If God Is Real

Do we have some sort of individual flowering of consciousness that allows us to find what we're made of as we go along or are we prescribed what finding one's self means through our relationships and associations with family, friends, institutions and society/culture in general?

Maybe both?

 

Nature or nurture?.In this world we exist for and with each other.

 

Definitely both, I would say.

 

Certainly nature nurtures, I was nurturing understanding of the nature of the question. Is it nature or nurture that is responsible for who we are and how we behave, in different words.

 

It's both. Like, you could build a car that can do certain things, but if somebody drives the car into a wall it can only do certain other things anymore. Or if you customize the car, conversely, it will do special things.

Same goes for people. We are built with a particular engine, but how the engine behaves will be determined by how it is treated.

Which isn't to say that poor treatment will result in poor behavior. It all depends upon the original engine. Life is sort of like a stress test on an engine for some, a crash test for others. So if you perform the stress test on your engine, you will know what your engine is capable of when the time comes to act.

I don't think it's as black and white as saying rewards are better than punishments either. Usually this may be the case, but certain people may progress in novel ways. Sometimes I would say nurture can even be a bad thing, because it allows for too much flow, too much open-mindedness, to the point where what is taught is simply accepted without any deeper thinking into the meaning of a thing. This is good for some things, but not philosophy, for instance. I don't think there are philosophers who are simply nurtured in their truths by everyone around them. The universe itself could be said to be one big adversity many great thinkers are trying to overcome, in a sense. So you have to take into account how the universe nurtures and abuses as well, not just parents, friends, etc.

 

Well I guess that's that, Writer. Go ahead and deny the Astrology reading, but you can also shut your mouth about me being a coward in the process then.

 

if god is real, it is a large fluffy meditating cat. this is no less silly, then anything else people pretend to know about it.

 

Do you worship the large pussy or this just a hunch of yours?

 

considering his avatar, what do you think.
looks like a shrine to me

 

there is no reason to assume unseen things can't or don't exist.
there is equally no reason to assume they wish either to cause harm, nor to be worshiped.

shrines are cool. i don't see them as being about personalities though.
grottoes and groves. all places wouldbe couldbe shouldbe considered sacred and treated appropriately to being so.

if god(s) is(/are) real, what we think we know about it, really has nothing to do with it. that was my point really.

i don't think fanatics understand the viewpoint of a cat. nor of any kind of a god.

but if you study a cat, you will learn more about what it would mean to be a god, then by reading any amount of 'bibles'.
i don't know if i'm communicating this very well.
i know many forms of christianity teach people not to understand cats. to make very wrong assumptions about them.
the same goes of course, for humans, or any other living thing.