I Believe in Religion

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

Nothing shows me the shape of the universe.

Oh, I don't know about that. I think perhaps Goethe and others have shown you a universe in the shape of a poem.

The word "connection" is too confusing. I have relationships with people, and it varies by matter of proximity, interaction, biology and language.

Ok. How would you describe your relationship with humanity? With the universe?

I have always ended up carrying my own burdens.

And yet, you carry the burdens of others?

Living life to the fullest has so far been the most supportive method of inspiration.

Sounds like you have a great life. But, do you know what life tastes like?

"If you've never eaten while crying you don't t know what life tastes like."

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What do you think he meant by that? Does living life to the fullest make one too happy to cry, thereby making it impossible to know what life really tastes like?

👣

originally posted by: BlueMule
"If you've never eaten while crying you don't t know what life tastes like."

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What do you think he meant by that? Does living life to the fullest make one too happy to cry, thereby making it impossible to know what life really tastes like?

I think he meant this (minus the mystical tone but mystics and poets are carved from the same wood anyway)

I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter.

I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
Of life's secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and
To be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
A smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.

I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than that I live Weary and despairing.

I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the
Depths of my spirit,for I have seen those who are
Satisfied the most wretched of people.
I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and Longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.

With evening's coming the flower folds her petals
And sleeps, embracingher longing.
At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet
The sun's kiss.

The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment.
A tear and a smile.

The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come
Together and area cloud.

And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys
Until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping
To the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to Return to the sea, its home.

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.
A tear and a smile.

And so does the spirit become separated from
The greater spirit to move in the world of matter
And pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
And the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
And return whence it came.

To the ocean of Love and Beauty----to God.

Religion is here to control masses. ISIS kills people in name of god. Pope is in top 10 of most powerful people.

So I m askingng, WHERE is god?

They place pope Francis to bring a holly light to church, he knows where is god. But he is old, he won't be too long with us. So later those sinners can collect all good Francis did. (I'm talking about cash).

I can talk about other religions, but I be boring. But I won't talk about atheist and agnostics. For me they are apes. And I eat all my bananas.

a reply to: BlueMule

"If you've never eaten while crying you don't t know what life tastes like."

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What do you think he meant by that? Does living life to the fullest make one too happy to cry, thereby making it impossible to know what life really tastes like?

hmmm, What does that mean, and I think I have eaten and cried, could have been forced to eat something I didn't like as a child, don't believe food ever made me happy enough to cry, but I imagine if I was starving it could.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

I'm always amused by your anti-atheist threads, especially since you're an ath..

It's a test.

a reply to: babybunnies

No, you got that wrong about the belief. The belief is simply that God has a plan and we are all part of it, even you for all your disbelief.

Just because we are all part of the plan and have been since the beginning, does not make us important. It only makes us part of the plan. Since you used the analogy of ants to God, I'll use this:



See that ant? You know. That one, right there being walked on. He's part of the plan. Oh sure he could drown and sink and the bridge would go on without him, but he's still part of it all.

He's just like we are - part of the plan - and about that important to it.

Yea but in this scenario you could be god. You could easy drow all ants. You can kill half of them or you can collect them place them in your backyard and feed them whole day.


What do you do?

Why do you think god have plan for us? I think he don't bother. Just like you don't bother with ants doing their mojo. You have better things to do, just like god.


Edit:
If that ant that is little bit bigger dies, then all of them will die. I think that's queen.

originally posted by: saadad
Yea but in this scenario you could be god. You could easy drow all ants. You can kill half of them or you can collect them place them in your backyard and feed them whole day.


What do you do?

I wasn't aware that god provides free food and decides who gets to have a cool life?

Where can I sign for such a god?

Is it really what most people think god is? The dude in the control room? What happened to free will?

If most religious people today claimed you just need to ask the dude in the control room to take care of everything, then why do so many of them participate in charities and put their life in service of others? It doesn't add up. It's like they don't really see god as the dude in the control room. Strange...

U miss a point. This ants are risking life's. Risking whole colony. But you can easy do a miracle to save them or you can doom them.

There are tons of situations like this in human life and in ants and I can assure you that in small percentage miracles happens.

Wanna play god?
Go feed your ants with sugar.

Will they know god help them?
No. They will just eat it and continue.

originally posted by: saadad
U miss a point. This ants are risking life's. Risking whole colony. But you can easy do a miracle to save them or you can doom them.

There are tons of situations like this in human life and in ants and I can assure you that in small percentage miracles happens.

Wanna play god?
Go feed your ants with sugar.

Will they know god help them?
No. They will just eat it and continue.

So really it's how you see god? The dude who can feed you or doom you? That's how I was understanding god when I was 10. Do you also think god is watching people masturbate thinking it's bad?

The god of the Chick tracts is not the god most people believe in. It's the god of fundamentalism. The god of people stuck at the superficial and superstitious interpretations. It doesn't mean it's the god you are supposed to find...

originally posted by: JUhrman

originally posted by: saadad
U miss a point. This ants are risking life's. Risking whole colony. But you can easy do a miracle to save them or you can doom them.

There are tons of situations like this in human life and in ants and I can assure you that in small percentage miracles happens.

Wanna play god?
Go feed your ants with sugar.

Will they know god help them?
No. They will just eat it and continue.

So really it's how you see god? The dude who can feed you or doom you? That's how I was understanding god when I was 10. Do you also think god is watching people masturbate thinking it's bad?

The god of the Chick tracts is not the god most people believe in. It's the god of fundamentalism. The god of people stuck at the superficial and superstitious interpretations. It doesn't mean it's the god you are supposed to find...

My god is feeding me every day. But I was not talking about that. I just wanted to say god have better things to do than bother with stupid humans. I bet ants and humans have equal value to him.

a reply to: saadad

Because I have faith. It's really that simple. Faith says there is a plan.

It was. It is. It will be.

It will happen. It is happening. It has happened.

God isn't even in this universe. Time is nothing to God.

a reply to: saadad

All I can see is that you talk about god like it's some kind of person, when it's absolutely not what I got from reading most religious texts.

Can't blame humans for projecting anthropomorphism though.

When religions are saying things like god is One or god is Love or god is Mercy, or god is within, it doesn't sound to me as they talk about a person or even an external reality.

It sounds to me as they talk about conceptual realities that we are related to. I can see where the confusion can arise though.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

If the intelligibility of the language is of any concern, they speak the same language insofar as they do not speak language at all.

Spoken by someone who may have participated with the body-mind in many religious cultures and exercises, but apparently has not experienced their esoteric meaning, nor apparently thoroughly studied the esoteric traditions of the world enough to know what Meister Eckhart said is true.

Trying to debunk that which is beyond your current experience, and apparent study even, is certainly showing your fundamental belief system relative to materialism. No surprise there, it always surfaces sooner or later in your threads.

a reply to: BlueMule

Oh, I don't know about that. I think perhaps Goethe and others have shown you a universe in the shape of a poem.

It's true. I do love prose and verse. And yes, Goethe has influenced me. But I'm not sure what this has to do with the shape of the universe.

Ok. How would you describe your relationship with humanity? With the universe?

For one, I am a human. My relationship with humanity? I've never had the pleasure of meeting them all. With the universe? I have seen very little of it.

And yet, you carry the burdens of others?

Only if they ask politely.

Sounds like you have a great life. But, do you know what life tastes like?

"If you've never eaten while crying you don't t know what life tastes like."

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What do you think he meant by that? Does living life to the fullest make one too happy to cry, thereby making it impossible to know what life really tastes like?

I think you should take whatever you can from such a maxim. The good thing about such succinct epigrams, is that they generate ideas in the one reading them. He has a delightful book full of them.

Maxims and Reflections

a reply to: bb23108

Spoken by someone who may have participated with the body-mind in many religious cultures and exercises, but apparently has not experienced their esoteric meaning, nor apparently thoroughly studied the esoteric traditions of the world enough to know what Meister Eckhart said is true.

Trying to debunk that which is beyond your current experience, and apparent study even, is certainly showing your fundamental belief system relative to materialism. No surprise there, it always surfaces sooner or later in your threads.

No, I agree with Eckhart. Anyone who fears looking outside of themselves ends up speaking about nothing but themselves. They apaprently like to disguise this fact by renaming it "awareness" or some other loosly defined term. Of course they speak the same language and about the same things; they have never even attempted anything besides.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
No, I agree with Eckhart. Anyone who fears looking outside of themselves ends up speaking about nothing but themselves. They apaprently like to disguise this fact by renaming it "awareness" or some other loosly defined term. Of course they speak the same language and about the same things; they have never even attempted anything besides.

The point he was making with that quote is that they all speak the same language when describing the various centers of the psyche above the physical body-mind - regardless of what tradition they come from. Like the third eye as the gateway to the light of unity above the body-mind that transcends mortality, that practitioners both east and west have reported for eons; that Jesus described as being born from above to here, etc.

There are great similarities and can be tied to various aspects of the subtle and causal bodies, that we all share. So this corroboration makes sense, and to see it was true in both the east and west relative to mystical practices, is what Eckhart was getting at.

I hardly think you agree with THIS aspect of Eckhart - unless you actually do believe in spirituality now! LOL

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

Oh, I don't know about that. I think perhaps Goethe and others have shown you a universe in the shape of a poem.

It's true. I do love prose and verse. And yes, Goethe has influenced me. But I'm not sure what this has to do with the shape of the universe.

Well, it seems like you're trying to reduce religion to literature. And you seem to be something of a poet. And yet, you have a penchant for rigidly defined ideas and words, as if you can't penetrate the surface of a poem to reach the essence, due to rigidity. Perhaps you are stuck on the level of the letter of a word, oblivious to the spirit of a word.

And then, you reduce literature to the imagination of the writer. Of Tolkien, you had this to say. "He knew Middle Earth and its inhabitants were a tale of his creation."

But Tolkien had this to say of Faramir. “I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him . . . but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien." He had more to say, which seems to contradict a common-sense approach to the imagination.

Just suppose for a moment that you don't have it all figured out. Suppose there is more to the imagination and literature than you realize. Suppose Middle-Earth isn't just a tale. Suppose it isn't real either. Suppose it occupies a middle-ground: hyperreal.

Suppose the imagination is a sense organ. Suppose that for geniuses like Tolkien, it co-mingles with our unconscious psychic faculties. Suppose something lurks in the subtext of the world's sacred text, even in comic-books and science fiction.

Suppose you're oblivious to it.

I'll ask you (politely) to watch this video, and connect the dots.



👣

Points for you for mentioning Pilate. He's awesome, in my humble opinion.

I have nothing profound to add. Oh well.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Kashai

You in effect constitute the modern day version of Flat Earth Theory.

LM you are wasting this Forums time with your comments.

I'll be sure to let you know the moment I begin to value your opinion, Kashai.

I see, obviously you are to busy stroking your ego to engage in intelligent debate.