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Author Topic:   Where are all the gods?
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 122 (566904)
06-28-2010 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
06-28-2010 12:12 PM


We’ve had cameras for nearly 200 years now, and movies for over 100 years. We have 24/7 global media. Why are they all wasting this fantastic photo opportunity? Just think of the sort of figure they could command from Hello magazine.
Well, in all fairness, my idea of a God wouldn't include a petty, human emotion like vanity. Which is precisely why I object to the bible's version of jealous God who wants to hog all the glory. That seems so out of place with a perfect God who is complete within itself.
WHERE ARE YOU, GODS?
Nietzsche is dead -- God

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 06-28-2010 12:12 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Straggler, posted 06-28-2010 2:05 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 122 (566911)
06-28-2010 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Straggler
06-28-2010 2:05 PM


Why do you think that any god that might actually exist would adhere to your personal expectations?
*shrugs*
For all I know god is up there now throwing a temper tantrum. I guess there is something about perfection that strikes me as being at odds with petty human behaviors

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Straggler, posted 06-28-2010 2:05 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Taq, posted 06-28-2010 3:04 PM Hyroglyphx has replied
 Message 9 by Straggler, posted 06-28-2010 3:20 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 26 of 122 (567044)
06-29-2010 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Taq
06-28-2010 3:04 PM


Have you read the Old Testament?
That was my satirical way of saying the bible is nonsense.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Taq, posted 06-28-2010 3:04 PM Taq has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 122 (567049)
06-29-2010 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
06-29-2010 4:25 AM


So why not appear now?
To add to the mystique!!! God loves a good mystery novel.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 06-29-2010 4:25 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 102 of 122 (873455)
03-15-2020 6:41 PM
Reply to: Message 100 by Phat
03-15-2020 4:56 PM


And why on earth should God shield us from every challenge that the universe throws our way?
And why on earth would a God who, according to the bible, only wants humans to love him create billions of creatures he seems to care little about or why he creates deadly viruses that kill out the very people he loves so damn much? Why create an infinite universe that is functionally useless if Earth and heaven were the only things of importance?
If you're going to ask a rhetorical question that no has an answer to then another of the inverse should be questioned as well.
quote:
Well, in all fairness, my idea of a God wouldn't include a petty, human emotion like vanity. This is precisely why I object to the bible's version of jealous God who wants to hog all the glory. That seems so out of place with a perfect God who is complete within itself.
God is described as jealous for several reasons.
There are many passages in the Bible that seem to say that God is jealous. God even calls himself a jealous God and says that his name is ‘Jealous’. Yet, the idea that God is jealous does not sit easily with religious believers. If God exists and is a perfect being, then why would an almighty, holy, and perfectly good God be jealous of finite and mortal creatures?1 Also, according to monotheism, the polytheistic gods humans venerate do not really exist. But then how could God be jealous of them? And most importantly, would it not be morally wrong for God to be jealous? After all, we usually find jealousy a repulsive character trait: it seems possessive and demanding.
Jealously is almost universally perceived in a negative connotation... that it speaks of a fundamental insecurity. It seems out of touch with a "perfect being." If he doesn't need anyone or anything then why set out to create humanity at all? Its obviously a distortion of the character of God imparted by HUMANS who assumed it.
What makes more sense? That God spoke only through Jews a few thousand years ago and then stopped speaking altogether or that the Jews in the 1st and 2nd century BCE spoke for God and as God through the lens of their Jewish experiences? What great wisdoms did we glean from Habukkuk that pertain to the modern day Jews, never mind the rest of the non-Jewish world especially when considering the overwhelming majority of humans on Earth are gentiles? We're talking a ratio of 5.8 billion to 1.
Ever notice how stylistically different the texts are from author to author, yet supposedly it was God writing through their hands?
At what point might you entertain the notion that this is bullshit? And not to say that God per se is bullshit, but that your conception of God revealed through the bible is bullshit? If you're able to conceptually grapple with that notion when it comes to the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon, both of which make the exact same claim of divine inspiration, at what point do you at least consider that perhaps your own biases are on display?
Zoroastrianism was a very dominant religion for a very long time.... how many practitioners are there today?

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Phat, posted 03-15-2020 4:56 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by Phat, posted 03-16-2020 3:26 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 108 of 122 (873537)
03-16-2020 5:13 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Phat
03-16-2020 3:26 PM


Everyone seems to behoove the idea of god allowing harmful things to exist, but I've never seen a problem with it. Do we really expect Him to catch us every time we stumble and fall as a baby? To magically put protective pillows around our tiny knees and faces? How then would we develop the character traits to survive?Obviously we do need to get tougher.
I'm not talking about a little boo-boo ouchy-ouch, Phat... I'm talking about life spent in protracted misery for some people. I'm talking about why viruses exist, why communicable illnesses exist, and why there congenital defects like Harlequin's disease. What grand mystery are we unlocking about the infinite love of God through such things?
The specter of human suffering was explored in the Book of Job where God afflicted Job and subjected his family to a series of death and misery just to prove to Satan that Job wouldn't curse God. So, a glorified pissing contest at the expense of innocent people just to prove something to Satan which, by the way, was also an unnecessary addition to humanity. O' His mercies are enduring!!!!
Tangle replies that its almost exactly how life would evolve if god never existed, which is true. What is interesting to me, howver, is how humans ( the ones without dogmatic beliefs) indict and challenge this God character to either to live up to *our standards* or that they don't need Him.
The irony that I speak of is that you are quite possibly following the human standards of a 2nd Century Jew concerning what he believed God ought to be. That's what I'm talking about.
I've never figured out how the unbelievers will call Him a bloody bastard or a tyrant as if they have some better idea of how such a Deity *should* behave!
Really, you can't figure that out, Phat??? You can't fathom why a supposedly perfect and benevolent God who has zero interaction with the people he loves so much, save a random collection of books that was conveniently written 2-3,000 years ago, not before, not after? You can't think of a better conception of God than the one of the bible? Perhaps a more equitable God? A more charitable God? A less war-like God? A God more devoted to love and compassion?
To me, God is described as jealous implied that He so loved His people that He defended the very contract between them and Him to the letter, getting mad at them for not taking it seriously and assuming that He foreknew the outcome of their rebellions.
And to me it sounds like a psycho ex-girlfriend who is so emotionally petulant that she's willing to inflict pain and suffering on to you out of spite... If I can't have you, no one can. That's not about love that's about self-loathing projected outwards and about power, control, and manipulation.
You've got me here! It makes much more sense that it was the early authors who spoke for God through their own lives and experience. In many ways, God's written relationship with humans was a reconciliation of males with the tenderness of masculinity that they never received from their busy Fathers. God was masculine yet was tender and understanding at times and tough and callous at other times...as they themselves needed to be in their warring culture.
I'll give you all that God, as described by humans, is a human construct, but it does not prevent me from believing that He exists above, beyond, and apart from our attempts to describe Him.
And I'm not suggesting that a God of sorts is impossible, I'm challenging you question whether maybe the bible's conception of what God is is a distortion through the lens of a very specific culture at a very specific time in a very specific part of the world. What great epiphany is there to be understand concerning the wars between the Edomites and the Israelites are we supposed to take onboard with such conviction that we cast aside common sense and good judgment to follow it?
I will agree that it is BS but that it is *evolving* BS. If God exists (which I believe He does) and wants us to know Him and know ourselves in the process, He obviously won't give us any clearer directions apart from what we ourselves conclude from our own experiences.
Well, that's great when you're in a concentration camp, starved, worked to the bone, tortured, humiliated, maligned, and you have prayed and prayed and prayed in earnest only to watch your family and friends murdered or subjected to sick medical experiments without the slightest bit of intervention or intercession.

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Phat, posted 03-16-2020 3:26 PM Phat has not replied

  
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