There's some valid stuff in there. But there are also some straw man arguments. But anyway, I was late in the response game and the best compromise is a silent moment. BTW, God is not a generic term in any way. That's narrow minded thinking. There are polytheistic religions. There are pagan religions. There's Buddhism. Etc. God *might be generic* among the Judeo-Christian/Islamic religions. But since God is addressed uniquely in each of those religion, that negates that argument.
The word God is generic, because if I say the word God, you don't know if I am referring to a Christian God, Jewish God, Hindu God, Monotheistic God, Polytheistic God, Deist God, Greek God, etc. There has to be a qualifier used to designate what form of God is being used. Consequently the pledge containing the word God doesn't refer to any particular religion. If the pledge used the word Jesus, or Yahweh, or Allah, etc. then you would have an argument. I think the narrow mindedness is on your end when you think the word God is not generic. I say the word God and people form their own image of God according to their beliefs. That makes it generic. If I say the word music, do you know what type of music it is? Do you know which composer it is from, which genre, what era? If I say I like music, that says nothing about what form of music I like. Rap music, classical, rock, jazz, country, etc. You even have some music snobs that say only classical music is real music, the rest is just noise. The word music is generic, the word God or god is also generic.
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." 3In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.[a]" 4"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You[c] must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." 9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked. 10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heavenâthe Son of Man.[d] 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.[e] 16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.[g] 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."[h]
There is only one creator. Just as there are many roads with different names that all head north. How you get there is not important. Find your path.
so it was the miracles that convinced people he was god? consider this: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously. If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers.
Says you. But billions would disagree. They will accuse the other religions of worshiping a false god. Ecumenical thinking is a rare thing in the grand scope of things my friend.
You just proved my point in that it's not generic. I'll highlight where: For the word god to be generic, the conceptualization must be common among all. But that is NOT the case. Yes, there are similarities but there are also enough dissimilarities to make the gods of the various religions separate and unequal. The immediate question in one's mind if they are of a different religion is, "which God?" when another mentions the word. Rare of religious people to be ecumenical about such things. However on a more pragmatic level, if a student from the Middle East comes to America and has to endure lead prayer in school, given that the US is predominately a Christian nation, he knows which God they are praying to. His religion mandates different means of prayer as well as a different means of addressing "God." That lead prayer and the manner in which it's performed as well as the words used would be an offense to him. Substitute any other religion and they all have very distinct ways of entreating and saluting their respective gods.
For the word god to be generic, the conceptualization must be common among all. But that is NOT the case. Yes, there are similarities but there are also enough dissimilarities to make the gods of the various religions separate and unequal. The immediate question in one's mind if they are of a different religion is, "which God?" when another mentions the word. Rare of religious people to be ecumenical about such things. God is a generic word, just like music is a generic word. "However on a more pragmatic level, if a student from the Middle East comes to America and has to endure lead prayer in school, given that the US is predominately a Christian nation, he knows which God they are praying to. His religion mandates different means of prayer as well as a different means of addressing "God." That lead prayer and the manner in which it's performed as well as the words used would be an offense to him." The student from the Middle East hears the word God being spoken in America. As the majority of Americans are Judeo-Christian, he assumes the person speaking mean the Judeo-Christian God when he hears them speak the word God in prayer, however he is actually wrong. The person saying the word God is actually thinking of Allah as God. A student from American in an Arab country hears someone say the word God while praying (an Arab speaking English) and thinks they are speaking about Allah. However, he is mistaken because the Arab is actually thinking of the Judeo-Christian God. So the word God itself has not changed, the same word God is being spoken in different places by different people. This happens because the word God is generic and can be applied, and is applied to any religion in the English language. If it were not generic then a mistake could not be made because it would be clear just from the word what "brand" of religion were being used. God is generic, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. are the brand names.