Is Christianity a Monotheistic Faith



During my long lifetime I can't tell you how many times someone has said, "My God tells me..." or "Thinking of the Bible in this way helps me....."

The question becomes, how many different ways can one god be perceived? The answer is in an almost unending number of ways.

How can all these different ways of perceiving God be the same God? Could it be they are different gods with the same name, God. My name is Jon. There are thousands of people with that name.

Let's start with where God came from. He, the male gender is traditional but not necessarily true, was written about in the Old Testament. Those ancient men who wrote about God had not seen him. Thus, we cannot conclude they knew who or what their "God" was.  The personality of God changed over the time the Bible was written becoming a little less mean and nasty as time went on. So even back in ancient times there might have been more than one God. All the writers writing about God may have been referring to many different views they had as to what this word referred to.

One of my favorite books on religion is God is not One by Professor Stephen Prothero. He writes that all religions in the end are about what people in the pews think it is about, not what religious scholars, denomination Presidents or seminaries think it is about. Those in the pews pay the bills. They have the right to determine who a god is and what that god thinks.

Thus, when the parent of a gay man told me anti gay Bible thumpers don't understand "what my God is telling me" she is perfectly accurate. I would guess that the 90-some percent of Catholics who use birth control are confident God approves even though Catholic clergy have told them otherwise.

If believers cannot see a god nor agree on what a god tells them how can they be certain they are worshiping the same god as others in their own religion? It seems only logical different gods would say different things and one god would always say the same thing.

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