Who is your "god"?

[Tromps]

The fact that we function via destruction of other creatures, I consider that chaos. The fact that our stomachs take those materials and basically "burn" them into sustenance, I call that chaos.

Ah ok I get what you are saying now (sorry I wasn't able to read every previous post). But honestly that sounds like normal order to me. I wouldn't feel bad having to exist for a higher being .. oh wait already I believe I am.

I would be honored to be a pig and give up my lifeform energy to a human being such as myself, right after I am fat and full of what makes me good. Just as honored as I am to give up my life to God when the time comes.

 

[ShaggyFin]

Ah ok I get what you are saying now (sorry I wasn't able to read every previous post). But honestly that sounds like normal order to me. I wouldn't feel bad having to exist for a higher being .. oh wait already I believe I am.

I would be honored to be a pig and give up my lifeform energy to a human being such as myself, right after I am fat and full of what makes me good. Just as honored as I am to give up my life to God when the time comes.

Of course it sounds like normal order, that's how this planet works (and it's all we know). It's a chaotic place.

 

[casualuser]

Agreed. We are all our own gods. What I am suggesting with Paganism is simply that you can study culture and nature (and finding your pagan "god" is just finding your niche in nature and society) via studying those religions.

Ah, I see, the reason I brought it up in the first place was that it seemed to me that in some of your earlier posts describing the universe and our place in it that you were alluding to the idea that the universe had some higher purpose and we were insignificant it comparison, though I guess you actually weren't... Anyway, I'd also agree that finding our niche in the universe is necessary for personal development though I'd argue labeling that process as religion and its end as god is misleading at best.

 

[ShaggyFin]

Ah, I see, the reason I brought it up in the first place was that it seemed to me that in some of your earlier posts describing the universe and our place in it that you were alluding to the idea that the universe had some higher purpose and we were insignificant it comparison, though I guess you actually weren't... Anyway, I'd also agree that finding our niche in the universe is necessary for personal development though I'd argue labeling that process as religion and its end as god is misleading at best.

I don't think the universe has a "higher purpose" but I think it can be considered a "single being". We all effect it, and it effects us. It doesn't recognize that we exist though.

And calling it religion just helps the Average human understand it. Otherwise it's just called "science".

 

[casualuser]

Ah ok I get what you are saying now (sorry I wasn't able to read every previous post). But honestly that sounds like normal order to me. I wouldn't feel bad having to exist for a higher being .. oh wait already I believe I am.

I would be honored to be a pig and give up my lifeform energy to a human being such as myself, right after I am fat and full of what makes me good. Just as honored as I am to give up my life to God when the time comes.

But can a pig feel honor, or even begin to understand what honor is, and how can a pig understand what makes it good? By extension, if a god exists, how can we (the pig) know what it is to honor that god, or how to make ourselves fat and full of what would be good for that god? The obvious answer(though I can't claim it will be yours) is that god tells us those things through scripture, prophets, ect. Which I would be fine with accepting if that message was uniform, clear and I didn't have to rely on other people to give me such vital information especially when I couldn't verify it for myself. Even with so may different accounts of that message you'd think the true will of an omnipotent god would be fairly easy to find within the static, for me at least that doesn't appear to be so. Sure there are parts of many religions that I agree with but they seem scattered and had to find within all of the dogma. Additionally all the teachings from religion that most people can agree upon I was able to discover on my own without the need to bring god into the question at all. At risk of further extending your original metaphor beyond its meaning, at least a pig can see the higher being it is being raised to serve and is not kept in isolation(relatively) from that higher being and not required to rely on other pigs(who may or may not have caught a brief glimpse of said higher being) to tell it what its purpose is and how to best fulfill it.

 

[casualuser]

I don't think the universe has a "higher purpose" but I think it can be considered a "single being". We all effect it, and it effects us. It doesn't recognize that we exist though.

And calling it religion just helps the Average human understand it. Otherwise it's just called "science".

I would mostly agree with your first statement, though like I said about labeling an individuals personally determined purpose as religion is misleading, labeling the universe as a "being" and inferring it can recognize something(even if that isn't us) is also misleading. Which would be the complete opposite of your reasoning in your second statement. That is the half the point of science in the first place(imo), to clearly define objects and ideas to limit the possibility of confusion.

 

[ShaggyFin]

I would mostly agree with your first statement, though like I said about labeling an individuals personally determined purpose as religion is misleading, labeling the universe as a "being" and inferring it can recognize something(even if that isn't us) is also misleading. Which would be the complete opposite of your reasoning in your second statement. That is the half the point of science in the first place(imo), to clearly define objects and ideas to limit the possibility of confusion.

Well I would not support or deny the theory of the universe being able to recognize things. For all we know the universe COULD be like a giant person. Or fish. Or squid. Or lizard. And we are all just in his belly, or eyeball, or mouth, or intestines and that is our "Universe". But we will NEVER know for sure (we meaning our generation). All we can do is recognize that it DOES work in systems, know that we are a piece of at least one of those systems, and know that we are alone for the most part. But we can do great things in groups. That is something I will get into now, after I post this I am going to make a LONG post about some aspect of "Christian Judaea God".

 

[ShaggyFin]

Christian Judaea "God".

When Jewish followers study Kabbalah (Which is like the Jewish "Secret School" almost), you learn some things. (I will start off by telling you that in Hebrew the Alphabet is ALSO the numeric system. So each letter symbol also has a number value. Also their "Letters" are actually "Syllables".) One thing they learn is that God (or Jaweh or Jehovah) created EVERYTHING with syllables. So when he said the syllables "Ro-ck" a rock appeared. When he said "Wa-ter" water appeared.

This belief is slightly corrupted by the fact that these people are religious. If you break what they are saying down, and view it from an outside standpoint and translate it. What they are REALLY saying is, "Spoken Language is God". The fact that I can say "Ro-ck" and you know I'm talking about a rock, IS God. The fact that we can share ideas with each other via language is "God".

But that is only ONE of their gods. Strangely, the Christians and Jews have more Gods than they think. But now we know spoken language is one of their gods. The next God is shared with us in BOTH the New Testament and the Torah. In the Torah it says that to survive and thrive as THE predominant people of their harsh desert landscape, they must work as brothers. Hebrew was not a nationality, it was not a race, it was nothing. But when they made the bond they made, they kept things in their families and created the "stereotypical" gene-pool we see today with big noses and curly hair (NOT trying to be racist), and that proves the power of people coming together. In the New Testament it says: "When two or more people are gathered in God's name, he is present". This means that TWO people is stronger than 1 person (not just physically) and it means that there is POWER in numbers. And that GOD is that power. So another of the Christian Judaea God's is "Power in numbers".

The last of the Gods (not that this is truly ALL of them, this is just all that I have realized to-date) is the written word. "The Bible" was THE first book translated for "The People" to read, as well as the first book printed on the first printing press, and the first book widely distributed. And if you've EVER been in an argument with a Christian YOU know, the word is their god. One of them at least :D

 

[trees_please]

@SF-i dont believe in god. none of the shit youre talking about is going to change my mind either. that is all

Who's notion is that?

how about the fact that islam promises an orgy of virgins in the afterlife. clearly you didnt read any of my other posts because i made it abundantly clear im aware of my own will, ability, and energy. and none of that shit is god.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Christian Judaea "God".

When Jewish followers study Kabbalah (Which is like the Jewish "Secret School" almost), you learn some things. (I will start off by telling you that in Hebrew the Alphabet is ALSO the numeric system. So each letter symbol also has a number value. Also their "Letters" are actually "Syllables".) One thing they learn is that God (or Jaweh or Jehovah) created EVERYTHING with syllables. So when he said the syllables "Ro-ck" a rock appeared. When he said "Wa-ter" water appeared.

I see a striking parallel here with newer cyber-spiritual scenarios wherein the entire physical universe is just information, either software code in a giant cosmic computer or thoughts in the mind of an organic living being, either of whose magnitude and power are far beyond our comprehension. How's that for working in mysterious ways?

This belief is slightly corrupted by the fact that these people are religious. If you break what they are saying down, and view it from an outside standpoint and translate it. What they are REALLY saying is, "Spoken Language is God". The fact that I can say "Ro-ck" and you know I'm talking about a rock, IS God. The fact that we can share ideas with each other via language is "God".

But that is only ONE of their gods. Strangely, the Christians and Jews have more Gods than they think. But now we know spoken language is one of their gods.

I'm always struck by how much of a contribution language makes to at least our species' unique variety of sentient self-awareness. We would be wholly different, and I suspect not nearly as capable of grabbing the world around us by the horns, if stripped of our inner monologue. Before we acquire language we have no memories, no real sense of the flow of time, and no inner schema for categorizing and making sense of phenomena. There's a theory in anthropology that what primitive people or their immediate ancestors decided were the voices of the gods speaking to them, were in fact the first rudimentary utterances of man speaking to himself in his head, at the dawn of spoken language. I don't think it's an accident, either, that there remains a close relationship to this day between music, oration (especially verse and arcane or mysterious language), and religion. I think from the very beginning, the cosmic awe that mankind felt at the mystery of his own sentient existence grew out of the awe he felt at first discovering he had the ability to name things.

Then there's written language, which along with farming is probably the most influential technological innovation in shaping the destiny of mankind to date. History is written language, and written language is history. Pre-literate peoples (and to a certain extent, illiterate citizens of literate peoples) certainly have lore and tradition. They have song and verse, because meter and rhyme make large chunks of unwritten language memorizable. But they have no history.

To me, it's only natural that the adoption or discovery of written language would have profound effects on an ancient people's view of their relationship to the world of the supernatural. Suddenly, it would seem, the pullers of the cosmic strings have granted mankind (or at least, our nation) far more power over their collective destiny, by being able to collect and share information far more reliably over years and generations, and many miles afield. Might the spirits wield their powers over us and our world via writing or some analogous system for coding and storing information? If the written word has the power to move, motivate, and empower people like never before, it's hard not to see it as magical.

As this forum, both in its posts and its underlying machine code are testament to, language, especially written language, has the ability to connect people to each other who otherwise would likely not have connected. Could it be, then, that the mighty Word holds the key to connecting back to the Source of All Being? That's a question that weighs heavy on the minds of many Kabbalists, in my limited experience.

The people who came to call themselves Israelites (and later Jews) were extremely close both temporally and geographically to two of the world's four original sources of written language: the Sumerians and the Egyptians. They were one of the first peoples to adopt written language, and never lost it, which is why they have such a long and unbroken history. (The same can be said about the Chinese.) One can interpret the story of Moses symbolically as a mythologized glorification of the Jewish people receiving written language, and this being God's greatest gift to them, with the condition that they always use the power of the written word to promote unity, rather than division, amongst them.

 

[Tromps]

By extension, if a god exists, how can we (the pig) know what it is to honor that god, or how to make ourselves fat and full of what would be good for that god? At risk of further extending your original metaphor beyond its meaning, at least a pig can see the higher being it is being raised to serve and is not kept in isolation(relatively) from that higher being and not required to rely on other pigs(who may or may not have caught a brief glimpse of said higher being) to tell it what its purpose is and how to best fulfill it.

It's a murky comparison since we didn't create pigs and my post was intended to be more comedic, but those are some excellent and very legitimate questions you bring up so I will try to extend the metaphor and answer you to the best of what I know and believe personally.

Pigs can't even begin to fully understand what we are doing to them or why. If they could completely understand us communicating to them, well that would mean they would need to be human. In a similar way, we can never fully understand what God is, why he is doing this to us, or what God's plan is, since we are not God. If we could directly understand God's "language" or will , well we would have to be Godly or God-like, think of the problems that would cause. We can open-close doors for pigs in hopes to move them in certain directions, or put food in front of them, but since they have a free-will, we can't 'force' their will to do anything. In a similar way, when I look at things happening in my life, certain driving forces all around us, I best understand them as "signs" from God. A pig can technically 'see' us sure, but do they know what we are? We can 'see' God's creation at work all around around us, but would we recognize it's God's?

I trust we were created 'perfectly as intended' with the limitations in life that will make us build the best being possible, we are meant to grow, develop, and learn our faith. If we were handed all that is 'good' and automatically knew all the wisdom that God has, how would He know we are trustworthy with that power? I hope you can agree with me that people are far more appreciative of something they worked for, compared to someone who is handed 'goods'. That's what I believe this life is for, to prove ourselves trustworthy for the bliss and powers shared in God's Kingdom. He gave some of His angels immense power, and look what some of them did with it (satan), used it for evil against Him. He doesn't want that for us, but He also doesn't want His creation to be robots that only follow His way. He wants us to make our own choices and learn through mistakes and doubts; if at the end we persevere and still have faith, the greater the glory.

The obvious answer(though I can't claim it will be yours) is that god tells us those things through scripture, prophets, ect. Which I would be fine with accepting if that message was uniform, clear and I didn't have to rely on other people to give me such vital information ...

We wouldn't be able to handle God's omnipotent, all powerful will and presence. It would be overwhelming for us if God made His all powerful will constantly present. People would die in shock and fear. If His omnipotent presence was here all along it would obliterate ours and we would not truly be free to learn & understand Him for ourselves. The best we can handle right now is other 'humans' to relate with, reading His word in Scripture, and observing & learning His creation around us. Otherwise it would such an overwhelming burden it would defeat that purpose of learning for our own glory and salvation.

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and waves. People will die in fright and anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of Heaven will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand tall and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.

The best answer I can give you is to look to the gospels in the New Testament. Jesus is the best humanly example of what is good; the best example of what God is and wants for us. Jesus didn't come because we were so good and such good people no. And he won't come again because the world will become such a good place, he will come again when the world has become so evil and far from Him that the only way to redeem us will be to make his all powerful presence known for our redemption, because that's how much He loves us. The demons will run and flee, the faithless will be overwhelmed with surprise and fear, evil will tremble and wither before Him. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. I only hope that when that day of Resurrection comes, that we all may look at our life with righteousness and even slightly deem ourselves worthy to stand before Him.

This is a good conversation to have, thanks for challenging me.

 

[ShaggyFin]

I see a striking parallel here with newer cyber-spiritual scenarios wherein the entire physical universe is just information, either software code in a giant cosmic computer or thoughts in the mind of an organic living being, either of whose magnitude and power are far beyond our comprehension. How's that for working in mysterious ways?



I'm always struck by how much of a contribution language makes to at least our species' unique variety of sentient self-awareness. We would be wholly different, and I suspect not nearly as capable of grabbing the world around us by the horns, if stripped of our inner monologue. Before we acquire language we have no memories, no real sense of the flow of time, and no inner schema for categorizing and making sense of phenomena. There's a theory in anthropology that what primitive people or their immediate ancestors decided were the voices of the gods speaking to them, were in fact the first rudimentary utterances of man speaking to himself in his head, at the dawn of spoken language. I don't think it's an accident, either, that there remains a close relationship to this day between music, oration (especially verse and arcane or mysterious language), and religion. I think from the very beginning, the cosmic awe that mankind felt at the mystery of his own sentient existence grew out of the awe he felt at first discovering he had the ability to name things.

Then there's written language, which along with farming is probably the most influential technological innovation in shaping the destiny of mankind to date. History is written language, and written language is history. Pre-literate peoples (and to a certain extent, illiterate citizens of literate peoples) certainly have lore and tradition. They have song and verse, because meter and rhyme make large chunks of unwritten language memorizable. But they have no history.

To me, it's only natural that the adoption or discovery of written language would have profound effects on an ancient people's view of their relationship to the world of the supernatural. Suddenly, it would seem, the pullers of the cosmic strings have granted mankind (or at least, our nation) far more power over their collective destiny, by being able to collect and share information far more reliably over years and generations, and many miles afield. Might the spirits wield their powers over us and our world via writing or some analogous system for coding and storing information? If the written word has the power to move, motivate, and empower people like never before, it's hard not to see it as magical.

As this forum, both in its posts and its underlying machine code are testament to, language, especially written language, has the ability to connect people to each other who otherwise would likely not have connected. Could it be, then, that the mighty Word holds the key to connecting back to the Source of All Being? That's a question that weighs heavy on the minds of many Kabbalists, in my limited experience.

The people who came to call themselves Israelites (and later Jews) were extremely close both temporally and geographically to two of the world's four original sources of written language: the Sumerians and the Egyptians. They were one of the first peoples to adopt written language, and never lost it, which is why they have such a long and unbroken history. (The same can be said about the Chinese.) One can interpret the story of Moses symbolically as a mythologized glorification of the Jewish people receiving written language, and this being God's greatest gift to them, with the condition that they always use the power of the written word to promote unity, rather than division, amongst them.

Language is important as fuck to our species. Think about it. What other animal will sit around all day talking to friends. Then when it has nothing better to do, magically send telepathic digital signals to each other through magic portals that we carry in our pockets. AND sit with OTHER portals on our desks, speaking to strangers about strange experiences we've had. WHAT other animal desires constant communication THAT much??? NONE. Other animals are usually ALONE (unless it's a pack animal) even deer, squirrels and other helpless animals (compared to their predators). But OUR species the "GREATEST" species on the planet, can't be alone for more than 1 or 2 days (most people probably less) without feeling isolated from some "greater world".

 

[vegan]

there. is. no. god.

 

[Master_Khan]

Jesus is Lord

 

[ShaggyFin]

there. is. no. god.

There are MANY "gods" :D

 

[trees_please]

there. is. no. god.

agreed. thread/

 

[ShaggyFin]

thread/

What does this mean? If it's the same as (you're all saying it wrong) /thread then you're wrong. This thread is far from over. I still haven't finished Christian gods and hardly got into social/nature gods. As well as Shiva. I have barely described my own personal god.

And hardly anyone has given any perspective on any form of god except a few small posts about some cultural aspects, and a few large ones about "There is no god" which is only arguable if you are talking about god as a person, entity. And not as a part of culture as this thread is designed to :D

 

[trees_please]

hardly anyone has given any perspective on any form of god

yourself included

not a part of culture as this thread is designed to

finally we agree on something. god is a [concept] that has leaked into our subconscious.

 

[Psycle]

All is One, And One is the All...

And as such to dream, in puzzles, on the inside of the frame infinite.
So much chaos, and so much beauty. To mix and shape, mold like clay.
Sayings in different ways, and verses, and dialects.
Intersecting in the simple connected collective.
Respect is not due, nor hate consume.
We move as we do, as rivers do, through the valleys.
To the sea in me and you, sands of time and truth.
Who sees and who does not, the ultimate reality.
The One being, or not, as we conceive the majesty, of perfect unity.
And all sleep and slumber walking, doing their daily stalking of light and dark.
In the heart and in the shade, in illumination of the soul.
Controlling always our path. Though wrath and pain do enter.
And souls seem to splinter and fade away.
Who says what is right or wrong?
The song of God? But which one?
A prayer, only to hope that something is there.
The air of Gemini and the ground of Capricorn.
Himalayan trust in might and magick bound.
The sound of an answer so distant like birth.
Riding out a storm.
All creations rest in the unknowing, quiet riot.
Yet In One we have become all that we sought, so far.
Not to withold anything, but simply in freedom and love.
All evil, all greatness, sun and moon, lunacy and life.
Mixed to an enigmatic status.
And I add this unto you.
Faith, Hope, Love.
Among the greatest is what holds us dear.
In Peace, Love, Unity, And Respect.
P.L.U.R

Namaste

 

[ShaggyFin]

yourself included


finally we agree on something. god is a [concept] that has leaked into our subconscious.

Yeah, this thread is just asking "what cultural signifigance do you identify with". Mine is Cannabis, Wilderness, Fire and a few other things.
I am just wondering what everyone else thinks about this stuff in their lives.