religion a sense of legitimacy.  If they admit the OT is hogwash then there is no original sin so there is no need for atonement so Christ died for nothing

 

and there is no reason to be a Christian.

[duderonomy]

You can't have Jesus without Old Testament Biblegod, Becks.   Lord, liar, lunatic Jesus didn't give any one a choice. 

 

In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one".     http://biblehub.com/john/10-30.htm

 

There is no difference between the OT Biblegod and the NT Biblegod. A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Revelation will confirm that Jesus is just as all powerful and just as off balance as Jehovah. The murderous baby drowning bastards, both of Him. 

[Brother Jeff]

Sister Becks, the NT god is a murderous monster too. In Acts 5 he murders two people simply for lying to him about their finances and failing to pay up, and in Revelation he murders BILLIONS of people in horrible ways (if the events were to happen today) and then condemns them to eternal conscious torment with no hope of reprieve. 

[Becks]

Ewwww I don't like them. Thanks for setting me straight! I've been trying to convince myself that it's all mythology. I never believed in the Greek or roman gods. Eastern religions never made any sense at all. Nordic and Celtic mythology and Egyptian history fascinated me but I don't buy into the religion. Why is it so hard to break away totally? I'm convinced Christianity and the God of the bible contradicts everything that is preached about it. I no longer believe in hell or afterlife. I'm struggling to be content with the boring life in the here and now. I spent my youth being pious and now I'm too old and tired to "kick up my heels" and have fun. Im trapped in an adult world of taking care of my responsibilities yada yada. I do appreciate your help!!! Thank you and sorry for whining! I'll try not to post this stuff in this forum as it's desolved into another struggle about deconversion and I realize this is a formal debate forum. Thanks for your patience!!

[Blood]

It's hard to break away because Christians have developed highly sophisticated ideological weapons over the centuries to make it hard. If you tell them you have doubts, they say that's normal, and hand you books written by apologists designed to dispel doubts and show how rational "belief" supposedly is.

 

Churches ingratiate themselves into your life by providing cheap child care or medical services, or a hundred other useful things. 

 

People generally don't willingly choose to do something that makes their life harder. Life is hard anyway, so it's easier to just turn off your mind and go along with what everybody else is doing, which in America usually includes going to some $!%$#@ church. 

[Blood]

You can't have Jesus without Old Testament Biblegod, Becks.   Lord, liar, lunatic Jesus didn't give any one a choice. 

 

In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one".     http://biblehub.com/john/10-30.htm

 

There is no difference between the OT Biblegod and the NT Biblegod. A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Revelation will confirm that Jesus is just as all powerful and just as off balance as Jehovah. The murderous baby drowning bastards, both of Him. 

 

I'm not so sure about that. Remember that it's also in John where the Jesus character tells "the Jews" that their father is the Devil. And John is the most Gnostic of the gospels. The gnostic "father" was not YHWH but "the Great Invisible Spirit." This was also the theology of the early Christian sect called the Marcionites. 

 

You might notice that the gospels rarely if ever refer to the early chapters of Genesis. And yet the Gnostic books are always referring to Genesis. That's kind of strange. And in Paul's letters, he says somewhere that "angels" gave the Law to Moses, not YHWH. That's blasphemous to a Jew. 

 

It's all a very weird, inconsistent, incomprehensible set of theologies. 

[qadeshet]

 

You can't have Jesus without Old Testament Biblegod, Becks.   Lord, liar, lunatic Jesus didn't give any one a choice. 

 

In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one".     http://biblehub.com/john/10-30.htm

 

There is no difference between the OT Biblegod and the NT Biblegod. A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Revelation will confirm that Jesus is just as all powerful and just as off balance as Jehovah. The murderous baby drowning bastards, both of Him. 

 

I'm not so sure about that. Remember that it's also in John where the Jesus character tells "the Jews" that their father is the Devil. And John is the most Gnostic of the gospels. The gnostic "father" was not YHWH but "the Great Invisible Spirit." This was also the theology of the early Christian sect called the Marcionites. 

 

You might notice that the gospels rarely if ever refer to the early chapters of Genesis. And yet the Gnostic books are always referring to Genesis. That's kind of strange. And in Paul's letters, he says somewhere that "angels" gave the Law to Moses, not YHWH. That's blasphemous to a Jew. 

 

It's all a very weird, inconsistent, incomprehensible set of theologies. 

 

When debating Christians, I try to stick with what Christians currently believe. Trying to convince them that Yahweh was the Demiurge rather than the Most High God is unlikely. As long as Christians today believe that Jesus is the son of the OT god, that's what I'll debate. If it's not the OT god but a higher god that intends to send us to Hell for not believing, then he is the real monster.

 

What Is the Proper Name

for the Father of Jesus?

[mymistake]

 

 

When debating Christians, I try to stick with what Christians currently believe. Trying to convince them that Yahweh was the Demiurge rather than the Most High God is unlikely. As long as Christians today believe that Jesus is the son of the OT god, that's what I'll debate. If it's not the OT god but a higher god that intends to send us to Hell for not believing, then he is the real monster.

 

What Is the Proper Name

for the Father of Jesus?

 

 

 

 

That is fine if you are just having fun.  But there is no serious debating with Christians.  They reject facts or reality when it conflicts with their fantasy.

[Margee]

You can't have Jesus without Old Testament Biblegod, Becks.   Lord, liar, lunatic Jesus didn't give any one a choice. 

 

In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one".     http://biblehub.com/john/10-30.htm

 

There is no difference between the OT Biblegod and the NT Biblegod. A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Revelation will confirm that Jesus is just as all powerful and just as off balance as Jehovah. The murderous baby drowning bastards, both of Him. 

In fundamentalism, these two 'storybooks' go completely together right to the end of Revelation where jesus comes back to create the new world. The bible from Genesis to Revelation is the story of god trying to get his fucked up creation to listen to him. Thing is, we are not the fucked up ones. God fucked up when using his so called magical powers to create human beings. He simply did not know what he was doing. He should be ashamed of himself. If I had his so called powers, I (with grade 9) would have done a much better job. Such a silly story to me now......

[duderonomy]

 

You can't have Jesus without Old Testament Biblegod, Becks.   Lord, liar, lunatic Jesus didn't give any one a choice. 

 

In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one".     http://biblehub.com/john/10-30.htm

 

There is no difference between the OT Biblegod and the NT Biblegod. A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Revelation will confirm that Jesus is just as all powerful and just as off balance as Jehovah. The murderous baby drowning bastards, both of Him. 

 

I'm not so sure about that. Remember that it's also in John where the Jesus character tells "the Jews" that their father is the Devil. And John is the most Gnostic of the gospels. The gnostic "father" was not YHWH but "the Great Invisible Spirit." This was also the theology of the early Christian sect called the Marcionites. 

 

You might notice that the gospels rarely if ever refer to the early chapters of Genesis. And yet the Gnostic books are always referring to Genesis. That's kind of strange. And in Paul's letters, he says somewhere that "angels" gave the Law to Moses, not YHWH. That's blasphemous to a Jew. 

 

It's all a very weird, inconsistent, incomprehensible set of theologies. 

 

 

Strangely enough, last night I was reading about Marcion in a book by Bart Ehrman, called "Forged".  I'd never heard of that bit before (other than your post).  I also started looking into the whole El god and his kids thing too, thanks to this site.

 

Weird, inconsistent, incomprehensible set of theologies is right, Blood.