If God is dead, does mankind become God?

Ringo,When Rob can't deal with an argument he comes up with these vague accusations in which he protrays himself as the well intended victim of something or the other and then dances away from the argument with platitudes and unsupported assertions that have been refuted here many times.Well, it could be worse. At least he doesn't dismiss arguments on the grounds that he already won the debate with irrefutable evidence in his OP.lfen

I think you and I are in the same ballpark - maybe even chasing the same ball. (Do I get points for ruffling his feathers first?)

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Yeah, I don't know if it's the same ball or not. I'll cede the points as I don't really know and I don't want to research it. He sure got snippy with us though.I don't object to a bhakti path of developement. It's the exclusiveness and literalness that I object to. It's fine with me if people worship an external God. It's part of the process. But the sectularization (did I just make that word up?:eek of western religion has resulted in the kinds of stuff we are seeing in the mideast right now and I would like to see people begin to give that up.What I am beginning to understand is that literalists conflate the map with the territory. What I still don't understand is why pointing that out to them makes them so insecure and defensive. It's like they have some great ontological anxiety and only by insisting that words are reality can they feel secure. Maybe they really do suspect that the ego is a fabrication and impermanent but they are flooded with anxiety and threatened by that?lfen

I think this paragraph belongs in a museum case -- I think I'll set one up, cyber style -- for the display of particularly striking specimens of epistemopathology. If you don't understand your opponent, just psychoanalyze him/her away. How self-serving.And besides that, it's just a big fat ad hominem.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't understand what you're trying to say, here. It seems like you're completely unable to concieve of someone who recognizes the existence of no gods at all.I assure you that these people exist; they're called "atheists." They have no gods and they do not worship. Which basically renders your entire argument meaningless.

Reality means a lot of things to a lot of people. whatever that is, that is their God. I want you to listen to me...I did not, have, sexual relations, with that woman, Miss Lewinski.Denial is the sickest and most selfish of defenses.

Just be fair and include examples of you, Phat, Iano, Rob and other fundamentalists claiming your opponents are spiritually blind, or are blinded by God and can't see or understand the Bible's contradictions because they lack spiritual vision, or because they are ego dominated, and etc.Psychological modeling of human behaviour is significant when trying to understand humans. My model uses identifiable terms. How do you define spirit that it can be blind?lfen

You are being too hard on yourself, Rob! Denial, or ignorance is the source of the ego's illusion of it's existence so it is the source of suffering but from the human perspective it is a major psychological survival mechanism. You wouldn't be believing all the non sense you cherish if if weren't for your great capacity for denial. You are playing a shell game with words here. It turns out for you God is reality. This is a tautology. So, your statement is also the equivalent of:Reality means a lot of things to a lot of people. whatever that is, that is their reality.Or God means a lot of things to a lot of people. whatever that is, that is their God.John Lennon sang, "God is concept by which people meansure their pain." Is that what you are getting at?lfen

Rob: Please argue the position and not the person.Your OP stated Please keep to the topic that if God is dead, someone has to take His place. Jesus and the Gospel should not enter into this discussion.Participants: Please argue the position and not the person. Keep to the topic. Analyzing the originator or participants is not the point of the discussion.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.
Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you Edited by AdminPD, : Remove Closure Notice

So "God", in your view, is a synonym for "reality"? Setting aside the question of why we would have two different words for the same thing, how does your OP make any sense at all? Mankind is a part of reality either way. So how could mankind be the "new" God? And how could reality die? And nonsense is a waste of my time. Unless it's funny. You're not very funny, I'm afraid.

Crash, before I respond to that...

​

After battling with some of the others here at EvC, I must say, that you, are a reasonable individual by comparison. I'm not patronizing... just stating fact! Please take that as a compliment. My guess is that it makes you grimmace to receive it, as much as I grimmace in offerring it...It is not that we need different words for the same thing, it is just that we have (as a culture) lost sight of what words really mean.I was recently reminded that in the nineties, a CNN reporter asked the 'man on the street' if words have any meaning. (What? If they don't have any meaning, then what did the question mean?) The majority of respondants said 'no' or 'not really'. It was all in response to the famous line, "... that all depends on what is means."It is far too common for people to avoid being pinned by condemning language by evading and questioning the meaning of the words themselves. Does it not occur to them that they are using words in the process?That having been said, I personally find it utterly confirming that the Bible uses synonomous terms, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'A lot of things are synonomous, i.e. words, ideas, communication, enlightenment, or knowledge; they are all synonomous within this paragraph. You should not be suprised at this... There may be some overlap into differing contexts, but that is how we flow from one concept to another while tying them all together. The adding of dimensions causes us to see deeper, farther, and wider.Truth, reality, God, perfection, life, justice, morality, mercy, and love are all synonomous to me. They all equate to what is real, eternal, righteous, and glorious. They are not just wordy... I am not suggesting that my reality or your reality is actual reality. I am only saying that we each operate on something that plays the part of actual reality in our subconscious minds. So, just any old program won't do... only the actual reality can be united to. Anything false truth will only seperate us from other's individual realities.For example, if I believe that 2+2=7, then I am out of touch with reality and operating on my own reality in place of the real thing. But since reality is not mine to own, my reality is irrelevant. Ultimately, the only thing useful to me beyond my self, is actual reality.That is why we should seek reality itself. To do so is part of selflessness itself. When we agree, we are united. But agreement is not itself the only rule. If it were, the we could say that the Nazi's vision could have brought peace. No, I am not talking about false peace, but true peace.Admittedly none of us has a total grasp of reality (i.e. truth). If we did, we would literally be God. I think we would all agree that some of us have more of the whole (holy) picture than others, even if we disagree on the who's who question.So mankind can only be God in his mind, not in actual reality; unless, mankind is God. Personally, I think that we ultimately we were meant to be part of God. Not God Himself, but a part of perfection, utopia, heaven, harmony, and unity within the diversity of those things.Furthermore, it is not that man becoming God in his mind kills reality. Reality cannot die because by definition, it is eternal. That tends to exclude finite mankind. But if we could find God, then we could taste the infinite and the eternal.Whatever reality is, it excludes all the other possibilities and is eternal. To prove that, consider that if you disagree, and were to say that actual reality [does not] exclude the other possible [exclusive] reality, then that [non-exclusive] reality would become the [exclusive] eternal actual reality. The argument is nonsensicle and defeats itself.If God is dead, then we must become God even though we cannot be. Therefore God is not dead. Neitzsche was right that we killed Him. But you can't keep a good man down. Many have tried...

It's just nonsense, Rob. You're not even playing word games here; those have rules, at least.You know how people sometimes call specious arguments about anothers motivations or mental state "psychobabble"? What you've done here is philosobabble. It's a hodgepodge of various concepts from freshman philosophy that you've munged together, but it doesn't actually mean anything, because I suspect you're not very clear on the concepts in the first place.

quote:

---

So, tell me CK, what do you live for?

---

I can answer this question for myself.I live for life.

Sorry you feel that way Crash... Maybe I did too many drugs back in the days. I was not always a Christian. Maybe I gave up my life too soon. All I know is that it is more clear to me than anything else. It's not complicated. In fact, it's so simple that I should have seen it a long time ago. But I wasn't looking for it. I was looking for my own reality...I can appriciate my own words sounding like philosobabble. That was a fair blow. I just know that many reject the Bible out of hand and therefore miss an opportunity to see that these concepts are there. So my thinking is that if I can get the concepts accross first, then point to the Bible as the source, then a few folks are bound to scratch their heads and see.It works every time, but the numbers are far fewer than I can believe... Perhaps I should just stick to the scriptures themselves and eliminate those closed minded from the start. My word often returns to me void. God's word is shown to never fail when looking at the whole show and not just one scene called now.It is simple,and more so than a freshman can appriciate. It's more like a child's view altogether. The obvious and the common. Certainly not glamorous, just glorious.We don't have to agree. It is not my job to persuade. You must do what you think is right. All I encourage you to do is think for yourself. Ask the questions, and expect an answer. You never know who will answer. Maybe a stupid truck driver...Perhaps a man named Ed Ames: It is my blief that Jesus was God's final answer... If we do not take the offer, then we are doomed to playing the part of God and creating hell for ourselves. Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic Warning

What is life?Or as God said to Adam, 'where are you?'There is no now, for it was three words ago, or was it five? Who can be sure, so that it is gone and never was... Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic Warning