Do you believe in God?

[FourthBase]

To each his own has to become the new fundamentalism.

[AlicetheKurious]

I agree with Eldritch that the word "God" has become so contaminated that when someone uses it, it never communicates what the speaker meant.

But I haven't been able to come up with another one, that is less contaminated.

I believe that we're each intended to seek our own answers, based on the questions that are meaningful to us. I have nothing against any scriptures, because in all cases they contain something of value for the rest of us to consider. But it's a terrible mistake to believe that all the knowledge and truth each of us needs can be simply handed to us in a neatly-wrapped package. That would be to cheat ourselves of the mental and spiritual journey that is the whole point of us being alive.

My own beliefs began with an admission that I didn't believe. I figured, if there was a God, S/He could certainly manifest him/herself in a way that would convince me. And if S/He wasn't willing to do that, then I couldn't be faulted for not believing. (I have a very legalistic approach to things).

So, really, my own faith began with a question and an open mind. It's an approach I highly recommend. Because whatever beliefs result, at least are a person's own, an organic evolution of something that makes sense with the rest of the person, not someone else's second-hand "faith" imposed from the outside.

I've always thought it was weird to demand that a person "have faith". Faith is not something you can be commanded to have, it's a natural reaction of trust that can only grow as the result of your own experience. Just like you can't force yourself to find something funny, or delicious, or interesting. Any more than you can insist that someone has to love God. Words can point the way, and religious practice can focus the mind, but in the end, love and faith are either spontaneous, or they are something else, something unhealthy, disguised as love and faith.

To tar all religious experience with the same brush as this unhealthy version, is not fair. Even worse, it can prevent some people from asking the question that could have marked the beginning of a fascinating and enjoyable spiritual quest for truths that help them find (and give) joy and strength in a turbulent world.

[Eldritch]

I think that's beautifully said, Alice.

[Ben D]

8bitagent

Which brings me to the concept of "God"...as in one omnipresent creator watcher. I guess it's a comforting idea, I just do not accept the Christian notion of a vengeful God who demands child sacrifice like in the bible, or Job to suffer, or that sort of allegory. Otherwise, whose the good guys?

But if we include in the concept of "God" not only the one omnipresent creator watcher, but also one omnipresent destroyer watcher, then for me that more reflects the reality,....like the Tau and its complementary differentiated aspects, yin and yan.

[FourthBase]

To tar all religious experience with the same brush as this unhealthy version, is not fair. Even worse, it can prevent some people from asking the question that could have marked the beginning of a fascinating and enjoyable spiritual quest for truths that help them find (and give) joy and strength in a turbulent world.

Just to make sure, I did not mean to tar all religious experience. What you describe is personal religious experience I don't have much if any contempt for. I despise the collective religious experience, the kind that exists to be transmitted. I do still have a speck of contempt for having an experience and interpreting it as a religious experience.

[OP ED]

My position on God is flexible, it depends on how one believes creation works.

Fourthbase:

Not all organized interpersonal rites and "transmissions" are disease.

Have you seen the movie "Baraka"?

There are many types of group ritual. Not all are guilt/control/blame/rabble rousing.

[chlamor]

Witch One(s)?

[FourthBase]

My position on God is flexible, it depends on how one believes creation works.

Fourthbase:

Not all organized interpersonal rites and "transmissions" are disease.

Have you seen the movie "Baraka"?

There are many types of group ritual. Not all are guilt/control/blame/rabble rousing.

I think I'd prefer to throw the baby out with the bath water, here. LOL.

Seriously, religion on a social scale...I just don't see the need.

[luv2dive]

I agree Alice, very well said. This has been a great thread. All of your comments are very interesting.

I was nominally raised as Christian, though don't really relate to that title today. More of a "heinz 57" variety of belief now.

This poem by ee cummings seems to express my thoughts on god:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened

This poem comes to mind each time we have one of those glorious bright blue days, which seem rarer and rarer these days.

When I see the natural world and how it all comes together like a jigsaw puzzle, a giant wheel of life, I feel there is order and purpose behind this creation. It's just mindblowing to really think about as I tend garden, pondering the who, what, why of it all. I don't know, but the order is apparent for all who observe nature.

[Penguin]

My definition of good is "tread lightly", be emphatic - set yourself in the skin of others and consider from there. Do no harm to any living being if you can avoid it. And when you do need to kill a being for food etc., be thankful for it, knowing full well that my body will one day also be food for worms.

Life is a circle, where every organism existing supports the others in myriad ways. Also "evolution" is NOT just fight or die competition, actually a symbiotic, co-operative principle is the more important. You must not forget that when discussing "cold, material evolution" - thats a misunderstanding often portrayed in media too. Thats not true.

Even our very cells that make our bodies are symbiotic organisms - a combination of a outer cell, that has another cell inside it - the mitochondrio that produces energy from sugars - mitochondrio has its own dna that is inherited from the mother. These cells went into symbiotic relationship a very long time ago, and have lived that way ever since - in tight union that benefits both. Even we as beings are whole communes of billions of cells living in union. I dont think there is such a thing as "cold, chaotic matter" - thats also a misnomer spread by our science in its infancy presently. No research supports this - we dont even know what is "randomness" or how you could define it. Just ask any honest physicist or mathematician.

[Joe Hillshoist]

My position on God is flexible, it depends on how one believes creation works.

Fourthbase:

Not all organized interpersonal rites and "transmissions" are disease.

Have you seen the movie "Baraka"?

There are many types of group ritual. Not all are guilt/control/blame/rabble rousing.

I think I'd prefer to throw the baby out with the bath water, here. LOL.

Seriously, religion on a social scale...I just don't see the need.

Thats part of the reason so many species are becoming extinct.

BTW I'm not having a go at you for this 4B, you certainly aren't the only one with that attitude and given the way religion has behaved for so long its a completely reasonably way to view the world.

But species are still dying.




Anyway as far as believing in God. Everyone's gotta believe in something. I believe its beer O'clock.

[AlicetheKurious]

luv2dive said:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened

Wonderful, wonderful poem, luv2dive. And I'm not even into poetry...

[NeonLX]

More of a "heinz 57" variety of belief now.

Heh. That sounds about right for me as well.

This poem comes to mind each time we have one of those glorious bright blue days, which seem rarer and rarer these days.

Wow, which reminds me: I'm an avid sky watcher and I've noticed that the color of the sky seems to have changed over the past few years; either that, or my memory of the deep, vivid blue that seemed common years ago is wrong. For what ever reason, the sky seems more "washed-out" to me now than it used to.

[Sounder]

Do I believe in God? Not a personal God, but still I stand in awe and wonder at the works of the Creator and desire to connect with this source.

Alice wrote...

But it's a terrible mistake to believe that all the knowledge and truth each of us needs can be simply handed to us in a neatly wrapped package. That would be to cheat ourselves of the mental and spiritual journey that is the whole point of us being alive.

Our troubles and solutions stem from the fact that all understanding is mediated through form. The forms stand between us and direct experience but they also provide context that may provide connection to deeper truth. So while I have no religion or even any set beliefs, I still find substance in the Bible as well as other ancient writings. My favorites, from the OT are the notions of Halacha (Law) and Agada (Spontaneity), as treated by Abraham Heschel. Quick distillation? “Halacha without Agada is dead, Agada without Halacha is wild.”

Another of my favorite Jewish thinkers is Lewis Black, where he explains about why the god of the OT was such a prick. He says something to the effect that it had to be that way in order to get the freaks to stop fucking the camels.


Fourthbase wrote...

Neither do I, but the potency that belongs to religion, especially the force with which organized religion acts upon (controls) individuals and society, ought to be profoundly diminished, in fact might need to be diminished for humanity to have any hope of surviving.

I am with you here Fourthbase, but common sense says that for these archaic forms to be replaced then a new set of forms for understanding must be created that has greater intrinsic appeal. Science and materialism do not cut it because they tend to limit causality to the physical aspect of reality.

Then you say;

Just to make sure, I did not mean to tar all religious experience. What you describe is personal religious experience I don't have much if any contempt for. I despise the collective religious experience, the kind that exists to be transmitted. I do still have a speck of contempt for having an experience and interpreting it as a religious experience.

Well what about materialism, as a reactionary response to religion? That also is a set of forms that ‘exists’ to be transmitted and is then effectively a religion.


Hammer of Los wrote...

Beyond that, I could quite happily agree with what everyone else has said, with the honorable exception of Sunny, and the rather less honorable exception of Sepka.

This is well said and funny.

[FourthBase]

Well what about materialism, as a reactionary response to religion? That also is a set of forms that ‘exists’ to be transmitted and is then effectively a religion.

The coercive power of most non-religious ideology is not as strong, religion's dogma is the strongest form of "meme" or whatever you prefer to call it. But yeah I guess in general, I feel the same way about all dogmatic groupthink.