Random Thought Of The Day: God Is An Atheist

[Grandpa Harley]

You missed out 'and walk slowly away'

Backwards, and with a intense look in your eye, and the head slightly tilted up to the left, and a doubtful smile on your lips, to show that you fear they might explode any second and some little creature from Zyrgot will jump out.

 

I prefer the denouement of a lot of the Koans of Dogen... you hit them.

With your hat-shoe (or more correctly, it should be a shoe-hat, I'm still trying to wake up here...)

 

A stick usually...

[Ouroboros]

A stick usually...

The wise words of the Prophet Clue-by-four.

[Rev R]

The wise words of the Prophet Clue-by-four.

 

Usually followed by the Gospel of Assault Charges.

 

I figure since traditional logic doesn't seem to work on fundies and ridicule seems to fuel their fire, the Joshu method of debate deserves a try.

[R. S. Martin]

Ruby,

 

The correct answer to that question is to remove one shoe and place it atop your head. Guaranteed debate winner every time.

 

Can you explain the psychology behind that more precisely, Reverend?

 

In your more recent post you say:

 

I figure since traditional logic doesn't seem to work on fundies and ridicule seems to fuel their fire, the Joshu method of debate deserves a try.

 

I take it this is a method with a name but I don't know who Joshu is. Maybe you mean Joshua but I don't know how shoes on top of one's head tie in with the Joshua of the Bible.

 

Knowing how the method is supposed to work might help me be more successful in adapting it to the situation. Some of my communication is via telephone, email, or chat. Placing a shoe on my head might be somewhat ineffective in that case and I might need to be somewhat creative. If I know what psychological impact your Joshu method of debate is supposed to accomplish, I might be creative enough to bring it about with well-placed words. Or lack thereof.

 

You're absolutely right. Ridicule fuels their fire and traditional logic just doesn't work. We see the carnal mind-spiritual mind game in Kratos. They all do that.

[Rev R]

Since it would drag the topic further off track, check your PM's in a few.

[Grandpa Harley]

Rinsei isn't one of Ruby's stronger points, it would seem...

[Ouroboros]

Rins..., what? Sorry if I'm asking a stupid question, but what is Rinsei?

[Grandpa Harley]

It's the Koan School of Zen

[Ouroboros]

Cool. Sounds like they're just as confusing as me...

[Rev R]

the OP is very koan like.

[Amanda]

Uh, folks? Atheism is defined as "the belief that Gd does not exist".

Actually it also has the definition of the lack of belief in a God. If you understand the slightly small difference there. But that's another issue.

 

Presumably a deity would believe in their own existence.

Well, that's true. I believe I exist too. But I'm not sure, since belief is only a belief in something we can't see... or how was it Heb 11:1 defined it?

 

God is God's God. Nice little recursion there.

HanSolo, supposedly, the character of "Jesus" in that day, was accused of being an Atheist. Perhaps wanting to make the transition from a victim left at the mercy of "God", "Jesus'" character promoted a position of self empowerment through similar thinking as this:

Joh 10:34 - Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

 

Question HanSolo... Let's say that in our evolution, we finally reached a stable place in which we strived for achieving a concept of living together "civilized". We had tasted that "self actualized" state referenced in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and wanted to operate from that realm... perhaps like Heb 11:1. Now, would you agree that it is good to agree to collectively hold some things "sacred" and have "reverence" for certain aspects in which to live our lives interactively, or not? And if so, what would be wrong with attributing that movement as having a "holy spirit," as we often attribute a strong alliance to our country as having a "patriotic spirit"?

 

Curious as to what your thoughts would be....

[R. S. Martin]

Rinsei isn't one of Ruby's stronger points, it would seem...

 

What I'm lacking at the moment is vocabulary and definitions. I did some research just now. I got your pm, Rev R. Gramps, your spelling's off. The word is Rinsai. When I got that straight I was able to do some online research on it. The Britanica entry on koan looks to provide the answer I need but I'm not a subscriber so I can't read it. Not sure, maybe I can find it in a library somewhere.

 

Based on what I saw so far, I am not sure but that I might be highly skilled at Rinsai; I just don't know what it is so I can't tell or participate. We're working across language and culture barriers here.

 

What suggests to me that culture might be playing into the situation is this:

 

How can you even talk about what God believes if you don't believe God exists???

 

Rev R, you quoted that in your pm and called it a "trick question." Where I come from that is not a trick question. It's a logical question derived from common sense. It's designed to underscore how utterly stupid you are. First you say God doesn't exist; then you talk about what God believes. That is S-T-U-P-I-D-.

 

In other words, it's the ultimate put-down. It's meant to trip you up, make you feel seriously ashamed, admit your error, and change your ways. Conversation will definitely stop. It's a social crisis. It remains to be seen how the victim will respond but if the person knows what's good for him/her, they will respond as described.

 

I, however, wouldn't. I would find a way to answer the question. I think that's why they hate me. That's why they hated Jesus--render to Caeser the things that are Caesers and to God the things that are God's. That's why they hate most of us exCers.

 

We looked the questions in the eye and we pursued the eye of the huricane untill we understood it. We found there was nothing there. It was all vaccuum and emptiness.

 

I don't need the koans of Zen Buddhism to teach me that.

 

Then again, maybe I'm missing something...

[R. S. Martin]

Uh, folks? Atheism is defined as "the belief that Gd does not exist".

Actually it also has the definition of the lack of belief in a God. If you understand the slightly small difference there. But that's another issue.

 

Presumably a deity would believe in their own existence.

Well, that's true. I believe I exist too. But I'm not sure, since belief is only a belief in something we can't see... or how was it Heb 11:1 defined it?

 

God is God's God. Nice little recursion there.

HanSolo, supposedly, the character of "Jesus" in that day, was accused of being an Atheist. Perhaps wanting to make the transition from a victim left at the mercy of "God", "Jesus'" character promoted a position of self empowerment through similar thinking as this:

Joh 10:34 - Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

 

Question HanSolo... Let's say that in our evolution, we finally reached a stable place in which we strived for achieving a concept of living together "civilized". We had tasted that "self actualized" state referenced in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and wanted to operate from that realm... perhaps like Heb 11:1.

 

I dunno, Amanda, how are you going to live a self-actualized state in wishing for a future as described in Heb. 11:1? Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

 

Wishful thinking. Hope for the future. Something not yet. Evidence of belief in something that has not yet come to pass. It all points to the future.

 

Self-actualization, on the other hand, is being who you really are. Being fully in the moment. Being fully human. Focusing on the here and now. Deriving all that can be derived from this very moment from who you are as a human person on this earth in this life in the here and now.

 

So far as I can see, Maslow's self-actualization and Heb. 11:1 are polar opposites.

 

Now, would you agree that it is good to agree to collectively hold some things "sacred" and have "reverence" for certain aspects in which to live our lives interactively, or not? And if so, what would be wrong with attributing that movement as having a "holy spirit," as we often attribute a strong alliance to our country as having a "patriotic spirit"?

 

Count me out. Of course, I'm not Hans, but count me out. I'm an independent spirit and do my own thinking. If you get something going and I like what I see, I'll think about joining. If the rest of you get something going you want to call holy, if it actually is holy I guess you can call it holy but better be sure it is holy. Problem is, so long as it's made up of humans--which it automatically has to be--it won't be holy....

 

Curious as to what your thoughts would be....

 

Those are my thoughts. I'm not Hans.

[Rev R]

I don't need the koans of Zen Buddhism to teach me that.

 

Then again, maybe I'm missing something...

 

I'm not teaching you Zen so who am I to say if you are missing something?

 

As to the question itself, sure it's logical, but because the intent of the question is to trip you up, it is a trick.

 

How is it a trick?

 

To answer the question either way negates the original comment. Christian wins. The "shoe-hat argument" completely circumvents their own logic, effectively dumping a big bucket of water on their rhetorical campfire.

 

It's no big deal though Ruby.

[Neon Genesis]

How can you even talk about what God believes if you don't believe God exists???

 

Rev R, you quoted that in your pm and called it a "trick question." Where I come from that is not a trick question. It's a logical question derived from common sense. It's designed to underscore how utterly stupid you are. First you say God doesn't exist; then you talk about what God believes. That is S-T-U-P-I-D-.

 

In other words, it's the ultimate put-down. It's meant to trip you up, make you feel seriously ashamed, admit your error, and change your ways. Conversation will definitely stop. It's a social crisis. It remains to be seen how the victim will respond but if the person knows what's good for him/her, they will respond as described.

 

 

In this case though, I don't think we are necessarily talking about what God believes since I don't think anyone can know the truth about God without proof, but more so we are talking about what Christians believe about regarding God's beliefs and pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. To be fair though, you could easily make the same case that if an atheist can't talk about what God believes because they don't believe in him, then Christians can't talk about God's beliefs either since they claim that God's beliefs are too mysterious for us humans to understand, thus we're right back to where we started. But if an atheist can't talk about God's beliefs because they don't believe in him, can an agnostic talk about God's beliefs?

[Ouroboros]

HanSolo, supposedly, the character of "Jesus" in that day, was accused of being an Atheist.

Jesus was probably more of a heretic. Blaspheming the established religious ideas of YHWH.

 

Perhaps wanting to make the transition from a victim left at the mercy of "God", "Jesus'" character promoted a position of self empowerment through similar thinking as this:

Joh 10:34 - Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

I think that verse is one of the better ones. Most Christians wants to rip that one out and burn it, but I think it might be one of the few more telling verses, in the sense that maybe the original message wasn't Jesus as God's son, but rather, we are all gods and this world is, or we make this world to become, heaven. He also said that the kingdom of god was within them (us), in other words, it wasn't a different place, but here and now.

 

Question HanSolo... Let's say that in our evolution, we finally reached a stable place in which we strived for achieving a concept of living together "civilized". We had tasted that "self actualized" state referenced in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and wanted to operate from that realm... perhaps like Heb 11:1. Now, would you agree that it is good to agree to collectively hold some things "sacred" and have "reverence" for certain aspects in which to live our lives interactively, or not? And if so, what would be wrong with attributing that movement as having a "holy spirit," as we often attribute a strong alliance to our country as having a "patriotic spirit"?

You mean "the collective" is the god, in a sense? Yeah. I think when we as a group of consciousness minded individuals, cooperate, we create a meta-level, or meta-physical entity in a sense, and that is "alive" through our communication and individual thoughts. Hopefully we strive to make the collective better and safe, and that in a way is a "higher" entity that also have a feed-back to us in forms of regulations, duties and rights. Society becomes our god.. kind'a. Or? Maybe humanity won't survive unless we evolve into a more complex and united "being" as a society? The technological singularity might be were our heaven will be... or hell!?

[Tabula Rasa]

Please forgive the slight thread hijack...

 

When I still believed, I came up with an interesting perspective on the whole "God made man in his own image." thing. I guess the seeds of my deconversion were already sprouting because here's what I thought. God didn't look like a man because he was the omnipotent creator of the universe and could look like or be anything, having no limits.(Want to make a fundie hit the roof faster than saying there is no God? Tell them God's a woman.)

So then I thought that the way it worked was that while God was omnipotent, we as humans had a set amount of strength. Where God is omniscient we humans had the ability to learn. I thought that being made in Gods image meant our ability to combine our strength and intellect to accomplish things that just one of us couldn't. Essentially, while a single human is weak by themselves, get a bunch of us together with a common goal and we can do some amazing shit. If the story of the Tower of Babel was true, Yahweh was getting scared of our uppity ambitious asses.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them,which they have imagined to do. Genesis 11:5-6

 

Get that Christians? Yahweh is afraid of humanity.

[Grandpa Harley]

That's why we were cast from the Garden of Eden... if we'd eaten from the Tree of life we'd have become as Gods... immortal and with the knowledge of Good and Evil...

[Ouroboros]

Get that Christians? Yahweh is afraid of humanity.

He absolute should be, because consider these things:

 

Doubt is stronger than faith. Jesus said you had have faith as the size of a mustard seed and such, but do we see any Christians walking around "moving mountains?" Do they go to hospitals and get 100% healing successes? Do they save and help poor, starving and so on, just by prayer and faith? Not really. They try, I give them that but they have no more success than random events. It must be because they have no faith. But even more, if you have a Church of 10,000 believers that pray for something, you only need one doubter to undo it, at least so they think. Jesus couldn't even do miracles when people doubted. So doubt stops God's power. The almighty, omnipotent, super-god, can't go passed two things: doubt and iron chariots.

 

And the second thing is that humans have the power to create forces that he can't control. Adam created sin, and doubt (see above), and made the whole world fall because of that. The world God himself made, but couldn't save. And now, our free will is making sure that we have no choice, and outside God's power, but to go to Hell! We can with our pure will, undo God's work and force his hand.

 

He should be afraid. Why else does he needs to put us in Hell for eternity, other than the threat we are to his power?

[Ouroboros]

That's why we were cast from the Garden of Eden... if we'd eaten from the Tree of life we'd have become as Gods... immortal and with the knowledge of Good and Evil...

The funny thing, the whole "hell" thing is based on that we already are eternal spirits. And just that we have the powers we do, and how God is so afraid of us, must be that hell is to keep us out of the way. He should be trembling.

[Grandpa Harley]

Who says Hell can hold us?

[Ouroboros]

Who says Hell can hold us?

Hail Satan!

 

Here's a thought I had a while back: if we are to burn in Hell, then we'll turn to crisp in a few minutes, and God has to re-create our bodies... over and over and over again... eventually the bodies of us all will pile up all the way to Heaven and we just walk over.

[Amanda]

HanSolo, supposedly, the character of "Jesus" in that day, was accused of being an Atheist.

Jesus was probably more of a heretic. Blaspheming the established religious ideas of YHWH.

HanSolo... think about the religious fervor at the time... in that they even used a special quill just to write the name of "God" and then threw the quill away! The written name of "God" had to have its own quill to write it each time.

 

They believed in a "God" out there somewhere, and we were at his mercy or revenge. eek!

 

A guy comes and says we too are gods, a guy who felt it not robbery to be equal to God, and the kingdom of God is within us, and has to work through us. Now, what is that saying?

[Amanda]

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them,which they have imagined to do. Genesis 11:5-6

Tabula Rasa, for the record... the Temple of Babel fable really supports what you previously wrote to this. (Yes, the story has been hijacked through the years. *sigh*) Looking at Genesis 10, you will see that the people came from their own nation, and of their own "tongues". They all became of the same language, different than English, Spanish, French, etc, but more like the universal language of love... only this was NOT love... it was "we're the best". Like saying Americans are the best, or Baptists are the best, etc.... so they were making a tower so that they might make a "name" for themselves, being the best. And as the fable goes, God said he had to distroy the tower, lest they NOT learn the mysteries of God... that we are all one, equal, and humble to each other. So, from then on... any time someone says they're the best... this will just sound like babble to the others.

[Grandpa Harley]

Looking at Genesis 10 I'm seeing the generations from Noah... Genesis 11 however (KJV)

 

1And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

 

2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

 

3And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

 

4And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

 

5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

 

6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

 

7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

 

8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

 

9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

 

Somehow, I don't see your apology working in this tale... basically God was scared what they could do if they worked together and decided to stop it...