EvF -
Sometimes it can be hard to be a theist on an atheist forum. You have to carefully choose your words. One false move and you create the wrong impression. This has more of an effect on what I say and what I don't say than is immediately apparent. It isn't easy, it's really tricky. With that in mind, I don't want you to read a negative tone into what I'm going to say.
You don't understand how I believe that it's ok to believe what I feel as opposed to what I think is true. Exactly, you don't understand, and it is that which I'm emphasising, your lack of understanding about how I see things. You're tuned differently to me, you see things in a very different way to me, which makes it hard for you to understand me. I'd like to say that I never ignore what I think is true, however I combine what my eyes and my intellect tell me with what I feel, and actually I do think that feeling is a way of thinking and perceiving, a very direct way. Nothing contradicts anything else. The intellect is useful but if left unchecked, it gets in the way of our other means of knowing things.Language is useful, however not every concept can be expressed adequately, certainly not by everyone, so I really can't explain how my way of assessing and seeing things makes sense. Put another way, in my mind I have clear and coherent meanings, but not the words to clothe them in and present them to you. When atheists talk of evidence, and some other things, it strikes me as very simplistic, and I can't always easily break down my beliefs into those predefined boxes.
When I say that everything is god, I'm not merely putting a wishful label on everything / nothing. I really do literally believe that everything is god, everything is conscious, and everything is the same thing, and I do believe that god is the manifestor (what most people would call creator, but there's a difference) of everything. It's not like I woke up one day and decided to have these fancy beliefs. I have thought about it a lot, and here's my reasoning. Even though you disagree, at least you can see that thought has gone into it :
- How could god create things from absolutely nothing? How can you get something from nothing? How can "thingness" exist within nothing? That doesn't make sense.
- In that case, surely, for something to be created, it has to have a source somewhere. If god is the creator of everything, that means that other than god, there's nothing else.
- So, in order to create, god has nowhere to go to get what it needs to create, other than itself.
- In that case, god (rather than creating from nothing) is the essence of everything and anything.
- Therefore, god is (active verb) every and any thing, and every and any thing is what god "is-es".
- Therefore, all things are the symptom and expression of god's existence, and therefore the direct evidence of god's existence.
- To contain the essence of anything, infinitely, god would have to be beyond every and any thing. It would have to be unbound by all things, all rules, and transcendental of everything conceiveable and unconceivable, and beyond all contradiction and paradox
That isn't my argument for god's existence, as it begins with the premise that god exists. That is my argument for panentheism. In other words, if god exists, then the universe is panentheistic.
Yes, I believe that Hitler is god. I wouldn't follow Hitler. Hitler, and every other thing in the universe, is a symptom of god. When I say that every thing is god, I don't mean that every thing is literally the whole of god, what I mean is that the drop is the ocean, and the ocean is the drop. They are the same, but one is a part, the other is the whole. There's a relationship. Asking me if I'd follow Hitler (because I said that everything is god) shows a lack of understanding of what I mean by "every thing is god". Everything is literally god, yes, in the sense that it is made out of god. A house is made from bricks, but you can't live in bricks.
Omnissiunt -
My morality is not based on god's dictates. God doesn't dictate or command me.
Sometimes it can be hard to be a theist on an atheist forum. You have to carefully choose your words. One false move and you create the wrong impression. This has more of an effect on what I say and what I don't say than is immediately apparent. It isn't easy, it's really tricky. With that in mind, I don't want you to read a negative tone into what I'm going to say.
You don't understand how I believe that it's ok to believe what I feel as opposed to what I think is true. Exactly, you don't understand, and it is that which I'm emphasising, your lack of understanding about how I see things. You're tuned differently to me, you see things in a very different way to me, which makes it hard for you to understand me. I'd like to say that I never ignore what I think is true, however I combine what my eyes and my intellect tell me with what I feel, and actually I do think that feeling is a way of thinking and perceiving, a very direct way. Nothing contradicts anything else. The intellect is useful but if left unchecked, it gets in the way of our other means of knowing things.Language is useful, however not every concept can be expressed adequately, certainly not by everyone, so I really can't explain how my way of assessing and seeing things makes sense. Put another way, in my mind I have clear and coherent meanings, but not the words to clothe them in and present them to you. When atheists talk of evidence, and some other things, it strikes me as very simplistic, and I can't always easily break down my beliefs into those predefined boxes.
When I say that everything is god, I'm not merely putting a wishful label on everything / nothing. I really do literally believe that everything is god, everything is conscious, and everything is the same thing, and I do believe that god is the manifestor (what most people would call creator, but there's a difference) of everything. It's not like I woke up one day and decided to have these fancy beliefs. I have thought about it a lot, and here's my reasoning. Even though you disagree, at least you can see that thought has gone into it :
- How could god create things from absolutely nothing? How can you get something from nothing? How can "thingness" exist within nothing? That doesn't make sense.
- In that case, surely, for something to be created, it has to have a source somewhere. If god is the creator of everything, that means that other than god, there's nothing else.
- So, in order to create, god has nowhere to go to get what it needs to create, other than itself.
- In that case, god (rather than creating from nothing) is the essence of everything and anything.
- Therefore, god is (active verb) every and any thing, and every and any thing is what god "is-es".
- Therefore, all things are the symptom and expression of god's existence, and therefore the direct evidence of god's existence.
- To contain the essence of anything, infinitely, god would have to be beyond every and any thing. It would have to be unbound by all things, all rules, and transcendental of everything conceiveable and unconceivable, and beyond all contradiction and paradox
That isn't my argument for god's existence, as it begins with the premise that god exists. That is my argument for panentheism. In other words, if god exists, then the universe is panentheistic.
Yes, I believe that Hitler is god. I wouldn't follow Hitler. Hitler, and every other thing in the universe, is a symptom of god. When I say that every thing is god, I don't mean that every thing is literally the whole of god, what I mean is that the drop is the ocean, and the ocean is the drop. They are the same, but one is a part, the other is the whole. There's a relationship. Asking me if I'd follow Hitler (because I said that everything is god) shows a lack of understanding of what I mean by "every thing is god". Everything is literally god, yes, in the sense that it is made out of god. A house is made from bricks, but you can't live in bricks.
Omnissiunt -
My morality is not based on god's dictates. God doesn't dictate or command me.
