Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Jan, do you believe God needs to be "worshipped" in order to continue "His" benevolence, and if you don't worship Him, He will bring His wrath down on you?
Or would you agree that, assuming God is the creative force, *It* has no emotional stake in it's creative powers and is just an all pervading *implaccable" permittive/restrictive condition, essentially mahematical in its creative (as well as destructive) functions, to which I would hazard a guess, everyone will agree needs to be respected? I believe everyone recognizes that there is an essential aspect (essence) to this condition, i.e. the law of "cause and effect". As humans are an effect (result) of billions of years of probabilistic (potentially permitted) evolution, why should this *function* need to be worshipped at a personal level?
If I recall your own words "God just is", why would He favor a theist (believer) who may worship Him, over an atheist who does believes that the law of cause and effect does not favor one thing over another, but just IS and functions in an implacable way that needs to be understood and respected in order to avoid pursuing a cause with undesirable (side) effects. Indications are that, even as theists (of one kind or another) are in the majority, the billions of sincere prayers have absolutely no effect on how the Wholeness functions and is expressed in *our* reality.
Do you believe prayer has ANY effect on Universal functions? If we prayed for an eternal sun (one of the main causes of life on earth), will that persuade God against allowing the sun to burn itself out and swallow up the entire earth and all life thereon? Who then will be left to worship Him? If I pray hard enough, will that prevent my car from ending up rusting in a junk yard? So clearly, from our knowledge of How universal laws function, prayer is a useless exercise in terms of influencing how God (the Wholeness) functions.
I don't dispute that prayer has a personal emotional effect on people, but don't expect to find a divine ear which can offer salvation. The historical evidence argues against that notion. So, if God does not respond to our wishes and desires, the logical conclusion is that God is not a motivated benevolent creator "who cares" and we cannot ascribe any emotional properties to God.
So then we are left only with an implacable function of cause and effect. But that contradicts all theistic propositions of a sentient and motivated creator, who favors humans over say, mindless insects, which have already proven that belief in a god is not necessary to be *selected* as the most successful and persistent animated organism in the entire history of the earth.
If you have not already seen it, I recommend "The Hellstrom Chronicle" and old but
historically true account of the amazing adaptive powers of insects. To humans they are just pests to be exterminated, but if I were a god, I would considere the insect as my greatest creation.
Or would you agree that, assuming God is the creative force, *It* has no emotional stake in it's creative powers and is just an all pervading *implaccable" permittive/restrictive condition, essentially mahematical in its creative (as well as destructive) functions, to which I would hazard a guess, everyone will agree needs to be respected? I believe everyone recognizes that there is an essential aspect (essence) to this condition, i.e. the law of "cause and effect". As humans are an effect (result) of billions of years of probabilistic (potentially permitted) evolution, why should this *function* need to be worshipped at a personal level?
If I recall your own words "God just is", why would He favor a theist (believer) who may worship Him, over an atheist who does believes that the law of cause and effect does not favor one thing over another, but just IS and functions in an implacable way that needs to be understood and respected in order to avoid pursuing a cause with undesirable (side) effects. Indications are that, even as theists (of one kind or another) are in the majority, the billions of sincere prayers have absolutely no effect on how the Wholeness functions and is expressed in *our* reality.
Do you believe prayer has ANY effect on Universal functions? If we prayed for an eternal sun (one of the main causes of life on earth), will that persuade God against allowing the sun to burn itself out and swallow up the entire earth and all life thereon? Who then will be left to worship Him? If I pray hard enough, will that prevent my car from ending up rusting in a junk yard? So clearly, from our knowledge of How universal laws function, prayer is a useless exercise in terms of influencing how God (the Wholeness) functions.
I don't dispute that prayer has a personal emotional effect on people, but don't expect to find a divine ear which can offer salvation. The historical evidence argues against that notion. So, if God does not respond to our wishes and desires, the logical conclusion is that God is not a motivated benevolent creator "who cares" and we cannot ascribe any emotional properties to God.
So then we are left only with an implacable function of cause and effect. But that contradicts all theistic propositions of a sentient and motivated creator, who favors humans over say, mindless insects, which have already proven that belief in a god is not necessary to be *selected* as the most successful and persistent animated organism in the entire history of the earth.
If you have not already seen it, I recommend "The Hellstrom Chronicle" and old but
historically true account of the amazing adaptive powers of insects. To humans they are just pests to be exterminated, but if I were a god, I would considere the insect as my greatest creation.
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