Debating a Christian: Open Theism vs Polytheism 

This Guy: Jesus is better than the other Gods because he offers salvation and the others don't *Dionysos, Osiris, and Krishna have entered the chat*

I like how all of the Heathens I have met in person, seen in videos, etc all LOOK like modern day Vikings. It really is awesome. Makes me want to rethink my look as a Greek polytheist.

I'm not a theologist and don't have more than a passing interest in any organized religion (ex non denominational christian/mormon, turned agnostic) but I just want to comment on how much respect I have for the two of you for this debate. It's always so interesting to watch knowledgeable people have discussions about things they care about, not that I really understood most of what y'all were talking about. Either way props to both of you!

There is a Calvinist somewhere who’s head just exploded... 😂

This was a great entry point for me to get to understand your belief system, and your gracious and knowledgeable take down on the issues raised, including the problems of free will (‘Well, that raises another problem…’) were some of the aspects that contributed to my deconversion from Catholicism.

Hey! I think I'm the first view. I love that you get involved in these debates. I'm also Heathen so I love that you're starting this conversation and building up more awareness. Also, your beard is great.

Wow, Jon has brought us a full show of theological gymnastics.

In the book of Genesis it does say the gods created the Heavens and the Earth. Elohim is a plural form for god. It means gods.

I'd rather follow Odin than Jon's god. Flat out. You made him look foolish (just in your super nice conversational method).

This was one of the more interesting and delightful debates I have seen in a while. I feel like there are some flaws with his arguing but over all it seems much more solid than other Christian's arguments.

Checking through the back catalogue of your great videos. Fantastic to see civil, explorative, and informed debate... As a pagan (Heathen) I do enjoy deep conversation with Christians and other belief systems but too often they end with me going to Hel(l). Full stop. To which I have no real issue 🤷🏻‍♂️👍🏻

Good talk, nice to see an honest interlocutor on the other side of the talk.

I love this debate, both sides were extremely respectful.

Was there ever a follow up debate? I would love to see that. There were so many points that couldn't be explored more in depth in the given time frame. Ocean you ask the questions I've always had with christianity.

If we have to accept Salvation in order to avoid Hell, then we have no more "free will" than a person being tortured to make them confess.

Jon surprises me, as most open theists would argue that God is omniscient but that the future does not exist. Jon seems knowledgeable about open theism as theology but not as a philosophical idea. Open theism is a theory about time. I’m not an open theist but flirted with it for years.

Nothing in the “Old Testament “ even hints at angels having free will. The opposite is said.

Ocean, (and any interested) I'd like to chat with you about a theory I have regarding a link between abrahamic god and a pantheism deity, have built up quite a bit of information that lead to this idea, not even including personal experience. Also, huge fan of your method of debate!

He seems to make perfection a subjectively defined term (his frequent remark that it depends on how you define what perfection is) which begs the question; does perfection actually exsist or is it a human construct?

Her Blessed Midnight Serenity Kali is supposed to have been before the universe and has been to others previous and future, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that time is not something she's subject to since time is a universal principle/perception. She also is known to wear an assortment of heads on her since she's a god killer. She doesn't require minions to do her bidding and as such, imo, would be more than capable of killing Yahweh and adding yet another head to her collection.

A huge problem with Calvinism is the fact that they rely on awful mistranslations of the New Testament. The Greek word they think means "predestinated" (as in Acts 13:48) τεταγμένοι actually means something more along the lines of "disposed, inclined, prepared, made ready for, made receptive to, etc.", and it comes from a word referring to stationing troops in a land and getting them ready for battle. In other words, the Greek New Testament doesn't actually teach "predestination"; what it actually teaches is that God apparently makes certain people more receptive to the Gospel. Augustin didn't even know Greek and worked on the basis of many faulty and misleading Latin translations, most notably of which being the passage in Romans 5:12, which in Latin got rendered "in quo" (in whom), and in popular modern translations as "because", when in reality the Greek means "upon which" or "whereupon". This mistranslation, among other things, led the Western Church into the horrific and grotesque notion of Original Sin. And misrepresentations of aion led to the belief in "eternal damnation", even though aoinios means "of the age" and the word translated as "damnation" means something more like "correction, pruning". Of course, none of this matters much in the long run since Christianity and Judaism are pretty ridiculous, psychologically toxic, champions of denial, and dismissive of reality. I think there are much better reasons to be a polytheist than to be a monotheist. Some of those reasons weren't covered in this video but my comment has gone on long enough.

It's seems to me that his idea of God entering into time would sort of be analagous to when a game dev fabricated a large word for many players to act within. That creator may then enter that same world with all the admin rights, but even still there are certain things the admin rights are constrained to for sake of not breaking the game, and the creator may pick and choose at what level they enter into that world even though they may ultimately alter and destroy that entire world from outside of it.

The thing that I have found interesting above all others is that Jews vehemently state that the bible, especially Genesis 1:1, is translated completely incorrectly on one word alone. That word is "the" when it says "In the beginning". In Hebrew, native speakers of the language from Israel itself, state it's supposed to say "In a beginning" and not "In the beginning" meaning that it's meant to be interpreted as there were multiple beginnings rather than a single beginning. Yet every Christian on this earth, well I should say that the translators themselves refuse to acknowledge this fact, or outright ignore it or denounce it even when the Hebrew text is staring back at them blatantly in the face with a Hebrew native speaker to confirm this is what it's supposed to say. I've heard of a Jewish father and son who had once traveled to the U.S.A. and rented a hotel room for the night before going to their destination. Heard of multiple other accounts of similarity. Anyway, the father walked into the room, went directly to the bible sitting on the night stand, and proceeded to open it to Genesis 1:1. He then asked his son to read it and find the problem with Genesis 1:1 as stated in the English as compared to the Hebrew. The son had no immediate answer. And that's when the father pointed directly to the word "the" in "In the beginning" and stated that it's supposed to say "a" not "the". All from the mouth of a native speaker of Hebrew from Israel. Now, this begs the question, why do translators along with the Phd pastors and priests and Christian theologians being rate along with them either ignore or outright denounce this fact as stated above? Because a certain truth is being hidden from the followers of the religion that would put an end to Christianity on a large scale if the followers were to ever find out about it; even the lexicons cannot be trusted according to native Hebrew speakers. The "Seven Days" of Genesis 1 are actually multiple creation myths that were collected from the most dominant cultures of the region and brought together to bring everyone within the region underneath a single umbrella religion; Christianity just took it one step further to "hide the ball", as you would say, rate within the text itself as it's translated. The word "the" in "In the beginning" is supposed to be translated as "a" referring to multiple beginnings because of the origins of the text, and where each of the "Seven Days" come from, to denote that the "Seven Days" are actually multiple creation myths from multiple cultures of the region. This fact shreds the Christian worldview to smithereens even within the New Testament. Remember how in the New Testament, can't remember exactly where, it says something along the lines of "slayed before the foundations of the world" in reference to Jesus (i.e. which by the way, for any Christian reading this, his name was not Yeshua, because that would be translated as Joshua in English; Jesus is actually not a name at all, they're letters of power, created by Kaballists who first entered the scene one to two millenia before they unleashed Christianity upon the world, because they disagreed with the institution of Judaism and set out to create a religion of their own to dominate the world)? Yeah, Genesis 1:2, the word "Spirit" in "Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" is supposed to be translated as either "breath" or "seven winds" in English from Hebrew. We'll get to the whole "moved upon the face" in a moment. The word "waters" in Hebrew is the word "tiom". Funny enough, the same Babylonian word, Babylonian being a sister language to Hebrew, is the word "tiam". However, in their account of the same exact story uses the feminine form of the word "tiamat". Now, I'm not sure if you know what tiamat is, but long story short, Tiamat was a deity in Babylonian mythology. In fact, Tiamat was the Seven-Headed Dragon of Chaos (i.e. tiom and tiamat are the same exact thing). Tiamat was the Deity of Chaos and he had a twin that was the Deity of Order. They wanted to create a world of their own but soon realized and came to the conclusion that a great sacrifice needed to be made to create this new world they wanted. Tiamat offered himself to be that sacrifice. So the brother blew seven winds into the mouth of Tiamat (i.e. moved upon the face of the waters) to slay him with his sword. Then he used his body to create the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and all life including the first humans and not just two. There were multiple tribes of peoples created all over the entire earth. In short, every Christian on earth is worshiping Tiamat who sacrificed himself so the world could be created because without Taimat's great sacrifice according to the mythology nothing would exist, and also, this is why that even though there is chaos in the world order can be found within that chaos according to Indo-European myth which is what influenced many of the cultures they came into contact with in the Middle East. If you move on to Genesis 1:3-4 it's basically reiterating the same exact events from an Egyptian perspective. Light is order and darkness is chaos, "divided the light from the darkness". Meaning that darkness/chaos had been slayed to create the world and the word "divided" is an interesting choice of words because that references once more the sword. I could go on and on here. But I'll leave you and others to explore this further on your own. And it often brings great shock to every Christian that learns of this, and you get one of two responses from them; either a response that leads them into doing the research for themselves and they eventually move away from Christianity, or you get an angry response from them because they simply cannot come to terms with the fact that their entire religion that they believed to be true as it was told to them is actually one humongous hoax to dominate and control the world, because there's literally no other explanation as to why the translators, pastors, priests, and theologians would continue to hide the fact that it's supposed to say "a" and not "the" and is exactly what the original coined term of the word "genocide" means before the U.N. meeting took place after WW2 that changed what it meant and is often simply called brainwashing today. Note: The original coined term and meaning of the word "genocide" meant to "kill off everything that a person is, to disconnect them from their ancestry and heritage and native religion so they have nothing left to defend themselves and therefore have no power to fight back against your advances, to leave them as nothing but a shell to fill them with all the ideologies and philosophies you want them to believe; and if you can't do this with them, then you physically kill them, because they are a threat to your advances and control". According to what genocide originally meant, you're dead one way or another, and no longer pose as a threat to those who want to advance their agendas. What did Christianity do in the early days? What did Jews do in the early days? And what do Muslims still do to this day? Convert or die. There's a word for "convert or die", oh yeah, it's genocide. And even in the speech of the current Christianity that millions of people around the world are subjected to the same language is still being used just said in a different way and in a more spiritual context within the confines of their mythology. "Repent or go to hell". That's genocide and why I will never be a representative of nor ever be an advocate of nor be a Christian or of any other Abrahamic religion. The A.F.A. takes these concepts of genocide and applies them in their own way as well according to the current modern definition of genocide but not as it was originally coined and applied. The original coined term didn't care about race or ethnicity, they just wanted you to convert so you would become another one of their puppets that jumps when they say leap (i.e. "Go") and fetches when they say fetch (i.e. "into the world and baptize everyone in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit"), and if you wouldn't convert by resisting all of their tactics and advances then you were physically killed.

I memorized stuff. - Jon I would have liked to listened to all this but the kid is killen me with the regurgitated nonsense. I'm sure the last hour was nice.

I would like to see Jon talk with a Christo Pagan.

I don't understand how you can argue that an egg could by the law of chance spontaneously divide in the womb and go to full term, yet hold that nobody could ever live a life without sin (if you believe in free will)

Ocean wiped the floor with plaid shirt

If god is all powerful then he should be able to know everything

How could they have a choice if they didnt know food from evil

I still have yet to read The Case for Polytheism by Steve Dillon, but the best arguments I myself have thought up in favor of polytheism are as follows: (presupposing the argument about whether or not divine beings exist, and supposing that we conclude yes a god or gods do exist) in no particular order: 1. If God is perfect and self-sufficient, then why did he create the universe, why does he seek to be worshiped, and why would he need for people to obey him? 2. If God was uncreated, the first being, or prime mover (whatever you wanna call him), then why did Tehom, Chaos, and other beings pre-exist creation? And why does the Bible have two creation narratives, one being the divine battle against the sea dragon? 3. The philosophical Problem of Evil has weight against the existence of a perfectly good, omniscient, omnipotent God; but it lends itself very well to arguing in favor of the existence of other gods, some of which would be evil, which handily explains evil in the universe. 4. The nature of the universe dictates that every thing exists in multiples (at the very least pairs). Name any object and there is never only one of its kind. A planet is one among many. A tree is one among many. A mountain is one among many. Why then should there only be a single God? (At the very least there are two as in Zoroastrianism.) 5. History, philology, archeology, Biblical text criticism, etc. shows that all the modern religions originated from polytheism. [Judaism from Canaanite, Babylonian, and Persian religion. Buddhism from Hinduism. Christianity looking at Judaism through the lens of Greek religion and philosophy]. There's nothing phenomenally special or extraordinary about the monotheistic faiths as they evolved out of older, pre-existing, polytheistic traditions. Yahweh used to have a wife and himself was the result of the convergence of El and Ba'al. Some lesser reasons: - The Bible is filled with inconsistencies Knowing the name of Yahweh? Exo. 6:3 [P text] vs Gen. 4:26, Gen. 15:7-8 [J text] contradictionsinthebible.com/ - God changes (Gen. 6:6, 1 Sam. 2:30-31, Amos 7:3, Jonah 3:10) as opposed to (Num. 23:19, 1 Sam. 15:29) - God’s prophecies don’t always come true (2 Kings 3:18-19 vs 27, Ezek. 26:12 vs 29:17-18) - God is actually very anthropomorphic (Gen. 3:8-10, Gen. 16:13-14, Gen. 18:1-8, Gen. 32:28-30, Exo. 33:11) - God creates evil (Isa. 45:7) - The Bible admits polytheism (in the form of henotheism): Gen. 1:26, Gen. 3:22, Gen. 11:7-8, Exo. 12:12, Exo. 15:11, Num. 21:29, Num. 33:4, Deut. 4:19, Deut. 32:8-9, Deut. 32:43, Judges 11:24, 1 Sam. 6:5, Psalm 104:3-9 equates Yahweh with Baal Hosea 2:16

I definitely think Open Theism is more scripturally sound. The Hebrew Bible does tend to present YHWH as a linear temporal being who reacts to new information and circumstances as they're presented to him e.g. haggling with Abraham over the fate of Sodom. But like Ocean said, positing YHWH as a linear temporal being subject to time means he no longer fits the Ontological definition of God as "that, than which nothing greater can be conceived". Which does bring him closer to the level of what Jon calls the "small g" gods. Not the Ground Being of existence but just another being WITHIN existence. If Jon and other Open Theists are okay with making that trade off, more power to them. But I'm not sure they realise that's what they're doing.

I think "open theism" is ridiculous if for no other reason than the fact that so much of Christianity (no matter which sect you look at) relies heavily on and came from Greek religion and philosophy. Christianity is essentially the same thing Philo did, which is to look at Judaism through the lens of Greek ideas. It's arguable that Gnosticism is the original authentic Christianity if ever there were such a thing. Whereas the apocalyptic thing that gets mistaken as "original Christianity" was a very similar and closely-related sect but was more related to the Essenes and the Enochian traditions. It's also well-established that the Gospels and Acts were heavily reliant on Homeric tales and other Greek mythological sources. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tozott4Q5ok.html

Foreknowledge and prophesy in my own mind are most surely dependent on a deterministic world view.

So God’s not omniscient? Did Jesus not tell Peter he would deny him three times before the roaster crows and then Peter did exactly that .

Jon talks like nick fuentes and I really hate it

He didn’t ask the nores pagen vary meny questions

This whole debate is going right over that guy's head.

Why do you need Jesus without original sin?

I just wanted to see an old video of his

What the name of ur church i live here in Atlanta and very interested in giving ur church a visit

It's so strange to have so many interpret "God" and branches of "Christianity" differently. I always hated the thought thay "God" knows and sees all. If thats true, how can we sin if it knows what we're going to do? How can anything be considered a sin? Its just the next step in ones life thats already known about. Why would they need to apologize for something they already knew God knew? Then this, putting limitations on said entity opens up to multiple deities. I'll get better with my words as I learn more about this.

I’m open to making yhwh part of a pantheon who has a Demi god son

What is perfection?

I feel the level of understanding and thoroughness is so shallow. This guy refers to christian culture and text but the rejects the closest reliable sources from the lineage of the apostles themselves! The line of apostles compiled the bible!!!

I really don't get how Christians can see hell as a just result of a free will decision. Let's say somebody forces you to participate in a game they made up: They think of a number from 1 to 10. Then they spread hints on the correct number throughout the world and don't stop other people from spreading hints leading to different numbers. You get some time to gather hints and make a decision based on those hints without any possibility to differentiate between true and false hints. Now when the game is over, you get asked for your number. If it is right, you get a reward and if it is wrong you get tortured. Nobody who isn't completely mental would consider this a decision between reward and torture. Unless you have a safe way to differentiate true from false hints, it is a decision between numbers and therefore a random decision (or at least nothing more than an informed guess). To be a decision between reward and torture you would have to be able to know which number stands for which result.

Your schooling him on his book

Im very early in the video but I’d say this idea of open theism seems to stem from a believe in biblical inerrancy in biblical and Christian faith. The whole question can be answered perfectly answered by just understanding that the Bible is not a book but a library written by many people at many times and the theology in the Bible changes as time progresses. Early in the Hebrew Bible you have a god this is absolutely not omniscient. He is like any other ancient near eastern god in that way. But as time goes on and the theology of the ancient Israelites evolves you get a god more and more omniscient until you get to the New Testament and have a fully omniscient, omnipotent and platonic idea of god. I can tell the gentleman arguing for open theism does like this but platonic philosophy is the foundation that Christian theology is built on. From the nature of god to the identification of Jesus as the logos the New Testament is the resolution of an ancient near eastern storm god narrative with a platonic understanding of god.

I'm willing to entertain the possibility of Open Theism, but it doesn't seem to mesh well with the otherwise straightforward evangelical doctrine that Jon is advancing. The weird thing is that the traditional Trinitarian view basically solves the problem of whether God is inside or outside of time. The Father remains outside of time, but Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) are within time. This is one of the main reasons that the Trinity doctrine was even established! Often Christians, and especially YECs, will take the position that any time you see God or the Angel of the Lord on Earth in the Old Testament, it's actually Jesus. I'm not even a Trinitarian but I am happy to accept that it avoids this particular problem. Also his microphone is clipping and it's unpleasant

I personally find free will or free choice intellectually unsustainable, and so I find open theism intellectually unsustainable also. You could argue of course that I'm simply not intellectual enough although my response would be that if the Christian God can't communicate with somebody as simple as me then he must be a particularly poor communicator.

I think free will is not real do we have free will in our taste in food do we have free will in our preferences no do we have free will to decide weather or not we get up in the morning nope we dont it makes much more sense dor multiple gods to exist considering how complex and nusnced the world is

If God can see all futures, and humans have free will, and humans have the ability to shape the future based on their choices, are humans the true gods? God in that case would just be a aspect of humanity, and god would not exist it would just be humans

If god is so all powerful than how come. Christianity didn't exist for so long.

all due respect you let them gossip it would go on for hours

Jon Singleton is now Calvinist and rejects open theism

Wait a second if god didnt leave the garden then he just watched them take the fruit without doing anything to.stop them

Guys, I am not sure how do you believe or can believe at all in the some kind of serpant literally in you paradigm:) But your way of discussing things respectfully is awesome!!!

Jon lost. I mean it is clear he has no coherent belief system.... at least not a logical one

He's saying his god kind of ran a bath and then got in it (the bath being a time bound reality) or that he painted a picture and then stepped into it. The problem is that the whole thing is paradoxical. The Christian god has limited himself by a boundary of his own design:: the walls of the bath or the frame if the picture. So the omnipotent god has made a rock so heavy that he can't lift it up. 🤔 Neither can God trace the chains of causality into the future. So the Christian god is no longer omnipotent and no longer omniscient. He is no longer the Christian god right there. He is - as you have pointed out - a little 'g', if you insist on trying to believe in him. I do not in any 'Christian' sense. I accept that there will be a Yaweh of the multiverse, but I do not equate the Yaweh of the multiverse with a Yaweh of the Bible or with what I consider to be anti-science.

To focus on one random little point in here; On the capitalisation of 'god', in isolation, I generally don't (beyond my annoying habit of over-capitalisation). In a discussion with Jews and Christians who don't like to call their god Yahweh or Jehovah (or any other name), I tend to match them. So if the Christian I'm talking to is writing "God", and I'm writing a response, I'll write it with a capital G for the name, and lower case g for the role.

If im understanding right, you cant keep sinning and then rely on God to save you because youre a Christian. You have to kinda mean it. And yeah, we will forever be sinners, but that notion youre knowingly okay with sinning cuz God has your back just doesnt sound right. And i feel the whole if God makes a choice for you, can you make a different choice is a logical fallacy. Pretty much every human isnt going to be in a situation where God is going to personally talk to you. And if he is.....................Im backing away from that person slowly. I believe people can get incinations about what God wants, but its probably not going to be down to your clothing choice. If you need Gods advice for something that simple, just go to the scripture and dont demand God map out every little thing in your life. Theres too much about this free will even above God that requires knowledge of the Divine we have no idea about.

This guy's a quack.

Except that Yahweh is at the mercy of our Many True Real Gods as well as at the mercy of people too. You do realize the Bible has no objective morals it's very subjective and it's not like real scriptures that are after it and before it then actually do give Divine truth that is a certain an absolute not just once but several or multiple times. The Totaling and Theological Max.

My Gods are not bound to space or tome or matter. EverMighties mine are beyond and reside in universe as well. They Created the Universe or World and Destroy it all in the End. Roman Religionary (Byz too). My Gloryful Divinities Jupiteris and The Others Get all The Praise and Glory and Honor. I do also with Ra Horus and Set. I'd do the Same for Thor and Odin. As a Religionary i do that. Time is limitation and made prospect. As is material and space. And that is so. Atoms can be made and destroyed. That's easy. Universe is forever in the sense it planned by The Forever Ones or They Eternal Ones via Lords-Ladies-So or EverMighties. Lords-Ladies-So encompass Thor and Odin and Mine Jupiteris and Venus and Neptunis and Apollo and Ra and Horus and Hathor.

I am not sure also if I haven't missed something, but believing in eternal hell is sadistic kind of theology and slander of God!

God doesnt seem very bright

Theres a criteria to going to Valhalla in where if you don't die fighting you go to a freezing tundra hel

It is not that Biblical God cannot " go to the Future" (He controls Future over all.. in respect to non intelligent objects, etc.), but because He has chosen to give space to free agents He acts in kenosis, suffering with the World, etc. Power is not in all deterministic way of acting, but in the ability to still let His will be done inspite of stupid and evil actions of people!

God is outside of time and space. Inside time, from his view everything is already happened, that's why he says in his word that Christ was slain before the foundation of the world. Open theism is a joke.

Yahweh is still more powerful than Odin since in the Ragnarok story, Odin dies and Yahweh never dies. Even if Odin could look into the future and Yahweh cannot, Yahweh is eternal and Odin is not.

This discussion was really like watching theism be a game of demons and wizards card games.. Wtf~ How is anyone here serious?