What is your view on the concept of 'god'

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   ptosisposted 11 years ago

   
   
   In the Hermetic tradition, each and every person has the potential to become God - even the psychopath next door - who may already be a legend in their own mind.
   
   Or can be an agnostic, because how is one supposed to know the mind of another when unable to understand one's own mind? There is no 'I' or ego  or 'architect of the matrix' - only an interpreter of the parallel processing brain function akin to a political convention whereas the ones with the loudest voice wins.

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   1. 59

      tlmcgaa70posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      or...GOD is very active in this world HE created, bringing about the fulfillment of HIS plans. those who reject GOD, HE blinds so that they cannot see HIM. if one wishes to understand the Word of GOD, they need only ask HIM to teach them. it is never a good idea to read the works of man for they only serve to confuse and cloud the mind. as for free will...the only free will we have is the freedom to accept or reject GOD. thats it. our lives are not our own. GOD can/has/will move anyone HE desires in order to bring about the fulfillment of HIS plans. regardless of whether that person believes in HIM or rejects HIM.

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      1. 66

         ptosisposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         OK. I can agree with the accept/reject is the only choice. And I certainly believe that people do strategic decision making from limited choices for can not decide to 'not play the game'.
         
         Pascal's Wager: either God exists, or He does not. ... according to reason can't defend either.
         
         http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/top … ml#pas-wag
         
         e x 2/e - (1 - e) x 1 = 1 + e
         (1 - e) x 1 + e x 0 = 1 - e
         Since 1+e > 1-e, mathematical proof that it is wiser to believe in God

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2. 77

   Shadesbreathposted 11 years ago

   I believe the standard reply for this one is: It's all part of God's plan. We, as meager humans, can't see the "big" picture, and so we can't fathom it.
   
   (Sorry, to any religious people who wanted to jump in on this, didn't mean to steal your thunder, but this conversation is so old and has been had so many times, even just here on HP, I thought I could save the OP time waiting for a reply—plus I was bored.)

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   1. 73

      lone77starposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      No need to apologize, @Shadesbreath. I never use that answer. I left my Southern Baptist minister grandfather's church 53 years ago, because of shallow answers like that. I went out on my own to find my own answers. (see mine, below)

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3. 93

   peeplesposted 11 years ago

   I agree with Sam Harris. I choose to pick all 3.

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   1. 73

      lone77starposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      And yet you strike out, to use a baseball term.

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      1. 93

         peeplesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         If I choose all things possible somewhere I'm bound to get it right!

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4. 73

   lone77starposted 11 years ago

   And yet there is another option that no one here thought of.
   
   God's children cannot be rescued by attempting to do things for them. That would result in learned helplessness, which we've pretty well accomplished by ourselves, but that would only make it worse.
   
   God can stop any catastrophe, but chooses not to out of love.
   
   Oh, people of so little imagination and intelligence. And sorry to shake things up for you, @Shadesbreath, by giving you a "non-standard" answer.
   
   The children of God were created in His image and likeness, and God is not Homo sapiens. And this fact seems to go right over the heads of skeptics and believers alike.
   
   So anything that happens to the Homo sapiens bodies on this planet do not affect His children. And, to shine a little more light on a point that should be painfully obvious, God does not love these Homo sapiens bodies, for they are not His children, but merely the vessels in which they reside.
   
   Those children who think they are their bodies will whine and complain and likely blame God or each other for their troubles, but that does not help them get out of their mortal trap.
   
   My concept of God -- the aggregate of all spiritual beings in the universe. Like when Jesus said that he and the Father were one, he was speaking of this state of oneness of the aggregate -- a state of harmony. I have experienced this state of harmony every time I was blessed with a miracle.
   
   I remember reading one skeptic talking about miracles as if they were accidents. With a large enough population, someone will have some accident which they will label as a "miracle." Well, I'm not talking about "accidental" coincidences, but "cause-and-effect" coincidences. No amount of accident will allow someone to walk on water.
   
   God is a non-physical, spiritual and immortal (timeless) source of creation. And that's the image and likeness of all His children. But "man" is more than Homo sapiens. He is also ego and spirit. Ego is the false self and source of selfishness (from suicide to tyranny).
   
   Ego is the blindfold of "Darkness" in our dependency upon physical eyes and senses. Humility is the antidote to ego and leads to the "Light" of independence from physical instrumentalities.
   
   The faith to walk on water is an act of creation (cause), not perception (effect). That is the difference between Faith and "belief."

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   1. 66

      ptosisposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Like the answer but from reading the book Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga  - it says that by the time conscious  of it - we've already made the decision.
      
      That the ego is the "Interpreter in Your Head that Spins Stories to Make Sense of the World"

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5. 0

   Emile Rposted 11 years ago

   Do you ever wonder what a hang nail thinks of its plight? It's just a piece of skin. We were going to slough it off anyway. Right?
   
   A skin cell lives about fifty days on an adult so, if it hurts for a couple of days...how much suffering would that be in human years? And, the entity it is attached to could have taken measures to avoid the premature loss, if it had really really cared about that one tiny piece it was responsible for.
   
   If I were a hangnail pondering that entity I was attached to I'd probably agree with Mr. Harris on the first two counts. Maybe the third. Who knows what a hangnail is aware of?

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