TheAgitator.com
My God Can Beat Up Your God
Monday, October 13th, 2008From a prayer before a McCain campaign rally last week:
I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.
And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.
But wait, I thought Obama was God. Or at least a God.
There is so much wrong with this, I don’t even know where to start.
Ok, I know where to start. Is this not tacit belief in polytheism?
Um … so this preacher believes in monotheism but also believes in polytheism? And Buddhists don’t actually pray to Buddha. And … oh fuck it…
Isn’t God always on the side with the most Divisions?
*facepalm*
Pray to “Hindu”?
Brandon-
I read somewhere that according to some people who investigate this kind of stuff, ancient Old Testament Judaism was originally “polytheistic” in exactly that kind of way. “There are multiple gods, but we only worship *this* one, and all the others are evil”. Thus, “thou shalt have no other gods before me”. I think the theory had something to do with the OT referring to pagan gods like Baal as if they were real. Supposedly this then later evolved into the God-Satan duopoly (with attendant haphazard revisioning of the scriptures)
I have no idea if there’s anything to it, but it struck me as interesting theory. Monotheism obviously had to develop out of polytheism at some point.
“Is this not tacit belief in polytheism?”
I’ve never been convinced Christianity is monotheistic. If you can explain to me how praying to various christian saints, angels, archangels, messiahs, and mothers of said messiahs, is substantially different from the ancient Greeks or Romans praying to their various minor gods and sons of gods, I’m all ears.
[...] My God Can Beat Up Your God. [...]
Exodus 20:3 acknowledges that there are other gods (lower case ‘g’) — but they are false gods, demons. There is only one God, and that would be God.
Recognizing that other religions pray to golden calves, actual calves, dead ancestors, trees, etc., is not an acknowledgement that polytheistic gods are really spiritual beings, only that people pray to them as if they were.
#8 chance wrote:
That is a trait of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, not of “Christianity” as portrayed in the New Testament. Nor of Judaism in the Old Testament. In times past, Protestants made quite a big deal out of the “idolatry” found in the papal churches, as being inconsistent with Biblical teaching.
Just FYI.
God was obviously not on the side of his Cowboys yesterday…*whine*
“That is a trait of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, not of “Christianity” as portrayed in the New Testament. Nor of Judaism in the Old Testament.”
I was raised methodist, and while we didn’t pray to saints and angels, we certainly prayed to Jesus. Having more than one spiritual being you pray to, seeking his or her favor and/or intervention, that just isn’t very “mono” to me. Either there is one, and only one you pray to, or there isn’t.
Interesting take on Twain’s “War Prayer.” Totally loony, of course:
My God’s better than your God
My God’s better than yours
My God’s better ’cause He eats Ken-L-Ration
My God’s better than yours
Pray to me and the small thing in my pants.
“…I thought Obama was God. Or at least a God.”
It depends on whether you’re using the New World Translation of The Audacity of Hope.
God loves capitalists more than communists.
God loves fundamentalists more than Methodists.
God loves Americans more than Canadians.
God loves nuclear power
God loves the stars and stripes.
God loves Handi-Wipes, thinks they’re so convenient.
God knows where the yellow went.
God has a VCR.
John Wayne is the biggest star, up in the Ivory Tower.
God doesn’t love the Pope.
God likes Pepsi more than Coke.
He won’t drive a Subaru or a BMW.
God packs a magnum for protection not for fun.
God says make my day.
God votes Republican, the only way to get things done.
God loves makin’ dough, don’t like payin’ taxes though.
God loves Disneyland, loves a man to be a man.
God loves the USA.
God loves democracy more than aristocracy.
God hates Iraqians, Russians, Jews and Libyans
(And anyone else who isn’t a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant).
God is good, God is great.
God don’t like the welfare state
(He hates Sweden).
God drives a Chevrolet.
God made petroleum to make my Winnebago run.
God made plants and trees.
We can waste them as we please.
God loves the strong and tall.
God loves white folks most of all.
God loves the USA.
God loves the USA.
God loves the USA.
He told me personally, and I know what God likes
By Pat McCurdy
There’s too much antidisestablishmentarianism in this country.
Seriously, in that second paragraph is he calling out God as a pussy if he doesn’t hand the election to McCain? Man has some stones.
There is no God, only Zuul.
That prayer is stupid.
Allah is the god of Abraham. Who is also the god of the Israelites, and therefore the god of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Myself, I’m declaring for Vaal, just so I can say that “I am the leader of the Feeders of Vaal.”
I happened to be at this event.
The prayer was very strange. The other strange thing, I thought, was that prior to the prayer, they had the crowd recite the pledge of allegiance. Is that normal for political rallies?
Arguably OT (no pun intended), but possibly interesting to some here:
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/
There is a reason for the separation of church and state.