Belief in a Personal God is very bad news

sealchan said:

I'm not sure I follow...I think that faith is a sort of natural epistemological stance that we take for emotional and even practical reasons that help us on a daily basis. The sort of beliefs like in God or dharma, etc. are merely the tip of the iceberg. Thinking that a person can make decisions based entirely on knowledge and rationality is a similarly limited, I think.

Life presents to us--some more, some less--a hard edge to walk on with balance. We would like to see "truth" compartmentalized into a creed or other elegant linguistic statement of intent or theory. But "truth-finding" is a flavor of our cognitive experience that goes deeper than self-conscious speech.

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The reason I raised this issue is that the belief of a person is individual to himself or herself and is geared to maximise the chances of survival depending on the genetics-based psyche.

Shantanu said:

The reason I raised this issue is that the belief of a person is individual to himself or herself and is geared to maximise the chances of survival depending on the genetics-based psyche.

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I agree with the subjective nature of belief...and that we might even trace that subjective need to the particular subjective configuration of an individual's genetics.

sealchan said:

I agree with the subjective nature of belief...and that we might even trace that subjective need to the particular subjective configuration of an individual's genetics.

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The point was what difference does it make if ones religious beliefs vary between individuals so long as all believers live up to a grand old age.

Shantanu said:

What I am saying is that one does not need a Personal God to guide one on right or wrong actions as long as one subscribes to Brahman Consciousness for that is the source of all the intelligence and wisdom that are required by a human being living out this life on Earth in terms of his or her survival neeeds. One does not need to worship such a Brahman Consciousness Entity nor proselytize about its existence because it does not go away anywhere if we stop singing its praises: it does indeed give one the freedom to attain liberation and moksha within this living experience.

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Ah, but God IMHO is personal, loving, and died and rose to transform us, in a single lifetime, too.

BilliardsBall said:

Ah, but God IMHO is personal, loving, and died and rose to transform us, in a single lifetime, too.

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My salvation is not yet completed: I still consider myself to being persecuted by the State and I need to find God quickly to help me out. Otherwise He is impersonal Brahman and I will have to resort to the advaitin mode of correspondence.

Shantanu said:

On what evidence do you base this assertion?

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I believe the evidence is in the Bible.

Shantanu said:

Bible teaches us to love they enemies.

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I believe that doesn't relate very well to what I said but I suspect that it is true that the natural instinct is to hate your enemy so finding anwsers in yourself doesn't work well.

Shantanu said:

The question was could one be free of God and yet benefit from His intelligence and wisdom in conducting one's life through merging with Brahman Consciousness. I believe it is possible and therefore one can be a kind of atheist, that is a non-subscriber to a Personal God but a subscriber to the Ultimate Reality of Brahman Consciousness. That is what it is to be an advaitin.

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I believe it would require an explanation of what merging with Brahman consciousness means. If it means you lose your identity, you lose yourself. That doesn't sound like something I would want or that God would want for me since He created me to be me.

Muffled said:

I believe it would require an explanation of what merging with Brahman consciousness means. If it means you lose your identity, you lose yourself. That doesn't sound like something I would want or that God would want for me since He created me to be me.

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The answer is no one cannot be free of God and benefit from his intelligence and wisdom.

Muffled said:

I believe that doesn't relate very well to what I said but I suspect that it is true that the natural instinct is to hate your enemy so finding anwsers in yourself doesn't work well.

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There is no harm in loving your enemies but one must fight them at the same time.

Muffled said:

I believe the evidence is in the Bible.

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The Bible says the world was created in 7 days, right?

Muffled said:

I believe the evidence is in the Bible.

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Where? How is the Bible any different from any other book of historical folklore?

Muffled said:

I believe it would require an explanation of what merging with Brahman consciousness means. If it means you lose your identity, you lose yourself. That doesn't sound like something I would want or that God would want for me since He created me to be me.

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You retain your own consciousness, but you add the consciousness of all other conscious entities. It's an addition, not a deletion.

Shantanu said:

There is no harm in loving your enemies but one must fight them at the same time.

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How does this make any sense?

Valjean said:

How does this make any sense?

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By not being attached to ones actions.

Shantanu said:

God takes away ones freedom to act to ones one satisfaction on what is right or wrong, good or bad as duties. We humans are capable of looking after our own affairs without such guidance and imposition. It makes life more interesting if we make mistakes and try and resolve our problems by consulting each other and agreeing a joint path for mankind.

The correct method that works for me is to rely on my Consciousness to guide me as God does not insist that we subscribe to Him for our intelligence and wisdom. My Consciousness has always led me on the right path in terms of duties and righteous actions on a daily basis.

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My view of God is also that he/she doesn't take away my free will. But he/she certainly has constrained my freedom of movement and my freedom in being by creating me as this kind of limited creature.

I think you are objecting to views of God in which he/she demands strict obedience to a long list of rules. Who even has a religion like this? No religious people I know follow rules very well -- they are a bunch of rebels usually.

dmap said:

My view of God is also that he/she doesn't take away my free will. But he/she certainly has constrained my freedom of movement and my freedom in being by creating me as this kind of limited creature.

I think you are objecting to views of God in which he/she demands strict obedience to a long list of rules. Who even has a religion like this? No religious people I know follow rules very well -- they are a bunch of rebels usually.

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God is a helper of last resort. If I can look after myself and deal with State-organised persecution with my own strategy, I need not consult God through the digital clock checking mechanism through which I determined that He exists to protect me.

Muffled said:

I believe it would require an explanation of what merging with Brahman consciousness means. If it means you lose your identity, you lose yourself. That doesn't sound like something I would want or that God would want for me since He created me to be me.

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That's a total misunderstanding of an insufficiently described concept. There is no merging, because there is no separation. There is no self to lose because there is no self. There is what we call the Self. It is the Supreme Soul. There is no creation of the soul, nor destruction nor death. There is however, a forgetting of what we are, and delusion in thinking what is around us is the real thing. We look within ourselves for the truth, because that's where God, the Self, the Supreme Soul is.

I am the Self ... seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings. Bhagavad Gita 10.20

Bhagavad Gita chapter 2:

• Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
• That which pervades the entire body, know it to be indestructible. No one can cause the destruction of the imperishable soul.
• Only the material body is perishable; the embodied soul within is indestructible, immeasurable, and eternal.
• Neither of them is in knowledge—the one who thinks the soul can slay and the one who thinks the soul can be slain. For truly, the soul neither kills nor can it be killed.
• The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.

There is only Brahman. Brahman is the only thing that exists, and the soul is Brahman. God is Brahman, the soul is God. It's quite a radical concept for the Abrahamic-indoctrinated mind to understand. It's a uniquely Hindu (Vedantic) philosophy called Advaita, literally "not two". The western concept of the soul's relationship to God is one of duality. Actually, the soul, God and creation, in Abrahamic belief are three separate entities. Not so in Advaita Vedanta, and variations of Advaita (there are many).

There are verses from the Upanishads, Hindu texts dealing with philosophy, called mahāvākyāni, meaning "the great sayings". They are to-the-point sayings about these concepts:

• aham brahmāsmi - lit. "I am Brahman" meaning I am no different from Brahman.
• tat tvam asi - "you are that", meaning I recognize you as Brahman.
• ayam ātmā brahma - "this soul is Brahman".
• brahma satyam jagan mithyā - Brahman is real; the world is illusory
• ekam evadvitiyam brahma - Brahman is one, without a second (there is nothing other than Brahman).
• sarvam khalvidam brahma - All of this [we see] is Brahman.

When John Lennon wrote "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" in I Am The Walrus, whether he realized it or not, he was describing Advaita and the singleness and unity of everything. The Beatles at the time were influenced by eastern philosophy so it's possible he wrote that deliberately.

Shantanu said:

God is a helper of last resort. If I can look after myself and deal with State-organised persecution with my own strategy, I need not consult God through the digital clock checking mechanism through which I determined that He exists to protect me.

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Yes, clearly God doesn't protect us, as you note.

In my view, people don't ever need to check in with God. But for those who find comfort in it, it's harmless enough.

dmap said:

Yes, clearly God doesn't protect us, as you note.

In my view, people don't ever need to check in with God. But for those who find comfort in it, it's harmless enough.

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You are wrong: God is very accessible and plays a role in protecting people who are sincere and devoted to Him.

rrobs said:

It is a huge mistake to think that only those who accept Jesus will get into paradise. There are certain advantages to accepting Jesus which I will only get into if you are interested. In any case, the scriptures are clear that when God judges people He will do it based on what is in their hearts and not necessarily their actions. Man tends to judge by appearance with little or no regard for what's going on inside of someone's head.

Most people are pretty decent folks. The Hitlers, of this world are a small minority. It is true that nobody, with the exception of Jesus, lives a perfect life of love, no matter how much we try. We all cause some amount of pain to ourselves or to others. But few do so intentionally and God is not stupid. The scriptures declare that He knows us better than we know ourselves. He makes allowances for our shortcomings and will do so when we all appear before the judgment seat. I suspect most, even Atheists, will find themselves enjoying eternity in paradise. At least that's my understand of God from the scriptures. I understand it goes against church tradition, but I'll take the scriptures over tradition any day of the week.

Take care...

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I have little faith in humanity to do the right thing. We repeat the same mistakes over and over and over. If most people were actually "pretty decent folks" the Hitler's and Stalin's of the world would never rise to power in the first place because most people would ignore them and their murderous ideas. We have a man in the White House right now for example that calls white supremacists decent folk. What it all boils down to is that humans are just clever animals that act on their self interests just like any other animal. The only paradise humanity can possibly have we have to make for ourselves. To do that we first need to understand and account for our human failings and instincts. Any god concept that doesn't understand the human animal and expects us to act counter to our inborn instincts must be false. The god that made us should understand us, should know what humanity is and isn't capable of, yet the Biblical god doesn't seem to get us at all. That is one of the reasons I don't believe the Biblical god is real.

Why would a god care if we worship it? Why would a god care how we live our lives? Why would a god care anymore about humans than cockroaches? Doesn't it seem arrogant to believe that there is a god and it is obsessed with us and what we're up to? Doesn't it seem arrogant to believe that god is going to cater to YOU because YOU believed a certain thing and give YOU an eternal paradise? That doesn't seem like a selfish belief to you? Be honest.