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If you believe in love, you believe in God

Windwalker

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Audie said:
Wait, you think there is an infinite god, but it is not supernatural?
Click to expand...
Correct. The universe is not separate from God, and God is not separate from the universe. Dividing Reality up into "natural and supernatural", is based solely upon a dualistic perspective. What seems "supernatural" to someone, that is "magic", is simply a lack of experience of the transcendent in life. It's not separate from us, but is very much part of what we call the natural world.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Windwalker said:
Correct. The universe is not separate from God, and God is not separate from the universe. Dividing Reality up into "natural and supernatural", is based solely upon a dualistic perspective. What seems "supernatural" to someone, that is "magic", is simply a lack of seeing Reality. What we call God, is very much the reality of this world. It's right here in all that is. God is not a Yeti in the sky, hiding from the world.
Click to expand...

So why bother with "god" at all?
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Polymath257 said:
Well, then it isn't energy. Energy is measured in joules, ergs, foot-pounds, or some other unit like that. Thoughts and emotions are NOT energy.
Click to expand...

I tried to get a homeopath to explain what "energy"
was in their "energized" water.
Even asked why it did not energize all the water in
the world, but apparently it has to be exactly
in a ratio of 1:100.
 
W

WhyIsThatSo

Well-Known Member
Windwalker said:
I had edited the response to add this, but you replied before you read it, so I'll add it here to explain:

Here, you can read you words here, if you think I am exaggerating this:

  1. I am not a traditional theist.
  2. I am not a "you guys", anymore than you should be considered as an Asian that you run laundromats or Asian restaurants.
  3. I do not believe in a supernatural anything.
  4. I do not overthink things when it comes to this.
Your stereotyping is an an example of your 'under-thinking'.


It's not just a matter of a gender pronoun, but the entire externalized sky god idea of an anthropomorphic God.


I am not making this up. You are talking the ideas of God as held by American fundamentalists, and when you hear me say God, you lumped me in with them with the repeated "you guys" comment, despite the fact that there are many who don't think of God at all like that. Are all Asians a "you guys"? Are all blacks a "you guys"? Are all believers in God, a "you guys?" Hardly. This is under-thinking. It's intellectually lazy.


You have done this with me a least a dozen times, even after we have gone through this same exercise. Is this conceptually difficult?
Click to expand...

Polymath257 said:
Well, then it isn't energy. Energy is measured in joules, ergs, foot-pounds, or some other unit like that. Thoughts and emotions are NOT energy.
Click to expand...
correction : PHYSICAL energy is measured in joules, ergs, foot-pounds, or some other unit like that.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
WhyIsThatSo said:
correction : PHYSICAL energy is measured in joules, ergs, foot-pounds, or some other unit like that.
Click to expand...

There is a saying that all are welcome to
their own opinions, but nobody gets a pass
on making up their own facts.

You will get no respect for doing that.
 
Windwalker

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Audie said:
So why bother with "god" at all?
Click to expand...
That is a very good question! I said it well somewhere recently and I'll see if I can remember the gist of it. There is an ineffable quality to existence that can be realized by people when we move beyond interfacing with reality using just our thoughts and ideas about it. This is where most people live; inside "thought world", as I like to call it. This has the effect of isolating us from the world as it is beyond our ideas about it. This living in our conceptual frameworks about reality, is pretty much the common reality for most everyone living.

Where I use the term God is to speak of that Reality, beyond our conceptual reality defined by dualist languages. Our language naturally makes us divide reality up into subject/object divisions. And so when the average person speaks of God, they imagine God dualistically in this way, as an object outside of their subjective selves. To do this mentally however, creates an experiential disconnect with real reality.

But once someone is able to let go of that "thought world" separating of oneself from the rest of reality, for instance through a meditation practice, or some random "peak experience", the realization becomes that everything is connected, and that we ourselves are very much part of this living connection. We move from the experience of a dualistic reality, to a nondual reality.

So "God" in a dualistic perspective, is seen as external to oneself, even though the word is used to express the Absolute, or Ultimate Reality. In a nondual perception of reality, Ultimate Reality, or "God" includes All That Is. There is no me over here, and God over there. You realize that Ultimate Reality is not other to yourself, and that, to use a biblical phrase, "I and my Father are One". In other words, you realize your true nature. And that is why this is not supernatural.This is the natural reality, realized nondually.

I use God to describe that, because the word is intended to convey the Ultimate Truth about existence. There are certainly other words that can be used, but whatever that word is, it has to include Everything. I could also call it Nature, with a capital letter because it conveys the divine, or that connective "spirit" that vibrates through everything. Emptiness, Shunyata, Void, Abyss, Absolute, Reality, Brahman, God, Spirit, Eros, Oneness, Christ Consciousness, Buddha Nature, etc., all point to the same thing.

I realize the term God has a lot of baggage because it's used dualistically and people with very limited experience of the ineffable at a deep life-changing level. God in that context tends to be heavily tainted with ego-projections. But that is a developmental thing. I choose to use the word God, because first it fits as a word to describe the Absolute, but also because those who do believe in God, even if they are imagining it as "other" to themselves, they are looking towards the Absolute, whether or not they fully realize that within themselves at this point.

To use it, while speaking of the nondual realization of it, shows that God is not limited to that earlier stage's perspective of the the divine reality, that is this reality here we are in. God is not limited to that idea of God. God as a word, also includes the nondual perspective. The context defines what it points to, just as the word "love" can point to an ocean of compassion, even while I child uses the word love for an "intense like". We don't get rid of the word love, because not everyone understands it's deeper reality, for example.

All that, and I'm kind of stubborn with it. I refuse to give the power of that word over to the lowest understanding of it. I refuse to let them claim ownership of God.
 
W

WhyIsThatSo

Well-Known Member
Audie said:
There is a saying that all are welcome to
their own opinions, but nobody gets a pass
on making up their own facts.

You will get no respect for doing that.
Click to expand...
There is a saying that opinions are like....well, you know what they are like
and "facts" are always there, somebody just needs to "find" them.....that's all
 
W

WhyIsThatSo

Well-Known Member
Windwalker said:
I had edited the response to add this, but you replied before you read it, so I'll add it here to explain:

Here, you can read you words here, if you think I am exaggerating this:

  1. I am not a traditional theist.
  2. I am not a "you guys", anymore than you should be considered as an Asian that you run laundromats or Asian restaurants.
  3. I do not believe in a supernatural anything.
  4. I do not overthink things when it comes to this.
Your stereotyping is an an example of your 'under-thinking'.


It's not just a matter of a gender pronoun, but the entire externalized sky god idea of an anthropomorphic God.


I am not making this up. You are talking the ideas of God as held by American fundamentalists, and when you hear me say God, you lumped me in with them with the repeated "you guys" comment, despite the fact that there are many who don't think of God at all like that. Are all Asians a "you guys"? Are all blacks a "you guys"? Are all believers in God, a "you guys?" Hardly. This is under-thinking. It's intellectually lazy.


You have done this with me a least a dozen times, even after we have gone through this same exercise. Is this conceptually difficult?
Click to expand...
"it's not just a matter of a gender pronoun, but the entire externalized sky god idea of an anthropomorphic God "

Probably the oldest of all ancient symbolism is the "STAR" (pentagram)..
now days, everybody wants to be a "star"......a sports star, a pop star, a movie star, etc.
and the funny thing is they don't even know WHY.

But, a close look at this symbol (pentagram) reveals that it is in the shape of the humanoid "body"....
so it must have some esoteric significance beyond what is obvious to the eye......right ?
well, indeed it does, as we will see.

The "star" (pentagram) is the symbol for "MAN".....the heavenly man....the True Human
"MAN" is a divine "race" of Being...….and why Christ (Jesus) said he was the 'Son of Man"....many times.
and also why this symbol is denigrated so much (tuned upside down) in defiance by the "adversary".

If you notice, the STAR has 5 points, and they are :
1. Forethought (first thought)
2. Foreknowledge (first knowledge)
3. Indestructability
4. Eternal Life
5. Truth

"man".....we are something else aren't we ?
you can find more info about this in the Apocryphon (secret writing) of John
 
halbhh

halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
sciatica said:
Because God is love.
So all the atheists who believe in love?
Click to expand...

It does seem likely that some atheists believe in God better than many of those thinking of themselves as religious.

I hope someone helped already to say there is more Love than only erotic love or familial love....

We could point to Plato and The Symposium.

Or talk about Agape.

Then, after that....we could try to take that 1 more step up to the most full love of all, then.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
halbhh said:
It does seem likely that some atheists believe in God better than many of those thinking of themselves as religious.

I hope someone helped already to say there is more Love than only erotic love or familial love....

We could point to Plato and The Symposium.

Or talk about Agape.

Then, after that....we could try to take that 1 more step up to the most full love of all, then.
Click to expand...

Compared to fundys? That is most near damning with
faint praise!

A great many atheists are far better Christians and
show far more respect for such gods as there may
be, than any fundy. And some several other categories of
nominal theists.
 
W

WhyIsThatSo

Well-Known Member
Audie said:
And by their thoughts ye shall know them.

Does anyone here seem impressed with your thoughts?
Exceptin' you that is. :D
Click to expand...
it's "fruits"...…"by their fruits you will know them ", lol
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? "

Now... go have a glass of "fruit" juice
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
WhyIsThatSo said:
it's "fruits"...…"by their fruits you will know them ", lol
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? "

Now... go have a glass of "fruit" juice
Click to expand...
\

I know how the bible quote goes. You, on the other
hand, don't know how to use ellipses.
 
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