Mackin, What god doesn't exist?

by TheContagion 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  TheContagion

  Mackin

  Which God does not exist?

  Edited by - TheContagion on 18 June 2002 3:4:1
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  TheContagion

  Edited by - TheContagion on 18 June 2002 3:9:11
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  Mackin

  Contagion,

  I went to your homepage and clicked on the link to "God Defined". The result was a blank page. Is that your definition of God?
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  TheContagion

  Macken sorry that there wasn't much for you to read on my web site. My thoughts can be quite scattered most of the time and i get little actually down on a the page. But i do have to say that i am quite proud of what i have written so far. It is very little and it would take the most unlikely of a person to decipher what it is that i am trying to say. Perhaps one day i might have collected enough little packets of this drivel one day to actually publish something. I didn't notice you had replied to my post, because it had got lost since i had posted it.

  Is that your definition of God?

  I sit here staring at your question with a very clear point in mind, however.........

  I really think that the actual answer to that question defies any kind of straight forward response. I know that this is not good form for debate but i do hope that you can read this outside of that frame for the sake of understanding.

  I am guessing, i don't know your story but i am assuming that there was a day back when you believed that Jehovah was your true father and the maker of all things. That there was unmistakable meaning in all the grand awe inspiring works of your father our God in heaven Jehovah. Wasn't it the most humbling experience to know that the ruler of the universe was your best friend and cared for you so much. It is not an easy task to direct ones step, not in a world like this. And isn't it wonderful to know that the designer of it all is there for you, to guide you along that way. That no matter what it is you fail at, not one thing you can do could ever prevent you from seeing what is important and ending up where is it that you truly belong. What you were designed for...to live forever, to be comfortable and provided for. To not have to worry about the things in this life that only seem to matter, this rat race of confusion, this one big misconception of man trying to do without the guidance of our father, this mass aberration.

  I am also assuming you too had the experience of one day waking up and realizing the whole time it wasn't really your daddy who was directing the whole film, that actually it was big brother. Always looking down their noses watching to see that you are clean, righteous and without infection from the world, that dirty place where people fornicate and give in to their immoral cravings for disgusting habits and destructive thoughts. You didn't really have daddy around you just had bro. so'n so, do this and that, and our loving guidance from the closest representation of really having a ruler of all things and provider of peace and security. You didn't have unconditional love from the grand designer, you had agape love, the conditional sort, the kind that is used to control you. You put in your time, you gave up some nice things and gave of your money. You had to give back to the idea, because the idea had done so much for you. They had to keep the idea alive because it was doing so much for them. They had to feed it's expensive apatite for your time money and energy. All with the end result being more bro. so'n sos, more people to share the idea with. Together you knew it to be the truth and the truth set you free from the world and their handy myths that only served up their own destruction. You said you were serving "God" but really you were serving an idea. The idea that owes it's existence to other people like you, who also found themselves infected inspired by the idea. People who couldn't imagine passing up the chance for everlasting life. Any amount of anything of this world was worth giving. We were going to sing praises to Jehovah and declare his name in the face of persecution. The world was never going to cohorse us into serving Satan the devil, and the ideas of man. With every bible study, and every parroted affirmation of the idea from those who at one time thought wrong ideas were worth serving, you fortified your conviction. You thought you had a strong foundation in jehovah, and a clear understanding, when really you had hardening of the categories. The main symptom of a bad case of infection, of a very contagious kind.

  Jehovah didn't really exist, but i can tell you that idea can really reach out and move you. It infected you and you followed instructions. You did what ever it needed you to do. The one thing it has needed from all it's hosts, to spread it and keep on spreading it, with the "an eye on the prize" that the idea will one day be spread to all the inhabited earth and the idea will live forever.

  I think that we can agree that the DNA instructions, that inspire each one of us to give so much to the idea of having a family, find themselves in the next generation for some pretty obvious reasons. Those genes(self-replicating chemical instructions) were the best thing that ever happened to themselves. Their main effect on the world was a process that resulted in more of themselves.

  I am sure that you understand the awe inspiring process of natural development called "evolution" (Replication+variation+selective retention). That given that there is only so much space in the ecosphere, these self-replicating sets of instruction are in a harsh competition to find themselves in the next generation. Eventually they formed into complexes, organisms, gestalts that were far greater than the some of their parts, and able to compete on a whole other level.

  I imagine that you can see the long drawn out analogy i am attempting to put forward. I am going on far too long on this one point that i will attempt to be straight forward.

  Just as genes compete for space in the ecosphere, organize and create something much greater than themselves so to do ideas compete for space in the ideosphere, organize and create something much greater than themselves, organizations. These organizations, some of which have legal status as single persons, are far greater than each of the minds that make them up. They have in many cases enormous amounts of resources, and abilities that dwarf those of any single organism. Just as organisms dwarf individual cells.

  Whether you choose to use the same semantic model, or share my way of describing it can you really say that these powerful entities do not exist? We sure can see a measurable effect they have on the world. You would never say "well organisms don't really exist they are just a bunch of cells working together", despite the fact that you would be half right.

  There are two meanings of the title Pantheist. The above is a very sloppy attempt to show how i fit one of them. That was my answer to "What is you definition of "g"od. However i am a very rare breed of Pantheist. I fit both descriptions. Now please forgive me for being so sloppy and unedited, this is a very rough of the cuff description of my beliefs. Now i will attempt to explicate my definition of "G"od.

  Some people would call me an atheist simply because i do not believe in any kind of personal God or gods. The problem i have with that, is i am not without theism. And i don't believe that about yourself either. I bet i can already guess what your argument is against Pantheism of the sort i am about to describe. That it is logically equivalent to atheism, and that there is no need to call the universe or the embodiment of the natural laws "God" when we already have perfectly fine secular ways of talking bout these things. But stop for a second and read through these quotes from Pantheists, and try to see what it is that we are doing:

  Larry King: Do you believe in God?

  Stephen Hawking:

  
  Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe.

  "I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god.
  To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
  Being at one with nature.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude;
  in this sense, and in this alone,
  I am a deeply religious man .
  Einstein,(Who thought the idea of a personal creator was childish, yet was not without talk of God) -The World as I See It

  We are not humans having spiritual experiences the universe is one great big spirit having individual human experiences. -Me

  Can you see what it is that we are doing? You know as well as i do that theists cannot claim to have any experience they we do not also have. Well except maybe ignorance.(Ooops did i say that?) What we are doing is taking back the experience of awe and reverence, praise and worship. The idea of God preceded the bible, and most other religious writings. Religion doesn't have to be about fairy tales anymore. We can get to know God directly.

  This post needs alot of work but i am getting tried of it right now so i am just going to post it as it is.

  Now before any of you theists get started let me ask you: Who designed God the way he is? God has to be just the way he is for him to have created this universe just as it is, so who is responsible for that?
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  TheContagion

  There are two meanings of the title Pantheist. The above is a very sloppy attempt to show how i fit one of them. That was my answer to "What is you definition of "g"od. However i am a very rare breed of Pantheist. I fit both descriptions. Now please forgive me for being so sloppy and unedited, this is a very rough of the cuff description of my beliefs. Now i will attempt to explicate my definition of "G"od.

  I should have put this in my post:

  Merriam-Webster Collegiate in Encyclopaedia Britannica

  Pantheism

  1: a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe
  2: the worship of all gods of different creeds, cults, or peoples
  indifferently; also: toleration of worship of all gods (as at certain
  periods of the Roman empire).