Figuring Out Religion

[Libertarian666]

The way I always handled this when I was a believer is to argue that whatever God does is by definition not evil and that our interpretation of good and evil was but a pitiful attempt at understanding the concept whereas he has mastery of it. Therefore, it's irrelevant if we consider whatever he does as evil. We are are wrong because whatever he does is right automatically.

That's sort of a Richard Nixon approach to righteousness.  What is right is determined by reference to whatever he actually does.

I can just see a cult forming on that basis... 

[Kshartle]

The way I always handled this when I was a believer is to argue that whatever God does is by definition not evil and that our interpretation of good and evil was but a pitiful attempt at understanding the concept whereas he has mastery of it. Therefore, it's irrelevant if we consider whatever he does as evil. We are are wrong because whatever he does is right automatically.

That's sort of a Richard Nixon approach to righteousness.  What is right is determined by reference to whatever he actually does.

The president can bomb whoever he wants. Didn't you know the war powers act was like the law of gravity!

Again though.....if it's God we're talking about (not Nixon) then pretty much it HAS to be right.

[MediumTex]

Hey moda,

Can you turn it down about one notch please?

You are attributing very very negative traits to God for the purpose of showing how he must not exist, but for someone who is certain that he DOES exist, it might come across in a way that would make it impossible to have a reasonable discussion about religion.

[Kshartle]

Did you guys see "The kingdom of Heaven" - love this movie.

I referenced this before......Jerusalem was full of dead bodies from the Seige of Saladin and they had to burn them. The head priest said no because supposedly the dead couldn't be resurected....

The main character grabbed the torch and said "if we don't burn them we'll all be dead in three days. God will understand, and if he does not....then he is not God and we need not worry".

Ok you should all see this movie, so freaking good (imo).

[Mountaineer]

Yeah, I think I'm with moda here. If God is all-powerful, then anything he does isn't actually very impressive since it should be effortless. Perhaps we should be grateful for any given act of God because we like its effects, but as an all-powerful being, nothing God does should really impress us based on its complexity or difficulty, right? I mean, it would be like being impressed by a computer's ability to rapidly multiple large decimal numbers together. That's just what it does.

Does this make sense?

Why would one ever want a God that wasn't all powerful?  They you would always be wondering if a "Bigger God" was going to come along? 

It's not about what we want... it's about the truth.  Maybe we've stumbled across something here... when God "found you," were you in a position where you may have "wanted" something to believe in?  Perhaps one that said "all you have to do is believe in me, and you'll spend eternity in heaven?"

Why would he care so much about little old me?  But he did.

Was he worried about you when he created you, and billions more like you, and set up a place of eternal misery for anyone who HE didn't choose to find?

If you're right, God brought all of us into this earth, only to force many of us to suffer for an eternity.

That is f*cking INFINITY.  FOREVER!  BEING TORTURED IN HELL!  (I'm not yelling, just trying to exclaim my point)

He was all-powerful, and therefore set up the rules for other forms of power, positive-or-negative, and therefore he is fully responsible for hell... He can't just say "woah that's not on me... that's on you."  HE made the place, and the rules that dictate whether we go there or not.



PS,

Perhaps, by doing something, God MAKES it good. If morality is something handed to us by the rules of our creator (since we haven't been able to really define it yet haha), then anything he does is just "good."  Which, once again, makes him even more unimpressive as an entity. Not only is he all-powerful and all-knowing, but anything he does is just de facto Good instead of Evil.

MAY I PLEASE, HUMBLY, KINDLY SUGGEST YOU READ THE THREE CREEDS I POSTED QUITE A WAYS BACK AND GET A GRASP ON WHAT THEY MEAN ALONG WITH SOME MY EARLIER POSTS.  I AM TRYING TO DO MY BEST ON RESPONDING, BUT I CAN FEEL YOUR EMOTION COMING THROUGH BY THE VOLUME OF YOUR STATEMENTS INTERSPERSED WITH QUESTIONS MANY OF WHICH I'VE ALREADY GIVEN MY PERSPECTIVE ON.  COULD YOU PLEASE ASK ME ONE OR TWO QUESTIONS THAT ARE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU - IT WOULD HELP ME ANSWER.  OR, IF YOU JUST WANT TO VENT, LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU ARE DONE AND I WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS.  I REALLY MEAN THIS POLITELY - PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE.

[Mountaineer]

I have a few questions for the atheists, agnostics and semi-believers, in order of my priority.

Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion? 

What led you to that way of thinking?

How do you explain why death happens?

What do you think happens when you die?

What or who created the universe?

Do you think there is an absolute right and wrong?  If so, what is the basis for that?

For the evolutionists - Why have no "transitional" species been found?

Thanks,  ... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

The reason why I like "I don't know" as an answer to theological questions is because it preserves the mystery and absolves the religion of trying to create a scientifically valid or logically consistent statement. Once you claim to have answers, you get into the realm where those answers can be tested, either scientifically or logically. And to be honest, a lot of the answers I'm getting don't seem like they logically hold up.

..Really basic things like God's omniscience and omnipotence. A being that can do anything and knows the future is a being whose actions take on a very different tone from a more limited god like the ones the ancient Greeks believed in, or the spirits and ancestors worshiped by many in this world. Such a being is more like a master of the entire universe, and ultimately, everything that happens has to be on him because he's the one who set things up that way and declined to change it if he didn't like it. If we have free will, that implies that he gave us free will and is okay with us continuing to have it, and is willing to let us be tortured for all eternity in the system he's set up where that's an option if you don't do another thing that he lets you do.

I almost wish there was more uncertainty or mystery here. It would open things up more for personal interpretation which can't be proven right or wrong like a lot of the declarative statements I've heard in this thread that don't seem to jibe with other ones.

Perhaps this is a product of our more rational age, and Christianity has internalized the notion that everything is explainable and understandable. This would be a real shame, because to me, religion seems to be at its weakest when it's trying to offer answers to questions that can easily be answered through observation, science, or logic, because it ensures that there will be a contradiction between the religious answer and the non-religious answer.

[Kshartle]

I'll take a crack at these best as possible tomorrow after a good night's sleep and I'll try not to cope out with "i dont' know" as much as possible. "I don't know is legitimate but.......having an idea of some of these is kind of a good thing".

I suspect my answers will sound laughably bizarre to just about everyone.


Edit* Whooops...didn't mean to say you were coping out PS

I wrote that at the same time. 

[Pointedstick]

Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion?

I have an attraction to the communities that spring up around religions but my mind has a very difficult time with things that I don't feel that can't be observed, tested, or logically deduced. Whenever I try to join a religious community, I am never able to get past the religion itself which just seems so silly. And try as I might, I have never been able to feel any of the things that believers are able to. I've never heard the word of God even when I felt like I was listening. I've never felt the Holy Spirit. Its like I'm spiritually null or something.

What led you to that way of thinking?

Nothing, really. It's just the way I've always been. In fact, as I've mentioned before, I've actually tried to fight against my mental tendencies and become religious, but it's never really worked. I feel like I must be missing something because most humans have been religious.

How do you explain why death happens?

Because our cells eventually wear out or something destroys our bodies (a predator, an injury, the weather, etc).

What do you think happens when you die?

I have no idea. However, sometimes I think I might have been reincarnated. I have had numerous dreams throughout my life that were especially vivid, in which I skillfully performed a task I had never done in my own life. Later on in life when I had to perform these tasks for myself, I discovered that I was exceptionally good at these tasks without much practice and experience, and that my dream experience perfectly matched what the task was like in the real world. Many of these tasks have been martial in nature.

I have also had many other people tell me that I must have been a general or a warlord in a past life. For some reason, that's just something people seem to say to me. It happens with curious frequency.

But even though I think this would be pretty cool, I don't know I really believe it. I obviously can't prove it, and even if I did believe it, I'm not sure how it would really help me or change anything about the way I live my life. So it's not something I really think about all that often.

What or who created the universe?

I have no idea.

Do you think there is an absolute right and wrong?  If so, what is the basis for that?

No.

For the evolutionists - Why have no "transitional" species been found?

I have no idea. I don't actually think about the biological origin of life and species that much.

[MediumTex]

Gosso, I'm really enjoying your posts in this discussion.

God has revealed himself primarily through Jesus Christ.  To be quite honest I'm skeptical of most claims of miracles, even those performed by Jesus in the Gospels since I can see how these could be metaphorical.  But the one miracle that all of Christianity rests upon and needs to be accepted if one is to receive the deeper meaning of Christ, is the Resurrection.  Without this then I agree that Christianity is a manufactured religion and might result in some happy feelings and possibly thoughts of being unworthy of God.  I think the most important question one must answer in life is "Did God raise Jesus from the dead?"

I realize this is not easy to accept, and is likely impossible for most people, especially highly intelligent people. 

Why hasn't God given us a clearer sign?  Why doesn't he give us all a vision and tell us that he truly exists?  I don't know.  My hunch is the reason is similar to the difference between an arranged marriage and a marriage based on love.  God wants us to love Him, not simply follow Him because we have to.  Blaise Pascal said that irrefutable proof would only satisfy the mind and weaken the will.  That is not what God wants.

Keep in mind that there were several other Jews claiming to be the Messiah around Jesus' time.  But all these men were put to death and their disciples gave up or attempted to find a new Messiah that would free the Jews from Roman rule.  Remember that the prophesies claimed the Messiah would conquer the gentiles.  How can a Messiah do that when he is dead?

We need to explain the explosion of Christianity after the death of Jesus.  What would cause this?  A nice guy with some good moral teachings?  I doubt it.  Was a legend of Jesus manufactured?  I doubt it since it would be difficult for his followers to keep this secret, especially when being stoned, jailed, and killed.  Was Jesus only in a coma or unconscious when taken down from the cross?  I doubt it since we are dealing with professional executioners. 

Also look at Paul's letters, they are all about the resurrection of Jesus and how this changes everything.  Paul almost never mentions the moral teachings of Jesus, since that is not what was driving the early Christians.

It seems possible, but not entirely provable, that the cause of the explosion of Christianity was the literal resurrection of Jesus.  It still requires faith to accept, but it is not a blind leap of faith, there is reason involved in the process.  Don't just brush this problem away; the least you can do is look at the evidence and then decide.

I'll stop blabbering and for those interested in this question then I suggest they start with this slightly over produced but simple YouTube documentary from NT Wright (50 minutes).

Here are a couple lectures given by NT Wright on this topic:
- "Can a Scientist Believe the Resurrection?" (80 minutes)
- "Did Jesus really rise from the Dead?" (100 minutes)

To be honest I am still working through this problem myself.  A large part of me wants to write it off as a trick or conspiracy theory, but it seems so bizarre that this strange religion would take off the way it did and still remain so strong today.

What proof is there that the resurrection occurred?  I'm not saying that it didn't; I'm just saying that I would hate to have to prove it to anyone.

The stories about Jesus's life were written decades after he died.  It makes no sense to me that if a dude was murdered by the government and after they buried him he dug himself up and spent a few days or weeks walking around (or flying around) telling everyone to cheer up, would it really take 30-40 years for anyone to write anything down about it? 

How about the Romans?  Wouldn't you think they would have recorded something as unusual as an executed criminal who dug himself up after being executed and kept spreading anti-Roman propaganda?  Wouldn't the Romans have wanted to get that message out to the rest of the Roman Empire, if for no other reason than to improve the quality of their execution methods?

How would you like to be the executioner in a situation where the guy you executed was seen walking around glowing and telling everyone to cheer up and that the Romans still sucked?

[Pointedstick]

God's sacrifice was sending his son to take on the world's sin and die in our place.  The magnitude of that sacrifice was huge, considering the pile of sin this world has experienced.

I'm not following. If God is all-powerful, then the magnitude of the global sin doesn't really have much bearing, right? And furthermore, couldn't the all-powerful God create an infinite number of sons with no effort at all if He really wanted to?

No, I think it makes sense that an all-powerful God can take sin seriously and demand payment for it.

Remember, if God is all-powerful, then he either created sin, or consciously allowed it to continue existing. The fact that he could "demand payment" for sin would be a choice among others, including not letting human being commit sin in the first place, destroying sin, or unconditionally forgiving all sins forever. These are all options available to him if he has the power to remake the universe at will.

The fact that God has left the world as it is implies to me that he likes it this way. Which gets me back to moda's point that it's sort of disturbing that he lets all these awful things happen within the system he himself set up with full knowledge that it would happen (because he's omniscient, remember). He must have known that an awful lot of people would, for some reason or another, not become Christians and therefore go to hell forever.

[Pointedstick]

I understand what you're saying, but I still think we can find beings or things very impressive.  A tornado, like the one in Twister that sent all the cows flying through the air, that's still impressive, even though that's just what tornadoes do.

That does make sense to me, yeah.

[Mountaineer]

Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion?

I have an attraction to the communities that spring up around religions but my mind has a very difficult time with things that I don't feel that can't be observed, tested, or logically deduced. Whenever I try to join a religious community, I am never able to get past the religion itself which just seems so silly. And try as I might, I have never been able to feel any of the things that believers are able to. I've never heard the word of God even when I felt like I was listening. I've never felt the Holy Spirit. Its like I'm spiritually null or something.

What led you to that way of thinking?

Nothing, really. It's just the way I've always been. In fact, as I've mentioned before, I've actually tried to fight against my mental tendencies and become religious, but it's never really worked. I feel like I must be missing something because most humans have been religious.

How do you explain why death happens?

Because our cells eventually wear out or something destroys our bodies (a predator, an injury, the weather, etc).

What do you think happens when you die?

I have no idea. However, sometimes I think I might have been reincarnated. I have had numerous dreams throughout my life that were especially vivid, in which I skillfully performed a task I had never done in my own life. Later on in life when I had to perform these tasks for myself, I discovered that I was exceptionally good at these tasks without much practice and experience, and that my dream experience perfectly matched what the task was like in the real world. Many of these tasks have been martial in nature.

I have also had many other people tell me that I must have been a general or a warlord in a past life. For some reason, that's just something people seem to say to me. It happens with curious frequency.

But even though I think this would be pretty cool, I don't know I really believe it. I obviously can't prove it, and even if I did believe it, I'm not sure how it would really help me or change anything about the way I live my life. So it's not something I really think about all that often.

What or who created the universe?

I have no idea.

Do you think there is an absolute right and wrong?  If so, what is the basis for that?

No.

For the evolutionists - Why have no "transitional" species been found?

I have no idea. I don't actually think about the biological origin of life and species that much.

PS, rejoice!  You are one normal Dude with normal questions and fears and wonderings.  As a prize, if you will message me your address, I offer to send you a copy of a book I think you might enjoy, on my dime of course.  I will order from Amazon and have it shipped directly to you.  I expect nothing in return, just a hope you will read it.  It is an easy read, no thousand pager.    I'd tell you the title but you like the mysterious. 

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

Did you guys see "The kingdom of Heaven" - love this movie.

I referenced this before......Jerusalem was full of dead bodies from the Seige of Saladin and they had to burn them. The head priest said no because supposedly the dead couldn't be resurected....

The main character grabbed the torch and said "if we don't burn them we'll all be dead in three days. God will understand, and if he does not....then he is not God and we need not worry".

Ok you should all see this movie, so freaking good (imo).

I agree, it's a great movie.

I've got it on DVR. I'm going to put the last 30 min on right now. Saladin is a beast.

[MediumTex]

I'm not following. If God is all-powerful, then the magnitude of the global sin doesn't really have much bearing, right? And furthermore, couldn't the all-powerful God create an infinite number of sons with no effort at all if He really wanted to?

No, I think it makes sense that an all-powerful God can take sin seriously and demand payment for it.

What if I got a puppy and told him through a series of signs and puppy messages that I took peeing on the floor very seriously and that the "wages of pee is death" and that the puppy would suffer unimaginably if he failed to heed my warnings about peeing on the floor?

What if I had the ability to make the puppy suffer for all of eternity and I told the puppy that I intended to do it if he peed on the floor once he knew that he wasn't supposed to?  Would that be a very impressive thing for me to do?  Would that make me seem all-powerful? 

What if I sent another puppy to my back yard and when the first puppy failed to stop peeing on the floor even after the new puppy showed him where he should be peeing I decided to kill the new puppy and tell the first puppy that since he failed to heed my warnings against peeing on the floor, it was necessary to kill the new puppy, and that it was only the blood of the new puppy that kept the first puppy from spending eternity in Puppy Hell.  Would that be an impressive thing for me to do?  Would it seem righteous?

How do you think the animal rights people would respond if I told them in a booming voice "Blood atonement was necessary for the urine stains on my floor!" as the basis for the execution of the new puppy who was basically a perfect and flawless puppy.

[Pointedstick]

The funny thing is that I think I would readily accept it if anyone said, "Look, you should believe in God and that his son Jesus died to save you from eternal damnation, because God is one wrathful dude and he made a big nasty pit of fire and torture where you'll go forever if you don't believe in his son, who he's kind of sensitive about. I mean, go read the Bible. He curses people, forces them to kill their family members, afflicts them with plagues, even drowns whole civilizations. He's the boss of everything, and when he says jump, you'd better say, 'how high?' if you want to avoid him doing something really nasty to you."

This version of God is fairly consistent with the fickle and dangerous God who likes meddling in mortal affairs and picking winners that I read about and hear people talking about in many contexts, but I have difficulty reconciling him with the loving, caring God that I also hear about in other contexts.

[MediumTex]

He could have created a whole world of Stepford Wives, but he chose to create real "wives," even though we drive him nuts and bitch at him a lot.

And when he gets fed up with our insubordination and disobedience he just sends us to Hell for eternity, right?

Is that an effective method for dealing with the quirks and insecurities of "real wives"?

It sounds sort of like that song "I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Kill Her."

[Mountaineer]

I'm not following. If God is all-powerful, then the magnitude of the global sin doesn't really have much bearing, right? And furthermore, couldn't the all-powerful God create an infinite number of sons with no effort at all if He really wanted to?

No, I think it makes sense that an all-powerful God can take sin seriously and demand payment for it.

What if I got a puppy and told him through a series of signs and puppy messages that I took peeing on the floor very seriously and that the "wages of pee is death" and that the puppy would suffer unimaginably if he failed to heed my warnings about peeing on the floor?

DID THE PUPPY UNDERSTAND THAT IF HE LOOKED UP AT YOU WITH BIG BROWN EYES AND A SORROWFUL HEART AND SAID, I'M SORRY, I'LL TRY NOT TO DO THAT AGAIN, PLEASE FORGIVE ME. THAT YOU WOULD HAVE MERCY?

What if I had the ability to make the puppy suffer for all of eternity and I told the puppy that I intended to do it if he peed on the floor once he knew that he wasn't supposed to?  Would that be a very impressive thing for me to do?  Would that make me seem all-powerful? 

DO YOU MEAN IF YOU HAD THE ABILITY TO LET THE PUPPY CHOOSE SUFFERING AND NOT TO ASK YOU FOR FORGIVENESS AND YOU LET HIM CHOOSE HIS OWN PATH OF DEATH?

What if I sent another puppy to my back yard and when the first puppy failed to stop peeing on the floor even after the new puppy showed him where he should be peeing I decided to kill the new puppy and tell the first puppy that since he failed to heed my warnings against peeing on the floor, it was necessary to kill the new puppy, and that it was only the blood of the new puppy that kept the first puppy from spending eternity in Puppy Hell.  Would that be an impressive thing for me to do?  Would it seem righteous?

DO YOU MEAN YOU WOULD NOT WANT YOUR PUPPY TO OFFER ALL FUTURE PUPPIES TO GET A FREE PASS ON PEEING, ESPECIALLY IF YOU KNEW YOUR PUPPY WOULD BE OK IN THE END AND SIT AT YOUR RIGHT SIDE IN PUPPY GLORY AND HEAVEN?

How do you think the animal rights people would respond if I told them in a booming voice "Blood atonement was necessary for the urine stains on my floor!" as the basis for the execution of the new puppy who was basically a perfect and flawless puppy.

DO YOU MEAN THOSE MEAN OLD PUPPY POLICE WOULD BE MAD AT THE PUPPY FOR OFFERING SALVATION FOR ALL FUTURE PUPPY PEEING PUPPIES?

[Libertarian666]

The only explanation of God, the universe, and everything that actually makes sense to me is the one in "Conversations with God" by Neale Walsch.
I don't think very many Christians would be happy with it, though.

[Xan]

http://huiothesian.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... of-hearts/

Somebody asked [Martin Luther], “Is the hardening of the heart in the Scriptures to be taken literally or figuratively?”? [cf. Rom. 9:18]

The doctor replied, “Literally, but not actively, because God doesn’t do anything that’s bad. Yet his omnipotence does everything, and as he finds man, so he acts on him. Pharaoh was by nature wicked; God acted on him, and Pharaoh continued to be wicked. His heart was hardened because God didn’t hinder Pharaoh’s ungodly plans by his Spirit and grace. Why God didn’t hinder them is not for us to ask.

This ‘why’ destroys many souls when they search after that which is too high for us. God says, ‘Why I am doing this you do not know, but ponder my Word, believe in Christ, pray, and I will make everything turn out well.’ If God should be asked at the last judgment, ‘Why did you permit Adam to fall?’ and he answered, ‘In order that my goodness toward the human race might be understood when I gave my Son for man’s salvation,’ we would say, ‘Let the whole human race fall again in order that thy glory may become known! Because thou hast accomplished so much through Adam’s fall we do not understand thy ways.’

There's an awful lot of "searching after that which is too high for us" on this thread.  Certainly it's an interesting discussion, but when we get to the point where we're passing judgment on God, we're setting ourselves up to be God.  And that, really, is the original sin.  We want to be God.  Coming to terms with not being God is not so easy to do, and in fact our "old flesh" will continue to rebel against it until we die.

He will find those who are His.  His sheep know His voice.

[moda0306]

Sorry for being a bit raw.

I don't mean to be disrespectful.

[MediumTex]

To me, when you take a close look at the New Testament and really think about it, it seems like it was clearly intended as a way of pulling a Roman/Greek population toward principles of Judaism by throwing in enough religious elements that the Roman/Greek world would expect to see in religion--e.g., immortality, miracles, and a God who takes a personal interest in each individual life.

Contrast the elements above to the Jewish God that was in place before Jesus's ministry where he basically just told the Jewish people how stupid they were, supervised battles and picked the winners, and allowed soap opera-like storylines to unfold into which he would intervene from time to time to tweak the story arc.

The New Testament God really doesn't resemble the Old Testament God in any way to me.

I don't recall even one story in the New Testatement where God killed a whole bunch of people at one time, other than perhaps in Revelation where God kills almost the whole world (again).  Lest we think that this sequel to Noah and The Ark and mass human drowning will be dull, however, the mass human killing in Revelation will be with war, disease and starvation...and get this...next time all of the animals are going to die too!  Noah might even have a cameo as an old drunk party barge captain whose boat is mysteriously well-stocked with MREs, a chest full of Tamiflu, a 12 gauge shotgun, and several bandoliers filled with "zombie shredder" slugs.

[Mountaineer]

Sorry for being a bit raw.

I don't mean to be disrespectful.

From my perspective, I did not take your comments as disrespectful - just expressing frustration - and I've done that many times myself.  So, if you were apologizing to me, I forgive you.  And, I think God is a very big God and can handle absolutely anything you could possibly say and forgive you.  And, since I'm sure God can read all of our electronic messages, just as the NSA does, he already knows you apologized.    Of course, watch out, because Satan is now dreaming up the next method he will use to attack you.

[MediumTex]

There's an awful lot of "searching after that which is too high for us" on this thread.  Certainly it's an interesting discussion, but when we get to the point where we're passing judgment on God, we're setting ourselves up to be God.  And that, really, is the original sin.  We want to be God.  Coming to terms with not being God is not so easy to do, and in fact our "old flesh" will continue to rebel against it until we die.

But it seems like all you can say for sure is that it's too high for you, right? 

If the whole framework for believing something is being evaluated, then it seems like it would be fair to question everything, especially if we're talking about our fate for all of eternity and the idea that it hinges on me building my life around the ideas in some books that someone else wrote who said that God inspired them to do it.

The mere fact that someone says that God told them to write a book is not something I put much weight in if the book does not otherwise strike me as truth. 

I think that part of the way people are talking past one another in this thread involves the burden of proof when it comes to God and religion.

A religious person might say that the believer in another faith, an agnostic or an atheist has the burden of proof to show that the religious person's religion is not the one true religion.  The atheist, however, might say that no, the religious person is the one who has the burden of proof to show that anything he believes is true, since it's the religious person who is making the claims regarding supernatural events, powers and instructions from a deity who can't be observed or detected in any way by most people.

[Mountaineer]

To me, when you take a close look at the New Testament and really think about it, it seems like it was clearly intended as a way of pulling a Roman/Greek population toward principles of Judaism by throwing in enough religious elements that the Roman/Greek world would expect to see in religion--e.g., immortality, miracles, and a God who takes a personal interest in each individual life.

Contrast the elements above to the Jewish God that was in place before Jesus's ministry where he basically just told the Jewish people how stupid they were, supervised battles and picked the winners, and allowed soap opera-like storylines to unfold into which he would intervene from time to time to tweak the story arc.

The New Testament God really doesn't resemble the Old Testament God in any way to me.

I don't recall even one story in the New Testatement where God killed a whole bunch of people at one time, other than perhaps in Revelation where God kills almost the whole world (again).  Lest we think that this sequel to Noah and The Ark and mass human drowning will be dull, however, the mass human killing in Revelation will be with war, disease and starvation...and get this...next time all of the animals are going to die too!  Noah might even have a cameo as an old drunk party barge captain whose boat is mysteriously well-stocked with MREs, a chest full of Tamiflu, a 12 gauge shotgun, and several bandoliers filled with "zombie shredder" slugs.

New Testament God = Old Testament God.  The triune God was in the OT from the very beginning as He is in the NT.  Read Genesis very, very carefully, it is necessary for an understanding of the entire Bible in my opinion. 

Did you ever read the Bible book "Gospel according to John" as being from John's perspective as a man, and "Revelation" being about a similar story from God's perspective - the story being the defeat of evil and death?  In Revelation, John was just trying to describe the indescriable as God told him to write it.  I find apocalyptic literature (Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation) as being difficult to understand without a lot of prior study.  The best commentary I've ever read on Revelation was by Louis Brighton.  He describes Revelation as a series of three cycles all telling the same thing, not a linear cycle as most "dispensational" Christians would think about it.  Sort of like the Verizon Wireless version of God trying to get through to us:  Can you hear me now?  Can you HEAR me NOW?  CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?