Random question on God

Capo, for the record, everyone dies, and Allah made it so. It's pointless to blame the universe itself for death, just as it's pointless to personify it. That's why I prefer Tao. God implies masculinity, and I hardly think it's prudent to theorize that the very universe has genitals of any sort.

Besides that, I firmly believe that religious texts are propaganda, and really have no basis in reality whatsoever. Something like Allah may exist, but the Allah of reality and the Allah of myth are hardly related.

Words like God, Allah, Brahman, etc. can only really be used to describe the singularity and movement of the Cosmos. The 'verse doesn't make choices, nor is it capable of action. It just IS. The universe is a matrix of possibility. Every possible moment already exists, and we as humans choose which moments to experience. That's free will in a nutshell. Notice that we don't directly control each individual cell in our body. They are free to go about their business without our conscious interference.

Good and evil are human constructs. Things happen, we compare them to all other previous events, then we place them somewhere on the imaginary good-evil spectrum. That is why personifying the universe is backward and, IMO, downright blasphemous. Believing in a paternal figure in the sky is what sets the stage for all the killing and manipulation in "his" name, or rather in the name of the patriarch who claims to be heaven-sent (Bush much?). It's that personification that maintains the patriarchies that are destroying our world and enslaving our people.

The more you think about unanswerable questions, the more beauty you allow to pass by unnoticed. That's the beauty of organized religion: it keeps people distracted, and takes away their desire to ponder IMPORTANT questions like, y'know, those regarding authorities and freedom.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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Besides that, I firmly believe that religious texts are propaganda, and really have no basis in reality whatsoever. Allah may exist, but the Allah of reality and the Allah of myth are hardly related.

Did you happen to miss this part of my post? Why would you use writings I've already stated such an opinion on to prove your point?

I looked it up on Wikipedia, and you're right, Allah is actually a masculine word. Thanks for pointing out such an obvious hole, they're not always that easy to see in first-person. I guess Tao is a much better word for it.

However, 'God' is far from a general term. Even 'god' is masculine, as evidenced by the existence of the word "goddess". I guess the term comes from that idiotic notion of the Trinity, the idea that the unity of the cosmos is somehow difficult to understand. Yeah, when you have three gods but claim to be monotheistic, I can see where you'd be confused. Sorry guys, but Jesus was just a really cool dude who figured out some neat tricks you can do with the right understanding of the quantum field, and there's no disconnected man in the clouds to pray to. Holy Spirit almost fits the bill, but I've always been under the impression that it's only supposed to exist in people, while I'm pretty sure that the all-pervading force of the universe would exist in inanimate objects just as much.

OK, I guess I have to start calling it Tao again. But Allah was so much fun to say! OK, I'll edit my original post so that it's less illogical.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

RR, I think there's a certain understanding of the nature of the universe that any person can reach with enough effort that allows them to do things that were previously unthinkable. There's more going on in the universe than we know right now, and it's possible for human minds to comprehend more than they currently/usually do. Everything is still theory, but it's not like we know anything about Jesus for sure anyway, and I'll be the first to admit that I've got no proof.

Smelnick, you're entitled to your belief. If it makes sense to you, then go for it. Personally, I think it's needlessly confusing to the minds of those who don't already know, and I could never understand why it was ever mentioned. The Tao was present in Jesus, just as it's present in all humans, so I don't see why people give praise to Jesus after God issued a commandment that said "worship me and only me". It's hard for a young mind to grasp, which is why I won't be bringing my future kids up as Christians. Don't get me wrong though, I'll still teach them about it, I just won't say "this one is right, this one is wrong".

Personally, I believe that all humans are equally divine, and that looking at Jesus as anything more than a prophet (which I think is also an ability we all possess in varying degrees) and an example for right behavior really takes away from that.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Pangalin, you just made your first post completely irrelevant. Try making a valid point next time you post, OK? Thanks.

wvlfpvp, if you're going to post a question to a diverse group of people, you should respect the honest answers. We all exist on the same planet under the same sun in the same universe. We all come from the same source, and we all return to it. We all have equal ability to contact that source and find the answers we seek.

Smelnick, you don't have to explain Christianity to me. I was Catholic until I was 14. I know the dogma, and I think it's Satan incarnate. We were created to be free, to think for ourselves, and to make our own decisions. To follow one patriarch blindly is to follow all of them, and that's not what we're here for. Don't stop believing in God, but seriously reconsider going to church. Any institution that discourages independent thought is downright wrong. You will be shown the true way by your inner voice, not some man on a pulpit.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

Sir, if you think that the evolving nature of occupational gender terms makes Allah retroactively into a eunuch, you're even more confused than we already knew you were.

Actually, psychedelic experimentation and the resulting spiritual experience makes me quite unable to apply conditioned gender roles to the creative force that underlies the cosmos. It feels very wrong to me. I am very sure of this. No confusion.

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Allah is a specific entity, and he's completely a dude. "God" is a general term. How is the former MORE generic than the latter.

See, neither is an androgynous term. God is to English what Allah is to Arabic. Same concept, same word. Arabic Bibles and Torahs use the word Allah.

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Language is fluid

If this is true, then your previous post is irrelevant.

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I'm sorry you don't know how English works, but this doesn't give you the right to talk down to anyone. Actually, being ignorant makes you LESS able to be condescending! Funny how that works.

I was speaking idiomatically.

LSD, dude. LSD. Herb doesn't generally induce spiritual experiences. I imagine that the amount you'd have to smoke to get there would ensure you'd never remembered any of it.

I hardly think that my pedantry on certain subjects is unjustified. Maybe I have Asperger's. Maybe you should bite me.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Interrobang, I'll pay attention to any details I choose, and write whatever feels right. You are free to skim over the details that fail to interest you, and it's really none of my concern whether you choose to exercise that freedom.

RR, I would not trade the insights into myself or life in general gained from my days with LSD for anything in the world. The use of certain substances, with the right intention and ample research, can really heal and foster growth. On another note, I think it was Gautama Buddha who said that with right concentration, it's possible to gain powers such as levitation, clairvoyance, and walking on water. That's why I personally believe Jesus, if he truly existed (because I can never know for sure, he might have just been an allegory for the right way of being), was a Buddha, who simply tried to speak in terms that the local Jews of that time would understand, the same way Gautama spoke in terms that the local Hindus would understand.

On the topic of blaming God for the holocaust and other evils:
If the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is at all valid, then we have free will to choose from a set of pre-determined actions and outcomes that already exist, frozen in time. If a consciousness were aware of the whole space-time continuum, it would probably have the role of passive observer, since action requires time. Thus, you can hardly blame God for any inaction.

And yeah, that's why I don't think you can accuse God of good or evil. I mean, even if it is possible for God to step in, would you really want a being looking over your shoulder all the time, telling you what to do? As much evil might result from God's inaction, it's really a favor to us that we're free to do as we please. Besides which, for every event that's ever happened, it's impossible to predict what might have happened if things played out differently.

Example: The holocaust caused a fucktonne of pain for the world, and we can all agree that it was a great evil. However, it could very well have taught an entire generation the true value of equality and freedom, which might have led to the birth of the civil rights movement. Had God stepped in and stopped it from happening (which would be pointless from God's perspective, since we eventually did that for ourselves), things would be a whole lot different for us now, and the ripples that action would create in the space-time continuum are incomprehensible. I'm not saying that the holocaust was a good thing, but I am saying that if some omnipotent being hadn't allowed events to run their course, there might have been much worse results. Imagine if fascism had come along at a time when it could take over the whole planet. Imagine if it was still socially acceptable to have slaves. Such speculation is pointless, however, because we'll never know for sure. I'm just trying to illustrate that God would operate on far more data than we have at our disposal, and as such we cannot really understand God's action or inaction enough to apply terms like "Good" and "Evil".

FELIPE NO