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The Conception of God

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
PLEASE!!! Can you explain the resurrection part? Orthodoxy says it's literal and I can't accept it!
Who died and made Orthodoxy God? Hmm? They may want you to believe that, but why should we? You do realize when you reject the symbolic value of it because you can't see it as literal (neither can I), that you gave all the power of the symbol away to them? Again, why? Why do you believe they deserve all that power?

How and why will the dead rise? If it's metaphor then what is it???
We die to our old self which keeps us from truly living, surrender all that, step out of it, and leave that old now-dead body behind as we live in the light of the day - in this life, not some future "afterlife". Metaphor. Death and resurrection. It's a common theme in all religion. It symbolizes the spiritual path. NOT a literal resuscitation of a rotting corpse.

What is the point of that, for God's sake? Why is preserving the physical body the focus of spirituality? That sounds to me like an attachment issue, a problem of clinging, not releasing and surrendering, not a dying to self at all! It's an immortality project, not a spiritual realization at all.

(the resurrection part baffles me and it's the reason I abandoned xtianity)
Thus giving all the power away to religion. If you know better than to believe it literally, then why are you rejecting it? Isn't that still believing it literally, just not accepting it? Why not just get rid of literalism? That's a lot easier, and a whole lot more freeing.

. What the metaphor says about what will happen to our dead self??? If it's a metaphor I'll embrace xtianity again!!! :shrug:
Would you?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!

why cant omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent coexist?
 

syo

Well-Known Member
Who died and made Orthodoxy God? Hmm? They may want you to believe that, but why should we? You do realize when you reject the symbolic value of it because you can't see it as literal (neither can I), that you gave all the power of the symbol away to them? Again, why? Why do you believe they deserve all that power?


We die to our old self which keeps us from truly living, surrender all that, step out of it, and leave that old now-dead body behind as we live in the light of the day - in this life, not some future "afterlife". Metaphor. Death and resurrection. It's a common theme in all religion. It symbolizes the spiritual path. NOT a literal resuscitation of a rotting corpse.

What is the point of that, for God's sake? Why is preserving the physical body the focus of spirituality? That sounds to me like an attachment issue, a problem of clinging, not releasing and surrendering, not a dying to self at all! It's an immortality project, not a spiritual realization at all.


Thus giving all the power away to religion. If you know better than to believe it literally, then why are you rejecting it? Isn't that still believing it literally, just not accepting it? Why not just get rid of literalism? That's a lot easier, and a whole lot more freeing.


Would you?
I think you divide physical from spiritual. Ah! I get it now! The spirit resurrects while the flesh rots. Then I can't be xtian. I see spirit and flesh as one. No division at all :)
 

1213

Well-Known Member
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!

Funny thing is that I could draw a square circle and I am not even God. :)

But anyway, loving, merciful and just are contradictory only if you have wrong definitions for those words.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I think you divide physical from spiritual.
I think you assume incorrectly.

Ah! I get it now! The spirit resurrects while the flesh rots.
Oh God, no. Metaphors! I am talking about being alive spiritually or being dead spiritually, in this life, in this body. You're really stuck in literal thinking here.

To give an example, someone lives their live afraid and depressed. Everything they see and think is dark and fearful. They are not truly living. Even though their bodies are physically alive, they are spiritually dead. But what happens then is something happens where they awaken from this state and see that life is beautiful, that they are beautiful. Now they are alive. Now they are free. Now they are happy. Now they can truly love others, because they are Free.

Right there, in that story, you have a death and resurrection. Their bodies never died, but the old "self" that was dark and miserable did die. When it was let go of, then the "new man" emerged. Death and resurrection.

Jesus' death and resurrection story in the Gospels is a metaphor for what humans go through in letting go of the pain and misery of their lives for a new life of spiritual freedom.

Again, this is a metaphor.

Then I can't be xtian. I see spirit and flesh as one. No division at all :)
If you are trying to say in this that you're what the Buddhists say that "Emptiness is not other that form. Form is not other than Emptiness", that does not preclude anyone from being a Christian. It simply means you don't follow traditional radical dualistic theism of mainline Christianity. There are plenty of Christians who see beyond radical dualism. Plenty who are truly nondual in their thinking.

BTW, what dies when the body rots?
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!

If an oppressed race became freed through the justice of God towards the perpetrators is that not love towards the innocent victims?

And if a loving father punishes his child for wrong doing is there not love and mercy in that justice?

God’s wisdom rules the entire universe but it is said His mercy far exceeds His justice and that.....

“Should God punish men for their perverse doings, He would not leave on earth a moving thing!”

The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys
Bahá’u’lláh
 

syo

Well-Known Member
I think you assume incorrectly.


Oh God, no. Metaphors! I am talking about being alive spiritually or being dead spiritually, in this life, in this body. You're really stuck in literal thinking here.

To give an example, someone lives their live afraid and depressed. Everything they see and think is dark and fearful. They are not truly living. Even though their bodies are physically alive, they are spiritually dead. But what happens then is something happens where they awaken from this state and see that life is beautiful, that they are beautiful. Now they are alive. Now they are free. Now they are happy. Now they can truly love others, because they are Free.

Right there, in that story, you have a death and resurrection. Their bodies never died, but the old "self" that was dark and miserable did die. When it was let go of, then the "new man" emerged. Death and resurrection.

Jesus' death and resurrection story in the Gospels is a metaphor for what humans go through in letting go of the pain and misery of their lives for a new life of spiritual freedom.

Again, this is a metaphor.


If you are trying to say in this that you're what the Buddhists say that "Emptiness is not other that form. Form is not other than Emptiness", that does not preclude anyone from being a Christian. It simply means you don't follow traditional radical dualistic theism of mainline Christianity. There are plenty of Christians who see beyond radical dualism. Plenty who are truly nondual in their thinking.

BTW, what dies when the body rots?
I've never thought it this way before! Now as a metaphor it makes sense. :)
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!
compassion and mercy are synonyms = love.

to be just means to be right, equitable, fair


so to be loving is to be just. to be loving is to make all things equal. basically it follows the idea of the golden rule, or law of reciprocity. love all as self and love self as all
 
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Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
If an oppressed race became freed through the justice of God towards the perpetrators is that not love towards the innocent victims?

And if a loving father punishes his child for wrong doing is there not love and mercy in that justice?

God’s wisdom rules the entire universe but it is said His mercy far exceeds His justice and that.....

“Should God punish men for their perverse doings, He would not leave on earth a moving thing!”

The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys
Bahá’u’lláh

punishment has to do with negative reinforcement. that conditions the self to avoid things and not how to deal with them properly. correcting someone requires them to engage with the problem and to handle it correctly, not to avoid it.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've never thought it this way before! Now as a metaphor it makes sense. :)
Yes, in fact, though I haven't read it myself, the fact he sees it this way alone makes me nod my head and want to read what he says. Dominic Crossan proposes, and I might well agree with him, that the authors of the Gospels were writing a parable themselves in the whole presentation of the narrative of the life of Jesus. In other words, the entire Gospels themselves are metaphors. From the description of his book The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus

The world’s foremost Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan shows us how the parables present throughout the New Testament not only reveal what Jesus wanted to teach but also provide the key for explaining how the Gospels’ writers sought to explain the Prophet of Nazareth to the world. In this meaningful exploration of the metaphorical stories told by Jesus and the Gospel writers, Crossan combines the biblical expertise of his The Greatest Prayer with a historical and social analysis that harkens closely to his Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, creating an illuminating and nuanced exploration of the Scripture that fans of Marcus Borg and Bart Ehrman will find fascinating and essential.
There's a lot more I could explore in thought on this, but once you understand that the entire thing is a metaphor about the nature of the relationships of humanity with the Divine Reality (which metaphorically we call God), things like raising of the dead, walking on water, water into wine, the kingdom of God, salvation from the law, etc, all are "pointers" to something beyond the literal interpretation. Literal thinking on these things are really just mental "placeholders" to some abstraction that is far beyond the mind to comprehend.

To begin to penetrate these requires a shift from the "concrete-operational" mind, which Piaget researched in our developmental stages, into a much more post-formal operational stage, or what one might call "fuzzy logic", or vision logic. But that's another matter. When someone is new to something, "dumbing it down", into concrete-literal descriptors, something tangible the mind can look at when confronted with the highly abstract, is a normal thing. The issue is when these Keepers of the Sacred Myth, insist it be not understood beyond those terms, that growth halts. That's why I left them too. It was too, "magical", and not enough real. :)

Edit to add. In looking further at that book on Amazon, it gives this from the back cover I thought was ironically pertinent as it directly mentions the resurrection story we were talking about:

In 1969, I was teaching at two seminaries in the Chicago area. One of my courses was on the parables by Jesus and the other was on the resurrection stories about Jesus. I had observed that the parabolic stories by Jesus seemed remarkably similar to the resurrection stories about Jesus. Were the latter intended as parables just as much as the former? Had we been reading parable, presuming history, and misunderstanding both?
—from The Power of Parable

So begins the quest of renowned Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan as he unlocks the true meanings and purposes of parable in the Bible so that modern Christians can respond genuinely to Jesus's call to fully participate in the kingdom of God. In The Power of Parable, Crossan examines Jesus's parables and identifies what he calls the "challenge parable" as Jesus's chosen teaching tool for gently urging his followers to probe, question, and debate the ideological absolutes of religious faith and the presuppositions of social, political, and economic traditions.

Moving from parables by Jesus to parables about Jesus, Crossan then presents the four gospels as "megaparables." By revealing how the gospels are not reflections of the actual biography of Jesus but rather (mis)interpretations by the gospel writers themselves, Crossan reaffirms the power of parables to challenge and enable us to co-create with God a world of justice, love, and peace.
I think I'll get this book at some point after getting through the others I'm currently working on from other authors. I don't have any of his books at this point.
 
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syo

Well-Known Member
There's a lot more I could explore in thought on this, but once you understand that the entire thing is a metaphor about the nature of the relationships of humanity with the Divine Reality (which metaphorically we call God), things like raising of the dead, walking on water, water into wine, the kingdom of God, salvation from the law, etc, all are "pointers" to something beyond the literal interpretation. Literal thinking on these things are really just mental "placeholders" to some abstraction that is far beyond the mind to comprehend.
Literal thinking made me thought xtianity as crazy talk...

Thank you for the source!
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Literal thinking made me thought xtianity as crazy talk...

Thank you for the source!
Sure. Sorry if I sounded exacerbated. A lot of people just can't for some reason get what metaphors mean. They often respond saying, "So you're saying it's not real?" Yeah, you got it once I gave an example, so cool. I read the first few pages of that book on the preview on Amazon. It was compelling enough for me to order it just now, so thanks! :)

There's something here that's a quick read I think you'll get a great deal out of. I did so much that I continue to quote from it for over the past ten years. Let me know what you think. Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance – Religion Online
 

Workman

UNIQUE
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!
THE concept of GOD is only through Loving! Then you would know what life is all about! If you do not understand how Just in merciful, and loving all work then you do not know what it means, you are contradicting yourself becoming selfishness!! And traps your being-NOT free..

LOVE is being free..
Happiness is being free..
Just in merciful is being free..

If you don’t have any of the above in you, Then u don’t get to know what life is, you only become an existent to life nothing else but your own robot. Being not FREE
 

Dell

Asteroid insurance?
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!
Every religion has its description of what God is, and it has the sole monopoly to a relationship to that God. Creation of what God is is as old as human civilization. Amazing how atheistic each religion is to gods of other religions seeing they have no more proof of existence than the other. It's also amazing how common it is for each religion to implement fear and faith to manipulate people into that religion.

Bottom line it would be a miracle for God to exist, meaning since there is no such thing as physically impossible miracles, that leaves no God that can do the physically impossible. Thus omnipotent, omnipresent, Omniscient is total fiction. The best case is a super species with super intelligence with super technology that been around millions or billions of years that has been thus far undiscovered or hasnt revealed itself to exist.
 

MJ Bailey

Member
if the concept of god is ever loving,just and merciful,then it is impossible to exist, because being loving,merciful and just at the same time contradicts itself, if he is only ever loving he is then not a free being and is therfore a robot and all its expression is artificial! if he is all the above plus omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent, that god is impossible to exist because all these attributes can't exist alongside eachother and therefore renders him as unrealistic and impossible as a square circle or a loving rock!
??? To me it sounds like a substantial question to what you ask of being?
 

syo

Well-Known Member
Sure. Sorry if I sounded exacerbated. A lot of people just can't for some reason get what metaphors mean. They often respond saying, "So you're saying it's not real?" Yeah, you got it once I gave an example, so cool. I read the first few pages of that book on the preview on Amazon. It was compelling enough for me to order it just now, so thanks! :)

There's something here that's a quick read I think you'll get a great deal out of. I did so much that I continue to quote from it for over the past ten years. Let me know what you think. Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance – Religion Online
I've got to see xtianity at this new perspective from scratch. the Orthodox won't like it :D
 
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