dfnj
Well-Known Member
The way our "will" works has NOTHING to do with sin. The idea that we have to have "alignment with the will of God" is just wrong. The problem with thinking about our own "will" is the source of all our sins is other people in power will claim they are the ones who "know" the will of God. Manipulating people for the sake of power through religion is evil or immoral in my opinion.
To use the fishing net metaphor way of thinking, people don't need to know what is moral and what is not moral. What people do need is way to be able to define their own moral compass. Being able to define your own moral compass, that is, being able to conclude what is "right" and what is "wrong", is in my mind, an absolute requirement for being a "good" person.
So by what heuristic would you use to define your own moral compass. I would go with the Golden Rule on steroids. When you carry a priceless work of art across the room you do it with extreme reverence because of the thought of damaging something so priceless is unimaginable. This is how we should treat the people in our lives. Each person in our sphere of influence should be treated like a priceless work of art.
The other part about sin is how does one get absolution. I just do not believe saying magic words, or doing some magic church ritual, or giving money to the church, absolves you of your sins. In my mind, the only path to absolution is by getting forgiveness from the people you have sinned against. The people you interact with are the ones who are making judgments against your soul, not God. Absolution can only come from getting forgiveness from the people you have sinned against. The consequence of sinning is unhappiness in one's own life. I don't think God cares one way or the other if we have happiness in our lives or we live are in misery living in our own crap in our own beds.
Based human experimentation, it seems to me God is indifferent to our moral behavior. There seems to me no amount of evil God will NOT tolerate in order to preserve our free-will. How we treat each other, or how badly we treat each other, it seems to me God doesn't care. That's not to say sin doesn't exist or is not important. It just seems to me God is operating in different way than what is described in the Bible. Being responsible for our own sins is clearly required on the path to experiencing happiness in our lives.
So given God's indifference to our sins, my faith is in a God of unconditional love who loves every facet of His creation no matter how we treat each other. My faith is in a God who allows everyone through the gates of Heaven to experience eternal bliss regardless of our earthly sins or how we practiced or not practiced our religions. This is GOOD NEWS for many people in the World who have not actually lived a moral life.
Now some of you might be thinking this is unfair or just wrong. Many people want other people to suffer for eternity as some form of cosmic justice. Or people are seeking revenge against other people. I think this is an immature mindset. What difference does it make if Hitler gets to experience eternal Heavenly bliss if everyone Hitler has sinned against also gets to experience Heavenly bliss. It just seems to me God is the one place where everyone gets loved unconditionally.
In terms of being "drawn" to God, I've recently been studying apophatic theologies:
Apophatic theology - Wikipedia
"Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology,[1] is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.[web 1] It forms a pair together with cataphatic theology, which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is."
God is perfect in ALL His greatness. The greatness of God has no boundaries. So I do not believe in the idea of a personal God. I do not believe in the idea of a person like God of judgment. This is because a personal God would be limited in focus to one person. And a person like God would be limited by being a person object. And making judgments would be conditional love based on some limited disappointment.
I think we all have no choice but to be drawn to God's greatness. God is not an object person. God is an experience. Every time we experience "greatness" in our lives we are experiencing a sliver or facet of God's greatness. We are drawn to greatness our whole lives until the moment of our death when we turn and go into the light to experience God's infnite beauty as we finally experience eternal heavenly bliss. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is the greatest possible experience consciousness can have by definition. It will be like every cell in your body has the most satisfying organism possible with every cell in your body experiencing it all at once in one single bright moment of infinite bliss. God is the source of ALL greatness we experience in our lives. When we die we all return back to God's infinite greatness.
To use the fishing net metaphor way of thinking, people don't need to know what is moral and what is not moral. What people do need is way to be able to define their own moral compass. Being able to define your own moral compass, that is, being able to conclude what is "right" and what is "wrong", is in my mind, an absolute requirement for being a "good" person.
So by what heuristic would you use to define your own moral compass. I would go with the Golden Rule on steroids. When you carry a priceless work of art across the room you do it with extreme reverence because of the thought of damaging something so priceless is unimaginable. This is how we should treat the people in our lives. Each person in our sphere of influence should be treated like a priceless work of art.
The other part about sin is how does one get absolution. I just do not believe saying magic words, or doing some magic church ritual, or giving money to the church, absolves you of your sins. In my mind, the only path to absolution is by getting forgiveness from the people you have sinned against. The people you interact with are the ones who are making judgments against your soul, not God. Absolution can only come from getting forgiveness from the people you have sinned against. The consequence of sinning is unhappiness in one's own life. I don't think God cares one way or the other if we have happiness in our lives or we live are in misery living in our own crap in our own beds.
Based human experimentation, it seems to me God is indifferent to our moral behavior. There seems to me no amount of evil God will NOT tolerate in order to preserve our free-will. How we treat each other, or how badly we treat each other, it seems to me God doesn't care. That's not to say sin doesn't exist or is not important. It just seems to me God is operating in different way than what is described in the Bible. Being responsible for our own sins is clearly required on the path to experiencing happiness in our lives.
So given God's indifference to our sins, my faith is in a God of unconditional love who loves every facet of His creation no matter how we treat each other. My faith is in a God who allows everyone through the gates of Heaven to experience eternal bliss regardless of our earthly sins or how we practiced or not practiced our religions. This is GOOD NEWS for many people in the World who have not actually lived a moral life.
Now some of you might be thinking this is unfair or just wrong. Many people want other people to suffer for eternity as some form of cosmic justice. Or people are seeking revenge against other people. I think this is an immature mindset. What difference does it make if Hitler gets to experience eternal Heavenly bliss if everyone Hitler has sinned against also gets to experience Heavenly bliss. It just seems to me God is the one place where everyone gets loved unconditionally.
In terms of being "drawn" to God, I've recently been studying apophatic theologies:
Apophatic theology - Wikipedia
"Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology,[1] is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.[web 1] It forms a pair together with cataphatic theology, which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is."
God is perfect in ALL His greatness. The greatness of God has no boundaries. So I do not believe in the idea of a personal God. I do not believe in the idea of a person like God of judgment. This is because a personal God would be limited in focus to one person. And a person like God would be limited by being a person object. And making judgments would be conditional love based on some limited disappointment.
I think we all have no choice but to be drawn to God's greatness. God is not an object person. God is an experience. Every time we experience "greatness" in our lives we are experiencing a sliver or facet of God's greatness. We are drawn to greatness our whole lives until the moment of our death when we turn and go into the light to experience God's infnite beauty as we finally experience eternal heavenly bliss. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is the greatest possible experience consciousness can have by definition. It will be like every cell in your body has the most satisfying organism possible with every cell in your body experiencing it all at once in one single bright moment of infinite bliss. God is the source of ALL greatness we experience in our lives. When we die we all return back to God's infinite greatness.
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