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 gribochek
enthusiast
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 God 
#424370 - 10/13/01 05:26 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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I suppose the following is of no use to anyone whatsoever.
What is God?
God is simply one answer to all the most important questions,
an answer so simple it is impossible to explain,
so subtle it is impossible to remember,
so powerful it can make the whole world disappear,
so dangerous it is instantly fatal.
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 Revelation
ॐ
Registered: 08/04/01
Posts: 6,135
Loc: heart cave
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God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
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MrKurtz
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well, this is something I've been thinking about that supports the idea of religion. Well, anyways, why would women have hymens(cherries) if they weren't supposed to be good and virgins and all? I'm not sure.. but I don't think any other animals have them. Just something I have been thinking about.
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missulena
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thats john lennons quote isnt it?
cherries-it would have a biological function if you read up on it
Why have they got vaginas at all? why arent we all the same sex? why dont we all just have a little uretha on our heel instead of having complex reproductive organs? because despite religion we were made for having sex no doubt about it
Edited by missulena (10/13/01 10:36 PM)
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Amoeba665
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yeah i always thought that was strange also. simple organisms are often asexual, which seems to me, if evolution was simply "survival of the fittest", to be the preferred method of reproduction, but instead more complex organisms have more difficult and involved reproductive processes. maybe it's this way to reinforce the importance of cooperation and communication between complex lifeforms, to help guide them along in the development of their free will. since we don't run on autopilot like cells. ornot.
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In(di)go
People of the sun.
Registered: 10/29/00
Posts: 8,157
Loc: Cologne, Germany
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love is god... and god is in us... and we are here to experience god in every possible way... love is gods purest form... and what better way is there to experience love than making love to the woman you love... it is the most powerful experience of all...
we humans have gone so far as to think we couple because of our surviving instinct... which is wrong... we couple because of love, which is the only true instinct...
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jonnyshaggs420
Pooh-Bah
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God is the personification of all the answers to the questions we do not know.
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Vote Jonnyshaggs in the next election for GOD...Its the responsible choice
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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alan watts:
god is the which than which none is whicher
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant
Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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God left us with a whole lot of questions and no answers.
T.V.s exc. give us a whole lot of explainations, which we confuse for the answers, and so our minds rot.
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Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good.
If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.
It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.
I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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gnrm23
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hey cj, i wunnered how that happened...
cuz i gotta whole bunch more questions than i do answers in my rucksack...so, i can blame god (again) huh? coolness...
~~~
"don't ask me nothin' about nothin'
i just might tell you the truth..."
(robert zimmerman, the sage of hibbing)
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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Crobih
rap-cord
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Loc: cave
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#426423 - 10/15/01 02:42 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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God is an external concept wich we need, because with no external, we ar only half "beings"
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant
Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#426517 - 10/15/01 05:01 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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who's blaming? thank God for riddles! man was born a problem-solver, it's built right into his frontal-lobes. it's our birth-right, our heritage, don't you know? i can't think of any other species that has it quite the same, really.... the problem-solver, the culture generator, the time-binder built right into Reality. i like God the Mystery, not God the answer. you can take away my life, but you can't take away the koan that breathes life through my mind!
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Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good.
If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.
It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.
I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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Anonymous
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We are all God. So is this, and so is that.
I am.
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tak
geo's henchman
Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
Loc: nowhereland
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Re: God [Re: ]
#427030 - 10/16/01 02:13 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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All these posts are great, i love them, but the first one, the original post...it does me good, it was reassurance. thanks.
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The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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heh
i used "blame" in its current westciv meaning ("huh, not my fault --- it was (genetics/upbringing/society/not me) that got me into this mess")
ummmm, ok
and if thou art god and i am god and all that groks is god...
well, here we are... let us make of this world what me can (nearer to the heart's desire?)
walk on...
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant
Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#427475 - 10/16/01 02:53 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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oh, yah of course, damn those external circumstances and other peoples bad behaviors for the way i feel!
/
and a very good heart you've cultivated yourself "uncle" gnrmi
god bless,
cj
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Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good.
If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.
It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.
I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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gribochek
enthusiast
Registered: 04/18/99
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Re: God [Re: ]
#427533 - 10/16/01 03:38 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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I am surprized to hear it from you, Shroomism. You invest so much value in dualistic concepts such as salvation (of whom?) evil aliens (they are God too, no?) and other dimentions (dimentions of what?)... How do you reconsile the two approaches?
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Anonymous
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Everything is part of the same Creation. Evil, Good, are just different aspects of the same thing.
>>(dimentions of what?)
Dimensions of consciousness. Or, different states of being, or; lower and higher vibrational frequencies of sub-atomic particles.
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gribochek
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Re: God [Re: ]
#427793 - 10/16/01 08:15 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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So you are merely a part of God, yes?
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Anonymous
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Yes
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StrangeDays
Bob
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#427959 - 10/16/01 10:56 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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Re: God [re: gribochek] Reply
<quote>
alan watts:
god is the which than which none is whicher
</quote>
Try saying that 10 times really fast!
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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oh ya...
plenty fertilizer...
occasional pruning...
air & sunlight...
cool & dark...
dab o' poison now & then...
awaiting harvest time...
harvest...
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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gribochek
enthusiast
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Re: God [Re: ]
#428728 - 10/17/01 06:03 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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How nice. Good for you....
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Anonymous
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Indeed...and you as well
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Mosby
Stranger
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Re: God [Re: ]
#429132 - 10/18/01 02:36 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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If we 1st accept the premise that energy can be neither created or destroyed then 5 billion years ago give or take some all the energy in the universe was 1 single point in essence 1 thing. that means that you me and every other living and non living thing in the entire universe a hundred billion stars and a hundred billion galaxies was once one. Time infinitely streaming future past present all combined every point every atom in the universe inexorably linked to that singularity. Then in that perfect stillness of oneness BANG all streaming from one rushing outward to fill a void incomprehensible. GOD was and is shall ever be the hand that lit the fuse.
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Felstorm
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Re: God [Re: Mosby]
#429139 - 10/18/01 02:52 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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God is the duality of opposites.
It is a no-thing.
Ain Soph.
Diety is the great unknowable. It is the thing that began all things. It created the universe by expending some of its vast energy to create our universe.
The Tree of Life has the keys to better understanding the Great
Unknowable. The path of the Flaming Sword is the key to opening the gates of the heavens and enlightening your fragile being.
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To do a thing and know no better is ignorance.
It is an act of kindness to educate the ignorant.
To do a wrong thing intentionally, is evil and wicked.
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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Re: God [Re: Mosby]
#429287 - 10/18/01 10:56 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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well...
5 billion y.a. was strictly "local" --- the solar system was formed out of eddies in the gas clouds of the nether regions of our milky way galaxy... (the clouds enriched by novae & supernovae in the region, giving us ---> iron & --->transuranics, respectively...
the "big bang" is accepted as an event that occurred more like 15-22 billion years ago...
(dr shulgin doesn't buy into the "big bang" theory...)
a nice model that contains the 40 billion light year hypershpere we call our universe like a soap bubble in foam (but the "foam" shaped like a cosmic egg & recycling the space, time, & matter it generates) is found in itzak bentov's nice book _stalking the wild pendulum_)
~~~
huh, look at that!
~~~
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
Edited by gnrm23 (10/18/01 11:13 AM)
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CACA
veteran
Registered: 07/12/01
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... yeah, with that sig, you MUST be holier than all of us thous
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"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:5
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gribochek
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#429314 - 10/18/01 11:57 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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My personal theory is that Big Bang has never really happened, but in all times it _seems_ to have happened a sertain period of time ago. The only reason I think that is because it would give a very appealing symmetrical view of the universe, where a horizon of events is both in space and in time, the appearence of the latter now being thoroughly misunderstood by scientists as the Big Bang event. This seems about as strange as to see a horizon of events as a physical boundary where the Universe literally disappears.
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gribochek
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BTW, how about that holly trinity?
The Fater = that which created the world
The Holly Spirit = that which keeps the world going
The Son = that which is observing the world
The trinity sais that these three are, really, one and the same thing... Hence... oh, boy....
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Mosby
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#429499 - 10/18/01 03:42 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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My model was not meant to show a scientific blue print of the universe just a metaphor for the interconnectiveness that all things share and that force that connects us to all things seems divine in nature.I apologize for playing very loose with the time line and realize that the big bang is a generalization of many possible explanations,also that several other theories may better fit the evidence that we can perceive on the origin of the universe.
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Anonymous
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Post deleted by Moe Howard [Re: gribochek]
#429574 - 10/18/01 05:16 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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gribochek
enthusiast
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You must be a modern person, explaining lightning away with "electrons"...
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missulena
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Re: God *DELETED* [Re: Anonymous]
#431650 - 10/20/01 05:27 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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Post deleted by missulena
Edited by missulena (10/20/01 05:41 PM)
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Revelation
ॐ
Registered: 08/04/01
Posts: 6,135
Loc: heart cave
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"the belief in god is a socially acceptable delusion"
We can never know the answer, far less convince someone else that your answer is correct.
In an infinite universe isn't everything possible? Ideas that may seem laughable are just as valid as any others. For instance, this universe could be the result of some Cosmic Fart by some otherworldly entity. Maybe every time WE fart we are creating tiny little universes of our own. It's possible, and it's at least as plausible as any other theory.
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missulena
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So are you going to base your whole belief system and life on the thought that maybe your farts are creating universes before youve got any evidence, that sounds like delusional thinking to me.
belief in god i believe is a form of psycosis
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Revelation
ॐ
Registered: 08/04/01
Posts: 6,135
Loc: heart cave
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No, I don't believe that at all. I'm just saying that everything is possible. Anything we can think of is possible, and perhaps everything we think of is a reality. On the grand scale of things, all beliefs are equally as plausible.
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one_smooth_bitch
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God is who we see him to be
OSB
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The next time you want pussy, go look in the mirror baby...here kitty kitty kitty.....
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Anonymous
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God/All that is/The Great Central Sun/Creation is THE center of the universe and the source of all life, love, and creativity in this Universe.
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missulena
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Who said everythings possible? and every thought sure as hell isnt a reality-a thought may exist but that doesnt mean what it may imply exists in the physical world just because you thought of it in your head , that is how delusional people think they think there thoughts affect the outside world if i imagined i just ate a hamburger but i didnt id still be hungry wouldnt i? and if i continued imaginary eating i would eventually die of starvation that would be a reality despite thought
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Anonymous
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Your thoughts sure as hell effect your reality. If you think angry hateful thoughts at someone do you think they will not be affected by them? If you think about how much you suck and how worthless you are do you think you will be happy? If you think about how you would like to eat a hamburger, then you would eat one.
Your thoughts create your reality. And that is a fact.
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mariasabina
addict
Registered: 10/10/01
Posts: 584
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Re: God [Re: ]
#432995 - 10/22/01 02:54 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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To say that "everything is God"
and to say that "God doesn't exist"
mean the same thing, if you think about it.
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Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot. - Niel Gaiman
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missulena
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Re: God [Re: ]
#433006 - 10/22/01 03:24 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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It is possible to have a thought and not convey it in anyway it sounded to me like revelation thought that if you think it it must be true without having to act on it, what you are talking about shroomism is acting on this thought and doing something about it but you must know that what you can do about that thought is limited because there is an outside world that your mind doesnt have that much control over
Edited by missulena (10/22/01 03:26 AM)
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one_smooth_bitch
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Re: God [Re: ]
#433050 - 10/22/01 06:00 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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God/All that is/The Great Central Sun/Creation is THE center of the universe and the source of all life, love, and creativity in this Universe. (Shroomism)
that is how you see him :) I see him as a her :O)
OSB
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The next time you want pussy, go look in the mirror baby...here kitty kitty kitty.....
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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god is a crazy black woman named ERIS...
~~~
HAIL ERIS !!
ALL HAIL DISCORDIA !!!
~~~
23 skidoo
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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Re: God [Re: ]
#433063 - 10/22/01 06:19 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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"is the thought of a unicorn a real thought?"
(attributed to robert anton wilson)
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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one_smooth_bitch
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#433140 - 10/22/01 09:27 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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rotflmao!
hehehe
OSB
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The next time you want pussy, go look in the mirror baby...here kitty kitty kitty.....
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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thou art god
i am god
all that groks is god
~~~
(attributed to valentine michael smith, THE MAN FROM MARS)
~~~
"if i could only see your face" lazarus mettered pettishly...
"try looking in a mirror" the shadowy figure replied...
(battlefield death hallucination sequence, timetrip to W W I, in heinlein's _time enough for love_)
~~~
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
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so has anybody read or seen the joseph campbell works on myth (pbs has bill moyer interviewing campbell, often airing the shows as grist for the fundraiser mill...)
MYTH
can be a truth deeper than mere fact...
need not be merely historical & can transcend history...
is as old as human speechifiying...
~~~
god/gods --- conceptual tools for confroning "the great unkown" ... as to his/her/its/their "reality" --- well we filter what we feel through what we "know" and what we expect... as the sufis say, "he who tastes, knows"...
the nature of the divine, the face of god, the origin and destination of all things... difficult to get a final picture of that one...
but spirit... when the wind is right, and the internal chattering is quiet for a while... spirit can be "tasted" (not the right word, but the sense of spirit may not lie in the tradition 5 or 6 senses, eh?) --- mayhap not "tested" in a scientific sense, but may indeed be tested in a living your life sense...
as i have said before on these boards, i am still working on a relationship with "god" (and may be working on it for the remainder of my life...) but spirit is real...
~~~
some related root words from lingua alterna...
spirit (fr. latin) (& many derivatives --- inspire, respire, conspire, expire...)
pneuma (from greek)
gheist (from german) (& english derivative ghost)
ruach (from hebrew)
...and i am sure there are other woords & other languages... but they all tie in with breath, air, wind, soulstuff and bodystuff... as a fish swims in the sea and notices not the water... so we move and live and have our being in a cosmic ocean of love
love, compassion, charity, caritas, karuna, agape, lovingkindness... the way to "know" the entitiy that for lack of a better word we call "god" is best achieved by practicing "love"...
ummmm, well that was an easy $.05 worth...
~
love (if i may use the word) from
/gnrmi
~~
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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Mosby
Stranger
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#437401 - 10/26/01 03:30 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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When Joseph Campbell died the world lost one of its greastest thinkers "The Power of Myth" with Moyer interveiwing Campbell was an awesum show. Bill Moyer also has a show thats a round table discussion on the book of Genisis that compelled me to reread the bible with a much more analytical eye to what was really being said as opposed to what preacher/priests had fed me as a child and young adult.The bible imho is probaly the most abused book ever written that such simple and bueatiful truths it contains have been twisted into the garbage I was taught maybe the worlds greatest sin.
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Rono
DSYSB since '01
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Re: God [Re: Mosby]
#437787 - 10/26/01 03:37 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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I personally think the bible has probably been twisted greatly since it's origin...Considering incorrect translations, parts that were cut out because of certain beleifs at the time, and bazillion different versions of it.
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"Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
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greypoe
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There will be NO OTHER Gods before me
If there is only 1 God
Who are you
Now here we fall back into our functions..
...........
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HARRY
journeyman
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are you russian?.....
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Axiom420
ADDICT
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Re: God [Re: Rono]
#443456 - 10/31/01 05:58 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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read Ellis R. Brotzman's Old Testament Textual Criticism.
I am, as always, truely amazed at people's lack of understanding of Biblical scholarship. So many people that say they believe in it don't have a clue (but they're sure it says don't smoke weed) and the people that don't believe in it don't have a clue (but they're sure that the fact that there is more than one translation means that it cant be true).
Anyway...
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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
- Albert Einstein
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watchthemusic
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Re: God [Re: Rono]
#445375 - 11/03/01 01:45 AM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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I'll establish the historical attestation to the accuracy of the Bible.
Bibliographically, the Bible is the most reliable document of ancient history.
There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add (more than) 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions, and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today.
No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer is second WITH ONLY 643 MANUSCRIPTS THAT STILL SURVIVE. The first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the 13th century.
(Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell, page 39)
John Warwick Montgomery says that "to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament."
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"The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics" -Johannes Kepler
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/29/99
Posts: 6,488
Loc: n. e. OH, USSA
Last seen: 2 months, 4 hours
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yes, it is unfortunate that many ancient manuscripts of classical literature are no longer extant...
due in great part, no doubt, to the long standing aversion of ecclesiastical authorities to the presence of non-christian literature, as exemplified by the destruction of the alexandrian library in egypt (and its chief librarian, hypatia) at the instigation of the christian bishop of alexandria... she became a martyr, and he bacame a saint, go figure...
and the christain bible as canon was not solidified into its present form until the reign of constantine (when much extracanonical scripture was consigned to the flames, along with those who would have kept what they considered to be sacred scripture from the fires built up by the authoritarians...)
that being said, the christian bible and its antecedent scripures, the jewish torah, are (or can be) valuable material to read for believes and others... if only we could find a way to absorb the messags contained therein without insisting that every "jot and tittle" be regarded as the literal and unchanging word of god...
ymmv...
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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D_Tox
Boddhisattva
Registered: 10/31/01
Posts: 239
Loc: Lab 23
Last seen: 20 years, 9 months
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Re: God [Re: gnrm23]
#446978 - 11/04/01 06:34 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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God is the great I Am.
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D_Tox
to understand other people….to be aware
to understand animals….to be a decent person
to understand plants….. to be a refined individual
to understand the mushroom…to be enlightened
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gluke bastid
Stinky Bum
Registered: 12/20/00
Posts: 3,322
Loc: Charm City
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 Re: God [Re: Rono]
#447054 - 11/04/01 07:59 PM (22 years, 1 month ago) |
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God, to me, is creation. Everything that exists and the fact that it exists all make up God.
My problem with the bible is that it suggest that mankind was a specific creation; special compared to other things in the universe. I gain much more serenity in the concept that I am on equal terms with everything in the universe, taking an equal part in the course of things that could never, by nature, be unnatural (shrooms helped me realize this ;) . Moreover, I don't like the implications with the whole Eve story. It makes me feel like the bible is telling men to seperate the course of women from our own. I don't dig that.
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Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
- Thomas Paine
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TheCaptain
addict
Registered: 09/04/01
Posts: 426
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
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"God" is a creation. Or an expression if you will, of the human spirit.
Every religion tries to explain away the same phenomena that we all question in our lives. Life, Death, Afterlife, morals...etc.
What we dont realize is that the theories/gods of other religions and beleifs are just differnet ways of explaing the same universal things that effect us all.
My beef with religion is that people take everything too literal, nitpick details, and just generally miss the bigger unifying issues.
I think if we look beyond the details such as labels, names, sacred texts there is a common ground covered by all of them. Thats what leads me to believe that "god" is within us- its the human perception, spirit that everyone has.
Thats just my take anyway...
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"I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are."
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Renegade
Stranger
Registered: 11/07/01
Posts: 7
Last seen: 22 years, 9 days
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watchthemusic:
I don't have any doubts that the religious texts that we have now are virtually identical to the ones that existed 2000 years ago. But my qualms are not with the reliability of the copies, it's with the reliablility of the original texts. They could have been copied perfectly down the centuries, but if the original versions were inaccurate in any way then it means nothing.
With reference to the New Testament, the earliest literary mention of Jesus didn't occur till 60-70 ad, in Paul's letters, some 30 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. No historian - literally none - made any record of Jesus until around 90 ad, 60 odd years after his death. Quite odd that the son of god - who supposedly made such an impact over the Jewish people under Roman territory - should fail to get a mention in any Roman's (or in any other's) historical records.
In fact Jesus wasn't even depicted as a human being in any texts until 90 ad - in Pauls letters, he gives us little reason to suspect that he is talking about anything other than a spirit or concept. Why should we then believe a text like the Bible, which aside from all the contradictory and just plain incorrect passages, invariably describes events that happened at least decades in the past, which gives plenty of time for hear-say to increase exponentially?
Or am I being too literalistic? Then how else am I meant to interpret it? Metaphorically? Allegorically? That would enhance the "meaning" behind the text perhaps, but, as Camus once said, the more meaningful anything becomes the less verifiable truth it contains. You can either interpret the Bible literally and put up with any criticisms based either in empricism or logic, or you can choose to interpret it metaphorically, which leaves you with no hope of being able to extract anything absolute - or at least objective - from the text.
My second point is related to the "place" of god in this world. Contrast the place of god 2000 years ago, with his place now, 2001 ad. Back at the dawn of our Christian calendar, God was used - as so many people have pointed out - as explanation of the world that our ancestors failed so miserably to understand with their primordial science. He was a physical (or should that be metaphyscial?) being, with real substance, and very definate human qualities. He was their explanation for all facets of the world: nature, space, morality, time, existence itself.
Today, November 8th 2001 ad, he performs much the same role, though slightly modified to fit in conveniently with our 21st century needs. No longer does he occupy the realm of nature, space and time: science is our new god here. Where god was once the all-powerful lord of these domains 2000 years ago, he now lies impotent. He is no longer needed in the physical realm because we have found a much more powerful, much stronger and much more infinite god: that of science.
Thus as our necessity for god as an explanitory tool shrank, so to did our concept of him. God has been used, historically, as the temporary glue to hold together our fragmentary pieces of knowledge. He has been our doorway to understanding the ascpects of our world that we otherwise do not understand: wherever ignorance, misunderstanding or uncertainty exists, there you will find god.
Now, in this world where science is rapidly putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, god is no longer the all-powerful metaphysical reality he once was. But, despite this, he still manages to occupy the small gaps left in the rapidly more complete puzzle: the parts that science (so far) has hitherto been unable to access.
So what is god now? Where he was once omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, infinite and the undisputed master of his entire creation, he existence is, in the present, a small, fragmentary one. So small, and so fragmented are these gaps in our understanding that god has become impossible to understand, define or grasp: which allows those individuals - who prey on ambiguity - to use this "incomprehensible" nature of god, as an excuse to play around with semantic logic and use it as contorted "evidence" to support their own premise. "Our premise suggests that god is too powerful to be understood", they say, "and as we can't understand him he must exist!". They fail to acknowledge, however, that god's incomprehensibility stems from the fact that his existence is so tiny and so fragmented - and the realms that he occupies so subjectively ambigious - that any attempt to understand our own concept of god as an absolute being are doomed to failure: predictable by even the most elementary standards of logic.
So what realms does he occupy now? Well, as I said before, only the ones that science have not been able to explain up until now. The three areas that I could come up with are: the creation of this universe, consciousness and morality. Approaching any said group of people with any of these three subjects is sure to lead someone to mention "god".
Now I'm not going to go on about it, but all of you here who have spoken of god speak of him not as a being, but as a concept. Not part of the external world, but of the internal one. Might I suggest then, that instead of searching for god you search for yourself (as corny as that sounds)? Seeing as your looking for the transcendent within, wouldn't it just be easier to look for the within within? Does it somehow enhance the meaning of your existence to think that your consciousness is transcendent in this way? Why do you need to search for god at all? What does he add to our lives that cannot be discovered in other ways?
If you search for spirits you will find them. If you are genuinely interested in understanding yourself, discovering humanity, then I would advise you to stop pidgeon-holing your direction towards the search for "god" and resume your search elsewhere. If you can find yourself, and be certain of it, then the belief in any transcendent spirituality - no matter how powerful - will pale into insignifcance. Whether god exists is a moot point: it shouldn't change the way you exist.
On the other hand, if you wish to busy yourself chasing shadows on the wall, then so be it. I'd be interested to see how many of them you can catch.
Edited by Renegade (11/07/01 07:41 PM)
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