What Makes A God?

I can agree with the part of relying too much on others perspectives. I would suggest just finding out and trying to understand your own chart and then utilizing it to your own understanding if you have any interest in that.

 

i'm surprised you haven't played a Tarot card chinacat

 

I'm big into the Rider Waite Deck^

 

I'll probably get around to it at some point, but fairly busy at the mo

 

I play bridge

 

Far out! Finally, a kindred spirit. I play truss-bridge; sometimes suspension-bridge. What's your favorite?

 

So you are the exception to the rule. Most religious people I know are not like that. I have had discussions with people who say if there isn't a god then they don't understand why they are here and they just can't live with that. Countless people say that God is the answers to all of the questions they have. Also, historically, this is what religion did.

I think we are reaching in interesting point in history where more and more people who were raised religious are starting to think like you. Still religious, but more open to other things and less scared of new possibilities.

 

I think the God we talk about on this forum is our desire to connect with nature, as well as one another.

We are trying to understand ourselves and the things around us but we don't know how to tell each other to cut the bullshit and speak about actual true reality.

We spend half of our time either shaming or denying the experience of others.

Who the fuck has time for that?

If you can't find something you can agree with and build upon in a positive way when you are reading then you are a sulk, or have some sort of attitude problem.

Don't get me wrong it is okay to be a sulk if itbis on purpose but I highly doubt it was your intention to operate automatically when you are trying to learn, and people are trying to teach you things.

God comes from the same place everything else comes from: your imagination.

Eventually this has to become personal.

Your imagination was evolved over millions of years on earth and earth was formed aparently after the explosion of the singularity.

It does not make sense to talk about existence or time before there was space

A Buddhist would tell you that enlightenment is not a destination.

You are asking what makes a god and what God consists of but what exists in between the substance is also significant.

God is the relationship the universe has with itself.

You and I are one and the same, and you are here posting and reading because you want to develope that relationship.

 

Heeh....I like what you said here:, and feel the same way......

"We are trying to understand ourselves and the things around us but we don't know how to tell each other to cut the bullshit and speak about actual true reality.

We spend half of our time either shaming or denying the experience of others.

Who the fuck has time for that?

If you can't find something you can agree with and build upon in a positive way when you are reading then you are a sulk, or have some sort of attitude problem.
"

but who are you speaking to here?

"Don't get me wrong it is okay to be a sulk if itbis on purpose but I highly doubt it was your intention to operate automatically when you are trying to learn, and people are trying to teach you things."

the you of whoever you are speaking to may be trying to teach you also.....right?
Is that a bit condescending?
I am asking you.

 

The internet has allowed for easier access to information on various religions and other paradigms as well, so perhaps this may limit the tendency of blind faith in any one particular religion for some.

However it seems search engines and like certain news websites are becoming increasingly more personalized, to tailor to reader's specific interests. Looking out on the info horizon, I wonder if this will affect people's ability for critical thinking and ability to analyze articles, papers, etc.

 

Is happiness superior to despair?

The answer to your question is as robust (and whimsical) as the answer to this one.

 

Quick draw

 

Depends on it's purpose. This answer is most definite.

 

Maybe their sense of justice isn't in balance with their rational side. That is, their hearts are in the right place. But how could a heart be in the right place if it was worshipping something false? So maybe they are just crazy.

Even being called "religious" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You should be able to consider the ultimate without being labeled religious, I think. You should be able to try and contact God in some way and not be labeled religious. To me religious means you like the idea of something, but that it has to wait 'til death. I consider it an insult to my intelligence to say that I'm only into something if I have to be dead to experience it.

 

One's personal morality and the beliefs one holds are deeply connected. However, it is possible to believe something completely false and fabricated, which nevertheless produces good moral behavior. Likewise it is possible to interpret truth in such a way that it permits really violent acts.

Other topic:

the problem I have with astrology being "only influence" and not a causative relationship is that it therefore becomes unfalsifiable. If I test astrology (as has been done) and we find that even evidence for influence is lacking (as has been found) then all an astrologer has to say is "its more subtle than that" or "youre doing it wrong" or "youre looking at it too strictly". There doesn't seem to be a situation in which an astrologer would say "Oh, wow, this data has convinced me that astrology is actually not a working system."

There's always an excuse for why a reading didn't match its person, or why a thousand readings in a row didn't match their people. And still I have yet to find the source material which explains how the connections between planets and stars and personality was discovered. I mean, if its real, then we can just RE discover it, today. We can go out and measure this connection. But everytime we have, it's not there. At what point does it occur to an advocate of astrology that perhaps there's no "there" there?

 

what is influence? influence is not causality?

 

How is it falsifiable to say that the only things that are true are those that are falsifiable? You're simply asserting that the maxim of a truth is that it's falsifiable with no evidence to prove this.

 

I didn't actually say that all true things are falsifiable. We're talking about measurable, scientific things though; something that astrology is supposed to be.

Out of interest though, can you provide me with a true statement that is not falsifiable?

 

How can astrology be measured when it relies upon someone's personal, unverifiable statements? Someone could be quite gifted with astrology, but the people who are having their charts read have to analyze themselves in order to say they resonate with them. People's self-evaluation certainly isn't a scientific thing.

 

Then you are of the opinion that astrology is not a scientific phenomenon; it does not actually measure anything with regards to biology or cosmology.

Others here have argued that it is, and it does, and if we would only study it properly, it would revolutionize science and society.