How and when will God die?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

'...God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him...

...What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?'

Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science (1882)

God is dead as quoted by NNN ofcourse means, He is dead inside us. That is we have no fear of God and manupilate the laws/commandment of God according to our desire.

I think all 3 relegions (Judaism, Christanity and Islam) have the same teachings here. God can not die.

When the Holy prophet (Peace be upon him) died, Abu Bakr (first caliph) said this :

“O people! If anyone among you worshipped Mohammad, let him know that Mohammad is dead. But those who worship Allah, let him know that He lives and will never die. Let all of us recall the words of the Qur’an. It says, ‘Mohammad is only a Messenger of Allah there have been Messengers before him. What then, will you turn back from Islam, if he dies or is killed?”

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Chapter 1 and 112 and the Throne verse below are proberbly the most recited verses in Quran.

002.255
YUSUFALI: Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).
PICKTHAL: Allah! There is no deity save Him, the Alive, the Eternal. Neither slumber nor sleep overtaketh Him. Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is he that intercedeth with Him save by His leave? He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge save what He will. His throne includeth the heavens and the earth, and He is never weary of preserving them. He is the Sublime, the Tremendous.
SHAKIR: Allah is He besides Whom there is no god, the Everliving, the Self-subsisting by Whom all subsist; slumber does not overtake Him nor sleep; whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His; who is he that can intercede with Him but by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them, and they cannot comprehend anything out of His knowledge except what He pleases, His knowledge extends over the heavens and the earth, and the preservation of them both tires Him not, and He is the Most High, the Great.

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For our understanding in Islam, we have been told 99 attributes about Allah. These include :

Al-Hayy - The Ever Living One
Al-Qayyum - The Self-Existing One

The 2 words used in the Throne verse.

quote:

'...God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him...

...What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?'

God can't be dead if he is as is written in Deuteronomy 30:20 KJV or you would not be reading this because if God is dead so are you.

Churches are the seat of the beast where all those go seeking to learn the truth and they shall not find it but in its stead receive a good little piece of the bread of deceit.

If things were as written in Deuteronomy 30:20, and it applied to us, we would all be living in the land sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - specifically the site of Shechem, near Moreh's oak tree, where the Canaanite used to live. Bit crowded, eh?

I guess things aren't as written in Deuteronomy 30:20 for us.

NNN Specifically one is to look at it from a Spiritual Point and Not a carnal point of View. For indeed one is the promise land.

1 Corinthians 2: 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

How do you know we're not to take one part of the scriptural snippet - "you can have this land I promised you" - literally, yet we are to take another part - "God is your life" - literally?

If spiritual discernment is god-driven guidance, then, God being alive, people would surely know which scriptures to read and how to interpret them. Everyone would roughly agree on the spiritual path to follow. All the world would be in harmony, spiritually.

However, if God were dead, than people wouldn't agree - there could be countless different scriptures and even more interpretations of them. Spiritual discernment would be like a compass in the absence of a magnetic field. In practice people would have to muddle along morally and spiritually by their own devices - disagreeing, sometimes violently, making mistakes or getting it right by turns, with the only commonality being that arising from our shared humanity.

Actually, that second picture is what we see, isn't it? Therefore, God is already dead.

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If spiritual discernment is god-driven guidance, then, God being alive, people would surely know which scriptures to read and how to interpret them.

No they, people, would not know which scripture to read and how to interpret them. Some have not yet turned from the evil of their ways. When they should be teachers of right and wrong some are yet in need of milk while others are ready for meat.

Thats where being a doer of the word comes in. By doing what the word says one gains the wisdom in to what makes a difference and what makes no difference at all. So in life there are simple truths and there are hard truths.

Truth is the bottom line in what is in the best interest of ones life. For someone to rob a bank may be seen by that individual as being in their best interest for gain. But when he or she gets apprehended and is sent to jail they find out the hard way that it was not in their own best interest from the beginning.

People do not agree and you are living proof of that fact. However as was written some seeds cast by the wayside, some on stony places, some on good ground. Only one place can grow to bring forth fruit.

Have you ever tried to instruct someone in sharpening a pencil, No matter how hard you try and how much detail you go into they can foul it up in some way. I think you are such a person.

You have to know who God is before you can say God is dead and then you wont be able to say it.

If I were explaining to someone how to sharpen a pencil, I would tell them to put the appropriate end in the sharpener and twist, while maintaining a firm but gentle pressure towards the forming point. Or they might just be able to work it out for themselves, without instruction.

If the explanation were down to a religious person, that second option would be out of the question. The lesson would probably start with abominations cast on certain colours of pencil, insistence on a particular brand of sharpener and the like. Then there would be a whole lot of sonorous homilies with little obvious point (), and finally a fog of metaphors and impenetrable poetry as 'guidance'. And of course, the get-out clauses - "you have to truly know the sharpener, or it won't work...".

The student might be impressed and go through life studying the arcana of religious-style pencil-sharpening; obsessively decoding and debating scripture on it, maybe, and beating him or herself up about failing to get it.

Alternatively, he or she might realise that all the mumbo-jumbo is just cant; either the religious instructor has no idea how to sharpen a pencil, or knows that it's kind of simple and if everyone could do it he (usually 'he') would be out of a job.

If an all-powerful Creator were alive, he or she would surely be able to explain clearly to us what spiritual path to follow. I guess people could then take or leave that one unambiguous message.

As there isn't one ambiguous message, but countless different ones, God's either dead, stupid or doesn't care.

(Or maybe s/he's like one of those teachers who likes trick questions - trains you up on a traditional little sharpener, then presents a desk mounted machine with a crank-handle for the test. Of course it's your fault that you stumble through the test without much of a clue, and end up in Hell.)

Surely, if there is an actual message from a living God taught by a religion, it's a religion which doesn't anathematize others, but sees a common theme in them all, and embraces everyone. (That we're all just trying to arrive at something to write with, to go back to the analogy.) Which would those be? Buddhism, Bahai, Humanism?

Supposing everyone woke up tomorrow with a note on their pillow - "X religion is the best; go study it. God."? Wouldn't that be fair? People could still choose to ignore or act on the message.

No such event has happened. Of course, each separate religion claims to have had its own special revelation - but there's no way for an unbiased person to choose between them (except by using down-to-earth criteria like the religions' approaches to general, human morality, maybe).

In the absence of such a universal "here's how to sharpen the pencil" note, what can we reasonably assume about God?

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Originally posted by newnickname:
Supposing everyone woke up tomorrow with a note on their pillow - "X religion is the best; go study it. God."? Wouldn't that be fair? People could still choose to ignore or act on the message.

No such event has happened. Of course, each separate religion claims to have had its own special revelation - but there's no way for an unbiased person to choose between them (except by using down-to-earth criteria like the religions' approaches to general, human morality, maybe).

In the absence of such a universal "here's how to sharpen the pencil" note, what can we reasonably assume about God?

Suppose Nothing, Prove all things, Assume Nothing, because you know what that does to U & Me. Being not a respecter of persons in Judgment I'm just saying what you are, they have all gone astray and come short of the glory of their own lives. So what I am saying is it is up to the individual to pick up the book and read it and possibly gather from it according to the needs of their own house.

Give a tithe of 10% of ones time in learning how to live the remaining 90% of their lives. The book is meant not for the righteous, or those who think they are righteous, but for those who sin by doing not what is in the best interest of their lives for as long as they live. I guess "Romans 14:22 Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth", about sums it up in a nut shell. Followed by Romans 14:23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

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So what I am saying is it is up to the individual to pick up the book...

How is an individual supposed to know which book to pick up? What about all those religions which don't, or didn't have books? What about the countless people who lived in pre-literate cultures?

Making do with a book suggests the author isn't available.

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Originally posted by newnickname:

quote:

So what I am saying is it is up to the individual to pick up the book...

How is an individual supposed to know which book to pick up? What about all those religions which don't, or didn't have books? What about the countless people who lived in pre-literate cultures?

Making do with a book suggests the author isn't available.

I knew you were going to ask that question before it came up. According to Teshuvah there were 77 versions searched for a phrase. It seems there is a general problem there. Personally I read a few and found the contradictions many so I settled on the one with the fewest, which I found to be the KJV.

Sorry about that , it was 27.

I didn't ask about which version of the Bible, Phil. I asked about which book. Christianity is not the only religion.

I guess if I had to pick just one book I would choose the Book of John. But not to sound as being nit-picking I prefer all that come between the covers.

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

Phil, I wasn't asking about which book of the bible, either. I asked about which book. That's fairly clear, surely:

"How is an individual supposed to know which book to pick up? What about all those religions which don't, or didn't have books? What about the countless people who lived in pre-literate cultures?"

Here's a brief list, of about forty current religions. There have been countless others. Probably the majority had no scripture. Of all the religious ideas that have been put on paper (rock, vellum, parchment...) how do we know which one to choose? If God were alive and paying attention, we could surely expect a hint or two.

How do we know that we should choose a religion the practice of which is based on writings anyway? Aren't writings redundant if there is a living God willing to communicate with us?

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Phil, I wasn't asking about which book of the bible, either. I asked about which book.

In that case you should be a little more specific instead of using the sharpen a pencil type routine.

If people are illiterate they can't read anyway but even in cultures which profess to be literate they can't comprehend what they read.

But needless to say even for those illiterate ones there are provisions spoken of such as:

Romans 2:15 Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another

Therefore if one is an Atheist all is not lost.

Still sounds like God could be dead, from what you say.

You seem to be saying that, in Christianity, we go by what has been written on paper, and there's also a little clause which covers the awkward problem of the billions who haven't had a chance to see the paper - it has been written on their hearts.

Nothing there about communication in real time from a living God.