Does religion need God?

[Wisdom_Seeker]

If God wants a relationship with his creation why hasn't he ever shown his face to me ? Where is he ? Even talking would probably be sufficient, but I never heard a peep out of him.. :shrug:

He has, he is always there man; we work our entire lifes in order to make a shell, and not be able to be free. We are caged birds within our own prison (ego).

If you want to seek God, you will have to loose what you have worked for your entire life; that is why only a few are the chosen ones.

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

*************
M*W: "Religion" is a system, method, or plan of worship. "Religion" is the process of something that is loved and adored. "Religion" can range from worshipping the organized travel of piss ants to revering the solar center of the universe. The word "Religion" has many meanings, but the ultimate meaning is that we give up ourselves to a higher calling. That calling can be:

God, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, The Sun, Joseph Smith, John Wesley, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Pope JPII, Mother Teresa, Jimmy Swaggart, Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson, Charles Manson, Hillary Clinton, Fidel Castro, The local crack ho, Cocaine, Alcohol, Food, Sex, The list is endless.

Even if you are trying to be humorous, not that is wasn´t humorous (I didn´t laught but it almost made me smile); that list is stupid and just plain sucks, I have a better one for you:
Lao-Tzu,
Krishna,
Shiva,
Shakti,
Pitacoras,
Socrates,
Chang-Tzu,
Zarathustra,
Yeshua,
Siddhartha Gautam Buddha,
Mahavira,
Patanjali,
Atisha,
Muhammad,
J.Krishnamurti,
Rajneesh Chandra Mohan
... ammong others.

Look them up, it might do you some good, a simple "google search" will do the trick.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Can anything which doesn't claim to have a God really be a religion?

I guess we have to look at it through your eyes to answer your question. You seem to like to ask questions about things that have no exact answers or answers that you don't think are correct to you. That way you can control every answer by either denying or questioning the answers given to just continue on with hearing yourself talk about nothing.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Even if you are trying to be humorous, not that is wasn´t humorous (I didn´t laught but it almost made me smile); that list is stupid and just plain sucks, I have a better one for you:
Lao-Tzu,
Krishna,
Shiva,
Shakti,
Pitacoras,
Socrates,
Chang-Tzu,
Zarathustra,
Yeshua,
Siddhartha Gautam Buddha,
Mahavira,
Patanjali,
Atisha,
Muhammad,
J.Krishnamurti,
Rajneesh Chandra Mohan
... ammong others.

Look them up, it might do you some good, a simple "google search" will do the trick.

*************
M*W: Like I said, "the list is endless."

 

[Learned Hand]

There are no forms of buddhism that I am aware of that assert the existence of one or more deities. If you can provide evidence of some that would be great.

Don't practicing Buddhists pray and meditate before an icon of Buddha? If so, it seems to me that Buddhism is a religion with Buddha being a reincarnated deity.

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Don't practicing Buddhists pray and meditate before an icon of Buddha? If so, it seems to me that Buddhism is a religion with Buddha being a reincarnated deity.

This is just a common meditation practice, they don´t actually worship the image; if a Buddhist monk worships the Buddha, then he is not really a Buddhist.
Therefore the ancient Buddhist saying: "If you see the Buddha in the street, kill him".
The meditation practice consists on focusing your sight in a particular static object, it can be a flame, a statue, a spot on the wall... anything.

The eyes are always going from spot "A" to spot "B", it is very difficult for the eyes to remain static in a particular spot. So the purpose of this practice is to not let your eyes move from the same spot for as long as you can hold it. If you devotely practice this meditation, it is said that your eyes will struggle to move to another spot, but since you don´t let them consciently, the eyes will do a 180 degrees turn, sort of speak. So you will "see" your inner-self.
This is just one meditation techinique out of hundreds, it is one of the most used ammong Buddhists.

Besides, the image of the Buddha, is not really him, it is the physical representation of his known attributes, such as compassion (heart lotus flower), psyquic powers (spot on forehead), opened crown chakra (hairstyle), aware of his inner self as well as aware of the outer-world (eyes slightly opened), all receptive to wisdom (big ears), meditative (lotus position), opened to people of all kinds (hand posture)... ammong other things.

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

*************
M*W: Like I said, "the list is endless."

But you are making fun of it, without even knowing what you are talking about.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

But you are making fun of it, without even knowing what you are talking about.

*************
M*W: So? You can come up with your own list of gods. Nobody is stopping you.

 

[Enmos]

He has, he is always there man; we work our entire lifes in order to make a shell, and not be able to be free. We are caged birds within our own prison (ego).

If you want to seek God, you will have to loose what you have worked for your entire life; that is why only a few are the chosen ones.

Why do I have to loose everything I worked for if He's always here ? Why can't he say "Hey Enmos I'm here, really". Don't he want me to believe ? Is he hiding from me ?

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

*************
M*W: So? You can come up with your own list of gods. Nobody is stopping you.

Emm, since you haven´t noticed, they weren´t gods, they were men who achieved fulfillment in life. Just because they achieved something you haven´t it is no reason to be jealous and call them gods; that is just so Christian of you.

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Why do I have to loose everything I worked for if He's always here ? Why can't he say "Hey Enmos I'm here, really". Don't he want me to believe ? Is he hiding from me ?

He is not a man, he is in the air we breath, and the water we drink; but we do not see him because we have judgements of the past that cages new experiences in our so-called "knowledge". We have been taught not to see him since birth.
Your personality is a fake, and so is everybody else´s; to let go of the fake is the only path to know the truth. The moment you cage an experience as good or bad, you already missed the oportunity of trascendence; your mind won´t let you trascend duality since it lives in duality. That is the reason why Zen masters teach that Satori (Nirvana, Samadhi, Tao, God, Consciousness) is only achievable through "No-Mind".
All is solved with awareness of your every thought and action, to be the witness that has no judgement on experiences, and just holds a neutral attitude towards the totality of life.

The ironic part of this is, there is no promess that you will achieve anything, no matter how hard you try. It is something that just happens when you realize the stupidity of being trapped in the misery that you yourself have created during your entire life.

 

[Enmos]

He is not a man, he is in the air we breath, and the water we drink; but we do not see him because we have judgements of the past that cages new experiences in our so-called "knowledge". We have been taught not to see him since birth.
Your personality is a fake, and so is everybody else´s; to let go of the fake is the only path to know the truth. The moment you cage an experience as good or bad, you already missed the oportunity of trascendence; your brain won´t let you trascend duality since it lives in duality.
All is solved with awareness of your every thought and action, to be the witness that has no judgement on experiences, and just holds a neutral attitude towards the totality of life.

The ironic part of this is, there is no promess that you will achieve anything, no matter how hard you try. It is something that just happens when you realize the stupidity of being trapped in the misery that you yourself have created during your entire life.

If I already missed the opportunity of transcendence through no fault of mine (as you point out), why are you saying I can know God by loosing everything I worked for ?
Even worse, how can ANYBODY know him (you are addressing God with he too ) if at the moment you cage an experience as good or bad you unknowingly have forfeited any chance of transcendence ? Surely everybody has 'caged' many experiences as good or bad..

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

If I already missed the opportunity of transcendence through no fault of mine (as you point out), why are you saying I can know God by loosing everything I worked for ?

You have missed the oportunity before, but that doesn´t mean you have to continue missing the oportunity everytime it knocks in your door. If we continue with our past judgements, we will continue missing it.

Even worse, how can ANYBODY know him (you are addressing God with he too ) if at the moment you cage an experience as good or bad you unknowingly have forfeited any chance of transcendence ? Surely everybody has 'caged' many experiences as good or bad..

I have to address God somehow, "he" is just a practical expression, though not entirely real, like the word "God" itself.
We all have done it, we all "ate from the fruit of knowledge". But that doesn´t mean we should continue doing so just because you have done it in the past.

 

[Enmos]

You have missed the oportunity before, but that doesn´t mean you have to continue missing the oportunity everytime it knocks in your door. If we continue with our past judgements, we will continue missing it.


I have to address God somehow, "he" is just a practical expression, though not entirely real, like the word "God" itself.
We all have done it, we all "ate from the fruit of knowledge". But that doesn´t mean we should continue doing so just because you have done it in the past.

It is my understanding that duality is intrinsic to being human.
Also, if you are right about this, only a very, very small portion of humanity has ever transcended.

 

[iceaura]

If you mean higher power, force, uniting energy, undefined other power, or supernatural governing entity- then I think yes, without this religions would be philosphy. Even if there's only a belief in afterlife or reincarnation there is most often still some sort metaphysical guiding entity.

The conception of this "undefined other power" as an entity or being in its own right - as a guiding entity (and therefore separate from the "guided" entities) might give you an extended form of "god" - but there are religions, such as Taoism and Buddhism and various Animisms and so forth, that do not conceive of the "guiding" as being done by an entity separated in that fashion.

And more than you would conceive of "waltz" or "jig" as a guiding entity in itself, separate from the actual dancing.

Religions have ritual and worship. That differs from philosophies, which do not. Faith is common to us all. One can worship without worshipping anything in particular, one can have faith without having faith in something - many millions of people have, and do.

Again, no. There's much discussion (especially among physicists) as to how "real" these laws are versus our "understanding" of them. ”
Are you saying these laws might not actually exist outside of our minds?

Of course not. We invented them, and we did not install them in the outer universe. AFAIK only humans do math. The universe - or the God - integrates empirically.

There is a pretty good discussion of this in the Physics&Math forum, in the "hard problem" thread, where physics jocks show that to match up with nature the infinite sum of the multiplicative inverses of the positve integers should be -1/12. Your math needs adjusting accordingly, if you want to use it to make laws about nature. These laws will include "summation" - an invention of the human mind.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Emm, since you haven´t noticed, they weren´t gods, they were men who achieved fulfillment in life. Just because they achieved something you haven´t it is no reason to be jealous and call them gods; that is just so Christian of you

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M*W: Okay, so they were great men. I don't know who all those Indian people were anyway.

You don't have the slightest idea of what I've achieved, and no, I'm not jealous of them! How ignorant of you to say that! How could I be jealous of Socrates? You're just looking for any old excuse to slam me. (And that has no affect on me BTW). You're not important in my life.

Calling me christian, now that's an insult!!!

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

It is my understanding that duality is intrinsic to being human.

Yeap, you´re right, that is the reason we are born in the first place (when we are born, we are meant to die); this is the meaning of Karma. Zen phylosophy says: "Do not choose", because everything else is duality. Your likes and dislikes are the tricks of the mind to stay in this cyclic existence; mind cannot exist beyond cyclic existence.
As long as we live in duality, we will continue reincarnating unconsciously. If we die unsconscious, we are born unsconscious; that is why we can´t remember past lives so easily.

Buddha´s first discourse after enlightment is very well known, and is the foundation wisdom of the Buddhist tradition:

The four noble truths:
" 1. Suffering (dukkha) : literally means "unsatisfactory circumstances". Involves birth, aging, illness, death, being with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing, not getting what one wants, and "in brief" the five aggregates-of-clinging (pancupādānakkhandhā).
2. Suffering's origin (dukkhasamudayo) is desire (tanhā) for mundane pleasures; all that is taken away by death is mundane.
3. Suffering's end (dukkhanirodho) comes from the relinquishment of freedom from this craving.
4. The path leading to suffering's end is the Noble Eightfold Path."

Suffering is caused by duality, and suffering´s end happens with trascendence of duality.

Also, if you are right about this, only a very, very small portion of humanity has ever transcended.

Bingo.

When Jesus or Krishna, or any Buddha talk, they are not talking from the self; it is God speaking through them, sort of speak. God is just trascendence.
Every single Buddha of the past have declared: "I am God", because they are just empty vehicles on which God functions; this is how to read the scriptures. Jesus was not literally "God", it was God declaring it through Jesus.

"Yeshua says: I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand— and they shall stand as a single unity" - Gospel of Thomas.
Jesus won´t choose you, it is God, trascendence that will choose you (only a few).
Notice that this cannot be in the cannon, it goes against any "following"; it cannot be adapted to a lucrative business, the church needs its followers.

"How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?" (Deuteronomy 32:30)

"If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness" (Job 33:23)

"Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found" (Ecclesiastes 7:28)

 

[Enmos]

Jesus won´t choose you, it is God, trascendence that will choose you (only a few).
Notice that this cannot be in the cannon, it goes against any "following"; it cannot be adapted to a lucrative business, the church needs its followers.

I'm sorry, but if that's the case I fail to see the point of it.
I can't try to transcend, because transcendence will choose me and not the other way around.
Well, why bother then ? If transcendence chooses you, you have lucked out. Nothing more to it :shrug:

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

I'm sorry, but if that's the case I fail to see the point of it.
I can't try to transcend, because transcendence will choose me and not the other way around.
Well, why bother then ? If transcendence chooses you, you have lucked out. Nothing more to it :shrug:

lol, I see your point; but there is something missing there. Trascendence will choose you only if you have understood yourself, only if you have understood your own ego. Because the ego is the crave for duality.

"His Disciples say to him: When will the repose of the dead occur, and when will the New World come? || He says to them: That which you look for has already come, but you do not recognize it." Gospel of Thomas Vs 51.

 

[Enmos]

lol, I see your point; but there is something missing there. Trascendence will choose you only if you have understood yourself, only if you have understood your own ego. Because the ego is the crave for duality.

"His Disciples say to him: When will the repose of the dead occur, and when will the New World come? || He says to them: That which you look for has already come, but you do not recognize it." Gospel of Thomas Vs 51.

But seriously, whats the point ?
God creates these beings, give them ego and then rewards them for negating it.
If this is the sole purpose for us being here, it's a very shallow one. Why create us in the first place ?