Controversial topic!!! - What is god?

[Kid Afrika]

Science cannot explain everything. I feel like there is a higher power in the universe beyond scientific comprehension which is responsible for everything in the universe. I don't think this power necessarily has human qualities.

I think your opinion is shite.

I think that there are many things, large and small, that we will never udnerstand. Not because we can't figure them out, but rather because they are beyond our meager comprehension skills. What's that shit they say about humans using only a small percentage of our brains?

[Gooch]

“Early religions were like muddy ponds with lots of foliage. Concealed there, the fish of the soul could splash and feed. Eventually, however, religions became aquariums. Then, hatcheries. From farm fingerling to frozen fish stick is a short swim.

The Reverend Buddy Winkler was correct about Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee: they did not glide in numb circles inside a glass box of religion. In fact, they, Spike and Abu, wouldn’t hesitate to directly attribute the success of their relationship to their lack of formal religion. Were either of them actively religious, it would have been impossible for them to be partners or pals. Dogma and tradition would have overruled any natural instinct for brotherhood.

It was as if Spike and Abu had been granted a sneak preview behind the veil, a glimpse in which it was revealed that organized religion was a major obstacle to peace and understanding. If so, it was a gradual revelation, for it unfolded slowly and separately, a barely conscious outgrowth of each man’s devotion to humanity and rejection of doctrine.

At best, perhaps, when the fourth veil does slip aside, Spike and Abu will be better prepared than most to withstand the shock of this tough truth: religion is a paramount contributor to human misery. It is not merely the opium of the masses, it is the cyanide.

Of course, religion’s omnipresent defenders are swift to point out the comfort it provides for the sick, the weary, and the disappointed. Yes, true enough. But the Deity does not dawdle in the comfort zone! If one yearns to see the face of the divine, one must break out of the aquarium, escape the fish farm, to go swim up wild cataracts, dive in deep fjords. One must explore the labyrinth of the reef, the shadows of lily pads. How limiting, how insulting to think of God as a benevolent warden, an absentee hatchery manager who imprisons us in the “comfort” of artificial pools, where intermediaries sprinkle our restrictive waters with sanitized flakes of processed nutriment.

A longing for the divine is intrinsic in Homo Sapiens. (For all we know, it is innate in squirrels, dandelions, and diamond rings as well.) We approach the Divine by enlarging our souls and lighting up our brains. To expedite those two things may be the mission of our existence.

Well and good. But such activity runs counter to the aspirations of commerce and politics. Politics is the science of domination, and persons in the process of enlargement and illumination are notoriously difficult to control. Therefore, to protect its vested interests, politics usurped religion a very long tme ago. Kings bought off priests with land and adornments. Together, they drained the shady ponds and replaced them with fishtanks. The walls of the tanks were constructed of ignorance and superstition, held together with fear. They called the tanks “synagogues” or “churches” or “mosques.”

After the tanks were in place, nobody talked much about soul anymore. Instead, they talked about spirit. Soul is hot and heavy. Spirit is cool, abstract, detached. Soul is connected to the earth and its waters. Spirit is connected to the sky and its gases. Out of the gases springs fire. Firepower. It has been observed that the logical extension of all politics is war. Once religion became political, the exercise of it, too, could be said to lead sooner or later to war. “War is hell.” Thus, religious belief propels us straight to hell. History unwaveringly supports this view. (Each modern religion has boasted that it and it alone is on speaking terms with the Deity, and its adherents have been quite willing to die—or kill—to support its presumptuous claims.)

Not that every silty bayou could be drained, of course. The soulfish that bubbled and snapped in the few remaining ponds were tagged “mystics.” They were regarded as mavericks, exotic and inferior. If they splashed too high, they were thought to be threatening and in need of extermination. The fearful flounders in the tanks, now psychologically dependent upon addictive spirit flakes, had forgotten that once upon a time they, too, had been mystical.

Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished.

Those who witness the dropping of the fourth veil might see clearly what Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee dimly suspected: that not only is religion divisive and oppressive, it is also a denial of all that is divine in people; it is a suffocation of the soul.”


- Tom Robbins "Skinny Legs And All"

[Spitfire]

Politics is the science of domination, and persons in the process of enlargement and illumination are notoriously difficult to control. Therefore, to protect its vested interests, politics usurped religion a very long tme ago. Kings bought off priests with land and adornments. Together, they drained the shady ponds and replaced them with fishtanks.

Anyone see the first new episode of South Park?

That's definitely one of my favorite books! :thumbs-up: I recommend everyone reads it...

:toast:



Edited By Spitfire on July 09 2002 at 7:37

[Luna]

A longing for the divine is intrinsic in Homo Sapiens. (For all we know, it is innate in squirrels, dandelions, and diamond rings as well.) We approach the Divine by enlarging our souls and lighting up our brains.

This is an interesting statement. Courses I am involved in right now are dealing with innate and learned behaviours (in a certain species I work with, not humans). They are two different things. This thread really made me think about this in the beginning of this thread and I hesitated with it until now.

What is innate...or instinctive? And what is learned in our "religious" experiences past and present?

[crx girl]

"life the universe and everything"

yay, i just finally started reading it :-D

i haven't read most of the replies here, i think it's all been said already, making this a pretty damn boring thread.

personally, i just went through the strange experience of being a godmother in a church of england baptism. i felt kinda bad just playing along with the words and everything. i'm afraid i will not be a traditionally spiritual guide to my niece, but i'll be glad to instill some logic in her over the years to come... :thumbs-up:

also, some of the people i work with are all religious and shit, i got into a creation v evolution discussion the other day and have since concluded that they are complete idiots and not worth my time...

[Lord Magus]

"God" is perfect. Since the concept of what "perfection" actually entails varies from person to person, "God" will also vary depending on the individual. Thus, everyone, be they Agnostic, Atheist, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Wiccan, Druidic (to which the terms "pagan" and "wicca" owe their origins), monotheistic, polytheistic, Mormon, Shamanistic, Ancestral, or any of the other forms of identifying or worshiping of the divine and supernatural that I may have overlooked, everyone, deep down, even if only subconciously, knows what "God" is, since they have a personal concept of perfection. Prayer, Magic, communing with spirits, medititation, seeking Ancestral guidance, are all means of tapping one's own subconcious or concious awareness of "god" as spiritual signposts or reassurance as one travels the path towards or in the footsteps of one's "god".

From a sociological standpoint, organized religion is a tool to keep the masses of humanity behaved. While religion varies depending on culture, the spiritual message tends to remain one of growth and awareness. It is the codified MORAL and ETHICAL cultural guidelines that are imposed by structured religion that have made it a handmaiden of politicians. Were there no Religion, we would not have the promise of an "afterlife" a place where our souls/spirits go once we have shuffled off the mortal coil... a place of ultimate, undeniable punishment for our moral or ethical "failures", I do not say "sin" because not all religions dictate "sin", but they ALL dictate a postitive and negative means of behavior, some will say it is a balance between the two that must be maintained to move onward, some will say it must be a strong inclination towards the positive, some will say that no stain of negative may be present at all.. in order to move forward to the prize at the bottom of the divine cracker jacks. Should the "correct" path be followed, the prize will be a rewarding one, be it reincarnation, eternal rest, merging of conciousness into the divine, etc.. etc.. Should it be the "incorrect" path that is followed, the prize will be a dud, or worse... a moustrap stuck at the bottom, ie: hell, reincarnation as a lower life form, bound eternally to wander the earth never knowing rest, etc... etc..
Organized Religion uses that threat of spiritual reward and punishment to instill in us a set of moral and ethical values that are acceptable for our culture. Without that threat, we would have nothing to fear from actions we would normally not undertake, and instead of being concerned with the moral good, we would only look after our own interests. Nowadays something like NAMBLA is a sick and twisted, morally reprehensible, entity. Yet, in Sparta during the reign of the Roman Empire, boys were seperated from Girls, and older men frequently engaged in sex with young boys, and this practice was accepted. Why? Because it was morally allowed, the purpose being that Sparta was a military state, and the frequent act of sex between Young soldiers in training and their superior officers would help instill and reinforce the sense of loyalty among troops. At least, that was the reasoning. The point is, what we are told is "right" and "wrong" by organized religion is determined by the needs of our culture and society. While we still look after our own interests, there are guidelines in place (instilled by religion) that keep us generally from crossing certain boundaries. Those guidelines are often reinforced by government by means of law. Ever notice how Man's law and God's Law tend to compliment each other? Is this man striving for god, or god striving for man?

In essence, organized religion is based on spiritual guidance, but also teaches moral and ethical guidelines that are determined by those in power in order to keep society running the way they deem most benificial. Organized Religion cares something for the soul of the individual, but it's true purpose is to caretake the soul of society.


edit- at least, that's my take on what "god" is.. and I went off on a tangent about what i thought about religion... sorry



Edited By Lord Magus on July 10 2002 at 01:39

[fbd]

magus, do everyone a favor.post again saying either "there is no god", or "i think there is a god"

[Lord Magus]

Why? I thought I made it quite clear that I believe "god" exists for everyone, based on their own personal concepts.

[Spitfire]

It is not merely the opium of the masses, it is the cyanide.

That line got me in so much trouble a few weeks ago...I was at a client business lunch and somehow the topic of religion came up and I, as usual, didn't hold back my words and quoted that...oops, you should have seen the look on their faces...:-o It's a good thing we still got the account...

[Gooch]

I think this subject has been hashed to death... (no criticism to this thread)...religon is such a muddled and warped subject these days...and I feel there are two GREAT books on the subject that really make you question your beliefs in religon:

Tom Robbins Skinny Legs And All which maybe one of the greatest books I've ever read (besides Umbreto Eco's Foucault's Pendalum)

And

Gore Vidal's Creation which talks about how the Persian Empire really took alot of the religons floating around, and mixed them up (Adam & Eve is actually based on an old Indian tale)...and how the empires spurred forth the current incarnations of Christianity, Islam and Judiasm. All three are basically the mixture of many tales, myths and mysticism. It's a real eye-opener.

Religon, to me, is merely our decision on how to explain things...mostly about things we are ignorant of. Therefore, based on that ignorance, I feel it's merely fiction.

[AdolescentMasturbator]

Gooch, good for pointing that out about Persian Empire. The persian empire though it had an official state religion of Zoroastrianism , had many other religions which influenced relgions for millenia to come.

Actually one of the earliest concepts of a Satan-like figure was in Zoroastrianism. Basically Satan(Ahriman) was God's shadow(Ahura Mazda). I don't think you would have a Satan in Christianity if not Zoroastrianism.

Also the concept of a huge flood washing away the earth is noted in all different mythologies.

Many religions have similar stories because they all originate sometimes from the same thing.