Are all believers in God automatically idol worshipers?

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Are all believers in God automatically idol worshipers?


All believers in God are following an entity that they only know by what other people have said about that God. Few, if any, know their God from apotheosis or first-hand information.


That fact makes whoever that God is, an idol.


It must be so, as what is believed is not a known or real entity. Believers have no real or personal knowledge or experience of their God. All a believer can have is faith in whichever God they are idolizing based on what others have said.


Do you, as a believer, recognize that you are an idol worshiper?


Regards

DL
 
I think the real problem with all discussions about God, is that everyone seems to mean something different by that term.

You are very new here, and perhaps you have not yet realised that many of us (myself included) have very open minds, and are definitely not inclined to worship anything!

Indeed, why not tell us about your beliefs (and maybe experiences), rather than just asking questions - most of which don't have a simple answer.

David
 
I would assume believers do have a sense of God, which then is a personal experience?

This doesn't mean the feeling is proof - it's not. But then you could also say even mystical experiences aren't proof, no matter how deep the gnosis feels to the experiencer - see all the people who claim to have "timeless experiences".
 
In part this comes down to discussions we've had many times on these forums. The debate here has sometimes been characterised as "sceptics versus believers". In some respects, both terms can be pejorative (and sometimes rightfully so). But I would find myself labelled by others as perhaps a 'believer' whereas I myself would describe myself as a sceptic. But what's in a word? I only see that we are all on a journey, the labels we use to describe different stations on that track are hardly substantial, it is the journey, not the stations which matters.
 
Any idea of a deity has to accommodate two apparent realities. The first is the natural world, which consists of beauty - magnificent landscapes, incredible plants and animals, attractive people - and horror - deadly snakes and insects, volcanoes, floods, lightning, bad people. The second is the internal narrative centred around persistent ideas of self - What am I? What do I feel? What do I desire?

I don't see how "idolatry" has any place in this picture. Ideas of God fit the entirety of the experience authentically and accommodate it fully, or they don't. Partial or imposed notions of God (or any other metaphysic, including materialism) will lack some or all aspects of the human experience.
 
I think the real problem with all discussions about God, is that everyone seems to mean something different by that term.

You are very new here, and perhaps you have not yet realised that many of us (myself included) have very open minds, and are definitely not inclined to worship anything!

Indeed, why not tell us about your beliefs (and maybe experiences), rather than just asking questions - most of which don't have a simple answer.

David

Ok. Here is a nutshell view of what I think.

I am a Gnostic Christian, Our beliefs are not what Christianity says they are. We lost the God wars and they distorted our belief system. The lies have been known since the findings of our scriptures and myths at Nag Hammadi.

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

Gnostic Christianity is a teaching system from Jesus but not the one the church ever dares to teach. It frees us from religion and that is of course not what religions want. They never want the student to graduate as they might lose revenue and people.

Here is a bit of history as well as a nutshell version of how that freedom is gained.

Gnostic Christians are perpetual seekers after God. God here I define as the best laws and rules to live life with.

We believe that those laws and rules, as Jesus said, are found in our minds/hearts. I use the following to try to illustrate this notion. A bit of history and then a mindset and method to do what I promote.


The thinking shown below is the Gnostic Christian’s goal as taught by Jesus but know that any belief can be internalized to activate your higher mind.


This method and mind set is how you become I am and brethren to Jesus, in the esoteric sense.


When you can name your God, I am, and mean yourself, you will begin to know the only God you will ever find. Becoming a God is to become more fully human and a brethren to Jesus.

Regards
DL
 
I would assume believers do have a sense of God, which then is a personal experience?

This doesn't mean the feeling is proof - it's not. But then you could also say even mystical experiences aren't proof, no matter how deep the gnosis feels to the experiencer - see all the people who claim to have "timeless experiences".

It is all in the mind for sure.

What happens is a theist will end in idolizing the mental image he creates for himself from what he has heard from others.
Few admit to any personal experiences. Those that do, do not really believe because Jesus said any true believer could do what he did. When challenged t0o do so, the so called believer always has excuses for not doing so.

Regards
DL
 
In part this comes down to discussions we've had many times on these forums. The debate here has sometimes been characterised as "sceptics versus believers". In some respects, both terms can be pejorative (and sometimes rightfully so). But I would find myself labelled by others as perhaps a 'believer' whereas I myself would describe myself as a sceptic. But what's in a word? I only see that we are all on a journey, the labels we use to describe different stations on that track are hardly substantial, it is the journey, not the stations which matters.

Indeed but when we see a mind being lost to fantasy, delusion or the supernatural, I think it our duty to try to correct it.

That's scripture and the moral thing to do as it is doing unto others what we would want done to us.

Proverbs 3:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Regards
DL
 
Any idea of a deity has to accommodate two apparent realities. The first is the natural world, which consists of beauty - magnificent landscapes, incredible plants and animals, attractive people - and horror - deadly snakes and insects, volcanoes, floods, lightning, bad people. The second is the internal narrative centred around persistent ideas of self - What am I? What do I feel? What do I desire?

I don't see how "idolatry" has any place in this picture. Ideas of God fit the entirety of the experience authentically and accommodate it fully, or they don't. Partial or imposed notions of God (or any other metaphysic, including materialism) will lack some or all aspects of the human experience.

I agree that any worship or idolatry is a good way to end the life of a mind as, to me, a good mind will continue to seek better than whatever it finds as an ideal.

That is a Gnostic Christian way of seeking God. God here I define as the best rules and laws to live life by.

We see that as better than doing what most religions do which is idol worship what they have and not moving/evolving better laws than their archaic religions provide.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I Am,

Will you please confine your discussions to the CD part of the forum, because you seem to take materialism as axiomatic. You are welcome to discuss your ideas there, but not in the rest of the forum.

David
 
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