If God Exists...

You must be thinking about ChinaCat's horse.

Seriously, out of all the irrational fanatics trolling these forums, I'm the one being accused of pulverizing a horse?

That's almost amusing.

 

It was a mechanical kind of hobby horse I had in mind.

 

I agree. Studies of the evolution of God over the ages lead me to think that the ideas humans have formed about their gods must be faulty. The transition from spirits to ancestors to gods to God seems to parallel the political movement from elders to chiefs to kings to emperors. But it is still possible to sense what Arian Herbert calls The God Behind the God. The Upanishads introduce us to a concept of godhead which transcends the gods, the hidden Ground of All Being or felt presence of a Higher Power.

 

I think part of the misunderstanding comes because some people assume that all who believe in God necessarily believe in the vengeful Yaweh type conception of God. And there are no doubt people out there who do believe in just that. I think this is mainly a cultural prejudice, and comes because people are simply not aware of higher types of conception of the Divine.
Personally, I feel that the Upanishadic concept is about the best I've encountered, but it should be borne in mind that the Upanishads also allow for a personal God - but one with attributes very different from those mentioned in some parts of the OT, Koran etc.
The Bhagavad Gita is sometimes categorized as among the Upanishads - Gitopanishad is another name for it. It introduces the idea that to realize the relationless absolute spoken of in the earlier Upanishads is too difficult for most people, so the Divine appears in His form of Sri Krishna and other avatars to make it easier for human beings to come to knowledge.
A Vedantist will say that Jesus was such an avatar.

 

Speaking of absurdity, could anything be more absurd than a "lesser form of life" trying to figure out what God is up to. The Abramic religions agree with Hinduism that God is ineffable. I doubt that my dogs will ever be able to figure me out, much as they might try. Why do I get angry when they shit on the rug? Ibn al-Arabi tells us what mystics of all traditions understand: that this God of ours is simply a symbol of the divine, which shouldn't be confused with the Hidden Reality itself. Why did God make us? I can remember my mother giving me the standard catechism answer: to love and serve Him and to be happy with Him in heaven. Theologian Diogenes Allen agrees with you that there is no good reason that He should, so the fact that He did shows the abundance of His love. Maybe He did it for entertainment or creative expression. Norman Mailer thought He's a cosmic cinematographer creating and enjoying the greatest show on earth, if not the universe. Science writer Guy Murchie agrees. If you were God, "would you make the world nice and safe and boring, or would you let it be provocative, dangerous and exciting." Particle physicist Freeman Dyson, echoing Leibniz, thinks that the universe contains a principle of maximum diversity--the greatest ordered complexity. Astrophysicist Bernard Haisch posits a higher intelligence that is exploring all possible combinations and permutations of itself. Or maybe He's just lonely. After all, we consider ourselves superior to our pets, but really love them and enjoy their companionship. The concept of a needy God would offend many theologians to death, but what do they know? What do any of us know? Psychologist Steven Pinker thinks evolution has dealt humans the dilemma of being able to ask questions we can't answer. :" We cannot hold ten thousand words in short-term memory. We cannot see in ultraviolet light. We cannot mentally rotate an object in the fourth dimension. And perhaps we cannot sove conundrums like free will and sentience." And a fortiori like why God made us (if He did). My solution is the way of Sisyphus: to keep trying to push the rock up the hill in hopes that I either might succeed or find some meaning in the absurdity of the process. (See Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus.)

 

OK, but don't forget that I do not believe in God and you are the one clinging to weak excuses.

 

well at least you know what group you belong too, the irrational fanatics....


and maybe the fact that you start a new one of these "there is no God" threads about every 3 months just may have something to do with the whole "beating a dead horse" thing.

 

I often find the terms "hilarious", "disturbing", and "human" to be essentially interchangeable. I often wonder whether life is best described as hilariously cruel or cruelly hilarious.

I disagree. What compels you to think that a being worthy of the title "God" would not create lesser beings? Now if you said something like "Would not punish lesser beings for disbelief" I would agree completely (and I would argue that any religion that believes in such a god is clearly a false religion), but there doesn't seem to be any contradiction in a god creating lesser beings. Would you elaborate?

 

may I suggest you purchase a dictionary

 

Simple; God is perfect or as close to perfection as anything can get. A universe containing God, or multiple equivalent Gods, is as good or as perfect as a universe can get. God X imperfect = lesser good universe. Mathematically 1X1=1, 1X0.9=0.9... There is no rational reason a perfect God would want to create a lower quality universe.

 

People get caught up in certain definitions or concepts, like allmighty or heavenly father etc. etc. You seem caught up (here at least) in the concept of perfection. They're all human concepts and inventions, they explain more about us then that they say anything with certainty about god(s).
Some people say the concept of a god is hilarious and should not be believed in seriously, but what about this perfection thing. It's more of an expression, an abstract concept than anything real. If we don't know what God is exactly and that perfection is an abstract human concept, rarely something completely objective, what does this say:

Why are we lesser beings exactly (if we can agree nothing is perfect, and perfection is just an abstract concept). Because God supposedly created us and the universe and we just live and die in it? That that makes us 'lesser beings' may be merely our perspective as well.
Because 'we sin' and are lazy and undisciplined and go against our ideals all the time? I guess that seems a credible reason when we assume God doesn't do that shit But sinning is our own invention as well, and giving in to laziness and postponing acting on our ideals is all what we make of it (and to be fair giving in to laziness for example can be pretty awesome and even feel righteous )

There is no rational reason a perfect God would want to create a lower quality universe.

So maybe perfection is kind of misleading. And maybe our universe isn't a lower quality one

 

ya know one of your biggest problems is you think you now what is "good" or "bad" and then proceed to label shit according to your criteria, how utterly ignorant.

how do you arrive at the conclusion that the universe is imperfect or of lower quality (lower than what, what are you comparing it to besides your own fantasy) from your very, very limited and myopic vantage point??????


From my perspective, everything is fine and progressing as it should.
you need to expand your perspective beyond your meager life time frame and location and quit trying to quantify everything according to your own personal conceptions, as they are woefully inadequate, as are all humans attepts at understanding this shit.

What's the matter, are you all upset because the wife put up a nativity scene or something.

 

Interesting argument

 

The notion that a god must be perfect is an Abrahamic concept, certainly not shared by pagan religions. The Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian gods were far from perfect. According to the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish , Marduk created humans as slaves for the gods. According to Genesis, He created them in His oown image, because He wanted to.

 

LOL, Thanks. That's a good one to print off and post to my wall.

 

yup, a predator eating another animal is everything progressing exactly as it should.
only a moron would think otherwise.

 

Mmmm, God does love the smell of burnt flesh.

 

Two biggest scams in the universe. Amway and religion.

 

What's amway? Never heard of it.

Everything seems bogus when it is not for you.

Although this thread seems indeed about religion, God of course is something different than religion. At first God on itself is not a scam in any way, just a concept. That the concept of God(s) has been used to scam people (like steer them in a certain direction they wouldn't if they had known better) does not make the concept of a deity a scam by default. Same with religion. It has been abused often, and some even seem like a scam in it's entirely. But religions came to be from good intent. Well you know that proverb about good intentions

What's wrong with what's happening in this pic? Are you merely playing devil's advocate or do you really think something is off here?

 

while that much is true, there are OTHER things which are not. unless you mean, humanity protecting the rest of the universe from itself by destroying itself.
THAT seems to be moving along "just fine" too. and it damd sure isn't by what anyone believes or doesn't that we are doing so.