Theology

[G-Roll]

No, that is incorrect, completely false and totally wrong.

The right answer is, yada, yada, yada.

i stand corrected.

Is Whitney the real Jesus????

or deeper still, does she have a beard?

[Dagda]

Question; Is your god all knowing?

No idea.

Which brings us immediately to the question, what is love? Perhaps we assume we know, without really giving it much thought? Both theists and atheists claim to be working towards a better world, ie. more love etc. So what is it exactly that we are all reaching for?

What indeed. I think the best description of love I have ever read was by a fictional character (obviously the author had a hand in it); love is understanding. Not understanding as in ‘I get you’, but a deep understanding or empathy with another being. This is a pretty lame description but this brings me to a second point: I think this is probably the wonderful thing about love; it is an experience thing-difficult to explain, but I think most people probably instantly understand what love is-it is when we begin to try and philosophise about it that things become muddled.

Well, yea, honestly, that concept has always presented a problem for me. Hmm... If we are parents, we might try to recall our most selfless loving moment with our kids. Now multiply how we felt in those moments by one billion, to make ourselves a God.

Are we concerned with our kids loving us back in such a situation? Or is it instead all about us serving them?

Not being a parent I would not be able to comment with any authority, but I suspect that most parents would like to be loved in return. God (like a parent) has watched humanity walk out on Him, and realises that He can no longer interfere with humanity; we must come back and ask for help. Although the simile that God is like a parent is quite good, but we must be wary of it-God is not a human parent and so probably does not think or operate in the same way. I think it is probably humanity trying to give God human dimensions so as to better understand Him.

We could, if we wished, translate the theology you've stated in to a more modern "religion" as follows.

Evolution gave humans thought as the tool we would use to survive in our environment. Other critters got wings, fins, big teeth, etc. We got thought.

Thought is the ability to create and manipulate abstract symbols that represent reality. We have the word "apple" inside our mind to represent the real world apple we can eat.

Our mind creates symbols by conceptually dividing reality. We look out over our environment, and divide it conceptually in to tree, leaves, bark, soil, sky, water, animals, plants, air etc. Words, the foundation of language and thought, are a dividing process.

This symbol creating process is very useful for survival, but it introduces an illusion of division, when in fact reality is all one big thing. Example, sunlight from 93 million miles away is an intimate crucial part of our daily life. In a very real way, it is inaccurate to say the Sun is one thing, and we are another.

The most problematic division illusion that is created is the illusion of "me", an internal conceptual identity that is experienced as being separate from everything else in the universe.

And thus, we don't usually don't experience "the Garden Of Eden", ie. the real world, where everything is unified. Instead, thanks to our immersion in thought, we usually experience a cardboard mirror version of the real world, where we feel very separate and alone.

And so, we go looking for saviors...

What is love? Death.

Death of this pervasive sense of division, of aloneness.

And now, we will turn to page 34 of our hymnal, and sing the Beavis and Butthead theme song together, while we pass the plate.

At this point you may point out that only Adam and Eve sinned so why should we all be punished.

Adam and Eve didn't sin, they simply accepted the method of survival nature had handed them. They bit the apple of thought. Or, perhaps it's more accurate to say, the apple of thought bit them.

However, God does not give up and has, at various stages, handed down/inspired various religious texts to help humanity unite with the God-head once more-this is why most mystical texts have the same underlying message; they came from the same source.

Personally, in my Ignorance Religion, I don't feel God would be obsessed with religion. I see him as a more practical kinda guy. In this view, he would use religion to communicate with those who are tuned to that channel. Imho, the same basic messages can be communicated in different language for those tuned to other channels. And that message would be....

You are not alone. You just feel alone. Because of the way you are made. It's not your fault. Don't sweat it. Don't worry, we'll fix it in time, 100% guaranteed.

Oh my, Reverend Blowhard has been generous enough with his bloviations this Sunday morning...

Thanks for your thought provoking post Dagda.

Agree with almost everything you said here.

Most mystical traditions (Cabbalists, Greek Mystery Schools, Indian mystics etc) seem to indicate that the information contained in these allegories could be dangerous in the wrong hands. To use your own example Elisha killed a number of children for calling him bald (the concept of God and His actions in the world would require another few paragraphs, but it is more the power of God rather than God Himself who killed those children) is an anecdote. It may have been true or false, but that is not the point.

WHAT?
"To use your own example Elisha killed a number of children for calling him bald (the concept of God and His actions in the world would require another few paragraphs, but it is more the power of God rather than God Himself who killed those children) is an anecdote. It may have been true or false, but that is not the point."

so it doesnt bother you that "god is love" but god kills 42 kids with 2 bears. or maybe the power of god is love.. kinda like the idea of a suicide bomber is love.

This is quite complex, so stay with me. In Psalm 82 it says ‘Ye are gods’, Christ talks about the Kingdom of Heaven being within the person and Genesis talks about being made in the image of God. What does this mean? The power of Heaven is within the human; Gnostics called it Gnosis. When a miracle happens it is not because some Zeus like God has arbitrarily chosen a person to cure, but because that person, or someone close to them, has broken that barrier between their soul and God (even if only for an instant) and used that power to cure. This can be done in the unconsciousness, so when that miracle happens, God is declared the sole cause. However, what can be used to cure can be used to kill. That is what Elisha did; God did kill 42 children, but only because Elisha used the power of the Kingdom of Heaven.

[G-Roll]

so the televangelist on the tv is real?

And this whole idea is based on psalms 82 sounding familiar to a sentence in genesis?
Honestly it isn’t complicated. You believe in magic.

[SSY]

Question; Is your god all knowing?

No idea.

From what knowledge or information did you form your theory? You have yet to provide any proof as to why your theory should be taken seriously, do you have anything to back this up?

[Typist]

I think the best description of love I have ever read was by a fictional character (obviously the author had a hand in it); love is understanding. Not understanding as in ‘I get you’, but a deep understanding or empathy with another being.

How about a lowering, or in an ideal perfect world, elimination, of the boundaries between one person and another?   Is that sorta what you're saying too?   If yes, then a next question might be, what creates the boundaries?

I think this is probably the wonderful thing about love; it is an experience thing-difficult to explain, but I think most people probably instantly understand what love is-it is when we begin to try and philosophise about it that things become muddled.

An experience thing.   Versus an abstraction thing.  I vote we dive in to this as deeply as we can.    Maybe love is always there, and it's the abstractions that cover it up, and create the boundaries?

[Whitney]

So....God wants people to love him but created people in a manner that allowed them to become flawed so that they couldn't participate in a direct relationship with him.  Then when he creates books to allow a quasi-relationship to occur via the imagination he allows it to be written in code so that his loving message can't be known to everyone.

That makes a lot of sense....  

[Whitney]

Upon what basis do we assume life is better than death?

I think it's more of an issue of a god allowing children to be ripped to death by bear teeth (what a horrible way to die) than it is an issue of a god causing the children to die.  If the verse said that the children vanished into the afterlife is wouldn't be that nasty of a verse (assuming that they don't go to hell).

[G-Roll]

So....God wants people to love him but created people in a manner that allowed them to become flawed so that they couldn't participate in a direct relationship with him.  Then when he creates books to allow a quasi-relationship to occur via the imagination he allows it to be written in code so that his loving message can't be known to everyone.

That makes a lot of sense....  :pop:

[Dagda]

So....God wants people to love him but created people in a manner that allowed them to become flawed so that they couldn't participate in a direct relationship with him.  Then when he creates books to allow a quasi-relationship to occur via the imagination he allows it to be written in code so that his loving message can't be known to everyone.

That makes a lot of sense....  

Well we are made in the image of God, so if God has human flaws...

Honestly, atheists take the bible more literally than fundamentalists!

Question; Is your god all knowing?

No idea.

My theory is not based on psalm 82, but I have found that many people surfing the web (myself included) tend to have a great fear of a colossal wall of text in a forum. As outlining the ins-and-outs of my entire life philosophy would probably take up pages, I thought I would keep it simple. I would be more than happy to answer specific questions.

As to believing in magic, I wouldn’t use that word because it has so many unfortunate connotations. Why don’t we call it a belief in the collective unconsciousness. The placebo effect is well documented. People do better when they believe they are going to do better. This is evidence of the power of the human brain over the human body. Of course if I came up to you before these studies were conducted and said that I believed that the mind held great power over the body, you probably would have said that I believed in magic. I think this is the way the human mind works; something it does not understand it tends to brand as heresy (in this modern world that would be magic) and mock it. Perhaps this is being needlessly insulting, but then I am just returning the favour.  


From what knowledge or information did you form your theory? You have yet to provide any proof as to why your theory should be taken seriously, do you have anything to back this up?

I assume you mean my theory as a whole rather than my theory if I have any idea whether God is all knowing or not. Actually I do. Scientific stuff too, although I am loathed to called it a theory-I have to do much more investigation before I step into that minefield. However, I was asked to set up a new thread about my theological beliefs on the basis that I would discuss them theoretically/philosophically. Of course if everyone wishes me to go off at a tangent I suppose I could, but would rather keep it philosophical at this stage.

so the televangelist on the tv is real?

And this whole idea is based on psalms 82 sounding familiar to a sentence in genesis?
Honestly it isn’t complicated. You believe in magic.

My theory is not based on psalm 82, but I have found that many people surfing the web (myself included) tend to have a great fear of a colossal wall of text in a forum. As outlining the ins-and-outs of my entire life philosophy would probably take up pages, I thought I would keep it simple. I would be more than happy to answer specific questions.

As to believing in magic, I wouldn’t use that word because it has so many unfortunate connotations. Why don’t we call it a belief in the collective unconsciousness. The placebo effect is well documented. People do better when they believe they are going to do better. This is evidence of the power of the human brain over the human body. Of course if I came up to you before these studies were conducted and said that I believed that the mind held great power over the body, you probably would have said that I believed in magic. I think this is the way the human mind works; something it does not understand it tends to brand as heresy (in this modern world that would be magic) and mock it. Perhaps this is being needlessly insulting, but then I am just returning the favour.

[Whitney]

So....God wants people to love him but created people in a manner that allowed them to become flawed so that they couldn't participate in a direct relationship with him.  Then when he creates books to allow a quasi-relationship to occur via the imagination he allows it to be written in code so that his loving message can't be known to everyone.

That makes a lot of sense....  

Well we are made in the image of God, so if God has human flaws...

Honestly, atheists take the bible more literally than fundamentalists!

Actually, I take it less literally than the majority of people...I don't think it was ever intended to be read as if all the stories are real.  The problem comes in when you start trying to apply it as a rule book for life.  What I said above was completely based on pointing out the issues with what you said, not what is in the bible.  The bible isn't exactly clear on the perfection or imperfection of God.

I see no reason why anyone would want to worship an largely flawed being that has a temper and gets mad at it's children for not doing what it wants even though it doesn't try to interact directly with them anymore due to some odd flaw in his creation equation.

[Typist]

I see no reason why anyone would want to worship an largely flawed being that has a temper and gets mad at it's children for not doing what it wants even though it doesn't try to interact directly with them anymore due to some odd flaw in his creation equation.

Personally, I worship nature.  You know, the measurable real world we can see with our own eyes.   And I do mean worship.  Just spent an entire week in the woods, doing nothing but wandering around all day, connecting with reality.

And if we connect with nature, and examine it closely, we see it is filled with incredible peace and beauty.   And some really nasty ugliness too.   And everything in between.

Whether we call it God, or Nature, I sense it contains all things.   It's bigger than all the little categories our human minds are obsessed with.

[Whitney]

I don't see the point in "worshiping" nature either.  Enjoying a nature hike isn't worship.  Anyway, dagda is talking about God of the bible...not an animist-like god so you are off topic.

[Typist]

I don't see the point in "worshiping" nature either.

Ok, let's make the point, and try to steer back on topic.

Billions of people want to have the worship experience, and are going to continue doing it, whether you like it or not.    And you don't like it.  Facts.

If you don't want people to worship Jesus and the Bible, you might help implement your plan, reach your goal, by offering them something else to worship, ie. the real world which can be observed and measured.

[Dagda]

I see no reason why anyone would want to worship an largely flawed being that has a temper and gets mad at it's children for not doing what it wants even though it doesn't try to interact directly with them anymore due to some odd flaw in his creation equation.

Really? I suppose I am the opposite way about. A big thing in Christian theology is forgiveness, and I think forgiveness is impossible unless there is some understanding as to what drove the ‘sinner’ to commit the act which led them into ‘sin’. If someone drives into the back of my car because they had a moments laps of concentration, I could probably forgive them as I understand that it is all too easy for the mind to wander. However, if I was perfect I might not be able to understand, hence forgive, the driver for running into the back of my car. This is a bit of a trivial analogy, but I think it illustrates my argument. A perfect God cannot relate to we humans (relation comes through similarities), and I think this creates somewhat of a tyrant; divine justice is handed down irrespective of the context of the action. However, a God with the same kind of Mind as humanity can empathise with the human condition far more thoroughly; indeed, this flawed God becomes far more personal and, in my opinion, a far more worthy deity than the perfect tyranny that your image of God would represent.

[elliebean]

But there are already imperfect beings with flawed, human-type minds and the ability to forgive....us!

So, philosophically speaking, of what use is such a god, or belief in such a god, to me? to anyone?

What is the point of a god? Why not cut out the middle man and make the best of ourselves?