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[MEGA] God

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_high_life_ said:
whats are u talking about only 144,000 will survive the rapture
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Thats supposedly the number of people in the 12 tribes of Israel, and supposedly that is the number of people who will be chosen to ascend during the rapture. I didn't make it up a Jehova's Witness told me it (they come to my door ALL the time, because I told this lady once I am minoring in religious studies at college).

Nobody I know really hates Jehova's Witnesses, but they can be a bit annoying when they're knocking on your door when you're trying to do homework, take a shit, or watch tv.

As far as the "peace and security" leading to the end of days, what exactly do you believe this takes the form of? Seems to me like an end of war on Earth would be something God would be proud of us for, if there is indeed a anthropomorphic, semi-paternalistic deity who really does give a shit what is going on down here.
 
First, Ill say that I am Jewish and so I dont have to worry about some of the issues christians do with jesus.

I am pretty convinced that the messiah has not yet come, if there even is a g-d. I cant imagine that in a world where good people are bearly (if at all) making it, and others who are total shit have it all is a post messiah world. Its hard for me to even accept its a world that g-d, if he exists has any hand in

(I realize that ppl are always biased towards there religions, but its just inconceivable to me that we are living in any post messianic world)

the bible/ old testiment is filled with horribles that happened to the righteous, so its not as if such a world is inconsistemt with judaism, in fact its totally consistent. still, its hard 4 me to accept that g-d lets children be slaughtered while allowing dictators to flourish.


bottom line 4me, is that religion comforts me at times, (and I realize I am blessed or at least lucky--cant imagine how id feel if i didnt have the luxuries I do) so I practice my religion to the extent it comforts me.
 
The Bible can become so confusing to me. And I have also read many different views and discovered many similarities in all religions and beliefs. Like your quote above Beanie, about God creating evil.......hmmm I just don't understand that at all. Although I would have to think God as being evil to send his son to be humiliated and tortured on a cross.
But then I think....wait a minute. It seems all the prohets before the coming of Jesus where murdered, ridiculed and had to suffer many things, as we all do. And this applies throughout life, how many have suffered for standing up to others who may try to take away their way of life. Then I think was this a loving God?.... a God that knows that whoever spreads his message of peace and love and harmony, knowing that the ones who do preach or perform miracles would be made to suffer for it.
I guess in order for me to actually" love" a God who knows all this before hand, is a God that did not send these prophets or HIS son to die.. at the hands of those who want to maintain power over others intentionally...but this divine understands death in a different way...as in transforming from the matter to spirit...but still have a hard time grasping the reasoning behind the suffering part. And the OT, yes I find it hard to accept a loving God, who honors one race or religion over another to furfill some kind of predestined plan. Is our existence only in the hands of the people through choice and the proheses are furfilled because not a plan, but because God sees all that is and will come and understands humanity and how we will react to any given situation but still has hope in us to overcome things with time. So life comes back to choice? Was it predestiny? Was it all God's plan....or aren't we all part of a plan because we are part of God and God works through us. And we take power and wisdom and use it for our own gratification, sometimes and other times not...but only we understand when we are honest with ourselves and when we are not. Can any thing be given...if it is not willingly received?
The Trinity? Please explain what you mean by Jesus becoming one with God...I agree... To become complete, with clarity, with an inner peace, could not this represent the Mind, Body and Spirit coming to a ONE a wholeness??? For example, we live our lives through these aspects. We cannot live without a mind, or a body or a spirit. One cannot exist without another.....do you understand my pov?
And then Jesus? Did he stay silent.....to show us that he cannot save us, that we have to look within to save ourselves? He could have denied God, and could have turned away and saved his own life.....but he did not.
The people at that time could have just accepted him as someone who was just a dreamer, and that his miracles where all illusions.
But there was something that scared the shit out of them about this man. They wanted his leadership, instead of looking within where his words where always directed.
Something I would have to think that radiated his light....weren't they just comfortable with livng the lives they wanted to... without someone telling them that they could make heaven on Earth. So therefore, I beleive Jesus knew that no matter what he did or what he said or how many miracles he would show them, that the only way they could discover their own true LIGHT, courage, imagination, creativity, loving, forgiveness, peace within, was to BELEIVE IN THEIRSELVES and the LOVE within and without....and then using their own discernment and guidance from this power within that I am sure we have all experienced in one way or another, and not abuse it. How did Jesus ever abuse anything....I don't beleive he did.
Had he all the powers to perform miracles why not use them to save his own life....as he was asked to save his own life. Did he realize that he could not give the people what they wanted...and yet they still followed him and eventually he would be killed because he proved that God does exist without...but people would only look to him and not within to make decisions and discover things that we discover and learn from throughout our lives.
Well, I have struggled with these same questions over and over again.
But when I just let go.... and pray...things have a way of revealing much....in my life and people you meet, as you Beanie, an inspiration, you are:) by bringing up these questions we all ask ourselves....we seek and and discover things about ourselves and others and the wonders of life....it's all good, keep up the good threads Beanie.
Peace:)
 
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Wow, thats pretty cool. I see nothing wrong with picking and chosing what seems right for you. I think its justified by the fact that most of the old traditions have been destroyed long ago, not only in christianity, and so the essence or sections of the path has been lost. Also, cause each person is on their own path.

Anyway, its cool how you have been developing. It sounds like your on the verge of going beyond the dualistic view of the world, which is kind of what buddhists teach. I'd recomend that. The world is the way it is meant to be now, and the whole one thing vs another thing isn't healthy. I think its better just to accept things as they are, and to accept the perfection of reality.

Though you are not struggling against God, you are struggling against yourself. There are different aspects of your self you are fighting against, growing beyond, and thats all good. I havent been digging into the bible and its history though as you have, so I cant really comment much on the origins of it all and how the story's fit into reality. Maybe some do not outside of the context they were originaly writen for, maybe some do. I dont think it really matters, and I am not the type to argue for hours about technicalities.

I also got out of the whole paranoya 'sin', devil after us kinda crap a long time ago. Although on the topic of heaven/hell, the buddhist view is very interesting. They say that individuals can make the choice themselves to go into either one, to learn the lessons there, and whats more, as a person progresses up or down, they will eventually choose to leave, no matter how far they progress in it. That the only final place is nirvana.
 
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whats are u talking about only 144,000 will survive the rapture??
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I heard that it would be GROUPS of 144,000 gathered at sacred sites around the world ,at the point of ascension.

But then I think....wait a minute. It seems all the prohets before the coming of Jesus where murdered, ridiculed and had to suffer many things, as we all do. And this applies throughout life, how many have suffered for standing up to others who may try to take away their way of life.
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I also heard that Earth is the hardest college in the universe, and those here are blessed to be. No matter how hard life gets, you have learned something valuable for your soul.
 
Beaner... haven't really posted much lately thanks to firewalls at work and all, but here are my thoughts about what you said and others replies.
I think that a sign of a healthy relationship is to have some doubts and questions about the other person in the relationship... it allows you to "dig" into that other person deeper and really find out who they are and what makes them tick. I think that the same applies to God.
"Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death."
I know that when my sister died, God kept me together. I never doubted his goodness at that time because I totally blamed her death on the world and our desire to destroy it and change it from the perfect place that He created. When I was in college, I questioned how I was taught to WORSHIP God, but I always have felt very sure that He IS.
Now that I have chosen to worship God in a differnt way than what I was taught, my life is more difficult (parent's won't talk to me, losing all my old friends, etc...) but my life is also more honest and spiritual and closer to God. I could easily just throw my hands up and say... ok, no God in His right mind would put me through this madness of ostraciziation that my old church family has done... but then I remember that that church was created by men and is imperfect because we (men) are not perfect. God is perfect and if we strive to be more like him, then one day we may be able to reach that Heaven, where all is right and the imperfectness that humanity (and our sin) has brought into the world will be done away with.

If you can't see God in all, then you can't see God at all.
 
Beanergrl, you know I am right there with you.
I think you should look for God in everything...and I don't think it's contridictory at all to take what you will from the Bible and leave some things behind. God is in me...and I believe what is in my heart.
There are messages of truth everywhere, especially in all the major religions. Why limit your soul to just one?
Staci I applaud your research and passion in your spirituality. It reminds me that there is sooo much out there I need to read and learn about in order to understand my spirit and the higher power better.
:)
 
You can't look for God and see God at the same time. You must be doing one or the other (maybe it is impossible to do neither? That would be weird.)

When you reflect on something, you separate it from yourself. You hold it out there (mentally) as separate from yourself. In a way, reflection is a method of distinguishing something from yourself rather than assimilating something into yourself. The alternative to reflection is being. So, I guess if you want to find God, be God. If you be God as best you can, I think understanding may come.

Oh, the above may all be bullshit. I am sort of writing for myself to figure stuff out (eek! relfectling on God!) as much as anything else. I write things that, to me, SOUND good and then I try to see truth in them based on the assumption that if they sound good, that means there is truth (or at least usefulness) in the idea. But maybe ideas can sound good if they are merely clever, but neither true nore useful. If so, then I've probably got a lot of clever, but false and useless, crap written down.

~psychoblast~
 
I think it is quite possible to live a righteous life without complicating it further by trying to find meaning in the sacred texts.

I'm not saying that noone should do it though. That's why humans can have a diversified workforce. Everyone can do different jobs at different times.

As for me I build computing machines. Perhaps I walk in the path of the creator without even realising.

At the end of the day, one should not be overly concerned whether god exists or not, whether such-and-such religion is right or wrong. These things are inherently personal and can never be proved or disproved. It is like two blind people arguing over the colour of a balloon.

What matters is the real world. The most important things in your life should be the people you love. That is where the meaning of life comes from.
 
you should not try to be what many think god is. I supose you should have a "what would a good god do mentality". However, while many think you can't find got unless you believe in him. I think psyco blasts vision sounds more acurate. If there was not a pile of useless crap at mans side there would be no truth. On the bush lovers highway or internet such beauty multiplies.

If god is a mentality of what man globally exepts to exist, god does exist. If your god can not be measured in any form of it's physical manifestation by any measurement of scientific existance then is it worth worrying about? surely you were not suposed to, such a plan would be inhumane. There is a group of people who worship an animal that gets to be tens of times our size and out lives us often because they know we are really insignificant animals, at least the ones who want to be gods do. Do they want to be the god that is equal with this beautiful animal they have shamed? OR is thier god THE ONE WHO THINKS IT SHOULD BE ELIMINATED? IS it a question of mortality? Why do I like the tortus?
 
Nvr and Void, thank you for your post. I know that the both of you have been here for my transformation and i appreciate you taking the time to write your beautiful replies to me.

Leah - my heart really goes out to you and all you have overcame and are still dealing with. If there is anyone who has been tested or has the right to question anything it would be you. Thank you for writing that, i was very touched. Bless you much and i hope your journey is a smooth one.

Deja - :)

Hive- that's what i believe too

To everyone else, i do see religion as a seperate from God, but i do think that there is some truth there too. The truth being God that is.
There's a verse in the Bible which i think sums everything up so nicely. It says "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. "

I think that verse is quite fitting as it applies to all religion. It takes all religions to provide paths for all of God's children to reach Him by despite what man brings into it. The religion is really irrelevant when the road leads to God.

sorry, i have taken so long on my other thread too to finish myself. i have been so busy but it's almost done.
 
It's impossible for our created, finite minds to completely understand and justify an infinite creator. We are programmed with start/end points to our existence, we live/we die.

We can't mathematically explain God nor can we fit him into a box. If we could, it would be even easier to disrespect him.
 
I think Hume made most of the criticisms mentioned in this thread; but also he (famously) rejected the idea of causality itself. The basic idea being we never see causation, we just see two things that always seem to happen together -- so all we can say is that "these two things always seem to happen together." What's more we can never know we won't shown to be wrong later (the one thing will happen without the other happening in some circumstance.)

IIRC he also pointed out that you can't assign properties to the universe based on the properties of its constituent parts. For example, it's true that all Americans were once fetuses, but America was never a fetus.

---

A big problem with this I think is the whole notion of time. One thing which causes people learning relativity lots of problems is that they seem to assume a universal idea of time. That is, as if there's a master clock off somewhere and we can say "OK, the universe was like so as 5:20" and "a minute later at 5:21 the universe was a little different, like so." But this is just wrong. Relativistic effects show that time can only be defined meaningfully for individual observers, and the times so defined will not usually match up. I might have event A before event B, and someone else have event B before event A.; assume some universal clock leads to contradiction.

So our intuitions about time and beginnings are quite suspect I think, often based on this demonstrably erroneous conception of time.

psychoblast said:
Well, I've often thought the one logical dilemma, for me at least, was the following set of what I perceive as truths:

1. Something cannot come from nothing (i.e., appear without cause).
2. Everything is caused by something else.
3. If we trace the causal chain backwards from now, it cannot be infinite. If it were infinite, then the causal chain would never have gotten to now (i.e., if you start counting from minus infinite to zero, you will never reach zero).
4. We have gotten to now, therefore the causal chain that precedes now must be finite, it must have a beginning.
5. If there is a beginning, then that means there is a cause that, itself, spontaneously came into existence (i.e., appeared without cause).
6. But something cannot come from nothing.
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I see a number of problems here... for one, step 3 is faulty. It tacitly assumes there must be a point in the causal chain somewhere infinitely back you can start counting from. But there need not be... all points in the causal chain are some finite number of steps back. In your numbers analogy, "minus infinity" is not a number.

It also assumes taking a causal step must always take some minimum amount of time. There's no reason to think causal steps must take any finite amount of time at all. Even if we assume they do, consider: Let now be step 0. Let the step from -1 (to 0) take 1 second, the step from -2 (to -1) take 1/2 second, -3 to -2 take 1/4 second, and so on. Then the whole series of steps till now took only 2 seconds.
 
Space_dolphin said:
I define Pluto Juice to be the first cause, even the cause of Gods existence; it is immune to all logical arguments that we can possibly comprehend.

--

The human mind evolved to have a broad potential in understanding. This was to help aid us in understanding unexpected situations, thus increasing our chances of survival. There are many things that we can understand.

However, natural selection wasnt too picky on individuals who didnt have any knowledge concerning quantum physics, the nature of the galaxy or the first cause. Thus we did not evolve to understand certain concepts. Our small understanding of some of these issues is just a bonus... stemming from our broad potential. There are however, some concepts that maybe we just wont ever be able to understand, because our brains are just not wired for it. Personally i think that the first cause is one of these issues, it could be too complex for an organic mind to comprehend.

But humans tend to dislike unexplored areas of knowledge, our curious nature pushes us to understand the unknown. A concept of a god conveniently solves many problems in unknowable things, and i think that's why god is such a popular bloke. But one must remember that god doesnt solve the problem of first cause, it just adds another step. Surely you must admit that by saying "God was the cause of himself", is just as much a paradox as any other?
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Wow.....You pretty much summed up my views on God....But written much better....

This is kinda off topic to the thread but ill post it anyway

The atheistic 1/3 of me thinks that faith or the feeling of God is a placebo type effect. As u said b4, its an easy way to describe the unexplainable.

But the spiritual 1/3 of me thinks that our brains are still evolving and some of the unexplainable may come closer to being explained w/ time(thru our minds, nonscientifically).

And then the scienctific 1/3 of me thinks that science will eventually (way long time) explain it all.

OR the scientific may intertwine w/ the spiritual and the spiritual may eventually be studied scientifically.....

8( 8(
 
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^ you guys make this too complicated... Clearly, some people are so impressed by the nature of their own existence that they assume there must be a creative force behind it.

"OMG!!1 That sunset is SOOOO AWESOME!!!!!1 It can't be by accedant!!!1 LOL!!!1 It must be GOD!!!!1"

You can debate the proof/disproof of the god concept all day... My question is, how would you arrive at the god concept had it not been presented to you? If the god concept did not already exist and carry remarkable social prevelance, how would you begin to propose the concept as a solution to a problem?

Someone touched on the social foundations of religion earlier... That's sort of interesting...
 
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