[Epona]

Very interesting thread!

I'm an atheist. I simply don't believe. There is no way I could force myself to, and it would feel as though I was compromising my own beliefs to try. If it turns out that I'm wrong, there won't be a lot I can do about it.

I do find that it is an interesting question about the identity of God/Allah/multitudinous ancient gods. I have many muslim friends, and when they talk about god to someone English, they use the word God. When they talk to other non-English muslims, they use the word Allah. They are clear that the Christian and Muslim gods are one and the same, and use the appropriate term depending on who they are speaking to. The main difference is that muslims do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, but another prophet, albeit a less important one than Mohammed.

Another interesting point, neo-druidism was originally a break-away from Christianity. They believed in God, but came to the conclusion that he was one of many ancient Gods (I believe they decided that he was most likely to have been worshipped by the ancient Egyptians as the Sun-god and creator, Ra). This viewpoint was obviously irreconcileable with Christianity since it accepted the existence of other gods and goddesses, so the neo-druidic groups split from the Church, while retaining their belief in God, but calling him by a different name.

[ 01-22-2003, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Epona ]