henry quirk wrote:Okay, you won't say 'how' you made the universe, but mebbe you can tell me 'why' you made the universe.
Hobbes Choice wrote: Are you able but unwilling to prevent evil? Or are you unwilling but able to prevent evil? Either way why call yourself god?
In the beginning there was Me. I was the All that made up Everything. I knew Everything. I was Everything. But there was a Void. An 'emptiness' in Me. Nothing happened. Just Me contained in Me. Knowing All. It was all rather static... and boring. I tried Origami, folding My formless form (-yes, I know what I will say will be up for semantic kick about... But I don't expect you to understand. Sometimes I don't think you can. You simply lack the faculties or have not yet come up with the technologies to answer some of the questions you posit yourself.)
Anyway where was I? ... Ah yes, Me. Playing around with Origami, something happened. I realised out of what I was, I could create things... and I could invest things with something called free will or give them their own inertial momentum, if you like... I watched with Joy as the Origami took on a direction of its own, still connected to Me, still containing and being contained by Me, and knowable to me. And that was it. That was when the Universe exploded into being.
I've watched as things expanded, and contracted, and as they expanded I too expanded... into and out of Myself. The Joy I feel as My being formulates and reformulates under its own steam is amazing. It's liberating.
The things I created can interact and evolve. I can interact with them... and sometimes do but to control everything, which I could so easily do, can only bring me back to that sense of void. Control is not liberating.
A lot of what you understand about Me, has been passed down to you through the ages via mutating systems of belief, that change under the weight of their own cultures and acquisition of knowledge. I look at the Bible and understand it to be several generations of people attempting to understand Me, what I have done, at times contradicting each other, all in my name. These are the things you do. Not Me. I have attempted to directly speak to you over Millenia but, Man is limited in his understanding by what he already knows. The Hindu shruti and smriti, The Torah, the Bible, the Quran... All versions of events, as accounted by Man. The Koran is the closest I came to dictating the words, sent via a divine messenger, to a man who had to rote learn the verses... and guess what? Yet another version of what I was trying to say appeared, coloured by the man, the age and culture in which he appeared. He could only understand what he could understand, as dependant on, and limited by, his own stage of development. Buddhism, at its purest, is so far the closest Man has come to understanding himself, spiritually, without trying to define Me... and he still has a way to go.
Evil was born out of free will, that Man could choose. Given the choice 'to do' or 'not do', which includes the choice 'to do' or 'not do' what he understands to be 'moral' or 'not moral', Man determines and creates his own evils through choice.
I knew this, but it didn't stop Me trying to update the message to Mankind. I knew mistakes would continue to be made and repeated by Man even as he continued to believe in Me. In the early days it seemed easy to just wipe out the mistakes, the evil, but it wouldn't eradicate evil. I thought it best to retire into non-involvement and allow Man to take his own steps towards fulfilling or failing his design.
I don't expect you to understand Me with precision, you are limited in what you can know and how you can know it... but I do Love you. You are my creation.
So now I come to the question "If you Love us, how can you let us suffer? How can you let us die?" In the early days it seemed easy to just wipe out the mistakes, the evil, but it wouldn't eradicate evil. It seemed to clear the slate only for more evil to appear. I thought it best to retire into non-involvement and allow Man to his own steps towards fulfilling or failing his design. Your suffering is part of what tests your mettle. "If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger..." To which I would add "... or makes you succumb to evil". Being abused can cause the abused to respond to abuse by challenging and eradicating it. In doing so, depending on how they do it, the abused can become the abusers. Or perhaps the abused will just succumb to the abuse, integrating into their reality, only to repeat the pattern of abuse. That's you. I gave you free will.. After that you really should have been left on your own from the start. It's my Love for you that occasionally makes me intervene. It's a weakness of Mine. But that's Love.
artisticsolution wrote:... ever wonder why God made death? ... He could have just made death easy, like upon death everyone gets a pleasure sensation or something? There is absolutely no reason to make it unpleasant.
Why should Death be any easier than life? How should it be independent from the choices you make? People die in accidents, the result of misjudgement or folly on their part, or the part of others. Others die as a result of the pitiful way in which they 'take care' of themselves. Then there is the infirmity of old age, a return to being childlike, as you let go of independence, and once again rely on the kindnesses of others to care for you. It keeps man steady in his ability to care...or not, depending on how humanity evolves. The moment of release is a beautiful thing and, in the original design, I planted the ability to see that which you love on departing Life. Some see loved ones, some just feel peace. Of all the things humans should be teaching themselves about, alongside Science and Humanities, Man seems to have neglected Death: that it occurs, how it occurs, how not to be afraid of it. The attitude towards Death remains in the shadows.
Death is just a process that frees your spirit from Life. How it occurs is down to how you live. At its simplest it's just a decay of the physical body to release the potent energy that is the 'soul'. What you term suffering is part of living. How and why you suffer is determined by you and what you do. That I allow suffering is part of the package that allowed you. I 'suffer' too but I suffer gladly.
