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Post by jackjack on Mar 21, 2012 1:59:03 GMT 9.5
You are born separated from God since birth, whether you were ever made aware of the Christian faith or not. You have an inner knowing that you just are separated from God and that therefore your next duty is to discover how to resolve this conflict.
Being an atheist is one approach many people take to resolve this inner conflict. Many think that if they ignore this notion of a benevolent creator that it will somehow "go away." Others think that if they're good enough, they'll restore themselves into right standing with God.
But it is only those who acknowledge and believe in God's grace that inherit everlasting life.
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Post by paul on Mar 21, 2012 7:39:50 GMT 9.5
You are born separated from God since birth.... I suspect that cultures that are close to nature do not experience that.
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Post by Henka on Mar 21, 2012 8:43:31 GMT 9.5
You are born separated from God since birth, whether you were ever made aware of the Christian faith or not. You have an inner knowing that you just are separated from God and that therefore your next duty is to discover how to resolve this conflict. Being an atheist is one approach many people take to resolve this inner conflict. Many think that if they ignore this notion of a benevolent creator that it will somehow "go away." Others think that if they're good enough, they'll restore themselves into right standing with God. But it is only those who acknowledge and believe in God's grace that inherit everlasting life. This is a purely Judeo/Christian/Muslim concept. That we are separate from nature and nature's god (and goddess) is an illusion itself.
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Post by Henka on Mar 21, 2012 8:44:09 GMT 9.5
You are born separated from God since birth.... I suspect that cultures that are close to nature do not experience that. Touche'
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Post by LorrB on Mar 21, 2012 10:20:55 GMT 9.5
Jackjack ... if God is ALL, how can we be separated from Him?
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Post by paul on Mar 21, 2012 10:45:18 GMT 9.5
I think the difficulty is resolved by distinguishing the gods from God. The gods certainly departed leaving their various chosen peoples somewhat bereft.
God, however, as the Source of All, has pervaded Creation with a fragment of Himself/Herself, hence is never separate.
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Post by brandt on Mar 21, 2012 13:27:14 GMT 9.5
What characteristics makes any person the "decider" on this matter?
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Post by paul on Mar 21, 2012 13:32:43 GMT 9.5
The trick is to use the working tools in a moral sense - to distinguish the Real from the Unreal
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Post by jackjack on Mar 21, 2012 17:21:38 GMT 9.5
Jackjack ... if God is ALL, how can we be separated from Him? How can God and His creation be one and the same? If God created creation, then creation is INFERIOR to Him and is merely a "shadow", if you will, of heavenly things--they ARE not the heavenly ideal! Think about it... God tells Moses, "Make a pattern of the tabernacle after the pattern you saw in heaven." I ask you; is the tabernacle on earth exactly the same as the one in heaven? Also, God gave the blueprint of the Temple to David to give his Son Solomon... Is the temple in heaven THE SAME as the one on earth? No; one is a COPY/SHADOW of the other! So; it is VERY IMPORTANT to draw a distinction between the two; many evil spirits teach that we're each our own god, masters of our own destinies. Problem is, they know that God and satan DO exist and that humankind isn't all alone in this wide world; of course, that doesn't stop them from trying to trick people into believing lies. But why would they lie to people? B/c they know that humankind was created in the image of God and therefore, anything that they can do to make God unhappy with humanity will make them and their superiors more then happy. ...Cause see, it's what I call catch 33, a win-win situation: the evil spirits get to feed off of human life energy, their masters get a slave and the good news for them? It's absolutely free...but YOU get to pay the price!
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Post by paul on Mar 22, 2012 8:23:56 GMT 9.5
...If God created creation, then creation is INFERIOR to Him and is merely a "shadow".. In the Hindu tradition we have: "Having pervaded this entire Universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain." Thus the Creation is pervaded by the presence of the Creator. How then can it be separate? And many mystics have testified to the truth of this.
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Post by jackjack on Mar 23, 2012 15:11:46 GMT 9.5
Then in the Hindu tradition, God is no more superior then a rock which means that He isn't omnipotent.
However, the Hindu tradition also states that reincarnation came from (I think) Krishna when Arjun was getting ready to battle his family. He emboldens Arjun to kill his own family, stating that "oh...they'll be bock--in some other form. You must see things through a 'spiritual' perspective." When Arjun still hesitates, Krishna frightens him into submission by taking on his true form of a giant and tells Arjun that he'll help him win the battle but that he simply needed to trust him.
Needless to say, Arjun trusts Krishna's word and slaughters his entire family.
There are other things that can be said about Krishna; as a child, he disobeyed his parents and got away with it, seduced women, used his abilities to frighten people into submission, and the list goes on.
Should we worship gods that act just as or worse than humankind?
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Post by brandt on Mar 23, 2012 15:13:02 GMT 9.5
Maybe we should worship a dead Jew considering there is a book that says that there is no life but through him.
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Post by paul on Mar 23, 2012 17:21:30 GMT 9.5
... Should we worship gods that act just as or worse than humankind? The gods certainly are a mixed blessing. Is there any god that would meet your ethical standards?
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Post by Henka on Mar 24, 2012 0:48:56 GMT 9.5
Should we worship gods that act just as or worse than humankind? Should we worship a Hebrew tribal war god who condones the slaughter of millions, and condemns the majority of humankind to eternal punishment for exercising the free will that he supposedly gave us?
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Post by paul on Mar 24, 2012 5:36:09 GMT 9.5
Henka,
I deleted a post that was, in my view, unnecessarily insensitive to the religious beliefs of some.
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Post by Henka on Mar 24, 2012 8:32:57 GMT 9.5
Henka, I deleted a post that was, in my view, unnecessarily insensitive to the religious beliefs of some. The FSM one, I'm sure. That joke has been around for years.
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Post by brandt on Mar 25, 2012 11:36:22 GMT 9.5
Should you also delete the post that was insentive to Hinduism or does a Christian-centric viewpoint given special consideration?
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Post by paul on Mar 25, 2012 11:38:19 GMT 9.5
In my assessment there was no merit in the post deleted.
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Post by jackjack on Mar 30, 2012 16:31:44 GMT 9.5
You may call me insensitive if you want, Brandt, but the facts are the facts; I'm just telling you what was in the Bhagavad Gita (the Hindu scriptures). They actually DO teach what I just told you concerning reincarnation and it doesn't bother them one bit that Arjun was encouraged to kill his whole family based on the notion that they would come back into some other form. If you'd like to read it for yourself, there are copies of the Bhagavad Gita on the internet. Now, concerning the accusation that Jehovah slaughtered innocent people, I would ask you which references are you referring to. There are several of them in the OT; I would also ask you if you studied those verses and analyzed them. There are thousands of accusations on the internet yet people do not diligently search those issues out and instead of doing so, they just grab the accusations and run with them. In fact, many times I've asked people where they got this info from and they said "Oh...off the internet." Another time, I ran into someone who parroted a "Bible Contradiction"; every creature of God is good...and then "there is none righteous, no not one." A simple analysis demonstrated that the accuser didn't even bother to look up his info and instead, just grabbed an accusation off the net and ran with it. Having said all that, I say this; instead of complaining to me about how awful my God is, maybe you should research those accusations against my God by studying the Bible in order to see if the claims are true and if my God is really as mean-spirited as other portray him to be. Of course, you might tell me to follow my own medicine--however, I think I have. I have read the two stories, The Illiad and the Oddessey; I have also read the story about Jason's Golden Fleece, I have also read various other Greek mythologies, examined portions of mystical texts of the Egyptians, read and thought about different portions of the Hermetic manuscripts, I took a quick stroll through the Babylonian Chronicles, I read The Code of Hammurabi, The Borsippa Scroll, the chief stories and myths of the Babylonians, Josephus' Wars and Antiquities, read a portion of Caesar's Biography, read a few chapters on Mary Baker Eddy's book on Scientology (Science with Key to Scriptures), read quite a bit of the writings of the masonic fathers for almost a month, completed reading The Satanic Bible, completed one of a cluster of writings from the Zoroastrian texts, and finally, I did start reading the Bhagavad Gita. So... I think that I can reasonably talk about a slight variety of topics without misportraying them; however, I am human and I'll more then likely make a few mistakes here and there but it's ok. That's what this forum is for, right?
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Post by LorrB on Apr 2, 2012 8:21:41 GMT 9.5
Now, concerning the accusation that Jehovah slaughtered innocent people, I would ask you which references are you referring to. There are several of them in the OT ..... Jackjack, I was contemplating becoming a nun at one stage in my life but I could not read the Bible because of the bloodlust etc. It didn't stop me being a spiritually oriented person, I just thought about the following.. God maybe is not a God of Love Jehovah might not be God god might not be God Jeremiah and other prophets might be adorning God with their qualities The Bible is allegory The above is probably applicable to all sacred texts.. Freemasonry actually tells us that the truth may be found in allegories. We must look at stories we are familiar with, with new eyes (that see). Jesus gave us that clue. Jihad... slaughtering the enemy.... we are supposed to be slaughtering everything within ourselves which is not beautiful and true. How many have died over the centuries because of 'words'. My God. These words gave me cause to ponder. As Freemasons we are free to build our own temple and create our own belief system. As long as we harm no-one else I see nothing wrong with this. I do it myself. My God is Loving and Merciful. I am guessing that I would have as much trouble letting go of what my idea of God is as you would Jackjack.
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