I have a feeling that wisdom is something that can only exist when a person with an honest ego realizes that everything he was taught and learned to believe isn't provable and is likely just a lot of bunk. The ego that dies to its attachment to knowing, to the need to know, the certainty of knowing, the belief that it know something, I think that ego comes upon a different kind of knowing, that in the ego that has died to itself destroys the boundary between self and other. The wise man, in my opinion knows not himself from the universe and that the tiny beat of love within his heart suffuses the entire cosmos with meaning. The kingdom of heaven is within you and when you are in heaven the question of God's existence or not has no meaning. He who IS has no doubt.
Why do you think there is a god? Why would an omnipotent being give a rat's ass what we did? Do you care about what termites think of you?
God's existence can be found in no other place but in your own heart and that is the last place on earth anybody will look for Him. God is dead because we are dead to what we feel. We do not know that we hate ourselves and that this self hate is directed precisely at what is in our hearts.
Every child is born among monsters who kill that love to protect it from being killed. Every child is turned into a monster.
God is for those whose murder was insufficient to totally destroy their longing, insufficient to destroy the sense that something was taken, is missing, and is calling. God is for those who still suffer from the pain of psychic death and can't totally remove the effects from consciousness. God is only for mad men and those so beaten down they have nothing more to lose.
Then along comes some Christian asshole with a vision that its the greatest monsters on the planet that God personally selected to do his work and it is them every good Christian should be helping. My my, what a luck ego. One gets to work with and be the most worthless asshole and still go to heaven. There should be a tremendous market for that.
Imagine, I get to espouse family values, cheat on my wife, let my supporters down and still keep my job and go to heaven when I die because God chose me for His work. Boy am I glad I met this Christian group that will pat me on the back.
Every child is born among monsters who kill that love to protect it from being killed. Every child is turned into a monster.
God is for those whose murder was insufficient to totally destroy their longing, insufficient to destroy the sense that something was taken, is missing, and is calling. God is for those who still suffer from the pain of psychic death and can't totally remove the effects from consciousness. God is only for mad men and those so beaten down they have nothing more to lose.
Then along comes some Christian asshole with a vision that its the greatest monsters on the planet that God personally selected to do his work and it is them every good Christian should be helping. My my, what a luck ego. One gets to work with and be the most worthless asshole and still go to heaven. There should be a tremendous market for that.
Imagine, I get to espouse family values, cheat on my wife, let my supporters down and still keep my job and go to heaven when I die because God chose me for His work. Boy am I glad I met this Christian group that will pat me on the back.
Your summary is goofy.
Sounds to me like normal religion-- if we can change enough people for the better, then America will change for the better.
Have to say they might be right. There used to be an understood responsibility the professionals in our country held that they must do what is best for the nation as a whole. No more; it's all about your own profit, screw the rest of the country. If there is no reason for morals, there is no reason for right action, and the country falls without this.
My dear misguided friend. There is no need for morals when doing the work of Jesus. You just find the Monsters that God in his infinite wisdom has chosen to run the world like Hitler and support them. You let them know that God wants 6 million Jews dead. God knows what he is doing and when you side with these chosen ones you yourself will do well. I am the new chosen, you see. Now if you want to work with the poor and save them, go waste your time but know that that religion is dead.
You can make up whatever you want but the article doesn't say anything about monsters. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
When you get caught up thinking Hitler shouldn't have been allowed to do what he did, and that God is not running the world correctly, don't forget that we all deserve that anyway due to our sin and rejection of God. Rejection of perfection is an infinitely abominable offense.
JSt0rm
Lifer
- Sep 5, 2000
- 27,399
- 3,947
- 126
i think hes talking about the use of god and religion to control the masses and how that power becomes corrupt because there is no "god" in charge of it. Some people would say Christianity is a trick of the devil because it allows you to do the sin and be forgiven no matter what. It's a very convenient religion for our world.
You misunderstand Christianity because Christ is very clear that if this is your attitude, you are not a Christian.
Here's a quote from the "most helpful" reviewer on Amazon. Apparently Moonbeam has no idea what this book is about (or is making conspiracy theorist assumptions simply from NPR blurb he read (bad place to get your facts btw as evidenced by the twisted understanding of this book Moonbeam has come away with, but nevermind that)) because it's not at all about a "supposed to" but rather a narrative/examination of the effect religion has played on America's role in world politics.
Atreus21
Lifer
- Aug 21, 2007
- 12,001
- 571
- 126
Well, that's two questions. I can answer the first, but not quite the second.
I believe several arguments can be made for God's existence. My favorite is the first cause, or contingency argument: Everything we observe is caused by something. Nothing accounts for it's own existence. So something had to cause all this without being itself caused, or else everything in the universe is contingent on...nothing. Whether that's the God I believe in or not, I can't say. But I think that's a strong case for a Creator.
Logically, I think there's no way to prove that God is benevolent, or loves us. I think that's entirely up to religious belief.
s: You can make up whatever you want but the article doesn't say anything about monsters. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
M: Genghis Khan was a monster.
s: When you get caught up thinking Hitler shouldn't have been allowed to do what he did, and that God is not running the world correctly, don't forget that we all deserve that anyway due to our sin and rejection of God. Rejection of perfection is an infinitely abominable offense.
You are the abomination. You believe your god controls the world and that how it is is his will. I can think of nothing sicker than that, and all because you are a coward who fears to doubt.
M: Genghis Khan was a monster.
s: When you get caught up thinking Hitler shouldn't have been allowed to do what he did, and that God is not running the world correctly, don't forget that we all deserve that anyway due to our sin and rejection of God. Rejection of perfection is an infinitely abominable offense.
You are the abomination. You believe your god controls the world and that how it is is his will. I can think of nothing sicker than that, and all because you are a coward who fears to doubt.
JSt0rm
Lifer
- Sep 5, 2000
- 27,399
- 3,947
- 126
say what you will about Genghis khan but he was probably the most successful human male to ever live...from wiki
"Zerjal et al. [2003][34] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Because the rate of such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by genetic drift, the authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread through social selection. In addition to most of the Mongol nobility up to the 20th century, the Mughal emperor Babur's mother was a descendant. Timur (also known as Tamerlane), the 14th century military leader, claimed descent from Genghis Khan."
absolutely insane!
"Zerjal et al. [2003][34] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Because the rate of such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by genetic drift, the authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread through social selection. In addition to most of the Mongol nobility up to the 20th century, the Mughal emperor Babur's mother was a descendant. Timur (also known as Tamerlane), the 14th century military leader, claimed descent from Genghis Khan."
absolutely insane!
The evil in this world is the result of our own doing and the greatest proof that humanity is evil and needs a (S)savior. What is important to God is making his glory known, and you can be a part of this or you can get angry and shake your fist and that's about it. Allowing our own sinful ways to destroy ourselves is one of the ways this happens; showing us the error of our ways. It is yet another proof that his word (Bible) is truth, and is proof that will be held against those who never accepted it their whole life.
There's so much more to life than just rising through the ranks at your job and running a happy family; don't trade gems and diamonds for things that won't last past death, there are things of infinitely more worth offered and you would rather trample them in the dust...
God can't give us satisfaction apart from himself in fullness; he made our desires too great to be fulfilled on this earth with anything but himself. We are like children content playing with mudpies who do not understand that a trip to the beach, to make sand castles and go surfing and water skiing and catch crabs and sand critters is offered....
JSt0rm
Lifer
- Sep 5, 2000
- 27,399
- 3,947
- 126
this is the problem. You think those of us who don't believe are somehow angry that you believe. I am an atheist and I personally don't care what anybody believes. mysticism is a part of the human condition and has been so since we evolved sentience, there is no changing that. Some of us understand this and some don't but we should all be able to sit under a tree and marvel at the world. We should all be allowed to expand our minds with science, music and art. This is what it means to be a human, to explore.
To what end? In atheism there is no purpose for anything, only desire and feeling and emotion. No meaning. Modernism failed our parents' generation. So now we have chosen postmodernism-- "whatever you want to believe, as long as you believe it truly, it is true".
s: The evil in this world is the result of our own doing and the greatest proof that humanity is evil and needs a (S)savior.
M: Rubbish. Evil came into the world with the Tree of Knowledge, the invention of language which made it possible to talk about a tree in terms of bark and sap, branches and leaves.
Evil is an idea that has no real object but once it was invented it quickly got applied to us as children. We who were born as the image of God and thus indistinguishable from Him were taught the lie that we were worthless and evil and when you believe that it is what you become. Thus were we cast from the Garden.
s: What is important to God is making his glory known, and you can be a part of this or you can get angry and shake your fist and that's about it.
M: What kind of an idiot God would be seeking glory? Has he an ego problem, hidden feelings of inferiority?
s: Allowing our own sinful ways to destroy ourselves is one of the ways this happens; showing us the error of our ways. It is yet another proof that his word (Bible) is truth, and is proof that will be held against those who never accepted it their whole life.
M: Oh, I see, an angry God who will punish those who can't believe such nonsense. Sounds like a good way to keep those donations flowing to the church.
s: There's so much more to life than just rising through the ranks at your job and running a happy family; don't trade gems and diamonds for things that won't last past death, there are things of infinitely more worth offered and you would rather trample them in the dust...
God can't give us satisfaction apart from himself in fullness; he made our desires too great to be fulfilled on this earth with anything but himself. We are like children content playing with mudpies who do not understand that a trip to the beach, to make sand castles and go surfing and water skiing and catch crabs and sand critters is offered....
M: To be filled with God is to return to ones own original Image. God is nowhere but in your own heart. He isn't in the Bible or any other book. He isn't in the church or temple. When one has lost all one can lose what remains and can't be taken is the love in ones heart. It is our being.
M: Rubbish. Evil came into the world with the Tree of Knowledge, the invention of language which made it possible to talk about a tree in terms of bark and sap, branches and leaves.
Evil is an idea that has no real object but once it was invented it quickly got applied to us as children. We who were born as the image of God and thus indistinguishable from Him were taught the lie that we were worthless and evil and when you believe that it is what you become. Thus were we cast from the Garden.
s: What is important to God is making his glory known, and you can be a part of this or you can get angry and shake your fist and that's about it.
M: What kind of an idiot God would be seeking glory? Has he an ego problem, hidden feelings of inferiority?
s: Allowing our own sinful ways to destroy ourselves is one of the ways this happens; showing us the error of our ways. It is yet another proof that his word (Bible) is truth, and is proof that will be held against those who never accepted it their whole life.
M: Oh, I see, an angry God who will punish those who can't believe such nonsense. Sounds like a good way to keep those donations flowing to the church.
s: There's so much more to life than just rising through the ranks at your job and running a happy family; don't trade gems and diamonds for things that won't last past death, there are things of infinitely more worth offered and you would rather trample them in the dust...
God can't give us satisfaction apart from himself in fullness; he made our desires too great to be fulfilled on this earth with anything but himself. We are like children content playing with mudpies who do not understand that a trip to the beach, to make sand castles and go surfing and water skiing and catch crabs and sand critters is offered....
M: To be filled with God is to return to ones own original Image. God is nowhere but in your own heart. He isn't in the Bible or any other book. He isn't in the church or temple. When one has lost all one can lose what remains and can't be taken is the love in ones heart. It is our being.
GodlessAstronomer
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2007
- 17,009
- 5
- 0
No true Scotsman. Christianity is what Christians make it. To proclaim that some Christians aren't "true" Christians because you don't like some of their ideas is both fallacious and intellectually bankrupt.
How can that be possible? What if my definition of Christianity is that a real Christian determines who is a Christian and who is not?
GodlessAstronomer
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2007
- 17,009
- 5
- 0
Then you're begging the question, which isn't surprising considering the content of most of your posts: consisting mainly of cryptically worded but intellectually empty tautologies and nonsense written in the language of a philosophy freshman.
1prophet
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
- 5,313
- 534
- 126
And one can easily say the same by substituting another religion that has been in a negative light as of late.
Yet that is a dangerous line of thought that allows one (especially those predisposed with some particular hate of a certain group) to condemn the many for the actions of the few whether it be an abortion clinic bomber, Osama Bin Laden, Bernard Madoff, etc.
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