Other religions aware of Judeo-Christian deity?

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They way I look at it the only way you can be saved from death is if you become immortal, and we know that is impossible so I guess we all die.

Death is one of the main reasons that religion was made up is because no one knows what happens after the brain completes death.

To us there's a distinction. But philosophically speaking, from the perspective of an omnipotent deity, what we experience as life and "evil" may merely be a "simulation". That's the reason why pain and misery and death and a "savior" or the specific moralities of various religions might not ultimately be accurate. It might be that "it's all good" is an accurate description of life from the perspective of the deity if the deity views it as a simulation. Perhaps the deity's only real desire was for us to have and express free will.

Christianity was the tradition in which I was raised and therefore it is a part of me. But I've come to realize that all religions hold a piece of the Truth. I see them all as pieces of a tapestry. And the God Who Is Beyond Religion, why would He intentionally deluge us with so many conflicting ideas about Himself? Why so many religions if God is singular? That has to do, I think, with how the world is co-created by Man and God. God creates the world but so do we.

We have so many different religions and deities because the visions and stories we create are never enough. We're looking through a glass darkly and constantly trying to readjust the lens, constantly trying to penetrate the impenetrable cloud of unknowing.

All religions are correct and yet all religions are incorrect. They are all equally correct and incorrect, because they all reflect the various natures of mankind as well as the nature of God.

The lens will never be clean.

The cloud will never dissipate.

Again, you're two sentences offer a logical contradiction. If "no one knows" what happens after brain death, then we don't "know that [immortality] is impossible".

I think it will one day, at the "end of the world", which the Apostle John wrote about in Revelation.

When Christ returns? Yes, but it'll be a very stressful time what with the Final Judgement and all. Maybe we will live to see the unveiling of Antichrist, but I'm not holding my breath. The world will end when it's good and ready, as far as I'm concerned. And nobody knows the day or the hour ...

In an absolute sense they're a contradiction... but I don't think they meant in an absolute context... I think they meant "current science has no method of making people immortal, therefore since everyone expects to die religion was created to fill the void of not knowing what happens after that".

Whoa wait a sec here...
After the brain completes death... then you are d.e.a.d
Lets say your soul floats off to heaven or whatever, you are still dead. Even religion says that everyone dies and that it is the soul that live on.

This is why people say that god is in fact 'dead' because he/she isn't walking among the living, so he has to be a spirit of some kind.

The body cannot live forever. You are refering to spirits and souls, I am refering to the living, breathing body.

I think a deity (or deities) naturally have to have certain atributes to fulfil the human need.

1) Must be generally good (if there are many deities then not all have to be good, but some do). This is because the idea of a purely evil God is not attractive - who would worship something that will send them into eternal torment (or even just be bored and disinterested in their presence)? It would be possible for an individual to worship a God that favoured this person alone and condemned all others though (in fact, think this happens a lot), but such a God would have a bit of goodness in him - enough to love this one person at least. The important thing is that the God is good towards the worshipper - any further goodness is facultative (and positively detractive for some egoistic people).

2) Must be creator of everything. This fills a gap in human knowledge and suggests a motive for creation and hence for human life, which is hugely attractive to humans with their quest for meaning in their lives.

3) Must provide some sort of life after death - most of us don't want to non exist after death (although personally I'm quite happy about it (now)).

4) Will provide some type of retribution against the enemies of the believer - so the wrongs in the believer's life can be righted and the suffering of the believer throughout life is not in vain.

In these senses I am not sure that theistic religions can be discriminated - OK the details differ, but not the general principles.

Chibi_Neko, this post simply displays an ignorance of historical scholarship. The Bible has indeed been transmitted faithfully across time; it has better textual evidence behind it than any other ancient work, and the various ancient manuscripts (Dead Sea Scrolls, anyone?) are not substantially different from the modern Bible. It is not like the game whisper because the structure of that game (requiring incomprehensible whispers rather than clear, open, externally recorded communication as in written works) artificially increases the incidence of errors by orders of magnitude.


But the similarities between Horus and Jesus are greatly exaggerated.


Not really. I've tried, and I'm brighter than most.

To answer the original thread topic: if we hold Christianity to be true, it makes claims of exclusivity (Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light, and none get to the Father but through Him). A more pluralistic view could believe that Christianity is mistaken on that point and other faiths may be accepted as well, and there are even some Biblical verses that could be pulled out to support that view as well. I have read that the stance of Judaism is that because of God's mercy and grace the vast majority of humanity will be saved despite not worshiping the one true God. Muslims are split on the matter; the Koran does say that "people of the book" (meaning Jews and Christians) can also go to heaven but other verses contradict this and the attitude of many Muslims to people of other faiths demonstrate that this is not universally believed to be true.

My own stance is to plead ignorance; I am not God, and I do not pretend to possess knowledge of who or will not enter into the Kingdom. To do so, as a mere mortal, would be far overstepping my bounds.

another take on the original question of the post (the title)

Jews and Christians believe in the same God (Yahweh, or I am)

Muslims believe in the same God, but consider Jesus the last prophet before Muhammed. They're also partial to Mary (Miryam)

Hindus (some) believe that Jesus was just another aspect of Krishna (or was it Rama...I know it's one of them)

Mormons consider their founder to be the last word, but I couldn't get through about 20 pages of their book before giving up...

Not quite... Mormons have a continuing series of prophets somewhat similar to an elected president... but they believe that each prophet in their series receives direct revelation from God. (Like Catholics believe about the Pope?) However at least one of the 2 churches that splintered off of Mormonism did so because when Smith died he declared Brigham Young to be the next prophet of the church... which lead to his wife being upset and declaring that her husband was wrong and that the lineage of prophetship would pass to his son (traditional monarchy), who if I remember correctly was 12 at the time. Although this was in the 1800's, so it wasn't unheard of for a 12 yr old to be "head of household" if his father had died... head of the church sort of hearkens back to things like Tutankhamun having been Pharaoh at 9 (and then promptly dying)... anyway, they became the Reformed LDS church.

Unsure of what?

Caodaiism believes in God and Jesus but the Tao as well. They are an interesting religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Dai

Victor Hugo is one of their Three Saints?

Victor Hugo, as in the author of Les Miserables and Hunchback of Notre Dame?

How did a French novelist get into Caodaiism's mythology?

Divine revelation? I think it is good that they do not think all holy people are from the place the founders happen to live.