Christianity, Pagan religions and God - Page 2

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by Grace and Granola

Even if you, as the parent, were PERFECT in your parenting, it does not eliminate the free will of your children. They will choose their own way. Who knows, the kid who rebelled completely might get sick as an adult and turn back to their parents' way or not. Free will.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Free will.

God made himself known to man in the beginning, but he also gave them free will. If God had continued to make himself known beyond a shadow of a doubt, then there would be no free will, so people absolutely must have the ability to 'shine on and forget' their creator no matter if there is an oral tradition or not.

God did not create people just to be worshiped by them - there was no point in giving us free will if that is our only purpose.

[Thao]

After "the fall" of man, even though they knew the truth about God and had once walked with Him, earthly desires started to pull their focus away from God. Not unlike in today's culture where even the most devoted christian can lose their focus because of earthly obligations. People began to think that they don't NEED God, they're fine on their own. They became self-reliant and self-involved.

Hmm, I think you are conflating modern-day secularism with ancient times and it doesn't work. The ancient world was highly religious, just not monotheistic. They most certainly did believe they needed God, but the God they worshipped was not Yahweh.

[Shami]

Did a little more reading in Genesis 11

Immediately after the account of the Tower of Babel where the people, who had one language, decided to build a city and a tower to reach the heavens, there is a genealogy leading up to Abram (Abraham).
Then God appears to Abram and calls him out of his land to leave his relatives and go to the land of Canaan. Abram's land was the Ur of Chaldeans, which was a land of idols. God had confounded the language, which caused confusion. Over the centuries the worshipping of idols developed, rather than the worship of the Creator.
Maybe it's this confounding of language that is the answer to why the oral traditions were lost, resulting in a misguided path of worshipping the creation rather than the creator.

[Aka mommy]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

I'm not sure how to start this, so I'll just toss it out there and hope it is understandable.

If you:

1. Are a traditional Christian that believes in the Bible ( not specifically a Biblical literalist )

2 Believe that God created Man

3 That God made himself known to Man at creation

4 That God wants to be known and worshiped ( couldn't find a better word to explain) by Man

Then how do you explain all the time and cultures that are polytheistic?

I am not so sure i fall in the class of a traditional Christian as my beliefs on this are not widely shared. But i do believe the 2nd, 3rd and 4th statements of yours. AND i also believe that each of us finds 'faith' or our moral compasses in it's own forms. That my god is my choice and anothers right to believe in nothing and anothers choice to worship various gods & godesses. While i don't worship other gods, i believe in my one God. But i dont believe there is a right and wrong religion, i believe we all are right because we all are drawn to what our core needs in the religions we choose. So the teachings of my God are not laws that hold others who don't believe in them. i am FAR from a bible literalist, needless to say. And i believe that polytheistic cultures have always existed and if you follow the bible, God put them into place himself as a way to give choices for those where Judiasm and eventually Christianity wouldn't be the right fit. Another form of being given 'free will'.

Clear as mud huh?

[umsami]

You know, I bet some of the Jewish Mamas might have some great knowledge on what the talmud and stuff says about Cain's wife, etc. The stories seem to answer some of those questions that come up...

I'll see if I can find anything online... but hopefully, some of the Jewish Mamas might chime in.

[Arduinna]

I appreciate the posts, just wanted to stop in an say I'm distracted with some other stuff right now but will try and catch up ASAP.

[mamabadger]

Regarding Cain's wife, every interpretation I have seen has assumed Cain married one of his sisters. All the early generations did so, since incest was not forbidden by God until later.

Originally Posted by Arduinna

1 those people forgot the God of creation ( I can't think of a plausible reason that a culture so dependent on oral tradition could forget )

2 They forsake God ( But there are no oral traditions of that in any of the cultures I've studied, and they wouldn't just pretend it never happened)

I doubt any group of people would openly say, "we forsook God" or include turning from the true God as part of their acknowledged history. People would move away from God and begin to (as Shami said) worship the creation rather than the Creator. Soon this would seem normal and familiar to them.
If the Israelites had gone ahead with their worship of the golden calf and become idolators, they would not have later described it as "the time we rejected the True God and became idolators." More likely they would have absorbed God into their pantheon in some form, and forgotten their original allegiance to Him.
I think this is quite plausible for a culture with an oral tradition, since even cultures with a written tradition and clear historical records have been known to forget and rewrite their past over time.

[tinybutterfly]

Because some of us have short attention spans and are easily distracted.

Because we want to do what WE want to do.

Some of us tend to wander.

It's so easy to forget.

And even if evidence is written down or passed down orally, we can choose not to believe... we can choose to do as we please and disregard the information we have been given.

Sometimes we choose to forget or we turn away from what we were given.

We outright reject it.

Doesn't matter if it was written down or passed down orally. We reject it and find something else to believe in.

[Arduinna]

I was talking with dh and think my main issue is that I just don't want to think that my non Christian ancestors were deluded or corrupted or whatever the right word would be.

[cappuccinosmom]

I was talking with dh and think my main issue is that I just don't want to think that my non Christian ancestors were deluded or corrupted or whatever the right word would be.

Perhaps it depends on belief, but that idea doesn't bother me because I believe our natural state is corrupt. IOW, we're all born into the tendency to sin. Christians as much as non-Christians. We believe that this sin separates us from God and Jesus' righteousness is what brings us into relationship with him.

His blood was shed for all mankind. How exactly that works is God's business, and I think it's been addressed in the other thread. But I don't have to believe I'm "better" than my ancestors to believe that Jesus is the Truth that was revealed on God's timetable and according to his will.

[PlayaMama]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

I was talking with dh and think my main issue is that I just don't want to think that my non Christian ancestors were deluded or corrupted or whatever the right word would be.

maybe they weren't?

i can't answer your original question as i'm not a christian but i do disagree with the premises of your question, and so, i find the logical conclusion that you've drawn to be false as well.

[weliveintheforest]

I wish I had seen this thread earlier I've been studying genesis quite a bit lately, so I am really interested.

regarding Cain and his wife - for years I was a practising neo-pagan and I liked the idea that I was one of the daughters of men, or the people from the other land. It wasn't until recently that I learned there are hundreds of years to account for before Cain found his wife, and since they were physically perfect, it is likely they had a child every 2-3 years in that time, and then those children would do the same, creating a lot of people.

I read something about the sun worship beginning with using astronomy. I can't remember where - maybe Too Long in The Sun... anyway, combined with what else has been said, I don't find it hard to believe that people's idea of God would change to fit their needs.

[Arduinna]

Since this got bumped back up recently I'll update. After I started this thread I was thinking more which lead to this thread in Spirituality

Long story short, this isn't an issue for me anymore.