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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: briskit who wrote (16383)	2/20/2004 11:45:35 PM
From: briskit	Respond to of 28931

theinterviewwithgod.com you've probably seen things like this going around. Pretty cool pictures, and one person's speculations about god, life, meaning, etc.

To: briskit who wrote (16383)	2/21/2004 1:17:45 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

"If there is no god, the universe and our experience of life is still amazing, mysterious, moving, etc. Life is praiseworthy in so many ways on its own terms" I agree entirely. I was alluding to all the things in life which are so hurtful and so NOT amazing or moving: earthquakes and mudslides killing the innocent--thus the lack of justice or rational process. I was referring to the thousands and thousands of wars: the killers in uniforms, and the killers in shorts and masks. I was referring to the poor, the sick, and the afflicted--those who need and those who wait. I was referring to ice ages, and polio, and mental institutions--and the fact of human ovens...and the hope and prayer for eternal fires to come. I was talking about witches, and dying squirrels, and suns that explode. I was considering the fact of total separation of character and consequence--where food, water, connections and power buy life (sometimes)--while innocence and purity are just a box cutter, a baler, or a mud-slide from ignominious death. "God would be everywhere improving everything a contingent, finite, self-absorbed, self-aware mortal individual undertook." And He is not? "In order for us to have this kind of existence, the possibility for something less than divine results is necessary, must be allowed to occur. That is how I think god would allow for the possibility of the existence of evil, misfortune, pain, etc., without being either unconcerned or incompetent." Well, I wonder. You are not God, but you do not seem like a bad sort. I'm sure you are good-hearted and that you have a normal compassion for others and a desire for justice and rational consequence. Would you allow for the "possibility of...misfortune...", etc. to the same degree that our hypothesized God did? Would you make it clear both in nature and in human interaction, that power was the main prophylactic against early death, suffering, and misery? That people with power don't live in the path of mudslides unless it is their truly free choice? Free choice--yes....but only within the reality of your reach and your grasp--regardless of whether you are compassionate or full of cancerous hate. "Or perhaps one works all the harder to defy the callous unconcern of nature; in that way one might even compel her to defer to the products of mysterious mind, by making words and thoughts an unshakable monument to man's honesty about his condition." Sometimes one is right without intending to be so. Perhaps this is an example.

To: briskit who wrote (16383)	2/21/2004 2:35:44 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 28931

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself." -Peter O’Toole *That sums up the entire mystery of the last several 1000 yrs...and why God was always chosing to hide his face from his children . When the mystery of God and reverence, was one always concerning themselves. Where did the commandments come from ? Our chosen moralities , are only agreements to abide by our own rules and codes worked out in ourselves . Mose didn't hear God's voice or see God's resplendent shining rear-end in the clouds ...he heard his own voice of conscience. ;-)

To: briskit who wrote (16383)	2/21/2004 3:33:46 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 28931

Some say god is not only everywhere, but in all times at once. This would mean something like god is in the past now as well in the future, the way we reckon time. What is significant about sending a probe to mars or the moon for instance , is within our own minds we have the tools to calculate exactly how much force and thrust it takes to escape the earths gravity , to set a trajectory by untold computations relying on the physics we know operate in space and on the Moon and Mars , that we have experienced already here on earth by observation of ourselves . In this way we DO know the future , and that the spacecraft WILL land where we wanted it to , almost within several 100 meters . This is significant because the same forces of the universe operate there as they do here . In almost the same fashion the idea of cause and effect surfaces in the gnosticism of our religion and philosophy . Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The universe begs us to understand and value our own worth , to make life a "study" , and be reverent . If you want to know the future , just as God does , the just go out and plant an acorn seed in the right spot . You can also help it along & add water and nutrient , and voila ------>you have just seen the future Oak Tree standing there ! And what is contained in the beautiful mechanism of the seed you know later by contemplating what it grows into and comes to be . It is entirely irrelevant to ask the question of "Who" created the seed ..but that you planted it , and did so in the right spot. I plant a seed and watch it grow , I in effect have become a prophet of God and effectively created Life and fortold the future. Just as we know how to land a vehice on some distant place a million miles away , but fist do it in our heads . Omniscience is within us . God is just a word for that and all that is the life within us , and it is a vastness that to say otherwise would be inauthentic. Men and women have always been scientist from the first time they looked up and begane tracking the movement of the stars...or planted the first seeds ...and those seeds are also planted in our collected consciousness of what is within and lays outside of us . When one realizes that one is God ...that thou art God , then all the rest becomes clear . That is the chief ifferncebetween the eastern philosophy and the western or "Abrahamic" religions ...the latter would tell you that "God" is somewhere else hiding his face from his children , and somehow strangely absent and aloof from all he created except to occasionally send a prophet down to speak mightily or Son down to be crucified . But the Hindu mind has no problem with modern science at all , its just a finer way to describe the processes of "God" going on they had already observed for 1000's of years, in the resplendent world that surrounds. In India they feel free to see God everyday if they wish , and do . To the Hindu God is not off somewhere absent from the Universe , but present in ervery nook and cranny of every moment of it ....right down to the life of the atoms themselves. That si why you see that little mouse always right beside the great Elephant Lord Ganesha, Siva's Son. That little mouse is the one that carries wisdom and the fruit of intuition to every nook and cranny within your own mind . Those Gods are not images only to go and worship , they represent those mighty forces working within you at all times . So to their was no conflict when the missionaries finally arrived on the shores of India to preach their Gospels of Jesus ....they said thats fine , we have had many Christs too down thru the centuries , and we are glad to hear you had one too ! Follow him well. ;-) PS: Old Hindu proverb, and probably a Christian and Islamic/Judaic one , as well as Roman , Greek , Persian , Egyptian , Summarian or Babylonian one ------> "One has not lived truely , till one has planted a Tree ."