Ruminations Regarding Religions

Inspector - I think I see the local event as a possibility. Local from our pov - infinite in occurrences beyond our pov.
I do believe the creator is intimately involved, sustaining the created thing. The thing may indeed be infinite, as I hope my being is too. But I know I had a beginning point. The created thing too.

A way I can accept their coexistence is that All created things existed in the thought of the creator before becoming.

Make sense?

Talking it thru ... See where it goes.

 

All the various Gods over the centuries have been created by mankind as a matter of controlling others and scaring them of the unknown.
Now should mankind one day disappear, so will all the Gods.

 

The unknown. That's a biggie and covers a lot.

We have a history of exploring it ... explaining it so as to make it less unknown ... and I agree we got much of it wrong.
The myth gets disproved via scientific means today.
Yet within the disproven myth there remains something else science alone cannot answer. The basic questions remain.

So where then do I begin to find the answers.
I have a prejudice cuz I was taught answers that emerged from a Judeo/Christian pov.
I am testing them now ...

Where did all this come from?
That I can even ask the question is amazing. More so now that I'm over 70 ...

What say you ?

 

Either God exists or He doesn't.
Either the Bible is the Word or it isn't.

To accept that the universe came from nothing not only breaks the laws of physics and contradicts logic, but also requires faith. I read that the mathematical probability that humans could be created as we exist now by random natural chance are 10 ^ 40,000th. The chances of winning the Powerball and Megamillions in the same week are 10^ 14th.

Regarding the argument of, 'which religion is the real one then': all religions seem to have a supreme god, with lesser gods. Is this concept so different than the Judeo-Christian construct of God and angels? Some religions might have called 'gods' what Judeo-Christians called 'angles'.

One last thing: the Bible has never been disproved. Not all if it has been proven, but nothing in it has been disproved.

 

First off the Bible is not the word of God. It's the word of a bunch of guys that met as a council. They all had their own political agendas. They were jockeying for power in the newly forming Church. They picked and chose what would be in the Bible and what would be burned. Kinda like being at a buffet. So many texts/books were destroyed by burning. This was called the Council of Nicea. Possession of any other books/texts/scriptures would get you killed. Any texts found that were not sanctioned were destroyed.

If you locked the doors to Congress, and have them come up with a religious book called the Bible, would that be the word of God? That's what happened at the Council of Nicea.

 

​

I get what you are saying there, and your feelings too, but I think that the real problem is that our ideas have become too rigid, about what a supreme being would be like. Our vision has stopped evolving.

We all long to see the face of God - but we also each want our own God to look favourably upon our own world-views and to promote our own agendas. And that's where the trouble begins.

My own pet peeve is that we here in North America simply imported some middle east religion, rather than learning from the ideas of the people who were already here. I know way too little about our Native religions, but I have a feeling that their ideas of a God in harmony with Nature would be more in line with my way of thinking.

​

 

POV:
Nature being in harmony with the cause of it's being ... my human nature is looking to identify that cause.
Now as the unfolding of being itself?

 

That is a rather simplistic and secular view of what the Council of Nicea did. After Jesus was killed and as Christianity was gaining ground, many false prophets and apostles arose to get their slice of the new religion's pie (for power, to kill the new religion or for self-importance). After 3 centuries of this, Christianity had become diluted. Constantine called upon the council to settle the issue of what texts would serve as the foundation for the doctrine of Christianity. So the council took all the dozens and dozens of texts and agreed that only those that could be traced back to people who, as best as they could prove, actually knew Jesus, would be included. And yes, I know this is also simplistic and the POV of a believer.

If you don't believe in God or the God of the Bible, then you believe this was just a bunch of dudes haggling over what goes in and what stays out based on petty human concerns. If you believe the God of Bible, then the work of the Council of Nicea was God-breathed and guided by His hand.

 

I think you made my point.

 

Can we identify "attributes" of the God believed in, then?

E.G., One pov from my Judeo/Christian background, says pure love, unconditionally given, is one.

 

Because there truly is no God. Why don't we still worship Baal? He predates the Bible and the existence of God. Gods come and go. Only Man stays to create another god.

 

Agree ... Man creates an image of the answer to the basic questions.
Tradition or no there may yet be something common within my image and yours.

What is one from your pov/experience?

 

Only if your point was belief in God requires faith. But then, belief and faith are really two sides of the coin.

 

I believe in the God of the Bible. His attributes are in there. Pure love is one. Holiness is another. Grace. Jealousy. Judging. Omnipotent. Omnipresent. Omniscient. Creator. Destroyer. There are more.

Humanity's ability to understand God is less an ant's ability to understand a human. Humanists say that man invented God because man could not explain nature. Now, man denies God because he can't understand anything that can't be explained by a mathematical equation or natural occurrence. A God that exists supernaturally, especially one that holds His creations into judgement, is antithetical to a secularists who believes that a human is really just an evolved chimpanzee. When man believes he is the ultimate law in the universe, then whatever man decides is moral or right or wrong is moral or right or wrong. That usually doesn't end up well for large swathes of mankind.

 

Worshiping a being and calling it god is not the same as worshiping God. Got is the supreme being. There is no other God if you believe the Bible. Other beings that are/were worshiped were not God. The only God to be worshiped for 5000 years is the God of the OT Bible First, by the Jews, and then by Christians too. Billions of people now worship Him. How many people still worship Baal? The Bible explains all of this. Worship of idols (which is what Baalism was) is satanism.

 

Discussing gods brings me to something out of this world.
My wife had a girlfriend, they grew up together, stayed friends for life, even if their lives moved in different directions.
My wives friend had a very sick heart and eventually died on the operation table.
The night after she passed on, she appeared to my wife to say good bye..
We live in Australia, she lived and died in Germany, how on earth did she find her way to us ?
I have never believed in gods , angels and the like nonsense, but this has me utterly baffled.
A similar thing happened when our much loved dog passed on, she came to say good bye too.
that has been going around in my tiny mind for a long time now, has anyone here had similar experiences ?

 

Only my whole life lol.

 

Existence, that simple word means so much, we are born and exist in limbo until we become aware of self.
After a while we think that we have always been here, and find it hard to believe that there is an end to it all.
I am old now, but still young in my mind, but my body tells me otherwise.
So the inevitable end is getting closer, but I find it hard to accept that I must die.
In the meantime I enjoy life while I have it, even if it hurts for various reasons, Arthritis, Diabetes , Becoming somewhat forgetful.
It is downhill all the way until the lights go out.
Enjoy your life while you have it, there is no point in being miserable and keep off the fucking drugs.

 

Well said!