If you believe in love, you believe in God

[WhyIsThatSo]

I wonder why so few Americans care about their
language enough to try to use it properly.

Perhaps "language" is over rated . Or do you think language is about "words" somehow ?
Language is not about words.....language is about "understanding". If you ask a native Japanese who doesn't speak any English
for a glass of water, they will not know what you speak of...
But they certainly do know what "water" is.....don't they ?

 

[sciatica]

I think what is more accurate is to say that the general unwashed masses who find religion troublesome, want science to have something to say to this area. That's of course, a major fallacy that real scientists know isn't doing real science. But it's popular to expect science to know everything, considering how successful they are with the things they can do. The church failed as the absolute authority for them, so now they look to science to tell them the truth of everything, if not now, then surely in the future they will be able to. Goes the line of thinking.

In reality, for the skeptic as well as the believer with their silly apologetics trying to "prove God", are imaging God in the same way. As a Yeti type, supernatural creature. I've always said, the surest way to kill God, is to reduce it to an object for study like an ET, or something, laid out in a lab with tubes in it. Yet this is precisely how the "True believer" and the atheist, generally speaking, tend to view God. All arguments for or against, see God as an entity, a being, a creature, etc., all of which see God as external to themselves.

In reality, God is considered Infinite. Every time I have challenged this view of God as a creature, an entity, or "a being" of some sort, wholly outside one's self, I get no answer to this challenge: If God is Infinite, that is without any boundaries or limitations, then how can it be outside of you, or outside of creation itself? Are their holes in this Infinite God, like a block of Swiss cheese? If so, then God cannot be Infinite at all. There are places where God is not. God is not God, but a god, like Bigfoot, only more elusive.

you are quite articulate in this which is impressive

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Come now. I am just using you guys' lingos as a matter of
custom and convenience.

A theist prob. is overthinking things.

Howsabout I just say this here supernatural monster you guys
keep talking about dont exist, being the opposite of infinite.

No....it's us (humanity) that has no true "existence" (not ALL as of yet anyway)
and "God" is ALL that does "exist" ( being beyond mere existence )

 

[Polymath257]

Why think love is emotion? In Bible love is not an emotion. It seems to me that many people mix love to like. Like and love are not the same. Love is more like caring without conditions.

And caring is an emotion. i am not talking about 'like'. I am talking about 'love'. Both are emotions, although different emotions. It seems that you think that atheists are incapable of love. And, of course, that is both wrong and rather condescending.

Love is a wonderful emotion that makes life worth living. But it *is* an emotion.

 

[SigurdReginson]

Ha. Why dont you quit struggling?

Are you trying to tell me that resistence is futile?

 

[Polymath257]

ring

The best art has an ineffable quality. The mystery of God.
I can see by your style of communication , you dont get it. And interestingly this is why many dont believe in God. They dont have the eyes of an artist. So really we are speaking different languages.
So no amount of argument or debate is going to change anyone. Faith is experiential not deductive or linear.
It requires fresh eyes.

You seem to think that because I don't regard art as 'true' that I 'don't get' it. In fact, I love walking through art galleries, wondering how it is possible those artists manage to produce the beauty they do. or a composer being able to write music that can be so moving.

But I also understand that these works of art are physical things that appeal to our emotions. That is one of the aspects that makes them so moving.

But once again, art, literature, music, etc, while all capable of moving our emotions, are *human* endeavors and seem to have little to do with a supernatural. There is nothing 'supernatural' in art or a 'mystery of God'. No matter how moving a painting, or moving a piece of music, or how inspiring a poem, it is all constructed by humans to cater to human foibles and human emotions. And it does that, at least the good stuff, incredibly well.

 

[Polymath257]

Scientists want to put God under a microscope. Study Him. Analyse Him. Then write their report and give their verdict. They are almost slaves to process.
God exists outside their narrow paradigm.

If God exists, it should be possible to detect Him/It/Her. Otherwise, there is little to distinguish it from non-existence.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

And caring is an emotion. i am not talking about 'like'. I am talking about 'love'. Both are emotions, although different emotions. It seems that you think that atheists are incapable of love. And, of course, that is both wrong and rather condescending.

Love is a wonderful emotion that makes life worth living. But it *is* an emotion.

lol....."like" is just a word to denote something that is shared and of the same interest,
and it's a CHOICE, not an emotion
"love"...TRUE LOVE, is not a choice. It's a state of being where you can never willfully and intentionally cause harm to any living thing.
I don't have to "like" you...
I just need to "love" you.

 

[Polymath257]

lol....."like" is just a word to denote something that is shared and of the same interest,
and it's a CHOICE, not an emotion
"love"...TRUE LOVE, is not a choice. It's a state of being where you can never willfully and intentionally cause harm to any living thing.
I don't have to "like" you...
I just need to "love" you.

Interesting. I don't see either as being a 'choice' at all. I have *never* decided to like someone or to love someone. I look within and either feel the emotion of liking them or feel the emotion of loving them, or I don't. There is no choice in it that I can see.

Now, how I *act* on that emotion, *that* is a choice I can make. The effects that emotion has on what I do, *that* is a choice. But the emotion, for me, is no more of a choice than feeling my arm is.

 

[sciatica]

Im not good at articulating the following but will try.
Belief and faith in God is more interesting.
I dont choose a legalistic narrow Christian view. More the faith Jesus was getting at. He was trying to get the Jews to think outside their narrow paradigm.
Anyway I find the NT view more interesting. It allows for the artist's view of life.
Interesting is important. We dont want to be strangled by Christian legalism or Scientific legalism.
To choose atheism for me is a cop out. Caving in to a dull claustrophobic view of life.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Interesting. I don't see either as being a 'choice' at all. I have *never* decided to like someone or to love someone. I look within and either feel the emotion of liking them or feel the emotion of loving them, or I don't. There is no choice in it that I can see.

Now, how I *act* on that emotion, *that* is a choice I can make. The effects that emotion has on what I do, *that* is a choice. But the emotion, for me, is no more of a choice than feeling my arm is.

…."I look within and either feel the emotion of liking them or feel the emotion of loving them, OR I DON'T.

"or you don't"...WHAT ??
or you DON'T LIKE, or you DON'T LOVE them...….perhaps ??

 

[Polymath257]

Im not good at articulating the following but will try.
Belief and faith in God is more interesting.
I dont choose a legalistic narrow Christian view. More the faith Jesus was getting at. He was trying to get the Jews to think outside their narrow paradigm.
Anyway I find the NT view more interesting. It allows for the artist's view of life.
Interesting is important. We dont want to be strangled by Christian legalism or Scientific legalism.
To choose atheism for me is a cop out. Caving in to a dull claustrophobic view of life.

Interesting. My experience has been quite the opposite. The claustrophobic times were when I was surrounded by people espousing a religious viewpoint and attempting to limit choices for me. It was these same people who inspire the bigotry towards gays, towards atheists, towards liberals, towards those who are freethinking, etc.All you have to do is turn on your TV every Sunday and you can see torrents of this hate and bigotry.

So, yes, for me it has been religion that has promoted a claustrophobic outlook.

 

[Polymath257]

…."I look within and either feel the emotion of liking them or feel the emotion of loving them, OR I DON'T.

"or you don't"...WHAT ??
or you DON'T LIKE, or you DON'T LOVE them...….perhaps ??

No, I do. I don't *choose* to like or to love. I just do. Sorry, the previous post got cut:

I either like/love them OR I DON'T.

 

[Windwalker]

Hmmm. What separates this god from the human imagination?

What separates human imagination from reality? Isn't imagination part of reality? It is. You do realize that imagination is how doing science begins? It begins imagining what something must be, and sets forth to collect more data and confirm the hypothesis, or what the scientist imagined was going on?

I think what you mean to say is that God is nothing more than childish fantasy, with no basis in lived reality. Would that be fair to say?

Anyone can say what qualities a god has if it were to exist, which is all well and good, but why should anyone take those ideas of god seriously?

It depends upon who is telling you, I suppose. If some crank on the street started blathering on about his ideas that God speaks to him through his dog, I'd consider the source, first of all. But if someone whom I knew to be a level-headed, responsible, intelligent, as well as a solid critical thinker, told me of a profound spiritual experience which changed their views on reality, I'd be interested in knowing more, and extend them an open mind. Were I to just dismiss out of hand something that challenged how I thought, I'd recognize that as a lack of intellectual and emotional integrity on my part.

What places this god outside of the human imagination, and into the real world?

The human imagination is in the real world. I think this is where you, and a great many get tripped up. You see yourself as outside of this universe somehow. You are this world. You are this universe. You are. You. As you have an imagination, that is the universe imagining through you. YOU are the universe, imagining.

That takes a while to try to wrap the mind around that. I know. We are so accustomed to thinking dualistically, because of how in the West we have been conditioned towards that sort of dichotomy between how we categorize things. But as we are looking at the world, we are also the world looking. But we don't consider that. We just assume that how we see through our eyes, is unaffected by this conditioning. There is not humankind, and then nature. We are nature as humankind.

So where is this God then? Right here, in us. So as we reach with the imagination into the vastly more fluid landscape of symbolic reality, we experience a transcendence of the self, and in this transcendence we find that reality is more than just what we can taste and feel with the body's senses. There is an ineffable quality to existence itself, and we realize that quality within our own bodies and minds, as well as all other life. It's the experience of reality on that level, which the human imagination grants us wings into, which affords us a glimpse into the true nature of who and what we and everything else is.

Some call that nature, God. And it found in everything that exists. That means, it is the real world. God is not outside the human imagination. It's within everything that makes us human.

Seems to have as much in common with any other god concept, from primitive bronze age anthropomorphized gods to the aetherial, vaguely deistic gods of today.

I struggle to see the value in believing in it.

I don't consider it as a matter of belief for me. If it was just an interesting concept, then not so much. But to me, God is what I choose to call the whole thing. And that whole thing, is a lot more than just the basic ideas that we hold as truths to us without any really true deep penetration beneath the programming of that "mundane" reality. For me, it includes the mind in wonder of it's own being in the world. It is a self-examination of existential questions, big questions, that leads to see that there is in fact more than just our programmed ideas of what is real and what is truth.

God to me describes the experience of Reality. Reality is God. Wholly connected, and fully Awake, vibrant, pulsating, and alive. It's seeing beyond the veil of the conditioned mind, that looking through a glass darkly, and expresses being at a whole different level of reality, one which creates absolute peace and connection with all Reality. God describes Reality, beyond all definitions and descriptions.

 

[sciatica]

Interesting. My experience has been quite the opposite. The claustrophobic times were when I was surrounded by people espousing a religious viewpoint and attempting to limit choices for me. It was these same people who inspire the bigotry towards gays, towards atheists, towards liberals, towards those who are freethinking, etc.All you have to do is turn on your TV every Sunday and you can see torrents of this hate and bigotry.

So, yes, for me it has been religion that has promoted a claustrophobic outlook.

Christian legalists and literalists spoil the brand. I dont like them either.

 

[Erebus]

Because God is love.
So all the atheists who believe in love?

Aphrodite is love. If you believe in love, you believe in her.

I guess that means I should congratulate you on your new-found polytheism!

Just don't tell Yahweh, he gets a bit touchy about these things.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

No, I do. I don't *choose* to like or to love. I just do. Sorry, the previous post got cut:

I either like/love them OR I DON'T.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Please Poly....spare me the drama, lol
there are REASONS WHY you "either like/love them OR YOU DON'T "...
and each of these little reasons make up the big CHOICE...

 

[Audie]

No....it's us (humanity) that has no true "existence" (not ALL as of yet anyway)
and "God" is ALL that does "exist" ( being beyond mere existence )

Yeah, whatevs.

 

[Audie]

Are you trying to tell me that resistence is futile?

No