(...) writes:
"There are hundreds of different god beliefs and thousands of different religious beliefs. No, god has ever appeared to or spoken to the SIX BILLION 'sane' members of the human race. No dead father, mother, sibling or friend has ever spoken to or confirmed their after life to any of the SIX BILLION 'sane' members of the human race. No god has ever confirmed it is the real god and that all others are fakes. Why does any 'real' god permit all these fakes? Could it be because no gods exist and 'all' gods are nothing more than the hopes and wishes of man. Could it be that man's frightening fear of the finality of death causes him to create scenarios of an after life?"
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V writes:
Yes, all good questions you have brought up.
Well, Yahweh was supposed to have spoken quite a bit to the Hebrews. That is what most people of faith base their faith on, that the Hebrews had contact with Yahweh.
If you ask such religious practitioners why God is silent, you often get the canned answer that "God's way is not man's way" or "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test!"
If we go back to the OT we can see God communicated extensively with the Hebrews. God directed them specifically with how to design and build things and how to worship him through burnt offerings and penance. God was very detailed with his directions about unclean women during menses and how the Hebrews should keep their slaves.
God even commanded the people how to bake bread, (with human excrement) discriminate against the handicapped, kill the faithful of other religions and how much money to pay to rape young women.
But for some reason Yahweh stopped talking. What happened to this vocal God that seemed to die with the authors of the Old Testament, for no one ever hears a peep from God?
Did God die with the writers?
BTW, if God was a perfect designer, should he have not made women 'unclean' and not have menses? That way God could have saved some breath and cut his 600+ commandants to the Hebrew down by one?
See: (link removed due to forums request)
I do not write this to browbeat theists into becoming atheists. For without spiritual guidance, most people are sunk. But being a devotee to truth, I just give my opinion on this subject. No, the deluded theists are generally much better off than the deluded atheists is whose mind is filled with hatred and ill will.
See: (link removed due to forums request)
I just have included a few thoughts on why I am agnostic, when the subject turns to the God of the monotheists. As a good agnostic, I hold no favorites. I comment on atheists just as freely as I do with theists...wherever the truth is...that is where I go. And if we don't know what is true, then we must always say so and say it is just a personal belief and speculation.
When I became an agnostic (but pointed in the direction of atheism) I surveyed this very question of what God(s) were there that were real.
I found two such Gods.
The God of Nature and The God of Inner Peace.
Many atheists scoff at these Gods, but they are quit real.
They say I created them.
I did no such thing.
These Gods speak to us all if we bother to listen to them.
No, you cannot see them, but just as you cannot see the wind or gravity, but see its effects, so it goes with these two Gods.
You see, every atheist serves two Gods. And in reality, these Gods require worship from all humans whether they be atheists or theists.
The 'God of Inner Peace' is the first God. Without serving this God of Inner Peace man will turn to the destruction of humankind, self destruction and suicide.
The other God is that of the 'God of Nature' which makes itself evident with it natural laws or commandments.
No matter how defiant the atheist or theist is...we will ALL bow to the God of Nature sooner or later.
Speaking of nature, it is also good to keep in touch with the lesser cousin of the God of Nature which is seeking peace with our own nature through right actions.
Yes, learning to accept the nature of all things is an important part of the equation for living a life at peace, but there is a missing link that needs to be added to this equation. The missing link is marrying authenticity with rightness.
The formula for success is: Authentic Nature + Right Actions = Peace
The formula for failure is: Authentic Nature + Wrong Actions = Destruction
There are many 'natures' in our life to be mindful of - we have our own nature, the nature other persons we have contact with, as well as the 'nature' of nature itself. But, just becoming a 'blissninny' and blindly accepting the various natures will not give us peace. To apply this tool rightly, we need to adopt a life of proportionality, balance and wisdom.
How do we learn to live a more balanced life?
By using rational thought patterns and by putting reason before passion. Then we can view our actions as balanced or not, for without rational thought we have nothing to weigh in our quest for balance.
There are 3 main components to rational thinking.
1 - Rationality requires reflection.
Many of us are too busy to reflect. Other times our minds our consumed with troubles and out of control passions. Over thinking also plays a part in keeping our minds working in the wrong direction. An old Buddhist saying tells us that a constantly busy mind cannot heal itself. Reflection time must be 'open thinking' time where we look at both ends of the spectrum and everything in between for answers and choices and not just the comfortable ones we are accustomed to. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them. Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
2- Rationality is the ability to anticipate consequences.
Reflection pays big part in this as well as past experiences and the process of extrapolation from past experiences and others mistakes. Weighing and balancing are two key words that come into play. Sometimes 'gambling' is more a component to those that 'shoot from the hip' and worry about consequences later. Many of us get stuck in a place of justifying our actions with blindness to the consequences. Our actions are ego based and not truth or rational based. "First one decides the goal, then one gathers the principles or delusions to justify reaching this goal." Principles or delusions? This depends on whether the mind is being used for rational thought or if out of control passions are in command.
3 - Rationality requires adherence to certain standards.
There are many standards to consider and each individual has to judge these for themselves. Another name for a standard is a rule. Many people are defiant against 'rules' and they are entitled to not follow the rules as they please. But such freedom has a price to pay, so they should not balk at paying the price for their freedom with the necessary consequences that come from not following the rules.
Knowing what is true and developing wisdom to be at peace are two very important qualities for the confused spiritual practitioner to develop.
With respect to myself, I try to balance wisdom with that of peace perception.
For whether something is a truth or not, it still has to pass the peace test.
There are many things that are true and good in life, but they will still end up destroying my peace if I let them.
Usually the dividing line for such 'good today ~ bad tomorrow' questions are rooted in the area of balance and proportionality.
If you don't know what I am talking about, then I will give you this example. we need water to drink and air to breath in order to live. But, even though water and air are life sustaining, too much water and too much air will become life destroying...proportionality and balance divides life from death. I always ask if a person, place, thing or activity promotes my peace or destroys my peace?
It is important to work in a a balanced way. So borrowing a tool from the Buddhists, I practice compassion for others, so I ask this same question of peace promotion or peace destruction in my neighbors the best I am able to.
But just turning to Buddhism is not all it takes if your goal is to live a flourishing human life. Yes, Buddhism contain many truths, but it also contains many non truths as well.
See: (link removed due to forums request)
But isn't that how man made religion is? It all comes from imperfect man so imperfect man can never make anything as complex as religious thought perfect?
See:
(link removed due to forums request)
(link removed due to forums request)
Yet, we as humans must still serve the God of Peace or we will self-destruct , so we must give it our 'best efforts' irrespective of how imperfect those efforts are.
A simple tool to smooth out the everyday fluctuations in our life is: forget perfection and look for direction. We can either be going up, down or sideways with our goals. Use this direction tool to get a quick gauge of your inner spiritual condition.
See:
(link removed due to forums request)
(link removed due to forums request)
As I list at the end of my posts I am a practical philosopher. As such I am not into theory so much but concentrate of practice. The rest of this post discusses how I apply this practice when it comes to seeking guidance from The God of Nature and The God of Inner Peace.
Accepting a persons nature must always be balanced with rational thought as I said above. We can accept another's natures as an abuser and be at peace that they have this nature, but we do not have to stay in close proximity of them ourselves.
The missing link so to speak with the blissninny that accepts everything blindly is; they are neglecting to align one's authentic nature with that of finding inner peace.
The serenity prayer that 12 step addiction groups use tells us we have 2 possibilities to find peace...by Change or by Acceptance.
(Some ask me why should I follow that prayer since I am not an addict? Addict or not, concentrate on what is said and not on who says what. Truth never changes no matter how it is gist wrapped.)
We should always seek out change for the most part and practice acceptance as the last resort.
That is the general rule. Change first - Accept later.
For without feeling anger or discontent we wound not seek out change - as in changing our environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
In Sexual Compulsives Anonymous they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end. Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others.
Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to make them more bearable. So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.
When Socrates was a young man he had to make a decision to make with which road to take in his own study of philosophical knowledge. He looked at his predecessors and their study of science and nature and also weighed his talents in this area. His conclusion? "I am not of the nature to study nature." Socrates was at peace with his own nature. We only have so much of 'us' to spend, so spend it wisely. Fighting one's authentic nature spends our time and energies unwisely. The serenity prayer gives us the answer, "God / Higher Power, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
We can see this battle over accepting others nature happening all the time with the sexes. Many women say they can't understand men, just as many men say they can't understand women. In the bible it says that God's way is not man's way. Well, to further distill this we can say that God's way is not man's way and man's way is not woman's way. Every creature has it's way and when you can come to peace with this you will be on your own way to accepting life on life's terms and not your own.
end page 1
"There are hundreds of different god beliefs and thousands of different religious beliefs. No, god has ever appeared to or spoken to the SIX BILLION 'sane' members of the human race. No dead father, mother, sibling or friend has ever spoken to or confirmed their after life to any of the SIX BILLION 'sane' members of the human race. No god has ever confirmed it is the real god and that all others are fakes. Why does any 'real' god permit all these fakes? Could it be because no gods exist and 'all' gods are nothing more than the hopes and wishes of man. Could it be that man's frightening fear of the finality of death causes him to create scenarios of an after life?"
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V writes:
Yes, all good questions you have brought up.
Well, Yahweh was supposed to have spoken quite a bit to the Hebrews. That is what most people of faith base their faith on, that the Hebrews had contact with Yahweh.
If you ask such religious practitioners why God is silent, you often get the canned answer that "God's way is not man's way" or "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test!"
If we go back to the OT we can see God communicated extensively with the Hebrews. God directed them specifically with how to design and build things and how to worship him through burnt offerings and penance. God was very detailed with his directions about unclean women during menses and how the Hebrews should keep their slaves.
God even commanded the people how to bake bread, (with human excrement) discriminate against the handicapped, kill the faithful of other religions and how much money to pay to rape young women.
But for some reason Yahweh stopped talking. What happened to this vocal God that seemed to die with the authors of the Old Testament, for no one ever hears a peep from God?
Did God die with the writers?
BTW, if God was a perfect designer, should he have not made women 'unclean' and not have menses? That way God could have saved some breath and cut his 600+ commandants to the Hebrew down by one?
See: (link removed due to forums request)
I do not write this to browbeat theists into becoming atheists. For without spiritual guidance, most people are sunk. But being a devotee to truth, I just give my opinion on this subject. No, the deluded theists are generally much better off than the deluded atheists is whose mind is filled with hatred and ill will.
See: (link removed due to forums request)
I just have included a few thoughts on why I am agnostic, when the subject turns to the God of the monotheists. As a good agnostic, I hold no favorites. I comment on atheists just as freely as I do with theists...wherever the truth is...that is where I go. And if we don't know what is true, then we must always say so and say it is just a personal belief and speculation.
When I became an agnostic (but pointed in the direction of atheism) I surveyed this very question of what God(s) were there that were real.
I found two such Gods.
The God of Nature and The God of Inner Peace.
Many atheists scoff at these Gods, but they are quit real.
They say I created them.
I did no such thing.
These Gods speak to us all if we bother to listen to them.
No, you cannot see them, but just as you cannot see the wind or gravity, but see its effects, so it goes with these two Gods.
You see, every atheist serves two Gods. And in reality, these Gods require worship from all humans whether they be atheists or theists.
The 'God of Inner Peace' is the first God. Without serving this God of Inner Peace man will turn to the destruction of humankind, self destruction and suicide.
The other God is that of the 'God of Nature' which makes itself evident with it natural laws or commandments.
No matter how defiant the atheist or theist is...we will ALL bow to the God of Nature sooner or later.
Speaking of nature, it is also good to keep in touch with the lesser cousin of the God of Nature which is seeking peace with our own nature through right actions.
Yes, learning to accept the nature of all things is an important part of the equation for living a life at peace, but there is a missing link that needs to be added to this equation. The missing link is marrying authenticity with rightness.
The formula for success is: Authentic Nature + Right Actions = Peace
The formula for failure is: Authentic Nature + Wrong Actions = Destruction
There are many 'natures' in our life to be mindful of - we have our own nature, the nature other persons we have contact with, as well as the 'nature' of nature itself. But, just becoming a 'blissninny' and blindly accepting the various natures will not give us peace. To apply this tool rightly, we need to adopt a life of proportionality, balance and wisdom.
How do we learn to live a more balanced life?
By using rational thought patterns and by putting reason before passion. Then we can view our actions as balanced or not, for without rational thought we have nothing to weigh in our quest for balance.
There are 3 main components to rational thinking.
1 - Rationality requires reflection.
Many of us are too busy to reflect. Other times our minds our consumed with troubles and out of control passions. Over thinking also plays a part in keeping our minds working in the wrong direction. An old Buddhist saying tells us that a constantly busy mind cannot heal itself. Reflection time must be 'open thinking' time where we look at both ends of the spectrum and everything in between for answers and choices and not just the comfortable ones we are accustomed to. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them. Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
2- Rationality is the ability to anticipate consequences.
Reflection pays big part in this as well as past experiences and the process of extrapolation from past experiences and others mistakes. Weighing and balancing are two key words that come into play. Sometimes 'gambling' is more a component to those that 'shoot from the hip' and worry about consequences later. Many of us get stuck in a place of justifying our actions with blindness to the consequences. Our actions are ego based and not truth or rational based. "First one decides the goal, then one gathers the principles or delusions to justify reaching this goal." Principles or delusions? This depends on whether the mind is being used for rational thought or if out of control passions are in command.
3 - Rationality requires adherence to certain standards.
There are many standards to consider and each individual has to judge these for themselves. Another name for a standard is a rule. Many people are defiant against 'rules' and they are entitled to not follow the rules as they please. But such freedom has a price to pay, so they should not balk at paying the price for their freedom with the necessary consequences that come from not following the rules.
Knowing what is true and developing wisdom to be at peace are two very important qualities for the confused spiritual practitioner to develop.
With respect to myself, I try to balance wisdom with that of peace perception.
For whether something is a truth or not, it still has to pass the peace test.
There are many things that are true and good in life, but they will still end up destroying my peace if I let them.
Usually the dividing line for such 'good today ~ bad tomorrow' questions are rooted in the area of balance and proportionality.
If you don't know what I am talking about, then I will give you this example. we need water to drink and air to breath in order to live. But, even though water and air are life sustaining, too much water and too much air will become life destroying...proportionality and balance divides life from death. I always ask if a person, place, thing or activity promotes my peace or destroys my peace?
It is important to work in a a balanced way. So borrowing a tool from the Buddhists, I practice compassion for others, so I ask this same question of peace promotion or peace destruction in my neighbors the best I am able to.
But just turning to Buddhism is not all it takes if your goal is to live a flourishing human life. Yes, Buddhism contain many truths, but it also contains many non truths as well.
See: (link removed due to forums request)
But isn't that how man made religion is? It all comes from imperfect man so imperfect man can never make anything as complex as religious thought perfect?
See:
(link removed due to forums request)
(link removed due to forums request)
Yet, we as humans must still serve the God of Peace or we will self-destruct , so we must give it our 'best efforts' irrespective of how imperfect those efforts are.
A simple tool to smooth out the everyday fluctuations in our life is: forget perfection and look for direction. We can either be going up, down or sideways with our goals. Use this direction tool to get a quick gauge of your inner spiritual condition.
See:
(link removed due to forums request)
(link removed due to forums request)
As I list at the end of my posts I am a practical philosopher. As such I am not into theory so much but concentrate of practice. The rest of this post discusses how I apply this practice when it comes to seeking guidance from The God of Nature and The God of Inner Peace.
Accepting a persons nature must always be balanced with rational thought as I said above. We can accept another's natures as an abuser and be at peace that they have this nature, but we do not have to stay in close proximity of them ourselves.
The missing link so to speak with the blissninny that accepts everything blindly is; they are neglecting to align one's authentic nature with that of finding inner peace.
The serenity prayer that 12 step addiction groups use tells us we have 2 possibilities to find peace...by Change or by Acceptance.
(Some ask me why should I follow that prayer since I am not an addict? Addict or not, concentrate on what is said and not on who says what. Truth never changes no matter how it is gist wrapped.)
We should always seek out change for the most part and practice acceptance as the last resort.
That is the general rule. Change first - Accept later.
For without feeling anger or discontent we wound not seek out change - as in changing our environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
In Sexual Compulsives Anonymous they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end. Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others.
Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to make them more bearable. So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.
When Socrates was a young man he had to make a decision to make with which road to take in his own study of philosophical knowledge. He looked at his predecessors and their study of science and nature and also weighed his talents in this area. His conclusion? "I am not of the nature to study nature." Socrates was at peace with his own nature. We only have so much of 'us' to spend, so spend it wisely. Fighting one's authentic nature spends our time and energies unwisely. The serenity prayer gives us the answer, "God / Higher Power, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
We can see this battle over accepting others nature happening all the time with the sexes. Many women say they can't understand men, just as many men say they can't understand women. In the bible it says that God's way is not man's way. Well, to further distill this we can say that God's way is not man's way and man's way is not woman's way. Every creature has it's way and when you can come to peace with this you will be on your own way to accepting life on life's terms and not your own.
end page 1
such an one caught up to the third heaven.
