I'll be giving these each their own thread, (to keep discussion limited to a single topic) posting 1 a day. The Maxims are a set of religious rules, (147 in total) similar to the Commandments of the Jews and Christians or Pillars of the Muslims but not quite as absolute in their application. More (extremely serious) guidelines than laws. In these threads I'll be naming the relevant Maxim and offering my interpretation of them. I invite anyone interested in discussing these Maxims to do so and feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I also ask that any atheists that wish to comment limit themselves to the philosophical aspects of the Maxims as I don't want these threads derailed into a general theological debate. So let's start... Maxim #1: Follow God. Pretty straight forward and probably the #1 rule in EVERY religion. There really isn't much to interpret here however I should point out that while God is a proper noun in this context, it doesn't necessarily always refer to the SAME god. If 'God' is telling you contradictory things, you should consider the possibility of those messages coming from different gods before acting.
When a "God" shows itself to me in all of its reputed glory I might consider the possibility that it's real. Until then gods are no better than characters in other fairy tales.
Follow God. Are you to follow God's examples - such as drowning all the heathens (and any bunny rabbits and unborn children that happen to get in the way) in a giant flood - or is it a more subtle "follow" as in do things you "think" God would like you to do?
Where is it going? Why should I follow it? If, instead, the maxim is actually, 'Follow the words of certain humans who project those words upon a particular god', then: Why should I follow the words of certain humans?
Simply put, act with piety. Charity, humility, devotion, etc. The exact details would depend on which god you chose to follow which for most theists on this forum would probably be Yahweh, an assessment you seem to share with your flood reference. Ignoring your obtuseness, that would depend on you. I for one don't rely on human words. I ask God directly and act on any answers I may receive, falling on human teaching more as a matter of tradition than faith. Others prefer the greater reliability (in receiving answers) of human ministering but I find the risk of bias too great personally. How so?
Actually.....YOU just did by eliminating everyone you disagree with from consideration and discussion. Actually considering that all other Christians consider this God differently than you do and interpret its words and laws differently.......you have eliminated EVERYONE. Damn....your little heaven is gonna be extremely boring.
Actually I'm not in a position to do that, as it's not my idea. I'm not in a position to do that either, but clearly anyone who insists there is more than one God eliminates himself from any intelligent discussion.
No there isn't. Yahweh is a storm god that developed a quasi-monotheistic (Asherah was worshiped as well by some cultists) cult. This cult became fully monotheistic shortly before the Babylonian captivity and it is from this cult that the Abrahamic faiths emerged. Yahweh himself was part of a larger pantheon however that dominated the Mediterranean world before the rise of Rome. The Romans pushed the Olympians on their subjects after defeating Carthage and thus only the worship of Yahweh survived via the Jews. ANYONE with a passing understanding of near east theology is ware of this fact, so you really have no grounds to claim that there is only 1 god. You can certainly claim that there is only 1 god worthy of worship but that wouldn't be relevant to anyone that isn't an Abrahamic. Now please stop peddling an Abrahamic narrative as it's off topic.
You are making three big assumptions: god exists, god speaks to us, and we ought to obey him. You have not justified those assumptions, so I will disregard the maxim.
Presumably this idea is attractive to lovers of nonsense, but not to anyone else. I can't stop doing what I wasn't doing in the first place, so do feel free to go fly a kite in a thunderstorm.
Only an Ivy League, MBA on the right, could get re-elected even by almost single-handedly, overturning that maxim and proverb.
Follow God? As far as I can tell all the words about God and the word of God is writen by man, ergo it is a safer bet that those who are theistically religious follow mans interpretation of God as opposed to the literal word of God.
