(September 30, 2016 at 11:58 pm)robvalue Wrote: Love is shown by actions.

Do I feel loved by the "design" of my environment, and any subsequent involvement of an alledged designer? Nope.

Do I feel unloved? Nope.

Do I feel that any being who actually loved me and had huge power would make my life better than this? Absolutely. Everyone who loves me has made a big effort to improve my life in some way. If this is the best the designer can do, he is rubbish, quite frankly. And a sick twisted bastard for giving me an imagination capable of easily concocting a life infinitely superior to this one.

If there is a designer, what is my opinion of him/her/it? Not much. I doubt they are even aware that any "life" here has become self-aware. I hold no grudge against them for whatever purpose they have designed this reality for. Some sort of simulation I imagine.

I don't think it wasn't intelligently designed. I think it was quantum biologically produced with a natural conservation of energy....and this is not your only life.

(October 1, 2016 at 12:29 pm)Lek Wrote: Thanks for your thorough and sincere answer.  I assume that since Jesus was one of his teachers and that Jesus taught that God loves us and wants a relationship with us, that you believe that God must be in a personal relationship with all beings.  

In following Jesus his messenger, I am in harmony with God?

I believe he was more than just a messenger, I believe he was like the designer of the obstacle course, already master of it, and entered into it to show us how to navigate it successfully. From what I have found in my works of faith, God (the spirit/mind) is closer to all beings than either their breath or their thoughts. The Holy Spirit surrounds and interpenetrates all creation as a "floor field" at the lowest scale. It connects everything together to the ends of the universe.

Yes, his last prayer was for all believers to be one with the Father as he was. Jesus is a good place to start but all that is read or heard can only amount to belief, and you must make it your own to grow it beyond personal conjecture and into living faith. Seek first the kingdom of God within you and all around you, and God's justice....then all things shall be added to you. We are co-inheritors with Christ.

(October 1, 2016 at 6:50 am)Tazzycorn Wrote: Big difference between putting your trust in a doctor and putting your trust in an unevidenced being. First of all we know the doctor exists, we can check his credentials and look up databases kept by the local medical board(s) to ensure that he is keeping his training up to date and that he has no malpractice issues hanging over him. As yhwh is totally unevidenced we can do precisely no checking up on him.

Rob said he had no idea of how to have faith and I used an analogy. It is akin to taking advice from a doctor because you're convinced he knows what he's talking about. If you determine later on that he's a quack you can leave him. I know my wife exists because I experience her; likewise I know God exists because I experience him. If someday I come to the conclusion that he doesn't exist, then I'll let go.

Quote:And secondly we don't put our trust in doctors unconditionally in all areas.

You're right that the analogy wasn't a perfect one because I do put my trust fully in God, but it demonstrates the concept of having faith - you trust someone, at least in a certain area, more than you trust yourself.

Quote:But, objectively speaking, from the description in the bible you do follow an evil and unloving god. You follow a god for whom rape is ok, for whom racist slavery is ok, for whom murder is an acceptable punishment for trivial transgressions, for whom it is ok to go out and slaughter your neighbour and his family for their land and cattle (as long as they are not the same religion as you). By any measure that we can use yhwh would be evil if he were real.

Actually, I follow Christ who is, in my mind, presented as an individual with good morals. If you have any verses that you think refute this, give them to me and I'll be glad to comment. I believe in him because his Spirit lives in me and I have a genuine daily experience to verify that. Jesus accepted the God of the old testament as his Father and as God. Whether or not you believe the God of the old testament involves, to a great extent, your worldview. If you believe that this natural world is all there is, then you're very likely to look at God's actions as immoral, If, like me, you believe in an eternal God who is just and wrathful, as well as loving, then you would have a different opinion, because the effect of his actions counts for all eternity rather than just for the extent of our lives here in this world.

I'll go back to the doctor. Sometimes the doctor does things to us that would be terrible is there were no further effects from what he's doing. If a dentist just drills a hole through your gum for no reason, then he's committed a terrible wrong to the affected individual. If a parent allows their child not to suffer any uncomfortable consequences for their actions or to receive any punishment for their wrongs, then they are not showing love for their child. Like I've already stated, we all have to experience suffering due to the consequences of the screw-ups of those before us or just for being in a certain place at a certain time. It's not what we're going through at the present time, but how we get through these experiences and how they affect and form us that counts. I ask myself what kind of person is God purposefully preparing to reap the benefits of eternal life with him and this is something I consider when determining whether or not an action of God is loving, as well as being just or simply the best thing to do for the occasion.

Quote:But it does depend on you making up an imaginary being to justify to yourself and others your morality and why you do what you do. I have no need for a voice inside my head to explain to me how and why I should take an action. I own up to my faults and mistakes because it is the right thing to do.

This is really where it's all at for you. You believe God is imaginary because you have not experienced him. For me, I believe he is real because I do experience him. I could say to you "if God isn't real then why have so many people experienced him?" And you could ask me if I thought Zeus or whoever is real. I'd say at least they were smart enough to realize there is a God because they were open to what the world showed them. You don't have to go through telling me that they thought the world was flat or that the sun revolved around the earth. Atheists believed the same incorrect things at the time as well. We all learn as we go on and as we make new discoveries. We had theists and non-theists in the past who believed the world was flat and now we have theists an non-theists who believe the world is round. Maybe in the future we'll have people saying "those superstitious idiots believed that humans evolved from apes." I do believe in evolution, by the way, but it could be proved wrong some day, but that won't change my experience with God.

(October 1, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: I don't think it wasn't intelligently designed. I think it was quantum biologically produced with a natural conservation of energy....and this is not your only life.

It's the only one we know for certain that we get. Why not act as if it is, then whatever life comes next is a bonus?

(October 1, 2016 at 4:04 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: I don't think it wasn't intelligently designed. I think it was quantum biologically produced with a natural conservation of energy....and this is not your only life.

It's the only one we know for certain that we get. Why not act as if it is, then whatever life comes next is a bonus?

Certainly it's a one off, one of a kind event, never to be repeated. We'll never live this particular life again and it is priceless.

My particular brand of "afterlife-ism" includes a life review without the many veils of opinion, personality and time. This is immersion into the Mind of God and we can either open up to consciousness decreasing resistance to re-membrance, or contract and increase resistance which has it's own consequences.

Considering such a possibility to be real adds a great deal of reflective pressure to do rightly. I judge myself now as rightly as i can so I won't have to later. The aim to be all embracing of the messy self, to accept all negative aspects as negative and I work to change them. I'll prune what I can while alive and when I arrive in death I'll have a list of further things I want pruned out of me and burned up. I rejoice in The Judgment or else I'd never be able to self check error via an external perfect source.

Even if there is nothing after life, I will have lived a good one at least to myself and probably others.

I see the unborn soul as like a perfectly spherical diamond and each incarnation is like a meeting of it's surface with the sand paper like plane of life and it abrades a face/facet into that sphere. Subsequent lives increase the number of external facets and internal reflective capacity of the soul. Some lives are diametric opposites of others. Sometimes the abrasion is too much and fractures/trauma's form in the crystal further obscuring internal reflection.

Time between lives is spent off the abrasion surface in an EM(consciousness/light) bath that internally illuminates the crystal and can heal the mars....if we simply open up. We do have a choice, expansion and more consciousness or contraction and less. It is not unduly forced upon us, obvious by our relative mental isolation in life. But we are reminded of it from time to time.

The only burden is light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Izkay88YI

Forms are loosely fitting
Jury still are sitting
Sense of duty keeps us all in motion
Prison sirens wailing
That security is failing
Do not inspire a lifetime of devotion
No one will sympathize
No one really tries
They need a faith that leads them like a drum
And I can hear it pounding down among the ruins
Sad to say, I don't think I'm the only one.

I awoke and someone spoke
They asked me in a whisper
If all my dreams and visions had been answered
And I don't know what to say
I never even pray
I just feel the pulse of universal dancers
They'll waltz me till I die
They'll never tell me why
I never stop to ask them where we're going
Yes, but the holy, the profane
Are all helplessly insane
Wishful, hopeful, never even knowing.

And they asked if I believe
And do the angels really grieve
Or is it all a comforting invention?
It's just like gravity, I said
It's not a product of my head
It doesn't speak, but nonetheless commands attention
And I don't care what it means
Or who decorates the scenes
The problem is more with my sense of pride
Because it keeps me thinking "me"
Instead of what it is to be
I'm not a passenger, I am the ride
I'm not a passenger
I am the ride

What does an infant, who suffers and then, after a few months...dies from a preventable disease, learn..Lek?  What is the lesson?  Who is being taught a lesson?  What sort of teacher employs such a method?  There's invariably some "for your own good" excuse whenever a christer realizes that denying that bad shit would be under the purview of their all powerful, all loving god won't work.  Find me the good, in that. Consequences? What has the infant done? Preparing for a potential reward....don;t even get me started. "Well, sucks that you got raped/robbed/killed....it's all made okay by a ticket to fairyland! We cool brah?"...no, you wretched thing, we aint cool.

As to the morals of christ. I don't think that they're particularly good. They're a mishmash of human virtue and human flaw, writ onto the fabric of a demi-god. Sometime's he's buddy jesus, sometimes he's frothing at the mouth about a sword. Sometimes he plays white knight, other times he thinks that bitches aren't worth the trouble. Most times, he's a puppet of whomever is speaking about him -to- us, and his great wisdom, in their estimation, is platitude in ours.

(October 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm)Rhythm Wrote: What does an infant, who suffers and then, after a few months...dies from a preventable disease, learn..Lek?  What is the lesson?  Who is being taught a lesson?  What sort of teacher employs such a method?  There's invariably some "for your own good" excuse whenever a christer realizes that denying that bad shit would be under the purview of their all powerful, all loving god won't work.  Find me the good, in that.  Consequences?  What has the infant done?  Preparing for a potential reward....don;t even get me started.  "Well, sucks that you got raped/robbed/killed....it's all made okay by a ticket to fairyland!  We cool brah?"...no, you wretched thing, we aint cool.

I'm not sure what the infant learns from that or how he is better prepared to enter eternal life, but I do know that infants definitely do learn.  I also know that infants suffer from the consequences of all kinds of stuff, just like the rest of us. Do you think that when that infant is living in eternal happiness that he is going to care that he suffered for a few months beforehand?  I don't believe that all suffering is good though.  That's why we're supposed to be working to to alleviate the suffering of others.  It's actually another way we grow into the people that God wants us to be and to prevent or ease suffering in the world.

(October 1, 2016 at 4:50 pm)Arkilogue Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 4:04 pm)Stimbo Wrote: It's the only one we know for certain that we get. Why not act as if it is, then whatever life comes next is a bonus?

Certainly it's a one off, one of a kind event, never to be repeated. We'll never live this particular life again and it is priceless.

My particular brand of "afterlife-ism" includes a life review without the many veils of opinion, personality and time. This is immersion into the Mind of God and we can either open up to consciousness decreasing resistance to re-membrance, or contract and increase resistance which has it's own consequences.

Considering such a possibility to be real adds a great deal of reflective pressure to do rightly. I judge myself now as rightly as i can so I won't have to later. The aim to be all embracing of the messy self, to accept all negative aspects as negative and I work to change them. I'll prune what I can while alive and when I arrive in death I'll have a list of further things I want pruned out of me and burned up. I rejoice in The Judgment or else I'd never be able to self check error via an external perfect source.

Even if there is nothing after life, I will have lived a good one at least to myself and probably others.

I see the unborn soul as like a perfectly spherical diamond and each incarnation is like a meeting of it's surface with the sand paper like plane of life and it abrades a face/facet into that sphere.  Subsequent lives increase the number of external facets and internal reflective capacity of the soul. Some lives are diametric opposites of others. Sometimes the abrasion is too much and fractures/trauma's form in the crystal further obscuring internal reflection.

Time between lives is spent off the abrasion surface in an EM(consciousness/light) bath that internally illuminates the crystal and can heal the mars....if we simply open up. We do have a choice, expansion and more consciousness or contraction and less. It is not unduly forced upon us, obvious by our relative mental isolation in life.  But we are reminded of it from time to time.

The only burden is light.

I don't see anything necessarily wrong with that. Wipe away all the febrile froth and it sounds quite laudable. Kudos for embracing a system which works for you.

(October 1, 2016 at 5:46 pm)Lek Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm)Rhythm Wrote: What does an infant, who suffers and then, after a few months...dies from a preventable disease, learn..Lek?  What is the lesson?  Who is being taught a lesson?  What sort of teacher employs such a method?  There's invariably some "for your own good" excuse whenever a christer realizes that denying that bad shit would be under the purview of their all powerful, all loving god won't work.  Find me the good, in that.  Consequences?  What has the infant done?  Preparing for a potential reward....don;t even get me started.  "Well, sucks that you got raped/robbed/killed....it's all made okay by a ticket to fairyland!  We cool brah?"...no, you wretched thing, we aint cool.

I'm not sure what the infant learns from that or how he is better prepared to enter eternal life, but I do know that infants definitely do learn.  I also know that infants suffer from the consequences of all kinds of stuff, just like the rest of us. Do you think that when that infant is living in eternal happiness that he is going to care that he suffered for a few months beforehand?  I don't believe that all suffering is good though.  That's why we're supposed to be working to to alleviate the suffering of others.  It's actually another way we grow into the people that God wants us to be and to prevent or ease suffering in the world.

b-mine

So, why ask? All i see, here, in your position, is victim blaming and perpetrator excusing. That it's the duty of hopped up chimps to fix or alleviate the sufferings imposed on them by an all powerful god? How, we only just learned to rub two sticks together. If we -could- help we would..and do when we can. In fact we seem to be the only ones interested in alleviating suffering at all.

This is a sick and cruel worldview to hold, imo. I can answer one of my questions that you didn;t for us both. What sort of teacher does this...an all powerful, all loving, christian kind...apparently. That;s just how god runs his shop, by stacking bodies on bodies until all life is perched atop a festering mountain of corpses. Hallelujah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY