Religion Question

I wonder if there's someone who can help me out here. I happened to be flipping through channels over breakfast this morning and tuned in to some guy (an evangalist of some sort, I presume) praying.

Skipping to the end, he finished with an "in Jesus' name we pray, amen." Okay, this is familiar to me. It was taught to me many, many years ago in school as some flavor of Christianity. It makes sense enough to honor Jesus, sure.

What threw me was more in the middle of what I saw where he said something very close to, "... oh Lord, you died for our sins..." This confuses me. So he's praying to Jesus as the Lord rather than to God. I'll admit to having something of an outsider's view of the whole thing, but that seems completely wonky to me - dangerously close to First Commandment territory. Clearly it's not only accepted, but normal, in some religious circles, but I'm having trouble grasping how the two figures are treated so interchangably.

Comments

  1. tashiroSeptember 1, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    It is a weird thing. Basically, since Christianity is monotheistic (or so some people say), the idea of worshipping anyone other than God is considered wrong. Thus, God didn't send his son down to Earth, but instead sent, essentially, an avatar. Jesus is God, according to this. So you're revering 'God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit'. So, what you have is 'God' as the big uber person, and then 'God' in the form of Jesus, who is seen as more personable, but effectively the same thing. I know, it hurts my head, too.

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  2. kyn_elwynnSeptember 1, 2011 at 10:48 PM

    Jesus was born as the son of God through immaculate conception. Through Jesus as God, He was given human form and experience. When Jesus arose and left for Heaven, He (God) became the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost). This is an entirely Christian conceit. Different sects will place emphasis upon either the Trinity or that while Jesus may have been God incarnate walking about, you really ought to only say your prayers directly to Him up above instead.

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