by sceneshifter » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:30 am
<!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:fuchsia;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:small;"><br>Thank you, Floyd - I can feel you are a good sweet person, labouring for others to have the joy you have -You are so happy, you cant make yourself happier, and so your happiness is to try to splash people with it - And no doubt you grieve to see others without your good luck to have such enjoyment and safety - <br><br>Yes, you are right - Like the inventor of the car, I have a dream - A bee in the bonnet - Share this idea, or find out that it is wrong<br><br>I will list a few of my beliefs - I believe that words are deceivers and that we must read carefully - I believe the history of religion always has been largely misreadings of the words - So religion is littered with errors - Errors of our limitations of brain, and errors of corruption in the church - People unenlightened writing things without full understanding - [Red Indian culture is the only culture I know that hasnt had a tradition of wrong interpretation of the words - No tradition of pedantry, of hairsplitting, of falling victim to the 'letter' of the words, that kills - And the great -sorry - Native American speeches are unique in their simplicity and grandeur and nobility and dignity and power] - So we, who inherit all these errors, which have become traditional and accepted in the church, have to sort through and separate the wheat from the chaff - There are reasons to believe that even the gospels have been interfered with by [sometimes wellmeaning] 'additors' - And the only guide we have is our own wits, such as they are, and the suspicion that some humans may have had something useful to say - I have only my wits - I cant use anyone else's because I have to judge whether they have more wits than I do - And if they do, then I will be able to see that, by seeing the sense they see - <br><br>If god is rational, then I get close to god by being rational - If Jesus was rational, I get close to Jesus by being rational - If god or Jesus are not rational, then I stay away - With what part of me can I accept something that I cant accept in my reason, my good sense? - To accept something in which I see no sense is to commit myself to insanity, to leap off the pier of sense into the waters of madness - If religion says Love, I say: Why? If religion is sane, it will tell me why. If not, not. For those non-sanes who subscribe to beliefs without reason [to get a cushy position in the church, or because they think it is right to do so], they will not be able to give a reason, and I cannot go there - I have no faith in non-sanity - I guess that Jesus had a reason for saying Love - I guess it is for the same reason someone in every culture has said the golden rule in variant forms - Because it makes good sense - Because it fits right in to my pursuit of my happiness - And because there are those without good sense who need to have it suggested to them - [There would be no golden rule if everyone knew it - There is no rule: Wear your hat on your head not your feet, because everyone seems to have this one sorted] - As simple as the sense of the golden rule is - Treat people badly and they generally treat you badly, treat people kindly and they on the whole treat you more kindly - I want pleasure, not pain, so I am nice to people - Pretty simple - I wish religion would point out the good sense of it - If people obey a good rule without knowing the sense, they make themselves insane, they are practising and growing insanity - And sanity is useful in pursuit of happiness which is spirituality<br><br>Some people will be shocked at the idea that Jesus suggested the golden rule because it helped the person using it - that Jesus thought that looking after yourself and treating yourself kindly was okay, was good, was religious, was what religion is about - I like to recall Jesus said: Love others as much as you love yourself - And he meant, not: Love others little if you love yourself little, but: Love yourself much and love others as much - He didnt say that, but I am guessing he meant that - Possibly they didnt have the phenomenon of selfhate in his time, so he didnt allow for it - It seems, from what passes down to us as being what he said, that he took it for granted that everyone loved themselves well - Today we somehow have been infected with the notion that loving yourself is wrong, is poor Christianity - I believe selflove is a duty - I believe pursuit of happiness is everything - I believe that spirituality falls within the realm of pursuit of happiness - That there is no spirituality separate from maximisation of happiness - Spirituality is love, god is love, the golden rule is at the heart of christianity, and the golden rule makes good sense - I am me, I want to be happy, the happiness of me is my business, and all my business, and being nice to others it part of my happiness - But our culture has got twisted round somehow [probably the church being in the hands of the least spiritual and rational people for 2000 years has something to do with it] so that we are ashamed to pursue our happiness - Or rather, pursue it outside the church, as if it were naughty - [And because we are 'forced' to do it sneakily, we do it badly] - For an institution that has done the foulest deeds, we have extraordinary faith that the church is somehow good, somehow better than us - That god backs the church - It has always been the kindness of the people that has pulled the church out of its hatred and evil - Burning people, slavery, etc - [Although, 99% are still in slavery - what am I saying? - 100% are still in slavery - 99% are still in the slavery of having to work part or most of the time with others getting their pay - the 1% - or rather the 100% - are still in the slavery of thinking that wealth is great, that wealth isnt the thing that brings the misery, that wealth isnt overpay, that the saying 'love of money is the root of all evil' doesnt mean 'love of overpay is the root of all evil' - although it is obvious the saying doesnt mean it is wrong to like your paycheck, ie, your just earnings]<br><br>What a laugh that is, the recent thing about the church saying the inquisition was wrong but legal - Why not just say it was wrong? - Why do they think that legality somehow made it better? - Pure legalism, pure phariseeism! - And yet, on the other hand, the fact they are saying or nearly saying THE LAW CAN BE WRONG suggests the church may be finally growing out of legalism, of the letter of the law that kills - Is the church on the eve of going beyond the letter of the law? - That will be a great day indeed! - Augustine said that the letter of the law is a raft to get across the river - You dont carry it with you when you get to the other side - [Buddha said exactly the same thing] - Is the church finally getting to the other side??? - Is the church going to stop being 'hypocrites, scribes [ie, lawyers] and pharisees'?!! - WEEHOOO! - When they reach the end of the letter of the law, they reach the beginning of the spirit of the law [love, goodwill, selflove-and-otherlove, sanity] which gives life - Is the church finally going to become spiritual? - WEEEHOOO! - <br><br>Is god infinite, Floyd? - Do you believe god is infinite? - Is that part of your understanding? - Let's look at the spooky logical implications - The meaning of 'god is infinite' - Infinite means unending - The fin in infinite is the same as in final and finish - And the in is negative - Unending - That means god doesnt end - He just rolls on and on, over everything - If there were anything outside god, god would end - So that the other thing can begin - but god doesnt end, so god goes over everything, includes everything - Absolutely everything - If there was one thing outside god, god would be un-infinite - god would be ending, not unending - God = everything - There is only god - Whatever exists, is god - god means 'everything that exists' - God is existence - There is nothing that exists that is not god because god is unending, god rolls over everything, includes everything - And the bible supports this concept of god - In the bible, god says that his name is I AM - He is not just saying that, as a matter of fact, he exists, He is saying that his name is I EXIST - ie, that his nature, his character, his essence is existence - God = existence - <br><br>There can only be one infinite thing - And there can be nothing else - The whole show, the whole of life, everything - That is god - god is that - The sum total of existence - So the theologians who tried to prove the existence of god, and the atheists who say god does not exist, are under a misapprehension - They did not grasp what god was - And people have managed to overlook the implications of I AM for 100s of years - God is just a name for existence - Perhaps superfluous [Heehee - superfluous means flowing over] - Perhaps confusing, misleading - <br><br>Now - Who you gonna worship, god or existence? - Existence is certainly worthy of worship, that is, of worthship, of esteem - I dont know of anything else that is - In fact of course logically there is nothing else - You esteem existence or you esteem part of existence, or you esteem nothing - If you esteem anything that has anything outside it, you esteem and worship something finite, something less than existence, which is surely more worthy of esteem than part of existence - Most people's idea of god imagines some things being outside god - Satan, evil, the world, the flesh [sex], hell, sin, disobedience, concentration camps, excrement, etc - In fact they think of heaven as outside god, because they think of god as in heaven - If god is existence, then everything is in god - World, hell, excrement, sex, heaven, everything - Words get us into trouble - We think that there are all these things, god among them <br><br>If god is infinite, then god is existence - In the broadest sense - Not just created existence, but also uncreated existence - ie, not just matter but energy too - Not just created things, but creativity - Not just the actual but also the potential - If god is existence, then god is good and evil - And the bible again supports this: 'I create good and I create evil' Isaiah 45,7 - If god is good, then bad exists and is not god, and god is not existence and god is not infinite - And god is not the only god - If god is good and doesnt create evil, then there has to be another god, another creator, who creates the evil, as in Zoroastrianism - But Christianity is firmly committed to there being only one god, so god must create evil - Existence must create evil - Life must create evil - <br><br>So people who esteem and worship god as good only, worship something less than the infinite - They worship something limited, something finite - Something limited to being good - They do not worship the true god, they do not esteem existence, which is the only thing, or is the biggest thing that can be esteemed - they despise and ignore existence and worship a part of existence - They are making a mistake about what god is - They are worshiping something limited, they are worshiping a false god, an idol, a part of god - They are like those worshipping the sun or a statue or something - They are breaking the first commandment - They have an IDEA of god - And an idea is bound, is limited - To this or that - they have an IDEAL - god is only good - God is better than anything on earth - God is perfect, the world is not - In worshipping an ideal, they worship something limited - Something limited to being ideal - They idealise god, they idolise god - they make a false god, a god of their concept of god - They make god something invisible, something that is NOT HERE <br><br>Religion is joining god and man - the word religion means rejoining - Of course, not joining with rope or glue - With removing the illusion of separation - With removing the idea of god as being limited, and out there somewhere, not here - With ending the idealisation of god - With ending the esteem of something other than, less than existence - What is more worthy of our wonder, awe, amazement, fear, curiosity, love, hate, anger, etc than existence? - Than life? - Than everything? - Than the whole show? - Instead, we are despising and ignoring existence and worshiping something else, something 'better' - Which, however, because it is 'better', is less - In fact, nonexistent, because there is only life, only existence - No one has seen this god that most religious people worship - They are worshiping a fiction - A notion of god derived from reading stories about god doing this and that as though he was a body - A body, a finite thing - the most widespread definition of god is: Neither this nor that - that is, not limited to being this or that, having this or that character, but being unlimited, having all characters or none - Being bigger than the limitation of having a character - Having all characters - Like life - Including all opposites - All opposites are in life, in existence, otherwise we would not know of them - god = everything = life - Not just life excluding death, but life including death - <br><br>So religion, as it is mostly practised and understood, is the very essence of irreligion - The nonjoining, the separation of man and existence, of humanity and life, the turning away and ignoring and despising existence, for a fictional notion, a personification - Like believing in the real existence [somewhere] of a person Santa Claus - It seems the church should know better - But the people, with their good instinct, have turned away from the church to return to god - As Lenny Bruce said - <br><br>Christianity affects to believe that god is allgood and allpowerful - But this is impossible - Or it is possible only by not thinking of the meaning of the words - Obviously god can be allgood and not allpowerful, or allpowerful and not allgood, but he cant be both - Or the words do not have their meaning<br><br>People idealised and idolised god because they had made the big mistake - They had divided existence into good and bad - Existence was god and bad, so god was not existence, because god was good - For the true religious experience, the experience of existence - 'Isnt it amazing, isnt it strange, isnt it fantastic, isnt it incredible' - they substituted good and bad - 'Isnt it good, isnt it bad' - This is the 'original error' of Adam and Eve - The mistake that we all make every day - We have separated existence into two things and cut ourselves off from existence and turned away to a fictional good - When you forget about good and bad, and put existence together again and say Isnt it fantastic, that is true religion - And that is the end of irreligion, which most religion, after the original error, is - It is the end of guilt - We are good and bad, god is good and bad, and that's the way existence is - Isnt it odd? - That is what the mystics' All-is-one means - There is REALLY only one thing - call it life, call it everything, call it existence, call it god, or Xanadu or Jisl - Not two things - To be aware of existence is being awake - Being realised, being enlightened - Having the weight of good and evil lifted from one - Being lightened - Having guilt lifted - Having an end to the struggle with good and bad - If there is only one thing, it cannot be good or bad - It just is - The isness is the thing - The isness is everything - There is nothing else - We dont think of the front end and the back end of a car as two things - There is only one thing, the car - Consciousness is consciousness that something exists - Anything else is unconsciousness - If you are thinking 'this is good' or 'this is bad', you are not conscious of existence - You are not conscious of life, which means you are dead - Someone once wrote an essay Why is there something rather than nothing? - That is the consciousness of existence, the mystery of existence - It is just incredible that it exists - It is startling - It is inexplicable - But it definitely is - In all its incredible complexity and detail and its characterless character - It isnt just this, it isnt just that, it's everything! It is dark and light, it is hot and cold, it is good and bad, it is heaven and hell, it is dazzling and it is dull, it is magic and it is mundane - It is just very interesting, and strange and hard to understand - Impossible to COMPREHEND, that is, to get your head around and grab with the mind - it is too big, too... infinite, unlimited, inexhaustible - 'god is the identity of opposites' - So says Nicholas of Cusa - Whatever you can think of, god-existence-life is that, and the opposite of that - We separate, we think there is energy and matter, space and time, but there is REALLY energymatter, and spacetime, there is REALLY energymatterspacetime, there is really just one thing - Life - We think that there is life and death, but there is really only lifedeath - -There is really only energymattertimespacelifedeath - String all the nouns in the dictionary and that is the only thing that really is - That and all the nouns that arent in the dictionaries yet because the creativity of life had not made them yet - How can we judge life when it hasnt been finished yet? - We put up all these concepts until we cannot see the existence of existence - And that error, that irreligion, that separation, that polarisation, that duality, that selfblinding to the existence of existence, is part of life too! - God is truth and error, god is religion and irreligion! - Everything is recognised through its opposite, so the only way to realise you are life is to think you are not!<br><br>Jesus said I am not good - That hasnt stopped people, under the influence of the original error, idealisation or idolisation, from thinking Jesus is allgood - Thus making him finite and less incredible than the infinite that is life<br><br>Why has the bible got 500 contradictions? - Why has the bible got 200 doctrinal contradictions? - Why does Jesus say god is good, and god says: I create good and I create evil? - Why does Jesus play ducks and drakes with the law of Moses and then say he is not changing one iota of it? - Why does Jesus get his connection to King David through Joseph and then get conceived by god while Joseph and Mary are engaged, so that Joseph is thinking of putting her away in a village because she has had sex with someone not him? - Part of the reason is that Life means lifedeath, Love means lovehate, Good means goodevil - We just think that existence is pretty neat, evil notwithstanding - Existence has to be love - It is a gift, right? - A pretty neat gift - Get a universe for Christmas! - Everyone does - A bit strange - You can prick yourself on it if you're not careful, or even if you are careful - but nonetheless... Part of the reason for all the contradictions is to make you laugh - To relax you - The idea of a god coming down and having it off with your wife is a joke from the classical literature - But god is all the people without a sense of humour too - Which is funny too - What is funnier than someone who never sees anything funny? - It is obviously a funny bit in a play, where god says he will destroy a city if there are not 40 good people in it, and Abraham works god down to that god will save the city if there are 10 good people - What about if there are only 30, god? - Oh well, okay, I'll let it go if there is 30 - Well, what about 20? - And where god tells Ezekiel to eat human dung for over a year, and Ezekiel works god down to cowdung - Oh, all right, cowdung then - A bit of earthy humour there, well appreciated by the more earthy types - Read that passage out in school assembly! - The man who said life is a joke was more right than he knew - A sick joke - And a very good joke too - A strange thing, but definitely here - And we love it, for all its faults<br><br>There is nothing good in nonexistence - But dont worry, you're not going there - It doesnt exist! - You are existence - And existence is infinite - There is no room for nonexistence - You are space and time, energy and matter, love and hate, light and dark, humour and unhumour, good and evil, intelligence and stupidity, kindness and meanness, male and female, life and death... - The spitting image of god! - And the infinite cannot be destroyed - No room for a destroyer<br><br>We think there is life, and an opposite, death - but death is change - and so is life!</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <p></p><i></i>