God Poll?

[Boojum]

I know that the idea of god exists, but that's about all I know. I used to be a card carrying atheist, til I realised that atheism is just as much a form of dogmatic faith as religion. Alls I would say is I sincerely hope that there are things that science will never be able to explain, because once science has explained everything, then we can truly declare that God is dead. Not meant as a pop against science or scientists, I just like my universe with a bit of mystery, I don't like to think I live inside one enormous clock.

[Guest roger]

At the end of Life, the Universe and Everything, the third book in the series, Arthur encounters a man named Prak, who through a significant overdose of a remarkably effective truth serum has gained the knowledge of all truth. Prak confirms that 42 is indeed the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, but reveals that it is impossible for both the ultimate answer and the ultimate question to be known about the same universe. He states that if such a thing should come to pass, the universe would disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. He then speculates that this may have already happened.

(from wiki)

rest assured we'll never understand the physics of the universe well enough or know enough about its state to predict it like clockwork.

on the nature of atheistic dogma, which if any beliefs should be respected? i can think up a new religion every minute of the day each more absurd than the last, are they all valid explinations of reality no matter how outlandish? or is is some sort of weighted voting system? does the faith with the most belivers have the greatest claim on the nature of truth?

[Guest mrpn1]

Roger:

By asking "does God exists" are you asking if we think or believe that a Divine Being has taken up residence in the world of "existence", as in the Christian theology of Incarnation ("And the Word was made flesh [sarx?])?

Or do you wish to know if we believe that there is a Divine "Being" in the realm of "being"?

Being - Existence, a very important distinction.

God may very well Be, but existence implies start and end and thus mortality.

God Is, but may He Become or Cease?

Indeed can God Do?

Is human language up to the task?

Is human logic able to do anything other than blaspheme by definition, being a reducer of the infinite to finite proportions suitable for observations. Observations thus reduced to possible meaninglessness.

Try Don Cuppitt.

But don't say I sent you

Vape please......

And the asnwer is probably 43.788888888888888888

Arnold, you lost me at "Roger:"

I'm gonna have to give up smoking to understand that lot

Mr P

[Guest roger]

Roger:

By asking "does God exists" are you asking if we think or believe that a Divine Being has taken up residence in the world of "existence", as in the Christian theology of Incarnation ("And the Word was made flesh [sarx?])?

Or do you wish to know if we believe that there is a Divine "Being" in the realm of "being"?

Being - Existence, a very important distinction.

God may very well Be, but existence implies start and end and thus mortality.

God Is, but may He Become or Cease?

Indeed can God Do?

Is human language up to the task?

Is human logic able to do anything other than blaspheme by definition, being a reducer of the infinite to finite proportions suitable for observations. Observations thus reduced to possible meaninglessness.

Try Don Cuppitt.

But don't say I sent you

Vape please......

And the asnwer is probably 43.788888888888888888

I suppose the christian theology, starts with "in the begining there was god" and all of reality flows from him... therefore it is not neccecarily a question of the mortality of god, rather god himself is the ultimate force (source of & director of, space, energy and matter) in the universe. the problem with this is it would appear that the christian god exists, according to the bible, for the sole purpose of being loved and judging his creactions... this alone would seem an unlikley reason for god and reality to have been dragged into exsistence....

now i admit that if the christian god did exist he may have been up to other things, but this would be pure speculation and not a matter for belief as it is not mentioned in the bible.... what irritate me about the whole bussiness is that it often comes down to "faith" now i don't have a problem in a logical argument, but when you (one) are basing your world view on a fairy tale your arguments invariably resort to faith and defy proof by definition.

[Arnold Layne]

Roger, in Christian Theology (of the Orthodox varieties) God most certainly is in no way dependant upon or contingent to His creation, which is seen as an act of Divine Fiat, what one may call an Omnipotent Whim perhaps. He is held to "need" nothing.

Existence, in Christian Theological talk, is the realm of Time and Space, the continuum that has a start and an end. As God has neither, He cannot be held to "exist" per se, in the sense of being bound by the Coninuum (which would preclude any idea of being Creator). Rather, God "is". He is believed to be eternal, infinite, boundless and thus beyond mere Existence; however there is a balance in most Theological schools between the Transcendance and the Imminince of the Divine.

Central to Christian Theology however is the thought that in one unique person (Jesus Christ) the Godhead chose to inhabit mortal humanity, and thereby "redeem" it.

This is very close to the various "Redeemer" myths of the ancient world, and flows in and out of Gnosticism and various other mythological systems.

Up the Front!

[Boojum]

rest assured we'll never understand the physics of the universe well enough or know enough about its state to predict it like clockwork.

on the nature of atheistic dogma, which if any beliefs should be respected? i can think up a new religion every minute of the day each more absurd than the last, are they all valid explinations of reality no matter how outlandish? or is is some sort of weighted voting system? does the faith with the most belivers have the greatest claim on the nature of truth?

Dunno, wasn't really referring to physics to be honest, matter and energy is the one thing I think they will explain eventually, I was referring more to the nature of human consciousness, I'd hate to think that "me" is just a product of a series of physical forces and chemical interactions. I know physically that I am, but I'd like to think that the me that's doing this thinking, the me that comes up with new ideas, I'd like to think that there is something about that, about human thought itself, that perhaps is the divine or somehow connected - that's how I've seen god whenever I've had an hallucinogenic experience that's had a spiritual dimension, God as consciousness, a sort of great mass of formless consciousness from which we and all thought stem, and to which our consciousness returns when we die.

And back on the nature of atheist dogma, don't see where respect comes into it, I just think that atheism is just as much a belief system as any other religion, to say "I do not believe" is merely the flipside of saying "I do believe", they are both acts of faith. To me, Christianity is just as flawed as Judaism is just as flawed as Buddhism (or rather the kind of buddhism that reveres the buddha as a deity), is just as flawed as Islam is just as flawed as Atheism. The least flawed of the bunch is Taoism, because taoism doesn't rely on creation myth and a deity with an anthropomorphic appearence and homocentric attitude, in fact taoism doesn't really touch on a deity at all, it's a religion that isn't a religion, merely a philosophy - THAT I can subscribe to way more readily than a system of beliefs based on some clearly absurd storytelling (most of which is stolen from older belief systems, all modern religions borrow heavily from their forebears). but... Belief in dogma I simply cannot respect, especially such childishly simple dogma as is present in most religious texts. The judeo christian creation myth ? as absurd as it is unoriginal. The story of Mary and Joseph, the virgin birth, all that utter guff ? suitable for sunday school for primary age kids, but once they hit adolescence if they haven't seen how patently ludicrous it all is then I'd worry. Beliefs, maybe they should be respected, but dogma, kids stories masquerading as something more, that's definitely not worthy of anyone's respect.

[cf]

a better word for god would in my mind be chaos....whoa before you all start jumping to conclusions let me define chaos a bit ..

our brains and cognitive capacity are this big (holds up thumb and forefinger close together) ..and the universe is this big ( makes 'big fish that got away' gesture) so.. it stands to reason that we are not really able to comprehend ,in any text book way the entirity of the universe in which we find ourselves ...by universe i mean the physical stuff and all the etherial stuff too ...thoughts feelings etc.

so ...to me chaos is that which is just beyond the brink of our understanding,of course we would like to catagorise and explain it ..and we have valiant stabs at using our stone age brains to make sense of the stuff over the horizon but really its looks like chaos ..unordered ..inexplicable .

but that doesnt mean that it is ..all it means is that we dont have the capacity yet to make sense of this 'chaos' ...i'm sure it has a beautiful resonance and order beyond our primitive understanding but we have to have the eyes to see it .

in our evolutionary history the most primal of fish are supposed to have evolved an eye , a simple cell that just detected light ,it told the fish if it was the right way up ....no light -wrong way up /light -right way up

i think our spiritual selves are limited like the first fish eye ....you could no more expect the fish to read shakespear than you can expect us to unravel the spiritual aspects of our existence ....but it doesnt mean that the bards words dont exist as maybe do all the subtle landscapes of the spirit

' the ascent of man into heaven is not the key,but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the descent also of the spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature. for that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity waits as the crowning movement of its long obscure and painful course'

Sri Aurobindo - The Adventure of Consciousness

[heiro]

just wrote a whole page and then accidently deleted it by pressing the delete key twice, makes IE go back a page. ARGGHHHH

gonna make a cuppa and start again

[Guest budo_canuck]

It would seem to me IMHO that every God/Goddess is yours and yours alone as it a construct of your spiritual belief and moral code. The masses who worship a common "god" do in personally unique ways, for personally unique reasons. Sorry to batted to go any further...

[CATSARSE]

i love god i always have done....

well when u get in so much shit it seems like ur never gonna get out of it ...

he always seems 2 come through..(if repeating his name over and over again until u feel better has anything 2 do with it ... or he or she just knows)

p.s yes god just might well b a baitch...)

well it would answer alot of things in my mind tbh

da arse

[heiro]

The problem with talking about Gods is there different intrepretations and meaning behind the word. Are we talking about Archetypes? Personifications of Divine Properties within the Human Psyche. Or are We talking about Non-Physical Entities? Ghosts, 'Demons' and 'Astral Entities'. Or are we talking about Our(Humanities) past Masters? Terrestrial-Extra. Or are We talking about Chaos? Or a mix of them all?

I believe most religions have some basis in history and history has some basis in religion, ie it's not all what it appears. there are inconsistancies, inadaquacys and inaccuraties dogging the dogma, in a layby just outside leeds

Archetypes, Jesus Christ, need I say more. hehe. Well a bit, the outer order of all religions is mearly preaching archetype dogma to control you. At least Polytheism offers a bit of choice, thus is far superior on psychological grounds. Monotheism, the scourge of the west, why we win yet we lose.

Non-Physical Entities, Ghosts and things that can happen when you get good at magic. I for one wouldnt worship them, or trust them that much, one never can be absolutly sure with these buggers.

The Aliens, Or are they hmmm Do you really think apes just 'evolved' into humans without some new genetic material introduced into the breeding population deliberate or otherwise. They taught men culture and science, evidence found from the great civilisations. But what happened to them? mmmm, some would say there was a great war between 'gods' and 'gods', and 'gods' and men. That and enviromental factors could account for their dissapearence or death. Or are they hiding in hollows within the Earth? Or living on afar off planet survaying their mess?

One would love a rational explanation of it all, but i really doubt there is one as Chaos, the last God-type, plays a major part in everything, yet we seek to remove and hide it from our assembly line lifes. Chaos the infinite and unknown. One has to incorperate(Unite) Order and Chaos, Shiva and Kali, into ones life to live whole. The Goddess, upcoming archetype of the new aeon, incorperating the chaos, for it is not by chance chaos has always been female, Eris, Kali, Nuit/Nut. What would give birth to the universe and so enjoy killing men but a female

The Truth is Out There

Edited October 19, 2005 by heiro

[big ghost]

The effing ineffable as unspeakable.

This African Apes common destiny . . . extinction.

Feckin' raining out now!. Hmmm I'm gonna get drenched.

But is their enough time for me to get there and back. (Said the old villager.)

[Guest tootsweet]

Toot x

[Guest Archangel]

People are stupid.

God is just another word for nature.

I do not belive in god i believe in nature.

i truly dispise muslims and islam although i dont want to harm them, as well as christians catholics etc.

I can just about tollerate Buddists for there peace of mind.

Islam is soooo bad and wrong...not that christianity hasnt shed more blood over the years, but todays actions by muslims shows they are insane. Suicide bombings cause there promised 7 virgins when they go to heaven.

All that shit about a drawing in a danish newspaper............

For all his mistakes Hitler had a point if you read Mein Kampf. Im not a nazi but am educated.....

[Guest Archangel]

Just found this on someones sig.

Truth.

"Religion doesnt teach you how to be good, only how to pretend to be good!"

"If a person can make you beleive absurdities they can make you commit attrocities!"