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No.
It was very obvious from the rest of the post that I meant the "subject of my reasons for leaving the thread".
Now you're twisting words to the point of being childishly provocative, so I will abandon this thread, as predicted, and go and talk to the grown-ups instead.
Originally posted by buddha
man says "God made man in his image"
why do you think the Old bible said that man could not even look at god?
Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by adjensen
Fine, you cease to exist, then cause yourself to exist out of nothing, and you'll have made a point.
We're not talking about "reinventing yourself", for pete's sakes, we're talking about the creation of the universe out of nothing.
Quite. I agree.
CREATION was created, and it certainly was not created by a PERSON. Just imagine!! Oh, wait, that's what humankind has always done -- imagined!! Imagined, what it must be like to have created all of creation which functions with or without MANKIND (probably better without, but that's debatable, since we are, after all, here...for better or worse)....??
It was not a PERSON. This is a cool debate here, folks.
--------------------------------------
Back to Ed (EWR), if a person is in the image of God, so is a tree, a mountain, every natural thing. That people can create out of "raw materials already created", and learn the "principles" of, say, mathematics, physics, horticulture, pmedicine....is all great. But no person has concocted ANYTHING out of NOTHING. Therefore, God is not a person.
That's insulting to God. As far as Jesus being "God", then are there Trees that are God (but not all trees)? Are there fish that are God (but not all fish? I have this weird giant danio in my fishtank that has a humpback - is it the fishes' messiah?) Do you see where I'm going here?
Why would God select ONLY PEOPLE to "represent" to? If anything, because we fight the laws of nature and aren't just able to go with the flow.
I don't know.
Windword, let me put my opinion and see what you have to say,
we have a beginning, say the big bang. You say God must have existed before that, true. But the thing you ignore is TIME also started at the big bang. So what was before doesnt concern us. Also SPACE came into existence after the bang.
So how can God make space and then live in it, where was He before the space was created?
And do allow me to use the personifications although i dont believe God is a person but i do believe that He has characteristics like being, All Aware, All knowing, Extremely Merciful etc.
But i do understand when you say that everything is in God but that doesn't have to be material.
If you separate the material and spiritual then everything spiritual is connected with God all the time yet God is outside anything that's material.
There's a saying in Islam, "the entire universe cant contain God but the heart of a believer can"
and a verse in Quran says "God is closer to you than your jugular vein"
Time and
space must be cyclical, just like
breathing in and breathing out.
Those are human attributes that can't
be transferred to natural phenomena.
A hurricane, super nova and a
volcanic eruption can display no
mercy.
Carlos Castaneda wrote that death
should be your most valued adviser
on how to live your life.
God is not a person; God is a mythic personification of reality. If we miss this we miss everything. ALL images and concepts of God are more or less meaningful interpretations and personifications. And it didn't take a genius to figure out that if you trust, or have faith, in what is ultimately inescapable, your life works better than if you judge or resist what is real. This is not theological rocket science. Religion Is About Right Relationship to Reality, Not the Supernatural All religions offer maps of what's real and what's important. So contends philosopher-of-religion Loyal Rue in his 2006 book, Religion Is Not About God (Youtube clip here). Religions offer practices, too, that help adherents live in right relationship with each other, their society, and with reality as a whole—regardless of how that "reality" is mythically personified. Darwin didn't kill God. To the contrary, he and Alfred Russel Wallace offered the first glimpse of the real Creator behind and beyond the world's myriad mythic portrayals of reality.
Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by DISRAELI
Even those examples are only "part of yourself communicating with you", not the other way round.
If God and the universe were the same thing, then God communicating with part of the universe would be like you trying to communicate with your big toe. You don't do that, except in fun, and you're not really expecting the big toe to respond.
That's because you haven't figured out "God" is within everything. And so you view yourself as separate from "God". Maybe the whole problem isn't that "God" is separated from the universe, but that we have separated ourselves from "God".
The only real analogy to the kind of relationship found in the Bible between God and human individuals is the relationship between two different persons. They communicate. They have things to say to each other. Therefore they are distinct.
Consider the possibility of different "consciousness". Two separate components that are part of the same device have to communicate with each other because they are assigned different purposes and therefore have different functions, but together, they perform an important task that allows the rest of the system to run smoothly.
Just because we talk to an inner part of ourselves that is connected to us, does not mean it has no divinity or no connection to divinity. Who says we are not divine in totality? I'm not sure you understand exactly what communication means.edit on 30-11-2012 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)
Now, above you said you disagree that "self-creation is impossible". You can change certain things about yourself, but you did not "self-create." And you cannot become a cat
Sorry if I veered ridiculously off-topic, but my mind was just running with this simple analogy.
Originally posted by logical7
reply to post by windword
Time and
space must be cyclical, just like
breathing in and breathing out.
must be? You mean to say, to fit your theory, time and space MUST be what you want them to be?
Those are human attributes that can't
be transferred to natural phenomena.
A hurricane, super nova and a
volcanic eruption can display no
mercy.
you mean God is just a natural phenomenon? without conciousness?
you mean God is just a natural phenomenon? without conciousness?
Question – Osho, What is God?
Osho – Prem Sukavi, GOD is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth.
God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity. Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence – like beauty, like joy.
God simply means godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience – like love. You cannot talk to love, you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need not make statues of love, and bowing down to those statues will be just nonsense. And that’s what has been happening in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques.
Man has lived under this impression of God as a person, and then two calamities have happened through it. One is the so-called religious man, who thinks God is somewhere above m the sky and you have to praise him. to persuade him to confer favors on you, to help you to fulfill your desires, to make your ambitions succeed, to give you the wealth of this world AND of the other world. And this is sheer wastage of time and energy.
And on the opposite pole the people who saw the stupidity of it all became atheists; they started denying the existence of God. They were right in a sense, but they were also wrong. They started denying not only the personality of God, they started to deny even the experience of God.
The theist is wrong, the atheist is wrong, and man needs a new vision so that he can be freed from both the prisons. God is the ultimate experience of silence, of beauty, of bliss, a state of inner celebration. Once you start looking at God as godliness there will be a radical change in your approach. Then prayer is no more valid; meditation becomes valid.
Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
Might you point out where in the historical records it says God took the form of Jesus Christ?
We will not admit that god is the unimaginable, that point far beyond our consciousness that we simply cannot comprehend, a being that is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient who wants for nothing yet all want for that god (to return and reconnect to your source).
That is a god I can rely on, who I can turn to and who will never let me down
Originally posted by windword
I never said that in the universe isn't expanding. Where do you get that?
But, can you show me an example of a black hole that expanding, rather than contracting?
We don't know that there isn't a "wall" out there, that will cause the expanding universe to bounce back, and to contract.
Originally posted by Spacespider
reply to post by wildtimes
Your god is a computer
I am going to create a thread about this in the near future
It’s very shocking when supposedly intelligent people seriously consider the idea of our universe being a simulation. Reminiscent of flies attracted to a rotting carcass, hypothetically intelligent people are drawn to this idea of reality being simulated. Note how David Chamlers considers the metaphysics of the Matrix. The simulation argument is merely an escapist fantasy, intellectual decay, a new form of religion, a topic in my opinion fit only for discussion by daydreamers or people tripping on magic mushrooms or '___'. Very worryingly many respected media organizations give credence to the simulation meme. The notion of our universe being simulated is anti-intellectualism therefore we must fiercely oppose it. (Source)
Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by adjensen
That's the right answer -- it comes from God, but how is it God? How does God become the whole of his own creation?
Are you dense? If "God" was all that existed before, then what else was there to form a separate being from which to craft the universe. If all "God" was alone, the sole inhabitant of existence, then he was the only source of material from which to craft everything.
Hence, the creator became the creation. As Christians are so fond of saying: "He's God. He can do anything."