Is a religion more important than its God?

[W_HAMILTON]

Seeing how more and more religious people seem to be so fanatical about their beliefs, it got me to thinking...

If "God" came down for all to see, and said that <insert religion here> is the only true religion, would all the other followers of other religions switch over? Or would they just find some way to rationalize what they just saw, and keep sticking to their guns?

I don't know too many super-religious people, so I figured I'd ask the people here and see what everyone would think.

I'm thinking from what I've seen lately, that cult-like religion has taken precedence over the true idea of God, so I'm wondering if they had something occur that proves wrong everything that they believe in, would they change their ways, or would they continue to stick by their beliefs?

[stellanoir]

1. No, maybe and maybe.

Rampant fundamentalism is driving the world nuts IMHO.

My Creatrix is one of love and laughter and just wants us to be more kind, nice to kids and old folks, and stop hurting each other and the planet. Silly me

[xultar]

2. If God came down to day they would rush to push him aside in favor

of the false prophets who fill the churches of America today. If God told the Christians today to love everyone including Gays, Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, Catholics and Muslims they'd kill God.

Simple.

[W_HAMILTON]

5. That's what I was afraid of...

...that some religious people care more about their own personal, perverted version of God than whatever God that is written about in their religious texts.

Granted, I probably won't get a good answer here, because I think most people at DU are more moderate in their religious views. But I was interested in hearing if any true Christian, or Muslim, or whatever would abandon their faith if God came down and told them that their ways are not His ways.

[LiberalPartisan]

8. So sad and yet so true

A very good book (fiction) which speaks directly to this is Joshua. Were the Messiah to return today we wouldn't recognize Him as such and very likely would persecute Him all over again.

[patrice]

3. Many would regard it as a challenge from Satan.

They have defined "God" as absolute, so to be absolute (as it is possible for one to be) is to become closer to "God". Aside from the fact that that verges on blasphemy, they view Changing as not being absolute.

There's a reason the First Commandment IS the First Commandment. The way our brains function, we automatically break it by defining "God", along with everything else that we reflexively identify, as a mutually exclusive this or that, with mutually exclusive these or those qualities.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Those whose business is to continue the worship of a particular god

seem to lose perspective and absolutley believe that the religion is more important that the god.
I am sure that everyone involved in the Vatican believes that the maintenance of the Vatican is more important than the maintenance of the Catholic Church. Do you believe that the Pope would sell the Vatican treasures if that is what it would take to ensure the survival of the Catholic religion? I do not believe he would sell the Vatican treasures and give up his life of riches for anything.
I cannot speak of any other religion because I do not know of any other established religion that has such treasures, except of course, the televangelists. The answer in their cases is self-evident.

[left is right]

6. This is God speaking:

I meant for Bush to be a joke--thought you would all get a kick out of his oafish ways. I never dreamt that you would make him my spokesman

[Sinti]

7. They would say it was Satan trying to fool mankind

like when he placed those dinosaur bones.

Personally, if god came out of the sky tomorrow, I'd figure it was the government with kind of weird psy-op. I belong to the Church of the Conspiracy Theory - CCT ® - we are convinced TPTB uses religion, government and all other means to fool the people into false beliefs, and maintain their virtual slavery to The Man (not as bad as Satan, but The Man is a lot more effective).

:evilgrin:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. no