Cris,
But you are not being neutral – you are phrasing everything with the presumption of existence. You have effectively adopted the Christian position.
The logical argument suffices here: It is impossible to prove a negative, so we must take into account the possibility that the phenomenon in question exists.
Hence my presumption of existence in my response to you.
Like I said I’ve been there and done that. When you get around to digging deeper, and if you are adequately analytical and perceptive, you will come to understand that the concept of god is pure fantasy and trying to talk to a fantasy or allow it to affect you is futile.
As long as you think it a fantasy, you are trapped in the vicious circle.
Read my post again, other people only formed a small part of my studies.
By "other people" I mean everything anyone said about God or anything you've read by anyone about anything.
And you seem to be defining failure as the inability to communicate with a god – but failure is a meaningless term when the god does not exist.
Vicious circularity.
In which case, you were most likely believing in an illusionary god, formed by the conditioning you were exposed to. You likely had no idea of God though.
Rather condescending of you, but, so?
Not condescending. What I have for you is compassion, but you don't see it.
If you had no idea of God (but some ideas of an illusionary god), the consequence is that you could not communicate with God.
No one has yet shown that there is anything other than conditioning, self-induced or otherwise
If you believe there is nothing else, then this is all you will see, and noone can change that. Unless you let them, on such terms as it takes to show that.
– isn’t that what you are trying to disprove?
Yes, but it is not in my power to show that to you. This will probably look like evasion to you, but it is not. Just like no description, no analysis of a kiss can convey you the true experience of a kiss, no description or analysis of God can make you experience God. This is all I can tell you.
Because you are attempting to use it as an axiom. Prove it first, or accept that it is only a fantasy speculation.
Axioms are not provable.
Do you think you have to be master over your belief in God?
An essential tenet of Christianity is free will to choose between God or not. If you are not the master of your belief then the freedom to choose requirement becomes nonsense.
True. But insisting on being the master over the full content of your belief in God can lead to disappointments and superstitions.
After all, Christianity says God was there first, not you. You cannot define God, God can define you.
And my stance is not in tune with certain mainstream Christian theologies. There are many people who think their faith in God is their own effort.
And why do you think this particular perspective you have chosen to explore is any more valid than theirs?
Because *my* studies say so.
Why is this not relevant to your case?
This may be a crucial answer for you.
I already believed.
I am trying to show you that an ex post re-assessment of your belief and how it came to be offers you a completely different view on the whole notion of believing.
It is more than adequate to realize that the Christian god is only a concept – no one has yet shown it can be or is anything else. And what other type of god is there other than illusionary? You’ll need proof to answer adequately.
No matter what anyone tells you -- What is not yours, will be illusionary to you. So will God, if you depend on reasons to believe in Him.
I think that now, you are slowly becoming ready to actually get to know God.
Unnecessary condescending bullshit.
How is that? ... People are reluctant to take new paths ...
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Cottontop3000,
Sorry Water. I think I'm getting your point of view now, though. Maybe something like this: Once you let go of your perceived God (from the way you were conditioned to perceive Him as a child in church and the family environment, say), you become free, or open rather, to find the real God? Or to let Him find you? Is that close?
Yes, exactly!
We tend to cling on to already established perceptions (of everything, and esp. of God) because of safety, or because we are emotionally attached to them (and in that, completely discarding the power of our reason!).
In such a situation, it seems advisable, to identify what God is not -- this quest bears good fruit.
I'm interested in your point of view and how you came to it in your life. Please let me know, either publicly or privately. You intrigue me. Thanks.
Long story ... I don't really know how I came to it ... I certainly did not plan it the way it went and goes, and maybe this is why it goes so well.
I think what triggered me was that the scientific method per definition undermines itself and its findings, and as such, it is not reliable. This also means that any argument made with this method is questionable, and therefore not to be used as ultimate proof.
It was rather easy from there on.
* * *
Cottontop3000
1.) This God made a covenant to drive out several groups, or nations, of people living in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and Asia Minor. They're still there, so I say he broke his covenant (if a "HE" made the covenant at all). (I have nothing against any of the descendants of these people. I'm just using this as an example of why I believe what I do about certain things. ) In reality though, this covenant sounds more to me like a human-inspired, human-motivated power grab for land and resources, in the second and third millenia B.C., cloaked as a religious crusade ordered in a sense by a "God."
Life on earth, with or without God, is a matter of practical concerns.
The religious reasons and the practical survival reasons always appear to go hand in hand.
2.) "He" ordered his people to "destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),". To me, this sounds exactly like a jealous or worried MAN more than a "God." Why is THE God scared and jealous? Of whom would God be jealous? If He was the One, the Alpha and the Omega, who does "He" have to be worried about? Some other God? Or a contrived God created by a man or men trying to ascend to a more powerful position in their neck of the woods. Could Moses, the recognized author of the first several books of the Bible, have been a power-hungry man intent on conquering hated enemies? Using fear and intimidation (of his God) to whip his gullible people into fighting form?
And this is where the lost-in-translation problematic enters.
I speak for langueges and have a linguistic education. What the Bible says depends a lot on the language it is translated into.
The issue is multilayered, but relatively easy to understand for a linguist. For now, I'll say just that the Bible as it is in English, it conveys a particular Western understanding of Christianity. And as such, it is, in many ways, misleading.
Or, maybe, just like in the times of Moses, God allowed people to have brutal laws as they were too hard-hearted for anything else, God allows for the modern translations of the Bible as people are too hard-hearted to understand things that need a soft heart to be understood.
It is esp. one of the core concepts -- justice -- that has a very unfortunate rendering in English.
I warmly suggest you to read this article
http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm . It should help you overcome the most harmful Western misconceptions of Christianity.
