A little question to god
- Thread starter ShyRebel
- Start date
actually at the moment we are talking about the ideological comfort afforded by atheism.
Hence ... unless you find you can't live with the notion that god does not actually exist, jan has just explained why that is not the case
ShyRebel,
Okay, perhaps ''desire'' is too strong. You 'chose' to not believe in Him, and you desire to have your things back.
Regarding your question, I really have no idea. The fundamentalists that I've encountered just think if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord (God) and saviour, then your hellbound.
The fundamentalist muslims I've encountered are, in a sense, just as damning as their Christian counterparts.
In short, it is very hard to communicate with them.
However, I have spoken with people from both religions who aren't so millitant in their approach and can understand that God relates to each and every individual, simultaneously, while remaining independent and aloof.
So I have come to understand it's not about this religion or that religion, anymore than it is about this university or that university. What matters is the individual.
So this is how you treat your friends?
Only kidding.
Don't worry I think you're okay, and you're expressing yourself quite nicely. Quite refreshing.
You say ''God used to be my best friend''. Are you saying (in a roundabout way) that God decided to abandon you, or are you saying you abandoned God?
If your desire is ''to believe in Him'' then why don't you?
Have you tried looking at this another way?
If He brought those things back, you may well forget Him, and while a life time may seem like a long time, He knows that it isn't, He knows that it doesn't even equate to what we regard as a moment. And maybe your disparagement keeps you close to Him. IOW, he knows you better than you know yourself.
A real friend is such because they look out for you. A real friend would try to discourage acts that are harmful to you.
There's a nice Biblical verse that captures what I'm trying to convey.
Okay, perhaps ''desire'' is too strong. You 'chose' to not believe in Him, and you desire to have your things back.
Regarding your question, I really have no idea. The fundamentalists that I've encountered just think if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord (God) and saviour, then your hellbound.
The fundamentalist muslims I've encountered are, in a sense, just as damning as their Christian counterparts.
In short, it is very hard to communicate with them.
However, I have spoken with people from both religions who aren't so millitant in their approach and can understand that God relates to each and every individual, simultaneously, while remaining independent and aloof.
So I have come to understand it's not about this religion or that religion, anymore than it is about this university or that university. What matters is the individual.
So this is how you treat your friends?
Only kidding.
Don't worry I think you're okay, and you're expressing yourself quite nicely. Quite refreshing.
You say ''God used to be my best friend''. Are you saying (in a roundabout way) that God decided to abandon you, or are you saying you abandoned God?
If your desire is ''to believe in Him'' then why don't you?
Have you tried looking at this another way?
If He brought those things back, you may well forget Him, and while a life time may seem like a long time, He knows that it isn't, He knows that it doesn't even equate to what we regard as a moment. And maybe your disparagement keeps you close to Him. IOW, he knows you better than you know yourself.
A real friend is such because they look out for you. A real friend would try to discourage acts that are harmful to you.
There's a nice Biblical verse that captures what I'm trying to convey.
She may not have had you, if she had a high IQ.
She may have aborted you.
She may have had a string of affairs in the USA and developed HIV.
She may have......
This is where you are at. You're alive and you have your intelligence. Soon you're not going to be alive and all this will only be the memory of those who care, who are alive. Why not be satisfied with what you have, and work with it?
I don't mean to sound insensitive, but what else is there?
jan.
ShyRebel,
When I was a little boy I didn't know what religion was let alone spirituality. But strangely enough, I vividly remember walking to school one day, looking up to the sky, and asking myself, is God real, if He is then He will reveal Himself to me, and just left it at that. It wasn't till about 10-15 years ago a friend of mine gave me a Bhagavad Gita, which was given to him by a Hare Krishna. I began reading it, and it made absolutely no sense to me at all. I put it down and never looked at it again (why should I, it made no sense).
Anyhow, at that period in my life, I was looking for answers to big philosophical questions, but I'm not an academic, so my search took me in a more artistic direction (as that is my field). For a brief period I lived in London, and my friend introduced me to a book called 'The Prophet' by Khalil Gibran. And when I read that book, it put things into perspective. I started to understand what ''spiritual' means. My apatite for this type of literature grew, I wanted more. From there I started reading stuff from authors like 'Yogananda Paramahansa' (At The Feet of The Master), 'Krishnamurti' and other similar materials. But although my understanding started to develop, I didn't get that same thing that I got from 'The Prophet'. So one day I brought a tiny, novelty type, Bhagavad Gita, a different commentary from the one gathering dust at home, but the verses were in tact. It's novelty size meant I could pop it out anywhere (the book), which was convenient because I didn't have a car at that time and the bus was my form of transport.
To cut this long story short, the book hit me like Mike Tyson, in his heyday. The reaction was not only mental, but physical. I then started reading the Hare Krishna Bhagavad Gita which was very meticulous in it's detail. It's been beating up ever since.
It put everything into perspective.
Now when I read the Qu'ran, or the Bible, the parts that I can relate to make sense.
Now, I look back to the time when I was a little boy I realise that my question was a prayer, and God answered it to the level that I could perceive, in the form of literature (and later on prashadam), years later when I was ready.
Wow! You must be really bright.
As a little boy, I just ate and drank as I pleased, and didn't give a thought to the universe other than things like.. What if this whole thing is a zit on some-ones face, and the world they live in, is just a zit on some-one else's face. Where does it all end.
Did you ever arrive at a conclusion?
I suppose there are pros and cons to both our societies. I think it's good that you were able to have questions about religion, God, and spirituality, at such a young age, but it's unfortunate that you had to be forced to become a muslim. That's something I don't understand about Islam. Well, actually, there's alot of things I don't understand about Islam, but I like the Qu'ran.
In my society I wasn't taught about religion, spirituality, or God. There is nothing in the language that pertains to God, it's all intellect. The religion (the church) was dominant on how we view God and spirituality, but that seemed like nothing but pomp and ceremony. There were no answers to questions, and all the debates took place on an intellectual platform. Now we can understand it is just a reincarnation of Babylonian, Roman, traditions, there never was any intention of spiritualising the people. Instead, it took steps to oppress any real knowledge of God and spirituality by demonising, and destroying other cultures whose traditions, language, and literature, contradicted their own. Dominance is the name of the game.
They used to say ''the sun doesn't set on the british empire'' it was so great.
jan.
When I was a little boy I didn't know what religion was let alone spirituality. But strangely enough, I vividly remember walking to school one day, looking up to the sky, and asking myself, is God real, if He is then He will reveal Himself to me, and just left it at that. It wasn't till about 10-15 years ago a friend of mine gave me a Bhagavad Gita, which was given to him by a Hare Krishna. I began reading it, and it made absolutely no sense to me at all. I put it down and never looked at it again (why should I, it made no sense).
Anyhow, at that period in my life, I was looking for answers to big philosophical questions, but I'm not an academic, so my search took me in a more artistic direction (as that is my field). For a brief period I lived in London, and my friend introduced me to a book called 'The Prophet' by Khalil Gibran. And when I read that book, it put things into perspective. I started to understand what ''spiritual' means. My apatite for this type of literature grew, I wanted more. From there I started reading stuff from authors like 'Yogananda Paramahansa' (At The Feet of The Master), 'Krishnamurti' and other similar materials. But although my understanding started to develop, I didn't get that same thing that I got from 'The Prophet'. So one day I brought a tiny, novelty type, Bhagavad Gita, a different commentary from the one gathering dust at home, but the verses were in tact. It's novelty size meant I could pop it out anywhere (the book
), which was convenient because I didn't have a car at that time and the bus was my form of transport.To cut this long story short, the book hit me like Mike Tyson, in his heyday. The reaction was not only mental, but physical. I then started reading the Hare Krishna Bhagavad Gita which was very meticulous in it's detail. It's been beating up ever since.
It put everything into perspective.
Now when I read the Qu'ran, or the Bible, the parts that I can relate to make sense.
Now, I look back to the time when I was a little boy I realise that my question was a prayer, and God answered it to the level that I could perceive, in the form of literature (and later on prashadam), years later when I was ready.
Wow! You must be really bright.
As a little boy, I just ate and drank as I pleased, and didn't give a thought to the universe other than things like.. What if this whole thing is a zit on some-ones face, and the world they live in, is just a zit on some-one else's face. Where does it all end.
Did you ever arrive at a conclusion?
I suppose there are pros and cons to both our societies. I think it's good that you were able to have questions about religion, God, and spirituality, at such a young age, but it's unfortunate that you had to be forced to become a muslim. That's something I don't understand about Islam. Well, actually, there's alot of things I don't understand about Islam, but I like the Qu'ran.
In my society I wasn't taught about religion, spirituality, or God. There is nothing in the language that pertains to God, it's all intellect. The religion (the church) was dominant on how we view God and spirituality, but that seemed like nothing but pomp and ceremony. There were no answers to questions, and all the debates took place on an intellectual platform. Now we can understand it is just a reincarnation of Babylonian, Roman, traditions, there never was any intention of spiritualising the people. Instead, it took steps to oppress any real knowledge of God and spirituality by demonising, and destroying other cultures whose traditions, language, and literature, contradicted their own. Dominance is the name of the game.
They used to say ''the sun doesn't set on the british empire'' it was so great.
jan.
Of course. But nature doesn't demand to be worshiped and prayed-to; we don't build fancy houses for nature or disfigure our bodies to please nature; nature isn't represented by some pampered old man in red velvet slippers; nature doesn't oppress women or force children to kneel. We can deal with nature, as all animals deal with it. Raising up the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnispiteful god is very different from accepting nature.
All gods were more or less bad ideas, but Big Omni is the worst idea humans have ever had.
What is so difficult about being able to see the internal logic of an idea to which i don't subscribe? Religion is like a video-game: you can understand the rules even if you're not playing.
And thinking like that is bound to keep her stuck.
You didn't read what I said:
I think it would help to ask herself "Why did they do that to me?" and then reflect on the answer(s) that come up in her mind.
I think that unless one comes up with such an explanation of things according to which everyone is eventually happy, one will be miserable, anxious.
If she thinks they did it out of hatred, out of misogyny, out of some perversion, schadenfreude, psychosis or something like that - she'll stay stuck.
At most, explaining her situation that way (that she was a victim of hatred etc.), may offer some peace of mind, for some time. But sooner or later, a more substantial explanation for why people do such things will be required to still have peace of mind.
And God does? Where? When? How do you know God indeed demands such things?
You are soooo stuck on mainstream Christianity! How come? It's almost as if you would believe mainstream Christian doctrine.
The simple, common human desire for more - more meaning, more happiness, more peace of mind, more wisdom.
I, too, would say that I desire to believe in God, but don't believe in God.
Although at this point, I'd say this is actually a culturally common, but nevertheless incoherent and imprecise desire/thought - an attempt to quickly resolve something for which one intuitively knows to be much more complex and requires a detailed discernment.
"I just want to believe in God, pronto, so that I won't have to actually get involved with my life and the people in it, so that I won't have to feel and think about it, but instead live in a kind of haze, much like a robot, on autopilot."
"If I'd just believe in God, so many of my problems with persons X, Y and Z would go away."
IOW, "belief in God" is sometimes approached as a trophy, an ego boost, a factotum, a quick-fix, a drug. And such an approach doesn't last, and eventually, one realizes that one hadn't actually believed in God, even though one was convinced one did.
It seems to me that you are having a bit of a crisis of faith, where the notions of God that you have been familiar with so far, have proven to be unsatisfactory.
But you're currently not able to consider any other notions of God.
She may not have had you, if she had a high IQ.
She may have aborted you.
She may have had a string of affairs in the USA and developed HIV.
She may have......
This is where you are at. You're alive and you have your intelligence. Soon you're not going to be alive and all this will only be the memory of those who care, who are alive. Why not be satisfied with what you have, and work with it?
I don't mean to sound insensitive, but what else is there?
jan.
This is weird. Isn't better for her to be educated?!
I wish she aborted me.
Doesn't stop a person from having a crisis of faith.
ShyRebel,
When I was a little boy I didn't know what religion was let alone spirituality. But strangely enough, I vividly remember walking to school one day, looking up to the sky, and asking myself, is God real, if He is then He will reveal Himself to me, and just left it at that. It wasn't till about 10-15 years ago a friend of mine gave me a Bhagavad Gita, which was given to him by a Hare Krishna. I began reading it, and it made absolutely no sense to me at all. I put it down and never looked at it again (why should I, it made no sense).
Anyhow, at that period in my life, I was looking for answers to big philosophical questions, but I'm not an academic, so my search took me in a more artistic direction (as that is my field). For a brief period I lived in London, and my friend introduced me to a book called 'The Prophet' by Khalil Gibran. And when I read that book, it put things into perspective. I started to understand what ''spiritual' means. My apatite for this type of literature grew, I wanted more. From there I started reading stuff from authors like 'Yogananda Paramahansa' (At The Feet of The Master), 'Krishnamurti' and other similar materials. But although my understanding started to develop, I didn't get that same thing that I got from 'The Prophet'. So one day I brought a tiny, novelty type, Bhagavad Gita, a different commentary from the one gathering dust at home, but the verses were in tact. It's novelty size meant I could pop it out anywhere (the book
To cut this long story short, the book hit me like Mike Tyson, in his heyday. The reaction was not only mental, but physical. I then started reading the Hare Krishna Bhagavad Gita which was very meticulous in it's detail. It's been beating up ever since.
It put everything into perspective.
Now when I read the Qu'ran, or the Bible, the parts that I can relate to make sense.
Now, I look back to the time when I was a little boy I realise that my question was a prayer, and God answered it to the level that I could perceive, in the form of literature (and later on prashadam), years later when I was ready.
Wow! You must be really bright.
As a little boy, I just ate and drank as I pleased, and didn't give a thought to the universe other than things like.. What if this whole thing is a zit on some-ones face, and the world they live in, is just a zit on some-one else's face. Where does it all end.
Did you ever arrive at a conclusion?
I suppose there are pros and cons to both our societies. I think it's good that you were able to have questions about religion, God, and spirituality, at such a young age, but it's unfortunate that you had to be forced to become a muslim. That's something I don't understand about Islam. Well, actually, there's alot of things I don't understand about Islam, but I like the Qu'ran.
In my society I wasn't taught about religion, spirituality, or God. There is nothing in the language that pertains to God, it's all intellect. The religion (the church) was dominant on how we view God and spirituality, but that seemed like nothing but pomp and ceremony. There were no answers to questions, and all the debates took place on an intellectual platform. Now we can understand it is just a reincarnation of Babylonian, Roman, traditions, there never was any intention of spiritualising the people. Instead, it took steps to oppress any real knowledge of God and spirituality by demonising, and destroying other cultures whose traditions, language, and literature, contradicted their own. Dominance is the name of the game.
They used to say ''the sun doesn't set on the british empire'' it was so great.
jan.
the thing I'm grateful for is that i didn't read books to become atheist. I mean I'm 100% sure that I didn't undergo any kind of brainwashing to become an non-muslim/atheist..
I don't have the answers for everything but I can see that the secret of the universe is bigger than religion
why do you like the Quran? no one likes it, except the brainwashed
wynn,
Okay. The problem with this is, when and how do you know when you've got what you need?
Have you given any thought to where the intuition comes from?
That's like saying I would do more shopping if only I had an apache helicopter.
Knowing this why cling to your particular desire to believe in God? :shrug:
jan.
Okay. The problem with this is, when and how do you know when you've got what you need?
Have you given any thought to where the intuition comes from?
That's like saying I would do more shopping if only I had an apache helicopter.
Knowing this why cling to your particular desire to believe in God? :shrug:
jan.