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Goodbye Jesus

The Trouble With God, Even In Alternate Spiritualities


ogilvy

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Well, there is always the deistic approach- God was merely the starting force that sparked the universe into life.

 

Or pantheistic/cosmic religion- God is only the natural order of the universe.

 

Or the Agnostic view- God is unknowable. Pretty easy one, really.

 

The theistic God though- yeah, he'd probably be a cruel, nasty bastard if he existed (I sorely doubt)

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I would like to still be able to believe in a God, one more to my liking, but for the same reason I left Christianity, the cruelty of God according to the Bible, I can't accept any version of God. If there is any God at all, he must still be a cruel being, for the same reason that the Christian God is cruel, ie. the existence of suffering. How could it be explained away if there's a benevolent God? How could I love and worship any God who allows it to exist? Whenever I start to feel inclined towards any other type of religion or spirituality, this obstacle stops me going further.

 

I struggle with this too. I am still an agnostic, but if there is a god, how can he be good with all the suffering in the world?

 

I haven't read it myself yet, but a book that is recommended for people struggling with this is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner. From what I understand, Kushner believes that God isn't all powerful, there are limits to what he can do, limits that must exist if human beings are to have a degree of free will. Maybe for God to make a world of intelligent beings with free will and no suffering would be a logical impossibility like a square circle. Its a tough question and deserves more than stock fundy answers.

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I haven't read it myself yet, but a book that is recommended for people struggling with this is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner. From what I understand, Kushner believes that God isn't all powerful, there are limits to what he can do, limits that must exist if human beings are to have a degree of free will. Maybe for God to make a world of intelligent beings with free will and no suffering would be a logical impossibility like a square circle. Its a tough question and deserves more than stock fundy answers.

The idea of the limited god sounds good at first, but if you look closer not only is God not all-powerful, he's pretty much powerless. The god that creates you and leaves it all up to your free-will is a convenient way to explain away why the deity doesn't DO anything. Basically all he does is give you a hard-to-understand book, maybe he'll tickle your heart when you're singing to him.. he'll give you a little motivation and that's it. You can always imagine he's listening to you and dump all your problems on him, but you're going to have to imagine what he'd say because he won't talk to you.

 

That's like dropping my child off in a jungle and saying 'Here you go, good luck.because now you're on your own. Don't call me and don't expect me to do anything to help you if you get in trouble. Oh and if you don't get eaten I want you to give all the praise to me.'

 

Theists do everything they can do make sure their god has no responsibility for anything except if something good happens to you, If he doesn't answer your prayer it wasn't 'meant to be', or maybe you upset him who knows?

 

The theistic athlete can't accept that they succeeded on their own, they have to be thankful to their deity because you can't do anything without him, plus he doesn't like it if you don't acknowledge him. If the athlete loses the game he still has to be thankful and realize it was something he did wrongt. If you win it was God, but if you lose it's your fault. He's not going to actually do anything to help, only if you 'have faith' that he's helping you . That faith comes from YOU, you did everything, you practiced, you sweat, you won the game. It's all YOU dummy!!

 

I have to agree that the theistic god idea is pretty weak. Maybe it helped our ancestors evolve at one point but why aren't we smart enough now to realize that it's bogus? I mean, we really should treating ourselves better than that.

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  • 4 months later...

I would like to still be able to believe in a God, one more to my liking, but for the same reason I left Christianity, the cruelty of God according to the Bible, I can't accept any version of God. If there is any God at all, he must still be a cruel being, for the same reason that the Christian God is cruel, ie. the existence of suffering. How could it be explained away if there's a benevolent God? How could I love and worship any God who allows it to exist? Whenever I start to feel inclined towards any other type of religion or spirituality, this obstacle stops me going further.

 

I believe that there is a Creator (but not the God figure, nor the father figure, nor the king figure). And creations have been created through the process of evolution. Evolution always involves suffering. But things get better eventually, as things evolve. There is no way to create something from nothing. There is no way to create magically as the God of the Bible supposedly did. There is no magic wand. So suffering is a necessary side effect of life (until it gets better as it evolves).

 

A Creator could be equaled to a mother who gives life to children. Even though the mother knows that her offspring might suffer in this world most likely, nevertheless, it is considered a GOOD thing to give birth to children. So in the same way, we should be considering that it is "GOOD" to create life even though there is suffering as a necessary part of evolving of this life.

 

I am personally on the fence on this issue though: IS IT good to give birth to children while knowing that they would suffer? Especially in very tough situations, like during the war, or in great poverty stricken areas.... I wouldn't want to be born in that case. If I am not born, I don't know what I am missing. (and it's a good thing too, I would be missing lots of pain)

 

On the other hand, if there is life after this life (and if we go on and be more and more happy as we go on,) perhaps it's worth it to be born even though have to suffer for a while....

 

I think the ultimate goal of creation is evolving. And being happy eventually. So from that perspective, it was good for life to be created.

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I have a problem with dualism. Either there is some separate substance separate and apart from nature (God), or its all one substance (non-dualism).

 

Of course there are definitions of "God" that would say it is the substance - that would be pantheism a la Spinoza. That's OK, but it isn't what most people mean when they say the word God.

 

I think its fair to say that most Gods are dualistic. Non-Dualistic conceptions of God are found in Hinduism, Buddhism, mystic Christianity ( Meister Eckart) and probably Taoism - there are probably others.

 

If they are non-dualistic, then "you" are God and the Absolute. I put "you" in quotes because "you" are not really an individual person. You are not who you think you are. It is not the ego and not the mind and not the body. "You" are really an extension or a part of the one substance. This is Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, the exploration of who you really are. It is a process of negation that happens until the realization hits that "there is no birth, there is no death, there is no person, it is all a concept, it is all an illusion." It is interesting and, at least for me, far from depressing.

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I've been trying to figure out what I am, since I find that even "atheist" isn't really satisfactory for me. I have no belief in gods as actual beings or overlords, but perhaps we and they are facets of one self on different levels. I recently had a vision of Sekhmet during a guided meditation, which was very interesting since I have never been drawn to Egyptian religion and had to ask someone who it was that I saw.

 

I find reincarnation fascinating, though "I" may be here multiple times right now, or maybe none of it is real. Odd stuff to ponder, and I don't know that it has a label.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would like to still be able to believe in a God, one more to my liking, but for the same reason I left Christianity, the cruelty of God according to the Bible, I can't accept any version of God. If there is any God at all, he must still be a cruel being, for the same reason that the Christian God is cruel, ie. the existence of suffering. How could it be explained away if there's a benevolent God? How could I love and worship any God who allows it to exist? Whenever I start to feel inclined towards any other type of religion or spirituality, this obstacle stops me going further.

 

So a couple of things.

 

First, the ominpotent, omnicient, ominbenevolent god doesn't exist. Either you have a being so far beyond, so as to be a force of nature and care about as much as one does, or you have much more limited beings.

 

Second, why can't a nominally likable generally "good" god have a mean streak from time to time (kind of like people)? Also, I've never quite figured out why a god needs worship anyway. I tend to see things with gods (and goddesses) as a sort of partnership, you do something for them, they do something for you. Kind of business. Maybe one takes a shine to you, or you to them, but it's always more of an exchange thing. Don't know if this works for you.

 

To sum up, why does the cruelty of fate have to be a god's doing? Sometimes shit happens. In fact, that's most of the time. Also, who's to say that he/she/it can do anything about it?

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