If God is evil

the reason i like the bible is because it is consistent with what i see in the world around me. what i experience and what it tells of in the bible seem very similar. i can relate to it. what if the bible told of some happy, shmappy, goody two shoes god, who was nice?

what a fucking joke that would be right?
 
Lori_7 said:
i think that the bible is kind of "layered" in that i believe it can have different meanings to different people at different times regarding different things. the same scripture can have various different meanings and reveal various things to various people at various times, and that all of those things are true, even though they are not the same at all.
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:D.
 
Simon Anders said:
Let me know
in what way
and why.
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Who does a person think he or she is:
God's equal?
God's favorite?
God's enemy?
Someone whose assessment counts above all others?
A worthelss being who doesn't know anything?
God's creation?
Not God's creation?

And so on.


See below -

I start with a few options.

One notices one believes God is good.
If one is satisfied with this, that seems like the end of the issue, for now.

One notices one believes God is evil.
If one is satisfied with this - in terms of certainty -, that seems like the end of the issue, for now.

If one is not sure and wants to try to gain more information, then some of the directions you suggest may be helpful to some people.
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These options you mention are just one part of the issue.
The other part is - Who is this I that believes these things about God? Who does this I think it is?

If you think you are God's enemy and you also discover you believe God is good, what does that mean for you?
If you think you are not God's creation at all and you also discover you believe God is evil, what does that mean for you?

And so on, all the various combinations that make a world of difference in what a belief that one might discover to have about God will mean to one.

A simple example makes it clear: If someone is already convinced one is God's favorite, then they probably won't be disturbed about whether God is good or evil, as they are already sure God won't hurt them since they are God's favorite (even though God might hurt others).
Conversely, if someone is already convinced one is God's enemy, then they probably won't be disturbed about whether God is good or evil, as they are already sure God will hurt them since they are God's enemy (even though God might not hurt others).
And so on.


So we can conclude that when exploring whether God is evil or not, we also need to explore what our position is in relation to God, who we are in relation to God.

Traditionally, religions address this topic. But if we try to address it simply from one side, without exploring our current and our ideal or potential position in relation to God, then any such analysis will be insufficient, and will leave us wondering.


However it seems important to me to check in and see what one believes, perhaps regularly.
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Sure.
Hence in many religions, there are admonistions against blind faith.


If one focuses on 'how do I ascertain the truth' one may skip past a resolution that is already formed or in the process of forming, despite what one thinks ones methodology should be or how one should become certain.
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Agreed.
 
greenberg said:
These options you mention are just one part of the issue.
The other part is - Who is this I that believes these things about God? Who does this I think it is?
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Perhaps they are a only a part of the issue for you. I'll see if you can show me it is also just part of the issue for me.

If you think you are God's enemy and you also discover you believe God is good, what does that mean for you?
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I certainly have been concerned at times that this might be the case. At a certain level, I found, in myself, I cannot judge myself 'evil'. I found I don't do that. So if one of us is evil, it is God.

If you think you are not God's creation at all and you also discover you believe God is evil, what does that mean for you?
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That has not come up for me.

And so on, all the various combinations that make a world of difference in what a belief that one might discover to have about God will mean to one.
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I think I would need to respond to a particular person with a particular position. As a general hypothetical I think it is confusing.

A simple example makes it clear: If someone is already convinced one is God's favorite, then they probably won't be disturbed about whether God is good or evil, as they are already sure God won't hurt them since they are God's favorite (even though God might hurt others).
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And it would also still be possible that they would be concerned about God's actions and nature. This can happen in families where the favorite child does not trust Daddy or Mommy.

So we can conclude that when exploring whether God is evil or not, we also need to explore what our position is in relation to God, who we are in relation to God.
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I am still not sure this has come up for me. I am still concerned that discussing this in the abstract is somehow misleading. I do not simply mean that concrete examples will help, but that THE concrete example is needed. It feels ungrounded to me.

In this context...

if the concerned individual is doing a lot of
what iffing (around what it might mean if they believed this or that)
rather than trying to deal with their actual imprinting

I think it can be damaging, or delaying.
 
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Simon Anders said:
In this context...

if the concerned individual is doing a lot of
what iffing (around what it might mean if they believed this or that)
rather than trying to deal with their actual imprinting

I think it can be damaging, or delaying.
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Dealing with the actual imprinting in what way?

Dealing with the actual imprinting in a particular way is not a given, in my opinion. Dealing with the actual imprinting can also mean to deal with the way one is currently dealing with the actual imprinting.

A person's current idea about who they are is neither necessarily the correct one, nor does it mean that it will stay the same, nor that they themselves are 100% sure of their idea about who they really are.

I see basically two variables in all this:
1. one's understanding of God,
2. one's understanding of oneself (which includes an understanding of who one is in relation to other beings, including God).
I find that it is not enough if one treats only one of these as a variable, while the other one is treated as a non-variable.
 
greenberg said:
Dealing with the actual imprinting in what way?
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That depends on the person and the system they use. If they do. For me I approach the thought forms in a number of ways to see if they can loosen their hold. I also allow the feelings around the imprinting to take me bake to specific instances where I was imprinted to see if via fully experiencing what happened there the imprinting can loosen. I think there are also indirect activities that soften the hold of imprinting: if there is something I love to do, doing it can form a backdrop where imprinting is more likely to loosen.

Dealing with the actual imprinting in a particular way is not a given, in my opinion. Dealing with the actual imprinting can also mean to deal with the way one is currently dealing with the actual imprinting.
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A kind of meta imprinting. Yes, I agree.

A person's current idea about who they are is neither necessarily the correct one, nor does it mean that it will stay the same, nor that they themselves are 100% sure of their idea about who they really are.
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This is true.

I see basically two variables in all this:
1. one's understanding of God,
2. one's understanding of oneself (which includes an understanding of who one is in relation to other beings, including God).
I find that it is not enough if one treats only one of these as a variable, while the other one is treated as a non-variable.
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I have (had) imprinting around God - and this is closely tied in with imprinting about myself - and I follow the admittedly rather abstract description I mentioned above in approaching these.

I think we have slipped in two directions before in past discussions where I want to shift to the concrete and you prefer a more abstract, comprehensive approach.

I would guess that my reaction is probably not so useful and is perhaps based on a confusion on my part that what is happening, for you, in those posts is a mirror of your current, personal questioning related to yourself. I read it and think, without noticing it really, Oh but if you stay on this very generalized, abstract level, it is going to seem utterly hopeless. Instead of focusing on the particular imprinting - or what is currently 'up' regarding it.

edit: So I think when I read your post here, it seemed to me you were trying to reach an overall decision about your own stance, in some sense before some other process. whereas I encounter my stance(s) as imprinting in an ongoing way. I encounter a portion of myself that thinks 'If I love something, it will be used against me' or 'God must find me disgusting' or whatever the specific imprinting is that I realize, and then I 'work' with that. Rather than trying to figure out some general position in advance.

So I think I may have been creating cross purposes because of what it would mean on my part if I wrote about things the way you have here.
 
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Simon Anders said:
I think we have slipped in two directions before in past discussions where I want to shift to the concrete and you prefer a more abstract, comprehensive approach.

I would guess that my reaction is probably not so useful and is perhaps based on a confusion on my part that what is happening, for you, in those posts is a mirror of your current, personal questioning related to yourself. I read it and think, without noticing it really, Oh but if you stay on this very generalized, abstract level, it is going to seem utterly hopeless. Instead of focusing on the particular imprinting - or what is currently 'up' regarding it.
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I agree that focusing on a particular imprinting or issue or problem seems more feasible, and more possible to yield results.
However, the danger in this approach is that we can lose sight of the "bigger picture", or never even develop one. So when we resolve several such problems, each one on its own terms, we might end up with solutions that cannot coexist, and we will so have new problems. This is what actually happened to me: For some time, I had resolved my problems, yet each of these solutions implied a set of values that collided with the set of values necessary to resolve other problems; but to keep up the solutions, the conflicting values had to be kept up as well. For example, with some things, I dealt the Buddhist way, with other things the capitalist way, with yet other things in a politically correct way, and there were a few more of such ways. Granted, it worked for some time. But eventually I was very frustrated over the whole inconsistency, and saw there was need for some all-overarching, all-encompassing principle or value or something like that that could be acted upon or taken into account in every instance, in all problems, without my having to compromise one set of values in order to solve a problem, and then compromise yet another set of values to keep up the solution to that problem and so on.
 
greenberg said:
I agree that focusing on a particular imprinting or issue or problem seems more feasible, and more possible to yield results.
However, the danger in this approach is that we can lose sight of the "bigger picture", or never even develop one. So when we resolve several such problems, each one on its own terms, we might end up with solutions that cannot coexist, and we will so have new problems. This is what actually happened to me: For some time, I had resolved my problems, yet each of these solutions implied a set of values that collided with the set of values necessary to resolve other problems; but to keep up the solutions, the conflicting values had to be kept up as well. For example, with some things, I dealt the Buddhist way, with other things the capitalist way, with yet other things in a politically correct way, and there were a few more of such ways. Granted, it worked for some time. But eventually I was very frustrated over the whole inconsistency, and saw there was need for some all-overarching, all-encompassing principle or value or something like that that could be acted upon or taken into account in every instance, in all problems, without my having to compromise one set of values in order to solve a problem, and then compromise yet another set of values to keep up the solution to that problem and so on.
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Ah, good. I am glad you understood.

I deal with all 'mine' in the same way. That is when I am consciously dealing with them, despite the differences between the contents of the imprintings. Habits come and go - even brooding and feeling guilty could be seen as an attempt to resolve, and so of course could posting here, as a couple of examples - but it seems I have hit a core approach.

It is very refreshing to read even the short set of described 'approaches' or values you mention as I think most people do not realize how eclectic they are philosophically and methodologically. The curse and the blessing of some modern humans.
 
Simon Anders said:
I have heard other versions, but the basic idea seems to be that we are in the hands of a very powerful being who is not God and we should not be fooled by this demiurge.
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The asymmetry which physicists discovered crept into the cosmos in its infancy and made life possible could certainly be used as evidence of a demiurge or imperfection if you are so minded.

It also suggests that the ending of this asymmetry must inevitably be death.

Physicists have proven that the cosmos will die.
 
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