Will God Save Us from Ourselves?

[attofishpi]

BOO!

PS. ..as usual U R all wrong...but at least a tad humorous.

[Gary Childress]

BOO!

PS. ..as usual U R all wrong...but at least a tad humorous.

Welcome back, Atto!

[attofishpi]

BOO!

PS. ..as usual U R all wrong...but at least a tad humorous.

Welcome back, Atto!

Thanks bruva! I was a bit weak with vulgar language, but am back to attack for at least a fought knight

[Gary Childress]

BOO!

PS. ..as usual U R all wrong...but at least a tad humorous.

Welcome back, Atto!

Thanks bruva! I was a bit weak with vulgar language, but am back to attack for at least a fought knight

I think you'd probably be better off being a little more low key this time.

[attofishpi]

Welcome back, Atto!

Thanks bruva! I was a bit weak with vulgar language, but am back to attack for at least a fought knight

I think you'd probably be better off being a little more low key this time.

This is the only KEY to peace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusaybah_family (with ISLAM included)

[promethean75]

"PS. ..as usual U R all wrong"

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

And Mannie will be right there beside u in the nothingness thinking... er, not thinking... the same thing.

[attofishpi]

"PS. ..as usual U R all wrong"

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

REALLY? U R wrong on two counts.


1. There is nothing in the NT that explicitly states first U die then go to 'X'. I continue to be in and out of HELL> <HEAVEN

2. I am far more rational about comprehension of GOD than anyone U have ever comprehended (probably )

[Dubious]

"PS. ..as usual U R all wrong"

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

REALLY? U R wrong on two counts.


1. There is nothing in the NT that explicitly states first U die then go to 'X'. I continue to be in and out of HELL> <HEAVEN

2. I am far more rational about comprehension of GOD than anyone U have ever comprehended (probably )

God doesn't require any comprehension, unless you prefer to comprehend a vacuum. God is nothing more than a fictional character in a Jewish text...and if there were a god what has it to do with the bible???

[promethean75]

Yeah check it out fish. U don't gotta empty yourself of what it is that drives u to believe (or at least consider) that there is something more going on... that metaphysical impulse in man that makes him subconsciously want to find evidence for the things he'd like to believe exist; immortality, love, goodness, purpose, fulfilment, all the good spiritual stuff. U can do all that but u gotta be willing to disregard a certain belief system that provides all that if it contains preposterous ideas. Like christianity or islam or judaism or the ancient polytheistic pagan religions. And not just for the reason that they are preposterous. The more important reason is that these kinds of theological models strip man of a responsibility that would be critical, i think, if indeed there is something more going on. Believing that 'it's in god's hands' places man in a subordinate role concerning his self creativity, development and improvement. It makes him fearful, it makes him apathetic and unconcerned about making any great effort at changing anything (it's god's plan, etc). It makes him necessarily shameful to himself. It saps one's sense of pride and self respect. And in it's worst form it separates and divides people and causes them to not trust each other, to do violence against each other.

Alright now look. What if damn near everything these religions shared in common - the basic ideas - regarding the nature of the good, virtue, happiness, morality, is all true BUT..... there are no creator god's that transcend the universe and were the cause of it. That specifically created us, gave us purpose, watch over us and are prepared to either reward or punish us after we die. None of that stuff.

Hold that thought for a sec. Suppose also that we have a strange kind of reincarnation thing going on, the workings of which are a mystery, and that the 'good' is rooted in some kind of intrinsic life stimulus (like an elan vital or sumthin) thingie that's the thing that makes everyone, by default, be he a 'normal' human being, not want, not prefer, to do any harm to anything if he can so help it. Instead he wants to know the thing, understand it, be generous to it, help it along, watch it grow if he can afford to and if he doesn't have to eat the damn thing to survive. It's that immanent goodwill intrinsic to that life force that is developing in the universe and that animates us. A curious eros dwells in everything that lives, really, but only in the human being does it become self aware and creative.

Alright here's my point. If this mysterium universum (i just made that up) is not always progressing and developing toward a more excellent state (I dunno what that would be), and, it's possible that things can get relatively worse for the beings being reincarnated if they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the reality they are in and negelect to do the things that help them progress, then if religious belief contributes to this, i think so it's gotta go, mate. I mean the religions that take responsibility from man and hold him accountable to something other than himself and his fellow human beings. Apocalyptic religions (which ones aren't) that tell man this world is ephemeral and of little importance. Missionary religions that try to impose conflicting doctrines on each other and end up at war with one another. Nationalistic religions that create distrust and feelings of superiority or inferiority in people according to what 'race' they are.

Belief in such gods isn't needed to provide 'foundation' to any of the goods and virtues that everyone normal prefers to express and experience in their lives.

(And please for the moment don't tell me all theories of altruism have their problems, and that I've yet to define what 'normal' means becuz i know that dummy. Just humor me)

Where are we at. Oh yeah. A good metaphor for what I'm tryna emphasize would be like this. The son must at some point gain his complete independence from the father if he is to ever be in possession of, and completely responsible for, himself. That responsibility involves knowing that it is man who creates a telos for his world, not something external to himself. And that he answers to himself and to his fellow human beings (i just mentioned your boy feuerbach in keter's thread earlier check em out).

Now if in fact we are all reincarnates and that erotic force that propels us to love and grow rather than do battle and destroy can be complicated and corrupted by life's experiences, then that fact would be the very mechanism that pushes and develops the world and moves it toward greater excellence, more advanced and creative states (whatever they are). It is becuz there is that conflict that there can be resolution and therefore progress. That things can 'go wrong' both in individual's lives and in the course of a world's development - that there can be more suffering and unhappiness - is what stimulates and guides every person's development toward better states as they pass through their series of lives. Bro this is what happens when you've read too much Hegel. That and i smoked some trees about an hour ago.

There's a caveat tho, a very dangerous caveat, the truth (or not) of which is very important.

If this isn't the first life of everyone who's appeared on erf so far, and instead we've already lived once or more before, then everything i just said falls apart and we are plunged into the abyss of nihilism, mate. Why. Becuz in each life we have no knowledge of our previous ones and therefore there is no sense of greater or worse states (each life is isolated from the others, mnemonically), then we have no reason to try and understand our reality so that we do improve as we develop and pass to the next state. See what'um sayin. There would be no intrinsic karmic sense of justice and rightness that we carry through life; the series of reincarnations you are involved in would have no conscious telos... u wouldn't be able to feel like u could do better, much less that u should.

Alright so no god but a bunch of little godlike creatures called humans that evolved in a field of energy they call the material world who are living the first of their immortal lives and who are totally responsible for everything they will become thereafter.

There is no god here to produce consequences for bad decisions. Instead each individual produces them for themselves, punishes themselves, by their own bad conscience. That conscience is like the socratic daemon sitting on your shoudler teaching u what is right as u go through life each time. The less u listen to em, the more pain and problems u have.

This isn't a sage, mate. This is that erotic force dwelling in the human soul that i was talking about up page.

The reason why there are conflicts at all in the social-material world is becuz we are doing something wrong collectively. Such conflicts should be constantly reduced as we assimilate the world and use it to live and reproduce as a species. But they aren't always are.

Yeah but no. The gods of the anthropomorphic religions are preposterous ideas. They are all reifications of man's own nature (as feuerbach put it) if in fact that's what we are; reincarnating beings who exist in material worlds.

My gut tells me I'm wrong and that something less karmic and more nietzschean eternal recurrence of the same (or near same) is what's really happening in this universe. And that's some series shit, mate. Blow yer fuckin head up be like bzzzzzzzzrrrr boom. Now wtf u gone do.

[attofishpi]

..I'm starting to get the impression that you don't believe God exists? Even worse coupled with that - that my claim to KNOW with certainty that God exists is somehow, inaccurate?

[attofishpi]

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

REALLY? U R wrong on two counts.


1. There is nothing in the NT that explicitly states first U die then go to 'X'. I continue to be in and out of HELL> <HEAVEN

2. I am far more rational about comprehension of GOD than anyone U have ever comprehended (probably )

God doesn't require any comprehension, unless you prefer to comprehend a vacuum.

Actually, when IT (God) starts testing U, you best put your analyst hat on pretty quick - and indeed comprehend what this entity is capable of. (other_wise U may as well check in to a mental asylum)

God is nothing more than a fictional character in a Jewish text...and if there were a god what has it to do with the bible???

Stated with such certainty and totally wrong. More to the point, what has the Bible got to do with God?

[Age]

"PS. ..as usual U R all wrong"

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

REALLY? U R wrong on two counts.


1. There is nothing in the NT that explicitly states first U die then go to 'X'. I continue to be in and out of HELL> <HEAVEN

2. I am far more rational about comprehension of GOD than anyone U have ever comprehended (probably )

If you believe that you know more about who and/or what God is, than others do you here, then will you provide your comprehension of God in regards to who and/or what God actually is, and not just who and/or what God 'might be', to you, so that the readers here can 'see' if you do know what you claim you do here?

If no, then why not?

[attofishpi]

SHOE!!

[Age]

The best thing u got goin for u is the fact that when u die and don't go to a heaven, u won't know u were completely wrong about everything u believed and that u sounded like a loon on LSD your entire adult life.

REALLY? U R wrong on two counts.


1. There is nothing in the NT that explicitly states first U die then go to 'X'. I continue to be in and out of HELL> <HEAVEN

2. I am far more rational about comprehension of GOD than anyone U have ever comprehended (probably )

God doesn't require any comprehension, unless you prefer to comprehend a vacuum.

So, to you, God is a 'vacuum', right?

If yes, then is the actually irrefutable Truth, or just what is true to you, only?

God is nothing more than a fictional character in a Jewish text...and if there were a god what has it to do with the bible???

So, 'now', to you, 'God', capital 'God', is nothing more than a fictional character in some human beings created text, YET, to you as well, 'if' there is a 'god', small 'g', then you, apparently, want to know what 'god', small 'g', has to do with the human being created text called 'the bible'.

Which would be like asking, 'What has the 'house' got to do with the human being created carpet?', or like, 'What has the earth, solar system, or galaxy got to do with the human being created any thing?'

[Dubious]

Actually, when IT (God) starts testing U, you best put your analyst hat on pretty quick - and indeed comprehend what this entity is capable of. (other_wise U may as well check in to a mental asylum)

Why would god be testing you? Testing you for what purpose and why you? Just to say he's testing you, doesn't mean a thing to anyone. On such a singular level god, for better worse, becomes one's personal creation however it manifests.

God is nothing more than a fictional character in a Jewish text...and if there were a god what has it to do with the bible???

Stated with such certainty and totally wrong. More to the point, what has the Bible got to do with God?

Is there anything which requires a god instead of natural laws for its explanation? Throughout the entire history of the planet, not to mention what we know of the universe, there is not a single, remnant, relic, or atom denoting the existence of a god, its requirement or necessity. It's the human brain and only that, which conjures it, consequently reifying it into actual existence based on its own psychic cravings.

The brain has always been the cradle hosting the birth of god or the gods and all their supposed divine interventions.