The Bible

Well my friend, the problem is that noone or no word can really explain God, not even the Bible.

Is like trying to explain a sunset to a blind person.

Basically you are saying that one cannot be critical of someone's ideas about God and the universe because to be clear or communicate about these things is to attempt to describe the ineffable. Also you are saying no one who doesn't get it will.

Most religious people disagree with you completely. They all value certain texts, stories, communicative interactions over others and feel that some are better able to reach people and convey the truth. They also all feel that one can move from states of ignorance to states with more understand via interactions with others.

The Bible is a messy document. But it does refer to God and religious isssues. It is better in some ways than a telephone book and I have no doubt that some people actually gained knowledge from it, more than those who read the Hackansack directory did from reading that. But, this is not saying very much.
 
The ancient hebrews were a VERY patriarchial,harsh society, hence the depiction of women as inferior and God as a tempermental bully. Yahweh was essentially a tribal war God worshipped along with others before the priesthood pushed him as the "one true god".I find some spirituality in the OT, but very little. The teachings of Jesus in the NT however are vastly superior and fall in line with other greats, like Krishna,Budha,etc.
Just think of the biblical God as one of many Gods/Goddesses invented by man to reflect what THEY THOUGHT God was(or should be).
If you study the spiritual system of the ancient egyptians you will definetely see a much more respectfull attitude towards women as Goddesses like Aset,Hetheru and others were very much loved and held in high esteem.
But alas their cultural attitudes were quite different than the bronze age hebrews.

And there are other cultures, certainly some of the Native American ones, that also had a much higher regard for women, the female, the earth and so on.
 
Again, about this subject, Osho can explain it better than I do, and it sums up the attitude of theists and atheists from my perspective:

"I will tell you an anecdote: One windy morning, just as the spring was ending, a snail started travelling upwards on a cherry tree. Some sparrows which were just on a neighboring oak started laughing, because it was not the season and there were no cherries on the tree, and this poor snail was making so much effort to reach the top. They laughed at his expense. Then one sparrow flew down, came near to the snail and said, `Darling, where are you going? There are no cherries yet on the tree.' But the snail never even paused; she continued her upward journey. Without pausing, the snail said, `But they will be there when I reach. They will be there when I reach there. It will take a long time for me to reach to the top, and by that time cherries will be there.'

God is not, but he will be there by the time you reach. It is not something which is already there -- it is never there. It is a growth. It is your own growth. When you reach to a point where you are totally conscious, God is. But don't argue. Rather than wasting your energy in arguing, use your energy in transforming yourself. And energy is not much. If you divert your energy into argument you can become a genius in arguing. But then you are wasting, it is at a great cost, because the same energy can become meditation. You can become a logician: you can make very logical arguments, you can find very convincing proofs or disproofs, but you will remain the same. Your arguments are not going to change you.
"

Osho - Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

This has nothing to do with the Bible. You come at things indirectly and vaguely, which can be good or it can mask BS. If I put this post together with the one where you responded to me, it makes me think you assumed I am an athiest.
 
Basically you are saying that one cannot be critical of someone's ideas about God and the universe because to be clear or communicate about these things is to attempt to describe the ineffable. Also you are saying no one who doesn't get it will.

Most religious people disagree with you completely. They all value certain texts, stories, communicative interactions over others and feel that some are better able to reach people and convey the truth. They also all feel that one can move from states of ignorance to states with more understand via interactions with others.

The Bible is a messy document. But it does refer to God and religious isssues. It is better in some ways than a telephone book and I have no doubt that some people actually gained knowledge from it, more than those who read the Hackansack directory did from reading that. But, this is not saying very much.

Well, I read the Bible, I like to read it very much; but not the same as I would read a novel, or a scientific document. The Bible was written by wise men, the things that can be taken literally are the stuff that have less value to me. What is most interesting about the Bible is the hidden meaning, there is hidden wisdom everywere if you look into it. But you cannot read Apocalypse, and expect to get it in the first time. Or read it in a way that makes you think it predicts the end of the World, that is not its real meaning. Just as trying to read Genesis, and try to scientifically explain the evolution from monkeys to the first Homo-Sapiens, that is not the real meaning either. Genesis and Apocalypse have more to do with inner-alchemy, or inner-transformation; from seed to tree.

I personally think God cannot be put into words. Is like when you are watching a sunset, and you call it beautiful. Then the feeling you get when watching a sunset is diminished by the preconceived notion you have of the word "beautiful", you have called many things beautiful, so you cannot possibly catch all the glory of a sunset with that word.

What I´m saying, is if you take in consideration the inmensity of the Universe, the incognisible property of God, our limited perspective, and our limited brains, you can possibly get an idea of how our words are inadequate to describe something like God. The same as our brains are inadequate to fully understand God.

And yes, my perspective is very different from most people, because I didn´t borrow it from anyone, I cannot post links about this, because these are the conclusions I have reached on my own so far.

Imagine in billions of years, if mankind survives, and manages to evolve into a higher being (evolutionary speaking). This future-human would probably look at us the same way we look at chimps right now. And they are going to say: "Look at them, oh so cute, trying to understand God, not even we can understand it". Because even if they would have brains with more capacity than ours, no physical brain is capable enough to understand the wisdom of the "all".
 
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