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TheHerbalColorado
Center of the donut.


Registered: 10/21/13
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St. Augustine's God
#19047704 - 10/28/13 06:10 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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St. Augustine was curious in that he started out by trying to reason for God (unsuccessfully), but then found that following God made him the happiest, and after becoming a follower went back to establish this argument. These aren't necessarily my views or thinking, I'm just offering food for thought.
His argument is as follows.
We all want to be happy, and the only thing that makes us really happy is something that once gained, cannot be taken away from us. Wisdom is what tells us what will make us happy in the highest sense. Enter, truth. It is the only thing that is eternal, ever present, and also superior to ourselves. Truth itself.
We exist, we live, we know, and we feel.
This is a hierarchy of value: you cannot live without existing, and you cannot know and feel without living. The things higher on the list we place more value on, this is why we value rocks more than nothing, plants more than rocks, animals more than plants, and we value ourselves as superior to all these things.
At the top of the hierarchy is our rational nature, which guides our behavior.
If there were something higher than this, Augustine suggests that this would be God if it were shown to be eternal and immutable. Truth also being eternal and immutable, and being superior to our rational nature, is equatable to god.
If there is nothing superior to truth, then the truth itself is God. If something is superior to truth, then it is also God.
To recap, I quote Norman Melchert 1. God is (by definition) that to whom nothing is superior 2. Truth exists and is superior to us 3. If nothing is superior to truth, the truth = God 4. If something is superior to truth, then that thing is God 5. Either 3 or 4 6. So God exists
-------------------- If you get to old to cut the mustard, lick the jar.
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ZachariasEverlivin
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i can make pancakes. Where is your god to make superior pancakes?
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Yogi1
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He's a cookin somethin up!
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TheHerbalColorado
Center of the donut.


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Quote:
ZachariasEverlivin said: i can make pancakes. Where is your god to make superior pancakes?
They give those out on sunday.
-------------------- If you get to old to cut the mustard, lick the jar.
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Yogi1
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God makes communion wafers!
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TheHerbalColorado
Center of the donut.


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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: Yogi1]
#19049990 - 10/29/13 01:04 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yogi1 said: God makes communion wafers!
Are you god!?
-------------------- If you get to old to cut the mustard, lick the jar.
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Yogi1
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Quote:
TheHerbalColorado said:
Quote:
Yogi1 said: God makes communion wafers!
Are you god!?
Yeah.
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: Yogi1]
#19050478 - 10/29/13 05:28 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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is God in the baking powder or the syrup?
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TheHerbalColorado
Center of the donut.


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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: eve69]
#19053038 - 10/29/13 05:19 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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I sure don't know man but the devil is in the details. HA
-------------------- If you get to old to cut the mustard, lick the jar.
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Yogi1
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The devils not real either
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MarkostheGnostic
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Frustrating, isn't it, that few people will engage in a serious discussion even in a forum labelled to do so? Maybe it's the cannabis influence, where everything is funny whether it's humorous or not, the mind refuses to take anything seriously. That mentality washed me out of college for a semester. Ancient history, but not as ancient as Augustine, who probably has done much more harm than good with his doctrine of Original Sin. It was an ingenious idea to make the church, its sacraments, and its priesthood absolutely indispensable for the reception of God's grace, without which was excommunication, banishment, and eternal damnation. Biggest Christian propagandist in the West, and formulator of the most twisted sense of human being hood - inherited utter depravity.
I suggest that anything Augustine said about the Good and Truth, came to him from his years of being a Neoplatonist before he found himself a heroic figure in Christendom. A former playboy of sorts, he had a conversion experience that resulted in a defensive Reaction Formation against sexuality, and developed his version of Original Sin based entirely on concupiscence. It was a reaction against his own sexual licentiousness that resulted in his anti-sex stance. I suspect his own licentiousness was a reaction against his own severely repressed homosexuality. I get that from Augustine's inordinate attachment to his mother Monica, whom he credits with guiding him towards Christ. I only see that particular emotional enmeshment with one's mother as a corollary of a gay male psychodynamics. Straight men may love their mothers, but a certain extra level of adoration, often replete with endearing terms (like 'dear') in ordinary conversation, is a give-away. Generally speaking of course, not intending to stereotype. Further, among the many gay men I saw professionally as a therapist for the Miami Catholic Archdiocese during their priest formation, I saw homoerotic attachment to Jesus in some cases. Sometimes this was clearly disclosed to me. Augustine may have had these dynamics in play and sublimated them into the anti-sexual, intellectual stuff of his writings.
I cannot help but perform a psycho-historical analysis of influential characters like Augustine. I read his On the Trinity in 2 volumes, and his Confessions, so I got drawn into his intellectual trip for a while. Freud and Erik Erickson both showed me the value of understanding where people are coming from before I buy their version of truth, especially if the version claims to have profound effects on my own life. I seriously considered a monastic life until I woke up to what that was about psychodynamically, and that I didn't belong. I never met a monastic, neither Bendedictine, Capuchin Reformed Franciscan, or Cistercian who was not gay. Monasticism makes sense if you're gay, and I'm not. What is worse is denying one's orientation to the extent that one develops pathology, which turns into a twisted theology, which in turn effects countless billions of lives. Catholicism is still heavily influenced by this repression-turned-pathological.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Yogi1
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I remember Christian logic in the reply to me was "are you god?"
Well spoken as always, Christians.
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all this beauty
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: I only see that particular emotional enmeshment with one's mother as a corollary of a gay male psychodynamics. Straight men may love their mothers, but a certain extra level of adoration, often replete with endearing terms (like 'dear') in ordinary conversation, is a give-away. Generally speaking of course, not intending to stereotype. Further, among the many gay men I saw professionally as a therapist for the Miami Catholic Archdiocese during their priest formation, I saw homoerotic attachment to Jesus in some cases.
As every gay or lesbian person knows (as well as most therapists who deal with these matters), the obsession with -- and interjection in every imaginable context of -- the subject of homosexuality is, itself, often a sign of repressed homosexuality. People who do not themselves experience same-sex attraction generally don't see homosexuality peeking around every corner.
I have no idea if this applies to you, Markos -- but if it does, help is available and I suggest you seek it out.
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TheHerbalColorado
Center of the donut.


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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: Yogi1]
#19099464 - 11/07/13 09:08 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:twisted sense of human being hood - inherited utter depravity.
Yea I think this came on a bit later, and I agree that his greatest thinking was as a neoplatonist shortly after his manichean stint. It seems like it is part of his thought is most unclouded by institutions.
Quote:
Yogi1 said: I remember Christian logic in the reply to me was "are you god?"
Well spoken as always, Christians.
I'm not fuckin Christian, I'm just not some kind of smug teenage atheist who won't consider their philosophies either.
-------------------- If you get to old to cut the mustard, lick the jar.
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Yogi1
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I like Buddhism. I never remember Buddhists saying god hates fags and using their religion for political opportunism.
All your abrahamic religions are pure opportunistic bullshit.
There are a lot of similar philosophies that don't preach about talking snakes....
Even the dumbass Tibetan theist Buddhism and its book of the dead do less damage. You know what buddhists do? They let war machines run them over in protest of hurting others. Can't remember the last Christian who did that. Even Jesus was self lamenting like a little bitches on the cross.
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all this beauty
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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: Yogi1]
#19099686 - 11/07/13 10:24 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yogi1 said: I like Buddhism. I never remember Buddhists saying god hates fags and using their religion for political opportunism.
Actually, back in the 1990s the Dalai Lama said some stuff about "correct" sexual behavior for Buddhists that was widely interpreted as homophobic in nature. He and his organization subsequently did some back-peddling in an attempt to quiet down the resulting uproar. Anyone interested can google for the details.
Orthodox Buddhists can be as fucked up as any other "orthodox" followers of institutional religion, when it comes to the subject of sexual orientation.
Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Orthodox Islam are without doubt the leaders when it comes to fucked-up-ness in this area, but its followers are far from alone.
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Yogi1
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Dalai lama is a made up political figure by the tibetans if I remember right.
It's like judging all Christianity by Catholics, or eastern orthodox, or evangelicals, or snake handlers (Baptists if I remember right)
Majority buddhists are not Tibetan fundamentalists. Majority Christans seem to hold whatever fundamental beliefs suit them culturally.
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all this beauty
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Re: St. Augustine's God [Re: Yogi1]
#19099866 - 11/07/13 11:02 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yogi1 said: Dalai lama is a made up political figure by the tibetans if I remember right.
It's like judging all Christianity by Catholics, or eastern orthodox, or evangelicals, or snake handlers (Baptists if I remember right)
Majority buddhists are not Tibetan fundamentalists. Majority Christans seem to hold whatever fundamental beliefs suit them culturally.
Valid points. And I didn't mean to imply that just because the Dalai Lama may be fucked up in this area, all Buddhists are fucked up.
As a matter of fact, there's a fairly large network of LGBT Buddhists in the U.S. and around the world who work, in their own way, to make Buddhism a welcoming place for all people, regardless of sexual orientation.
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Yogi1
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I don't think it sounded like an attack. Buddhism at its root holds some beliefs like vegetarianism, moderation, non violence, but I don't remember anything to do with sex.
Men create that dis ease.
Can't stand what tibetans did to create a bs thrown out of what is basically a philosophy.
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