psychoblast
Bluelighter
I had an epiphane a while back.
A child NEVER needs forgiveness from his / her parents. This is because anything the child does wrong is directly attributable to something the parents did or did not do. Child breaks parents stuff? Parents did not take extra time to instill respect for others property in the child. There is always more a parent could have done for a child, to teach any particular lesson. Generally, parents try their best but are still limited by their own egos and issues. So I am not saying the parents are bad, just that the fact remains that a parent will (if they are honest with themselves) recognize that their children's errors are indirectly attributable to them.
Now, just about every religion I've ever heard of analogizes God to the ultimate Parent, father figure or mother figure. And most also opine that God is omniscient. So I think it follows that no human could possibly need any forgiveness from God, anymore than a child needs forgiveness from his or her parent.
On the other hand, children do need to forgive their parents. We grow up holding in our psyches all sorts of perceptions of how we were wronged by our parents, from unfair treatment, to not being given enough respect or responsibility, to resenting when our parents put something else above our own wants or needs. This resentment holds us back and limits us in our development of emotional maturity. We need to forgive our parents to let this go, and to move on. In a practical sense, this means we have recognized that our parents' own short-comings are attributable to their parents, and so on, so they are not really to blame.
There is also a theory that parents recognize their mistakes they make trying to steer and guide their children and, over time, they get gunshy about it. They realize they are just kind of mucking things up, so they get less and less preachy and involved in our lives. But they still have a lot to offer. There is advice a child should hear, but not until he is 25 or30 or 35 or whatever. Keeping the lines of communication open so the parent feels comfortable giving advice as the parent matures, and the child moves through adulthood, helps the child because two heads are better than one, so having a parent chiming in is ultimately a good thing, as it gives you another perspective.
I was told Anne Rice postulated a theory of a God who was not perfect or omniscient, but instead was learning as he/she went, observing and learning. This made sense to me, and it fits into my analogy. What if there is some singular God-like embodiment of the universal oneness, or maybe just some intermediate higher consciousness that is somewhere between us and the Universal consciousness (like a demigod?). What if this demigod was learning as he /she went, and when he/she saw humanity start to develop real intelligence, but still fall into war and hatred and fear, this being decided it was time to step in and provide some direct guidance. What if this guidance went horribly wrong, leading to great fear and misunderstanding and more war? What if this being realized it was doing more harm than good, that its well-intentioned meddling had set us back, had perhaps permanently screwed up our spiritual development by making us postulate Chrstianity and Muslim faith and other rigid, dogmatic religions that may not have sprang up so strongly otherwise?
So maybe this being retreated, and now just watches to see how damaged we are, hoping we can pull ourselves out of it. Maybe this being is afraid now, of meddling further. Maybe this being expects if we knew the truth, that it may have caused a lot of misinfomation and human suffering, we would be angry or get screwed up even more.
What is the worst thing this demi-god did that screwed us up? Made us believe in a place called Hell. Gave us the concept of Hell. Perhaps it was well-intentioned, thinking that kind of vague threat would make us toe-the-line morally and ethically, but instead our fear and nightmares about this concept twisted us.
Anyway, maybe if we, as a species, communicated forgiveness to this being, let it know, "We understand you may have made mistakes, but you were trying your best. It's okay. We forgive you and want to communicate with you again, directly. We love you for trying and for being part of this wonderful universe," then the being would be called back to us, and would help guide us out of some of our present messes.
Well, maybe this is all just a fantasy, a sweet but misguided theory of how things might fit what we see around us, finding a compromise between new age philosophy and dogmatic religious faith in past miracle workers. But, I don't know, I think it makes about as much sense as anything else I've read.
And telling the universe, or some godly incarnation, that we forgive and love it, probably cannot hurt. It certainly makes far more sense than thinking we need to cower and crave forgiveness from some omniscient creator.
~psychoblast~
A child NEVER needs forgiveness from his / her parents. This is because anything the child does wrong is directly attributable to something the parents did or did not do. Child breaks parents stuff? Parents did not take extra time to instill respect for others property in the child. There is always more a parent could have done for a child, to teach any particular lesson. Generally, parents try their best but are still limited by their own egos and issues. So I am not saying the parents are bad, just that the fact remains that a parent will (if they are honest with themselves) recognize that their children's errors are indirectly attributable to them.
Now, just about every religion I've ever heard of analogizes God to the ultimate Parent, father figure or mother figure. And most also opine that God is omniscient. So I think it follows that no human could possibly need any forgiveness from God, anymore than a child needs forgiveness from his or her parent.
On the other hand, children do need to forgive their parents. We grow up holding in our psyches all sorts of perceptions of how we were wronged by our parents, from unfair treatment, to not being given enough respect or responsibility, to resenting when our parents put something else above our own wants or needs. This resentment holds us back and limits us in our development of emotional maturity. We need to forgive our parents to let this go, and to move on. In a practical sense, this means we have recognized that our parents' own short-comings are attributable to their parents, and so on, so they are not really to blame.
There is also a theory that parents recognize their mistakes they make trying to steer and guide their children and, over time, they get gunshy about it. They realize they are just kind of mucking things up, so they get less and less preachy and involved in our lives. But they still have a lot to offer. There is advice a child should hear, but not until he is 25 or30 or 35 or whatever. Keeping the lines of communication open so the parent feels comfortable giving advice as the parent matures, and the child moves through adulthood, helps the child because two heads are better than one, so having a parent chiming in is ultimately a good thing, as it gives you another perspective.
I was told Anne Rice postulated a theory of a God who was not perfect or omniscient, but instead was learning as he/she went, observing and learning. This made sense to me, and it fits into my analogy. What if there is some singular God-like embodiment of the universal oneness, or maybe just some intermediate higher consciousness that is somewhere between us and the Universal consciousness (like a demigod?). What if this demigod was learning as he /she went, and when he/she saw humanity start to develop real intelligence, but still fall into war and hatred and fear, this being decided it was time to step in and provide some direct guidance. What if this guidance went horribly wrong, leading to great fear and misunderstanding and more war? What if this being realized it was doing more harm than good, that its well-intentioned meddling had set us back, had perhaps permanently screwed up our spiritual development by making us postulate Chrstianity and Muslim faith and other rigid, dogmatic religions that may not have sprang up so strongly otherwise?
So maybe this being retreated, and now just watches to see how damaged we are, hoping we can pull ourselves out of it. Maybe this being is afraid now, of meddling further. Maybe this being expects if we knew the truth, that it may have caused a lot of misinfomation and human suffering, we would be angry or get screwed up even more.
What is the worst thing this demi-god did that screwed us up? Made us believe in a place called Hell. Gave us the concept of Hell. Perhaps it was well-intentioned, thinking that kind of vague threat would make us toe-the-line morally and ethically, but instead our fear and nightmares about this concept twisted us.
Anyway, maybe if we, as a species, communicated forgiveness to this being, let it know, "We understand you may have made mistakes, but you were trying your best. It's okay. We forgive you and want to communicate with you again, directly. We love you for trying and for being part of this wonderful universe," then the being would be called back to us, and would help guide us out of some of our present messes.
Well, maybe this is all just a fantasy, a sweet but misguided theory of how things might fit what we see around us, finding a compromise between new age philosophy and dogmatic religious faith in past miracle workers. But, I don't know, I think it makes about as much sense as anything else I've read.
And telling the universe, or some godly incarnation, that we forgive and love it, probably cannot hurt. It certainly makes far more sense than thinking we need to cower and crave forgiveness from some omniscient creator.
~psychoblast~
If we cannot forgive, then we cannot be forgiven.