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Recent content by steveb1

  1. steveb1

    What does “fearing God” mean?

    To fear God, to me, means to reverence God; to fear loss of God's grace; to trust in God's justice as well as God's mercy; to respect God's "Otherness" and realize that his thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways.
  2. steveb1

    What is Your Source of Information About God?

    I rely on personal experience(s). Experience trumps both intellect and religious faith. Experience discloses in me, and to me, a transcendent reality in the midst of immanent, "secular" world-and-life. As time/opportunity permit, I read comparative religion studies and the literature of divine...
  3. steveb1

    Is the Bible internally consistent?

    In my view the Bible is not internally consistent and there's no reason it would need to be. I do not regard the Bible as the inerrant word of a deity, but even so, who's really to say that a book inspired by a deity has to be internally consistent? All it really needs to be is meaningful and...
  4. steveb1

    Theists: what do you think movitates atheists?

    Atheism precludes atheists from being angry at deities they do not believe exist. Atheists can, however, be angry at theistic God-claims that are blatantly irrational or cruel. Atheism is motivated by the simple realization that for atheists there is no believable evidence for God. I really...
  5. steveb1

    So Jesus is not God?

    The mainstream Christian Jesus is "God" because he's said to be ontological God, "of one substance with the Father". The New Testament Jesus is not God and never claimed to be, not even in John's Gospel, which explicitly excludes Jesus from the Godhead in texts such as John 17:3 where Jesus...
  6. steveb1

    On Palm Sunday the people cried 'Hosanna!', meaning 'Save Please!'

    No. The Buddha Dharma saves us. There is no creator deity, and we are saved from Avidya (ignorance of our true nature), not from "sin".
  7. steveb1

    On Palm Sunday the people cried 'Hosanna!', meaning 'Save Please!'

    My tradition is Buddhist and has no high creator god or any gods capable of "saving souls". Therefore there is no petitionary prayer in Buddhism. Exceptions are only those Buddhists who have not been properly educated and mix folk religion with their Buddhism.
  8. steveb1

    Jesus is not God

    The NT does not claim that Jesus is God - not even in John's Gospel. It's more a case of Jesus (in Paul, some of the other Epistle authors, and John) being seen as a pre-existent, archangelic figure, who was made "the Son" by his taking on a Davidic/Jewish body, emptying himself, and assuming...
  9. steveb1

    Job and Chaos; It's okay to question God

    Except in Job, suffering does not "simply happen". It is deliberately directed to righteous Job from YHVH to test Job's loyalty. YHVH makes a pact with Satan and does every vile thing possible to Job, short of killing him. This is not misfortune. It is divine paranoia and sadism combined. Thus...
  10. steveb1

    Yoga and Meditation vs Ego

    In everything I've read on Buddhism, there are indeed plenty of warnings against imagining one is Enlightened, against thinking that Enlightenment is "proved" by the development of paranormal powers ("siddhis" in one tradition). The leveler is probably the teacher him/herself, who, having been...
  11. steveb1

    What do you think makes your religion true?

    My religion is godless - Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. All Buddhism is godless. In Jodo Shinshu, the primordial Buddha, Amitabha, is said to grant the adherent Shinjin - "perfect faith" - in this life, and then to spark our hitherto dormant Buddha Nature upon taking birth in the next life. Amitabha...
  12. steveb1

    The mere fact that no god is observed communicating directly to everyone means that...

    Lovely Baha'u'llah citation - thanks for sharing. :)
  13. steveb1

    The mere fact that no god is observed communicating directly to everyone means that...

    God is like the sun which shines on all things, except for those under the soil or in some other way hidden from sunlight. However, sentient beings are equipped - like certain plants - with "sensors" that, once exposed to the divine "sunlight", cause the flower to open to the light, to blossom...
  14. steveb1

    How can we be sure?

    In the case of Jesus, I support Christ Myth theory. Paul, our earliest source, makes no unambiguous reference to a historical (or a Gospel) Jesus. This is a silence that screams, i.e., Paul never mentions Jesus's supposed ministry in Galilee, his cures, exorcisms, parables, sermon on the...
  15. steveb1

    Question about God

    He may be one step ahead, but I don't see why his foreknowledge would equate to him willing our future to happen...
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