Are We Here To Serve God Or Is God To Serve Man?

[Greatest I am]

IMO we are here to help each other, but serve... I do not believe we should serve anyone.

 

With respect---semantics.

 

The last time I went to a restaurant, the waitress said, may I help you. I knew she meant, may I serve you.

 

It may be that you put a more negative spin to serve than I do.

 

You are right though that we are to help each other as much as possible.

If only all walked that talk.

 

Regards

DL

 

I probably do put a more negative spin on it. I see serve equal to servant. Servants/slaves do not have a choice, but the waitress you spoke of does have a choice. She doesn't have to do that job. She can find other work or get training to find other work. Helping someone is a matter of choice, if one is capable of helping that person.

 

I agree.

 

Regards

DL

[Ouroboros]

He would not. Thus the idiocy of thinking we are here to serve God. Bible God that is.

Amen.

 

If God = rules/law and

governments = rules/law

 

Then I would say that we are all here to serve law.

Yes. To some degree I think that's right. We are serving ourselves, or the greater good of humanity.

 

That means keeping to it when we think it right and breaking it if we think it wrong.

And that's where the problem usually lies. People have different ideas of what the higher order of right and wrong is.

[Greatest I am]

Are we here to serve God or is God to serve man?

Your question makes the assumption that "God" exists - so ... you're joking right? If some ignorant humans want to invent an invisible "Being" floating around the universe, they can serve "Him" all they like. But leave the rest of us (i.e. non-deluded people) out of the equation please.

 

Yes. For this question I made the assumption that there is a Bible God.

 

The O P was designed to make believers think but I see that there are few of these in this site.

As you get to know me, you will know that I am not anti religionist because I am one.

I am anti literalist and fundamental. Both of these pollute good religious thought and hurt all religionists.

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

Are those the only two choices?

 

I have seen you wander through but never say anything.

I guess some need a life without thought. You must be a believer.

 

Regards

DL

You leave me speechless.

 

 

 

Florduh serves the mighty Hubbard, now. Nothing to worry about.

 

 

Your concept is a little bit limited, making the choice one way or the other. I suppose that many religious people (and I at one time thought this way) that it was more a system of symbiosis; that I could in one way serve and please the mighty god-being, and in return I would benefit in vivid ways as well as mysterious ways. I don't think that the idea was ever really about total "servitude" to a higher power without getting SOMETHING in return.

 

Most religious people don't really see it as "God serving Man", since pretty well the few little gestures that God has dropped on us would be no sweat for a timeless and infinitely powerful god.

 

Not sure this thread question really reflects what this kind of relationship between a supposed God and "Man" is really about. Dog owners spend more time in a day "serving" their dog, like walking it, feeding it, building and maintaining a dog house, than anything the "dog" does in return....heck, my cat pulls decent service time from me. But nobody would ever say that we existed to "serve our pet".

 

Reciprocity is a necessary feature of any religious system, I would think. You might ask Enki's alien friend, though.

 

Reciprocity is fair play but can never happen with an absentee God.

 

In the beginning it was so.

To believe this you would have to think as I do in that our first God was a man and our last will be as well.

Depending on how you read end time prophesy, if without fantasy, then that is exactly what revelation points to.

You might note how the Bible uses the term, son of man.

Most say that that is a Jesus character resurrected. I read it as just a man that we elect as God.

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

As a xian I would have said, that mankind has its purpose in doing gods will. On the other hand I would have said that god has no need for human service. He has all he needs and it is good for human beings to serve god, because that is their purpose. That would have been my xian answer.

 

If there is a god, then we do not know enough about him to answer your question. Right now I think, that people who serve "god" serve themselves for different reasons and as an extra gain, they serve others. Their service for god fills some needs inside of them or makes them feel secure. There could be hundreds of reasons. If there is a god, than it is a strange concept, that he needs our service.

 

If you were a Christian I would have more to say but for now let me say that Bible God does show a definite need when His first commandment is not to place anyone above Him. he needs to be # 1.

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

I think we are born here without our consent ("Into this world were thrown . . . Riders on the storm" ) and it is up to us to decide why we are here. Many times the sheer force of government, social, religious and economic pressure so interferes with our choices that people adopt the belief that we are here to serve a god or that there is some preset "purpose" or "meaning" to life.

 

There is no evidence for this and all testimony to such knowledge tends to be self-serving and subjective.

 

I think the best code to live by is, "if you aren't going to pitch in an help, get out of the way and don't fuck things up for everyone else!"

 

This is my personal belief. I believe it is the best moral and ethical position based on history. And, I think it would look great posted on the courthouse downtown.

 

That is not a new position.

 

Some say, lead, follow or get out of the way.

 

If you want you saying in public you may have to take the fuck out of it.

 

Regards

DL

 

But the "f" word makes it so much more colorful and entertaining!

 

Perhaps but it lacks what I am trying hard to develop. Eloquence.

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

Btw, I've been waiting for God to show up. Can't serve a non-existent being. I can think I am, but really be serving to promote a belief system.

Hate to burst you bubble but the way I see it, we all follow a God.

 

At the end of the day, God = rules and governments = rules.

 

We all follow rules of either or both of the above sets of rules.

 

Your God just happens to be a political God.

 

My political God is a small l liberal with a pinch of conservatism.

 

My religious God is the cosmic consciousness that I personally found and know to be real, otherwise I would have no religious God at all.

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

Are we here to serve God or is God to serve man?

 

Some seem to think that man was created to serve or appease a need within God.

I wonder, are you sure you're a Deist and not a Theist? Because my understanding is that Deism consider God as the beginning/creator of the universe, but then God pretty much left it all alone. God doesn't interact with us, and we have no obligation to him/her/it. While Theists usually believe that God still interacts with nature, and we must, as humans, obey and serve him. So your argument sounds very much like a Theist and not a Deist. Unless I got it completely wrong...

 

 

 

Deist is my closest label but it is not exact for me.

 

If there ever was a miracle working super God then as far as I can know, He was killed or absorbed by the big bang.

Either way, we have no access to him and can have no direct knowledge of Him.

Scripture is good for thought and it tells us to look for God in the cosmos or some such thing. I read that as nature.

 

When I look at nature and evolution, I see a perfect system at work and know that we are part of that system.

We are all born as perfect as nature and our DNA can produce. We then become evolving perfection till we die.

 

I see perfection all about me, even as I see sin and evils and woes.

Take the evils or errors out of our system and like taking errors out of evolution, the whole perfect system would break down.

 

That is why I can say, to believers when they bitch about evil and how God would not create it, B S, evil is good.

 

Thank God He created it.

 

See what I mean?

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

Y not ask him (Greatestwhatever) about his 'thing' with the letter Y?

 

Happy now, DL?

 

BAA.

 

Y

 

You seem to know how the test for free will works.

 

Go ahead and explain it in your words to see if you can improve on my presentation of the process to prove that we all have free will.

 

Your eloquence might best my feeble efforts.

 

You might want to start a thread on it and link me up so I can see how you do.

 

If not, who knows, I might bring it up later for those who are foolish enough to think that they do not have a free will.

I would like to see if someone with eloquence can phrase it better than me. I love to learn

 

Regards

DL

[Greatest I am]

He would not. Thus the idiocy of thinking we are here to serve God. Bible God that is.

Amen.

 

If God = rules/law and

governments = rules/law

 

Then I would say that we are all here to serve law.

Yes. To some degree I think that's right. We are serving ourselves, or the greater good of humanity.

 

That means keeping to it when we think it right and breaking it if we think it wrong.

And that's where the problem usually lies. People have different ideas of what the higher order of right and wrong is.

 

Yes.

Great reward for those who think right and disaster for those who did not quite think right.

This does not make the losers evil. it just makes them wrong in their thinking for that particular point in time.

They might actually be right but just not for then and there.

 

Perhaps that is why archetypal Jesus did not do much for women, slaves and Gays.

You always have to remember what crowd you are playing to. He did.

 

Regards

DL

[Franko47]

 

 

When I look at nature and evolution, I see a perfect system at work and know that we are part of that system.

We are all born as perfect as nature and our DNA can produce. We then become evolving perfection till we die.

 

I see perfection all about me, even as I see sin and evils and woes.

Take the evils or errors out of our system and like taking errors out of evolution, the whole perfect system would break down.

 

 

 

I know that it's interesting to view the Universe as a machine, a miraculous thing really; from the most discreet quantum processes to colliding galaxies. And then there is the biological side; evolution under the right circumstances, the emergence of intelligence and consciousness...perhaps suggestive of the potential for a "super-intelligence" to either one day exist, or perhaps already does.

 

Is this the attraction of "Deism" ? I know that Einstein thought along these lines, and at some point so did Newton. Even Carl Sagan near the end would muse dreamily about the potentials of human advancement.

 

By extrapolating the development of science and technology, it is inevitable that within likely the next two centuries (barring some kind of setback) that humans will be able to enhance their lifespan, abilities, and knowledge exponentially. Humans living five hundred years from now may not even have a traditional biological body. Certainly the ability to upload the human mind (not a copy, but procedural transition transfer) will be accomplished by this time, perhaps as soon as near the end of the 21st century.

 

It is the future that has become my "religion" at this point; not the past. The past of human thought and knowledge wallows in ignorance and antiquity; most humans who have ever lived have been almost wrong about most aspects of reality we now accept.

 

So, Greatest, if in fact you are Deistic, then what say ye about the unlimited potential of human advancement ?

 

Eventually we will be gods.

[Greatest I am]

 

 

When I look at nature and evolution, I see a perfect system at work and know that we are part of that system.

We are all born as perfect as nature and our DNA can produce. We then become evolving perfection till we die.

 

I see perfection all about me, even as I see sin and evils and woes.

Take the evils or errors out of our system and like taking errors out of evolution, the whole perfect system would break down.

 

 

 

I know that it's interesting to view the Universe as a machine, a miraculous thing really; from the most discreet quantum processes to colliding galaxies. And then there is the biological side; evolution under the right circumstances, the emergence of intelligence and consciousness...perhaps suggestive of the potential for a "super-intelligence" to either one day exist, or perhaps already does.

 

Is this the attraction of "Deism" ? I know that Einstein thought along these lines, and at some point so did Newton. Even Carl Sagan near the end would muse dreamily about the potentials of human advancement.

 

I do not know what attracts Deists. It basically chose me as the closest label that I could use.

A true Deist will believe in a creator God. I do not. No miracles thanks.

 

By extrapolating the development of science and technology, it is inevitable that within likely the next two centuries (barring some kind of setback) that humans will be able to enhance their lifespan, abilities, and knowledge exponentially. Humans living five hundred years from now may not even have a traditional biological body. Certainly the ability to upload the human mind (not a copy, but procedural transition transfer) will be accomplished by this time, perhaps as soon as near the end of the 21st century.

 

My view on this is that if we ever get to that point it will not be a popular one. Even as we speak, many of our older folk have lost the love of life.

If I were to imagine living for 2 or 3 hundred years, I can see boredom driving me to choose death as well.

Most writers of a Shangri-La say that boredom will kill any of these wishful concepts.

 

It is the future that has become my "religion" at this point; not the past. The past of human thought and knowledge wallows in ignorance and antiquity; most humans who have ever lived have been almost wrong about most aspects of reality we now accept.

 

I would not go that far. We have advanced in the sciences sure but have basically built on the ancient beginnings. Morally, we are at the same place.

 

So, Greatest, if in fact you are Deistic, then what say ye about the unlimited potential of human advancement ?

 

Eventually we will be gods.

 

John 10:34

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

 

Noetic sciences say that with the control of telepathy, we also control matter.

 

I know that telepathy is real and was instrumental in my apotheosis/rapprochement to the Godhead.

 

I believe that there is a cosmic law, if you will, that prevents or guides us away from using telepathy because it is an intrusive system. It violates the recipient. This may also be why the Godhead is not contacting more of us.

 

That super mind that you seek may already exist and is may be preventing us from following that route.

 

If evolution is working as it should, we already have our fittest brain somewhere. Identifying who that is is the problem and even if we knew who it was, we would not likely pay too much attention to him/her.

 

Regards

DL

[Ouroboros]

Noetic sciences say that with the control of telepathy, we also control matter.

 

I know that telepathy is real and was instrumental in my apotheosis/rapprochement to the Godhead.

 

I believe that there is a cosmic law, if you will, that prevents or guides us away from using telepathy because it is an intrusive system. It violates the recipient. This may also be why the Godhead is not contacting more of us.

[bornagainathiest]

Y not ask him (Greatestwhatever) about his 'thing' with the letter Y?

 

Happy now, DL?

 

BAA.

 

Y

 

You seem to know how the test for free will works.

Go ahead and explain it in your words to see if you can improve on my presentation of the process to prove that we all have free will.

Your eloquence might best my feeble efforts.

You might want to start a thread on it and link me up so I can see how you do.

If not, who knows, I might bring it up later for those who are foolish enough to think that they do not have a free will.

I would like to see if someone with eloquence can phrase it better than me. I love to learn

Regards

DL

 

Sorry friend!

Please refer to this thread http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/36620-humanity-and-earth (specifically the claim made at the end of post 11) and take note of this fact.

 

I agreed with Florduh (post 18) and Legion (post 19) about the impossibility of rational dialog with OrdinaryClay, because he offered little testable evidence and much subjective experience to back up his claims.

Even though you may disagree, I consider you no different from OC. You are the sole, final and ultimate authority on your telepathic contact with this 'Godhead', just as I am the sole, final and ultimate authority on the lower back pain that's been bothering me this week.

I can offer up no more evidence for my pain than you can for your 'communication' with this Cosmic Consciousness. Both are exclusively subjective experiences and NOT open to sharing or debate. (Btw, I just don't care if you disagree with what I've written here. Y? See below.)

 

My position towards you has not changed since Sept 30 last year. I said then that reasonable dialog with you was impossible. Looking at the content and format of your postings here (and in that other forum) I see that you've not changed one iota. So, please don't expect me to explain anything for you or improve on your presentation. After all, how can I be party to your experiences of this Godhead? If you can't present any evidence and can't adequately explain what you mean, how can I be eloquent about something only you've experienced? (Rhetorical question. I'm not interested in your answer.)

 

No, I will not start up a thread about anything to do with you and your beliefs. Other, more rational people have been trying to engage you in sensible dialog in another forum - to little effect, as far as I can see. Sorry, but I won't be playing your games or communicating with you in any way. I simply used the letter Y to show the folks here how disengaged from reality you really are. Sometimes mockery is more effective than rational exposition. I hope it works and others learn to avoid you as a waste of time and effort.

 

Oh and my parting shot to you is this...

 

"I love to learn." If this statement was true, I'd have seen some change in your posts as you applied your learning and grew and changed as a result. Nope. No change that I can see. Still the same old Greatest, locked into his unique (incoherent) take (rut) on Free Will.

'No change' and 'No learning' is my subjective experience of you, and as such, is just as valid as any claim you've made that hasn't been backed up with evidence. (No. I don't care if you agree or not, for the reason given above.)

 

So, for the second time, "Bye, bye!" (Waves.)

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

Sorry friend!

Please refer to this thread http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/36620-humanity-and-earth (specifically the claim made at the end of post 11) and take note of this fact.

 

I agreed with Florduh (post 24) and Legion (post 25) about the impossibility of rational dialog with OrdinaryClay, because he offered little testable evidence and much subjective experience to back up his claims.

 

 

BAA.

 

Whoops! Typo!

 

BAA

[Shyone]

Noetic sciences say that with the control of telepathy, we also control matter.

 

I know that telepathy is real and was instrumental in my apotheosis/rapprochement to the Godhead.

 

I believe that there is a cosmic law, if you will, that prevents or guides us away from using telepathy because it is an intrusive system. It violates the recipient. This may also be why the Godhead is not contacting more of us.

Or, perhaps...

 

 

 

Maybe this explains why the Flying Spaghetti Monster hasn't granted my wishes...

[Greatest I am]

Noetic sciences say that with the control of telepathy, we also control matter.

 

I know that telepathy is real and was instrumental in my apotheosis/rapprochement to the Godhead.

 

I believe that there is a cosmic law, if you will, that prevents or guides us away from using telepathy because it is an intrusive system. It violates the recipient. This may also be why the Godhead is not contacting more of us.

Or, perhaps...

 

 

 

Maybe this explains why the Flying Spaghetti Monster hasn't granted my wishes...

 

Nah.

He just doesn't want to touch our free will.

Plus, you follow the wrong one.

 

I found a picture of God.

 

Now I know what this means.

 

 

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:26-28

Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

 

If we are in Gos image then---

[Greatest I am]

Noetic sciences say that with the control of telepathy, we also control matter.

 

I know that telepathy is real and was instrumental in my apotheosis/rapprochement to the Godhead.

 

I believe that there is a cosmic law, if you will, that prevents or guides us away from using telepathy because it is an intrusive system. It violates the recipient. This may also be why the Godhead is not contacting more of us.

Or, perhaps...

 

 

 

Maybe this explains why the Flying Spaghetti Monster hasn't granted my wishes...

 

Nah.

He just doesn't want to touch our free will.

Plus, you follow the wrong one.

 

I found a picture of God.

 

Now I know what this means.

 

 

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:26-28

Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

 

If we are in Gos image then---