God loves me.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


There is only one God, no more chopping in half,

And if ancient powers and principalities got confused with God then so be it.

God is love.

God is spirit and truth.

The spirit is free and blows freely like the wind.

There is only one God and one condition.

Therefore we stand next to the Godhead as it's manifestation, whether we like it or not.

The only question that remains therefore is - what do we do now?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

You can choose to hate me if you wish, however, it's your prerogative.

Should I hate you?

I said I didn't accept the love from this biblical god. Don't infer things I did not say without good reason. But if you do, that's your prerogative

The same love God has for me I am developing for my fellow man, and it shows and makes a difference in the way I treat other people, and when they see the loving compassion of Christ shining through me, they are quite astonished in a really good way, and then their angel smiles back at me. At the very least it's a great therapy in terms of interpersonal human relations.

To hold the belief the non-religious cannot show equal compassion is not a very compassionate belief.

Morality is not the sole domain of the religious. I think it's wonderful you're helping people and being compassionate But spreading the idea around that religious belief is somehow required is in my view quite unethical.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

The only question that remains therefore is - what do we do now?

The Question I presented remains strong and sturdy. For you have failed to address it.

It seems to me this thread was only for the people that already believed. In which case this was quite 'conditional' after all.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


You're completely hung up on these notions about religion and the bible, when I am talking about something fundamental to our present moment experience, as an all-inclusion, unconditional, non-coercive invitational only, love a love which gives reason, meaning and purpose to life, both as we experience it and in the way we share it with others It's how we occur to life (show up) and how life occurs to us as a free gift, but it's greater than one's own individual life as a love transcendent and eternal. Freely we receive this love and freely we give it in turn and in giving, receive still more, as a never ending self reinforcing net of love, a net so vast that it is sure to catch us all in the fullness of time and history, but oh what an honor it is to work the net, while shouting out to the other boats, excited, happy, joyful at the catch of the ages.

Once caught up in the net of love we find ourselves liberated, and with unconstrained free and full self expression we are then set free to really and authentically and truly love as we are loved.

There is no need to seek out anything to oppose or to blame, and because it's a merciful and forgiving love, there is no judgement in it where absolute liberation is absolute forgiveness.

So it's like arriving at the end of time to exclaim - OMG what do we do now? (I think that's really funny).

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

The only question that remains therefore is - what do we do now?

The Question I presented remains strong and sturdy. For you have failed to address it.

What is your question?

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
It seems to me this thread was only for the people that already believed. In which case this was quite 'conditional' after all.

No I welcome, in this thread in particular.., any and all atheist arguments and if they feel the need, "opposition" to the premise of the OP..

No worries. It's all good.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
What is your question?

The one from before:

What reason do you have to believe God believes in the Bible? In other words, what reason do you have to believe the Bible is true, not why do you believe God is true. Is it Faith, or are you in direct communion with God?

atheist

Deist

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


I've read Jesus and have discerned his reason and logic, that is all. He is my teacher or master where I am the student, and I cannot claim to have come into knowledge of these things without his teaching and leadership.

But there's more to the story than meets the eye at first glance. Additionally I've put these things to the test and have been tested, and I've examined these questions from every angle and perspective even to the degree of risking the occasional "dark night of the soul".

I've been through the ringer and back on more than one occasion but have come through with flying colors, so it's based in experience and the knowledge of experience, but it's not divorced from reason or logic as I am a scientifically mind and rational person.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

Do you believe the whole Bible is the revealed Word of God?

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


No not really, I don't look at it like that, but I do think the evolving "frame" out of which Jesus emerged has integrity, but with him it was a new covenant of love whereby Jesus intimate relationship with God the father was with none other than the Absolute Godhead ie: not an actor or an agent, but the real deal. Jesus seemed to understand the true nature of the human being and our right relationship with the Godhead.

Opinion

The OP seems to have a grasp on philosophy, but presents him or herself as a "new" ager, which begs the question: why>? If you are a Christian there's nothing new about expanding the word of God, as long as it produces good fruit.
All of this is very basic, you give what you get, you reap what you sow, you live by the sword etc. So now that we've established a well traversed bridge of understanding(internet), the question is "what next"? The cosmos right/?
We can't even get it right on Earth yet. Why?

Mark my words: when we finally gather with the sons of the lord almighty (of the universe) it will be a million times greater than any olympic photo op/demonstration here on Earth.
The question is, how long will it take? We already sent the "voyagers" and cameras.
The universe could very well be infinite!

editing

Originally posted by sacgamer25
reply to post by Philodemus

 

How can you blame God when you don't do what he said?

I tried for 26 years. You have no idea how hard I tried. On this you will just have to take my word. But further, I do not blame God for anything any more than I blame the Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy for anything. But I have said this already.

I am grateful for forums like this and for level headed people of different beliefs with which to discuss our ideological differences. Just as witnesses of Christ feel consuming fervour to spread the "Good Word", so do I feel a compelling compassion to oppose its claims and false promises and expose all those, even the "moderates", as being complicit in the awful atrocities wrought upon the inhabitants of this planet by the fanatical. Being that I am foraging a new path away from supererogatory beliefs and toward faith in the material world, I find that it is a didactic tool to come to places like this and speak with people of differing beliefs; in that it edifies me and further enforces the desire I have not to return to where you and “NewAge Man” are now.

The first step away from belief in one God was a scary one; one that seemed to have certainly brought the destruction of my soul. But a step, that once taken, showed me that their is life, love, beauty, peace, harmony, light, humanity, and progress even where there doesn't seem to be any solid ground. You don't realize that there is a bridge over the gap until you take the first step

Originally posted by sacgamer25
reply to post by Philodemus

 

Everything New Age says is true. That is the testimony of 2 witnesses. Should you not at least give what he said a thought? This is not about religion it is about truth.

Is it true? But what means is this determined? What two witnesses? You two? You do understand that the very nature of what you are arguing is unreservedly not with in the realm of knowable truth, right?

If you don't think that at least at some point during the 15 years of daily chapel, daily bible class, the two sermons on Sunday plus Sunday school before, the mid-week service, the bible camps, bible conferences, missionary trips, special workshops, teen outreach programmes, christian ethics classes, christian literature classes, etc., etc., etc. that I have never given pause to ponder what you preach, you clearly do not respect my intellect or my spirit or my reason in the slightest.

It is not about religion. It is not about truth. It is about a personal relationship with the one true God. The one true God that, if He were to personally come to you today in a burning bush, you would have absolutely zero reliable faculty to know that He was a) the God He said He was and not some daemon more powerful and longer lived than you and b) able to know His own infinite existence (an unknowable term by its very nature). Indeed, even in the presence of what would be considered demonstrative proof of a very powerful being, you would still have zero proof that said being is who he claimed to be and further more, that he himself is capable of knowing that there is no greater “one and only” God above him. It's endless regress, really and it's most certainly NOT truth. Not yet. So, if these mistakes can be made when physical proof is right before our eyes, imagine how leaving the burden of proof to a “holy GHOST” or “holy SPIRIT” further complicates this act of knowing the unknowable.

Originally posted by sacgamer25
reply to post by Philodemus

 

This is not about my God is the best God.

This is about the truth there is only one God. Everyone who believes in something higher than this existence believes in the one God, because there is only one.

It most certainly is about “my God is the best God”. Don't say it is anything other; that is disingenuous. It is about, “...the truth there is only one God” and that he is, “the best God”. The other “gods” are man-made and false idols and therefore not “the best one and only God”. It's arithmetic and to say contrary is to say 2 – 1 is zero.

Furthermore, it is not about the truth that there is but one God. It is about the opinion that there is only one God. I don't care if there were 1 billion witnesses to the perceived truth of “the one God”, it does nothing to prove it's truth. To claim truth where there is none, to claim self-evident revelation where there is not, is to do your “faith” a great disservice.

reply to post by sacgamer25


If everyone who believes in the one true God need only believe in something “higher than this existence” then I must invoke the words of Jesus Christ who warns us that broad is the path that leadeth to destruction. Also, I must ask what is the consequence then, for those who refuse to allow thier reason to believe it? Last, if the definition is this all-encompassing, then there are none who do not believe because, thanks to the word of God, we learn that all men know that God exists and that “no man seeketh after God”. In other words, they go their whole lives denying what they secretly know in their heart of hearts. Which would mean that ALL men believe in the one true God, and therefore there is no reason for any of us to try and witness to the next.

Originally posted by sacgamer25
reply to post by Philodemus

 

Jesus told us to do something and we would receive spiritual knowledge that would come directly from the Holy Spirit so we would know for certain the living God.

Until you are willing to do what he says how can you condemn the messge?

I have done it on several occasions. Three times to be exact. I received nothing, nor should I have expected to. Well, I received not but disillusionment and depression when I didn't get some magical power to help me make myself a better man. All it did was delay the inevitable conclusion that the help I sought needed to come from with in me, not from without. That my sanctification, salvation and purification was my own responsibility and not from an unknowable being.

I can not expound with adequate eloquence the numerous fallacies in last idea that you put forth. It is, unfortunately, not with in my power except to say, that you and those like you who preach this message, deceive yourselves and others. All the power you need is all ready in you.

Lastly, if condemnation of an idea requires first that I accept the idea in its fullness, then you too, now that you have found your preferred path of enlightenment and greater awareness, must be willing to completely abandon it for a considerable time before you should be allowed to speak of its value.

The Needful Sacrifice.—Those earnest, able, and just men of profound feelings, who are still Christians at heart, owe it to themselves to make one attempt to live for a certain space of time without Christianity! they owe it to their faith that they should thus for once take up their [pg 063] abode “in the wilderness”—if for no other reason than that of being able to pronounce on the question as to whether Christianity is needful. So far, however, they have confined themselves to their own narrow domain and insulted every one who happened to be outside of it: yea, they even become highly irritated when it is suggested to them that beyond this little domain of theirs lies the great world, and that Christianity is, after all, only a corner of it! No; your evidence on the question will be valueless until you have lived year after year without Christianity, and with the inmost desire to continue to exist without it: until, indeed, you have withdrawn far, far away from it. It is not when your nostalgia urges you back again, but when your judgment, based on a strict comparison, drives you back, that your homecoming has any significance!—Men of coming generations will deal in this manner with all the valuations of the past; they must be voluntarily lived over again, together with their contraries, in order that such men may finally acquire the right of shifting them

Thank you for speaking to me.

reply to post by NewAgeMan


Does God love this little lad too....

reply to post by NewAgeMan


So which god do you believe in? The Judaic deity? Or the dozens of preceding deities whose qualities and backstories were mysteriously amalgamated into his profile before being destroyed in the righteous war-mongering of his followers?

reply to post by AfterInfinity


They believe in Yahweh, god the Christian Bible. They apparently don't see the connection they themselves make, so think it's sufficient to say "One God. All inclusive". Which would be legitimate as a metaphysical position (never-minding proof), except that they clearly are taking it further specifying this "one god" to mean "as described in my Bible". Why else continually quote from that bible, and omit the plethora of other religions, theologians, and philosophers outside of Christendom. Of course we all understand this

It's like they're trying so hard to be so all encompassing as if that would reinforce this 'all loving' love. Yet when push comes to shove, their religious dogma is quite obviously in conflict with other religions, underneath their 'all inclusiveness' is rejection of the truthfulness of these other religions. Christians masquerading as philosophers methinks.

I wonder if they would believe and accept the love from the Goddess Pele. No of course not. That god is not real, and they will offer no reason as to why that god is not real. The only thing they can and will offer is their Bible and how there is only "one true god". Or that Pele is somehow an emanation of Yahweh. All leads back to their book. Circular logic. Quite tedious.

reply to post by Philodemus

Been really enjoying your posts I don't recall seeing posts from you in earlier threads. When you started distancing yourself from your Christian faith what philosophies did you explore?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

No not really, I don't look at it like that, but I do think the evolving "frame" out of which Jesus emerged has integrity, but with him it was a new covenant of love whereby Jesus intimate relationship with God the father was with none other than the Absolute Godhead ie: not an actor or an agent, but the real deal. Jesus seemed to understand the true nature of the human being and our right relationship with the Godhead.

Jesus was surely a very moral dude for his time. Godhead could well be true. Afterlife could be true. There could be a path a human could follow to become closer to God. Maybe. There is no proof the Bible represents God's thoughts and feelings and wishes. There is no proof God had anything to do with the Bible in any way. I submit, the idea the primitive and barbaric thoughts contained in the Bible would come from an all-loving being of infinite capacity in both mind and power is absolutely ludicrous!....

You said you were a rational person who has not divorced reason.

So tell me, if you consider yourself a good person, would you murder innocent children? Would you murder innocent children to teach a moral lesson to others? That's the god you represent. You and other Christians have to invent convoluted explanations as to why that was a good and necessary act of benevolence. Yet you would never agree to those rationalizations had they been applied to any person (or another god for that matter). This is very telling! You seem to have such good intentions, it pains me to see you associate them with such an immoral religion. And please don't bother telling me 'I am hung up on the bible and religion', I am not the one quoting it and suggesting it's divine words.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


Does the exploration ever end? Should it?

I have become disillusioned with a host of philosophies and theologies. Many (all, really) are intrinsically flawed. This weighed on me for some time. For a good number of years I explored eastern religions and spent considerable time with a Buddhist commune in California; I suppose, to find the most polar opposite religious experience from that on which I was raised. But after a time the same base assumptions were found in this mysticism and it propelled me further away from religion as a whole.

I am now quite a humanist; a materialist; a naturalist. I think the defining moment for me was the beauty of the birth of my children; an experience that exposed my mind to the essence of life itself with the blinding consequence of joy, rebirth and tears. With my small newborn babies in my hands and considering the way I was raised (to accept the fallen nature of mankind and to know the only redemption being through the blood of Christ), I could no longer accept that my children where fallen in any way and that, after the “age of accountability” (i.e. the age in which they are responsible for their “sin”; usually 5-7 years old), if they were to be taken from this world, they would be sent to eternal perdition. After one rejects the ideal of original sin there is an obvious lack for need of a Saviour. After that dogma is rejected, it isn't much further to go before one questions the need for a God at all. At least , that's how it went for me...

Currently, as my posts indicate, I am exploring nihilism, and several other reductionist ideas. Not so much toward the end of accepting them, but merely for the erudition. I have come to peace with the flaws of man's philosophies and more importantly, with the flaws of man's theologies; for the theologies of man are the systems most culpable and error prone. It is not the truthfulness of the systems I study any longer, but the erroneousness. There is an idea in science, that says we learn the most from the exception; that the oddity holds the most information. For example, consider watching a river and observing only white swans (see Taleb) for decades. We make the assumption that only white swans swim on this river and consequently, although it supports our theory, each consecutive white swan holds less and less information. Until the fateful day, seven years into our experiment, when a black swan swims down the river. Now, although its presence virtually destroys our theory, the arrival of this bird multiplies our knowledge of the system (swans : river) 10 fold. It is in this fashion I now approach the world of metaphysics, philosophy, and theology; searching for the black swans. Only they interest me. Only they hold any real information. But one has to keep in mind the rest of the information is not useless, for if it weren't for all the white swans the contrast of the black swan wouldn't be apparent. So, in this sense, keeping the whole nature of any given system in our mind all at once is important for a proper appreciation of the totality of information. This is why I have converted an entire wall of my home to a chalkboard; have to keep track somehow.

I have changed one major thing in my approach to my journey. Namely, that I try my best to respect those with whom I hold discourse, though I may find someone's ideal flawed, irritating or even pestiferous. And it is this, that humanism has given me in far more heavy a dose than any other philosophy. It is the respect, and dare I say the love (that our antagonists here in this thread portend to know and offer) that I sought for years within Christiandom, that I have found only now without.

Thank you for showing interest. I have enjoyed your thinking as well.