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 vigilant_mind
unfazed
 
Registered: 01/19/07
Posts: 1,717
Loc: boco
Last seen: 15 years, 5 months
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 In the Shoes of God 
#7465651 - 09/28/07 09:09 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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Here is a clever piece of literature I found while browsing the web which I thought would be apt for this board. I encourage any religious folk to contest what is said below, as it will be interesting to hear your "arguments". Enjoy.
In the Shoes of God
Try and imagine yourself in the shoes of God for a second. So here you are, existing for eternity, not knowing why you exist for eternity or how it is that you didn't have a beginning, and one day amidst eternity, approximately 6,000 years ago, you decide to start creating things. In fact, you create everything in existence. You create a billion-trillion stars, and these living things called plants and animals to roam around on one tiny planet amidst a sea of other celestial bodies.
There’s no logical reason why you’d decide to do this approximately 6,000 years ago, instead of billions of years ago. It couldn’t be that you wanted something to love you, because if you did, you’d know you’d want it, and wouldn’t have waited an eternity to create the universe. Then you start thinking, if the universe is only 6,000 years old, what was I doing for the infinite amount of time before the universe was created?
But you forget that bit of absurdity for a second, and after creating animals and plants on this tiny planet you decide to make one of the animals special by giving it the ability to defeat death and live as an immaterial entity like yourself. However, there’s a catch, this being has to follow the rules you set out for it, and believe in things without evidence, even though you’ve given them the ability to critically think. You realize your cruelty of punishing people for using their abilities to critically think to realize that you haven’t left any “evidence” for your existence that couldn’t also confirm the existence of any countless other gods who have been written about existing in different holy books which share an eerie similarity to the book you’ve blessed mankind with, but you forget about that.
So after creating humans, and giving the first of each of them a wonderful place to live and be happy, you put a tree in that garden which if eaten, will make you curse them with death and pain, and the possibility of eternal torment. Even though you’re god, you have troubles figuring out why you do this, but you do it anyway.
But your divine plan which you have the power to stop it from failing, fails horribly, but you’re not surprised, because you knew that it was going to fail in the first place, so then you ask yourself, “why did I even bother with the garden in the first place”
Anyway, now that people are out of the garden and living their lives, killing each other, and brutally and ritualistically burning the animals you created, because the smell of their burning flesh appeases you, among other reasons, you recognize that there are too many people disobeying the rules that you laid out for them, even it’s in their nature to neglect the rules
So you decide to kill every last thing except for some people and animal on a boat. You wonder why you didn’t instead create some social programs or try and educate the things you created out of love, or something else, instead of just wiping the slate clean, but oh well.
You’re especially confused about your own actions because you know that the flood isn’t going to work, and sin is just going to become as prevalent or more so, and you realize that you just killed millions of human babies and puppies, among other things, for nothing.
You try to kill yourself because you can’t live with yourself, but you remember you can’t kill yourself because you’re eternal, so you decide that if you can’t die, you mine as well have some fun.
So you have sex with a virgin, so she can give birth to yourself to wander around, in the form of a human, a small region on one of the many billion planets you created. You then let yourself get killed, and tell people that you sacrificed yourself as a gift to us.
At this point, the majority of the world’s population doesn’t know a lick about the “real” you, and they believe what their own culture has taught them to explain the origins of the universe. But thankfully, that’s going to change, because you’re going to deliver a saving message to all mankind. Oddly enough though, your saving message to all mankind comes in the form of a book, the same way that all the other saving messages to mankind from other religions come in.
You think this is particularly funny, because you then set up a stipulation that if you don’t happen to believe the one version among many that has no more evidence for it and has to be believed on faith, you’re going to burn people’s souls for all eternity. You then wonder how you’re going to make the soul’s feel pain, if they don’t have a nervous system or a brain to interpret the neural signals. Then you realize that you’ve done all this thinking without even having a brain, and you explode, destroying the universe and starting over as a big bang.
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stellar renegade
explorer ofmetaphysicaldepths
Registered: 09/19/07
Posts: 201
Loc: carrollton, tx
Last seen: 14 years, 8 months
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Strange... I wonder what religion that's from...  
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"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou
 
"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs
Registered: 12/02/05
Posts: 14,794
Loc: red panda village
Last seen: 3 years, 8 months
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Which religion... is what from? 
You mean the actual text?
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All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
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stellar renegade
explorer ofmetaphysicaldepths
Registered: 09/19/07
Posts: 201
Loc: carrollton, tx
Last seen: 14 years, 8 months
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No, I mean what religion is it based on, silly. 
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"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou
"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald
Edited by stellar renegade (09/28/07 11:10 PM)
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs
Registered: 12/02/05
Posts: 14,794
Loc: red panda village
Last seen: 3 years, 8 months
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Well I thought it was pretty obvious - Christianity 
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All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
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stellar renegade
explorer ofmetaphysicaldepths
Registered: 09/19/07
Posts: 201
Loc: carrollton, tx
Last seen: 14 years, 8 months
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Really? It doesn't sound like Christianity at all from my standpoint. Sounds more like some kind of psychotic paganism to me. 
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"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou
"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs
Registered: 12/02/05
Posts: 14,794
Loc: red panda village
Last seen: 3 years, 8 months
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Psychotic paganism? 
What do you define as being pagan, cause it's a pretty ambiguous term which leaves room for a variety of interpretations.
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All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
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Boots
Disenchanted
Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 1,137
Loc: Northwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Last seen: 16 years, 16 days
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Very interesting and well-written piece of literature.
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stellar renegade
explorer ofmetaphysicaldepths
Registered: 09/19/07
Posts: 201
Loc: carrollton, tx
Last seen: 14 years, 8 months
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Well in other words it's not Christian. And paganism tends to focus more on imagery than meaning and stories more than virtue. With historic Christianity it's the meaning and virtue that's emphasized over silly stories. It might as well be an Egyptian myth or something. It has the flood story which almost every culture speaks of, then the death/rebirth cycle, etc. Or who knows, it could be from any of numerous cultures.
I'm not saying those myths have no meaning, but it's often confused and garbled because the imagery is so distracting. Of course alot of what goes by the name 'Christian' is the same, but that name is a misnomer, as what you have now is basically paganism. When Constantine adopted Christianity into the Roman empire, the old paganism was basically stamped with the new name. A completely different animal. 
And maybe there were those in 'pagan' religions who did understand virtue and meaning beyond the imagery, instead of it just being a religion. But most of what I've seen signifies extremes.
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"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou
"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald
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vigilant_mind
unfazed
Registered: 01/19/07
Posts: 1,717
Loc: boco
Last seen: 15 years, 5 months
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Allow me to clarify: this mockery or whatever you want to call it was written to address fundamentalist Christians. Case solved.
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