Sirona's God and the Perspectivist Approach

by hamilcarr 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  hamilcarr

  Our culturally biassed and contextual image of God is that of a male being, omnipotent, eternal, and existing outside the created world.

  Sirona introduced me to a new type of God (maybe one without caps, I'm not sure): a divinity who is human-like, framed within the human perspective, subject to suffering, growing and dying, like anything else in the visible universe.

  Isn't it time to face the fact that our western image of God is nothing more than our perspective on God with all its negative and positive aspects included? Why do we need to prove the existence of our God if it's only the perspective we feel comfortable with? And maybe more important: why do we need to rail at others with different perspectives? Are there any empirical clues pointing at the possibility of a transcendental God without referring to the superiority of our perspective?
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  Sirona

  Sirona introduced me to a new type of God (maybe one without caps, I'm not sure): a divinity who is human-like, framed within the human perspective, subject to suffering, growing and dying, like anything else in the visible universe.

  I will wait to see the perspective of others before I make any comment on this thread.

  Sirona
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  Midget-Sasquatch

  Are there any empirical clues pointing at the possibility of a transcendental God without referring to the superiority of our perspective?

  I'd say there's little to no objective evidence for any sort of God/god. Those who claim mystical encounters have some experiential evidence but its only valid for themselves. If one thinks of god as a creative process, then I guess one slant can focus on the way sub-atomic particles come in and out of existence from the seeming void. That void can in a sense be considered an all pervasive field. As to the transcendance of that "god", there's a possibility of this field also being the fabric from which multiverses spring.
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  DoomVoyager

  You people are silly. Clearly, god is neither a "male being, omnipotent, eternal, and existing outside the created world", nor a "a divinity who is human-like, framed within the human perspective , subject to suffering, growing and dying". God is small and brown. He smelled a bit at first, but he seems to have mellowed out after a couple of weeks. Oh, did I mention he lives in my toilet? I know he's god becuase he talks to me.

  Prove me wrong.
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  R.Crusoe

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  diamondblue1974

  21 yr old Belgian male seeks mature female, replies blelow!

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  hamilcarr

  21 yr old Belgian male seeks mature female, replies blelow!

  I knew I shouldn't have added my data ... LOL
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  BurnTheShips

  Hmmm. *scratches chin".

  Our culturally biassed and contextual image of God is that of a male being, omnipotent, eternal, and existing outside the created world.

  Sure. But I really don't think it would be God(ess) without some of those attributes, such as omnipotence and eternality, It would be something, but not God(ess), that which nothing is greater than.

  Sirona introduced me to a new type of God (maybe one without caps, I'm not sure): a divinity who is human-like, framed within the human perspective , subject to suffering, growing and dying, like anything else in the visible universe.

  As a Christian, I believe this already. God(ess) took human form, grew up in the world, was subjected to suffering, and died in more physical pain than most of us will experience when we ourselves die.

  God(ess) became us, so that we could become It.

  Isn't it time to face the fact that our western image of God is nothing more than our perspective on God with all its negative and positive aspects included?

  A great deal of the popular image is. I try to strip as much away as I can. Almost all there is in this relativistic realm is perspective, and that perspective is reality to the beholder.

  Why do we need to prove the existence of our God if it's only the perspective we feel comfortable with? And maybe more important: why do we need to rail at others with different perspectives? Are there any empirical clues pointing at the possibility of a transcendental God without referring to the superiority of our perspective?

  I am only speaking for myself here, I merely am defending my own perspective on this board and I try not to condemn others. My history may not be entirely coherent, but I am far from a finished product.

  Burn

  tilting at windmills.
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  hamilcarr

  So you don't claim your perspective is based on reason?
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  BurnTheShips

  So you don't claim your perspective is based on reason?

  It is is in part. In part on experience and intuition as well. In part on faith. However, reason flows through the perspective field. So in a way, reason is based on perspective. Now we see but a poor reflection as in amirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Cor 13:12

  In both East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries to meet and engage truth more and more deeply. It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing. This is why all that is the object of our knowledge becomes a part of our life. The admonition Know yourself was carved on the temple portal at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from the rest of creation as “human beings”, that is as those who “know themselves”. Moreover, a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.

  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html Burn