You are right! If reason rules out mediators, the only option left is to suppress the reason—something the self-styled mediators have been doing from time immemorial! But they have been losing the war consistently. Many are making search in their own way. Even in our secular age, where many societies have evolved to a post-religious phase, people still have unfulfilled spiritual yearnings. A project with the scope and profundity of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) is linked with this cultural context, for, it offers the vision of a world transformed, and holds the compelling promise that this could happen any day soon.... With the arrival of the scientific age, speculations about alien beings passed from theologians to science fiction writers, but the spiritual dimension remained just below the surface.... For many non-scientists, the fascination of Seti is precisely its semi-religious quality, and its tantalising promise of celestial wisdom and unbounded riches in the sky!
iconoclastic
JoinedPosts by iconoclastic
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Power of reason makes no room for a Satan, a Savior or God’s organization
by iconoclastic inpower of reason makes no room for a satan, a savior or gods organization.
religions behave as though they do not know the meaning of the very word religion (from religare, latin, to reconnect) and go to any extent to keep their identity and to massage their feeling of self-importance.
this makes adherents hypocrites which in turn makes onlookers lose their faith in god.
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Power of reason makes no room for a Satan, a Savior or God’s organization
by iconoclastic inpower of reason makes no room for a satan, a savior or gods organization.
religions behave as though they do not know the meaning of the very word religion (from religare, latin, to reconnect) and go to any extent to keep their identity and to massage their feeling of self-importance.
this makes adherents hypocrites which in turn makes onlookers lose their faith in god.
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iconoclastic
Power of reason makes no room for a Satan, a Savior or God’s organization
Religions behave as though they do not know the meaning of the very word religion (from religare, Latin, “to reconnect”) and go to any extent to keep their identity and to massage their feeling of self-importance. This makes adherents hypocrites which in turn makes onlookers lose their faith in God. People in general never integrated teachings of their religions into their lives. For example:
1) Religions teach that God is merciful (yet people ask: “Why does then inequality exist in the world?”)
2) Religions teach Law of cause and consequence, and at the same time neutralize it presenting a Satan and a Savior (yet many ask: Why did this happen to me, why did God do this to me ….)
So the only resort is the power of our reason. We see changes everywhere. Change presupposes something unchangeable (in other words, change happens in relation to something unchangeable—for a change to happen something unchangeable is required as a platform). This inner eye of perception shows that God is sustainer of the physical world and is eternal. If He is eternal, He has to be indivisible, “minuter than atom” (as some Scriptures put it) in form, and “infinite and inexhaustive source of all good qualities” which means no one would ever feel like self-styling himself as a Satan against God!
“He resides in unapproachable light.” (1 Tim 6:16) In order to see the light, no other light is necessary. Just as in the physical world, the sun in its self-effulgence, is self-evident, so too, in the spiritual realm, to know the Knowledge Absolute no other knowing-principle or a mediator is needed. Though people say they see, they see the illusion of what they think the reality is, hence it is no different from dream. The dreamer can never know the waker, for, while knowing the waking-state the dreamer himself ends to become the waker. To awaken oneself from the dream is to know the waker; to know the waker is to become the waker. So too, on ending the ego-centric existence, in the flash of the spiritual awakening, the misguided, panting ego ends itself in the re-discovery that it was nothing but an attachment to a false image of what I am not [ego is sense of doership and thinking in terms of me and mine—both are in a way an illusory feeling; because when one thinks that doership of an action belongs to him, he is ignorant of countless causes—perceptible and imperceptible—behind producing an action/result, and no one posses anything in its real sense].
Interestingly, some Scriptures call God as the Supreme Soul or Param Atma (combination of a negative prefix “a” + “tama” or darkness) which literally means God is antonym of darkness, ignorance or ego, and describe Him as “effulgent like sun” whose duty is to give light and heat, which means God is the giver of illuminating spiritual knowledge and empowering qualities, with no thought of receiving anything in return. (Mathew 5:44-48)
If the Supreme Atma, God, is understood as “antonym of ego,” His very attitude and action become a silent and effective teaching that we are also atma, hence antonym of ego. Interestingly, Galatians 5:25, 26 contrast spirituality with “egotistical living.”
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Anthropomorphism in the Scriptures
by iconoclastic insince all our conceptualisations are limited by our human condition, our images of god are often anthropomorphic; hence bible writers presented god as:.
1) working six days and taking rest on the seventh day [which is not required for one who is omnipotent].
2) grand-father whose eyes are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (proverbs 15:3) [which is redundant as law of cause and consequence are already in place and does a wonderful job].
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iconoclastic
These are the certain questions house-holders put to me which I found it difficult to explain when I was a Witness. Those days, I never thought these were the anthropomorphism.
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Anthropomorphism in the Scriptures
by iconoclastic insince all our conceptualisations are limited by our human condition, our images of god are often anthropomorphic; hence bible writers presented god as:.
1) working six days and taking rest on the seventh day [which is not required for one who is omnipotent].
2) grand-father whose eyes are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (proverbs 15:3) [which is redundant as law of cause and consequence are already in place and does a wonderful job].
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iconoclastic
Since all our conceptualisations are limited by our human condition, our images of God are often anthropomorphic; hence Bible writers presented God as:
1) working six days and taking rest on the seventh day [which is not required for one who is omnipotent]
2) grand-father whose “eyes are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good“ (Proverbs 15:3) [which is redundant as Law of Cause and Consequence are already in place and does a wonderful job]
3) envying human ability to build skyscraper city [which is too is unnecessary as it is in no way a threat to God] and spoiling it confusing language of the builders.
Though all the anthropomorphic presentations of God could be understood simply as piece of human imagination, presenting God as going to the extent of resorting to confusing the language of builders as to thwart construction program defies all the logic. Confusing the language would mean that God could manipulate man’s thinking and memory processing—something that God will never do with His children endowed with free-will [especially so using “power of reason” is referred to as true worship in Romans 12:1, 2]
Story of God confusing the language may have had its origin in a writer who found it a problem to explain the existence of numerous languages. Answer could be discerned from the name given to one of the ancient script—Devanagari [combination of two words devas = gods + nagari + civilized] which means script that was used by humans whose behavior was like civilized gods. This means there was a time when everything was perfect with humans till they fell into the trap of ego [symbolized by Satan] which meant that each one began to feel self-important, and divisiveness started with each group migrating in all directions (leaving behind whatever was perfect—including their language) which gave rise to various man-made systems—religious, political, social, lingual, economic …..etc
This explains why we find in many languages same words with different meaning and variations or evolution of same word in many languages. The word for gold in one language is suvarna (literally, “that which is of best quality and color”); then we find its evolution into swornam, or, oro, ouro, aurum, altın, zlato, gull, guld, gold. Thus the first word has no resemblance with the final evolute!
This shows confusion of language has nothing to do with God, but it is the work of human mind. Situation is like what happens in a dream. Suppose you went to a shop in the evening, and are having a dream of it later in the night. If you try to remember the name-boards of nearby shops, you will note that some names are correct and others do not match! This means mind simply recalled what it could and supplied its own information where it could not recall. It seems something similar happened with regard to languages too. Thus we have the present situation with languages in which some things look similar and other things different!
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Neither writers nor translators believe Scriptures are inspired of God
by iconoclastic inin most of the scriptures, the supreme father figure is originally presented as upholder of the law that every action has equal and opposite reaction.
later writers would come presenting a son of god who would exhibit a soft approach towards consequences of action.
one of the best examples is john 7:53 to 8:11 which is now accepted as one of the most famous forgeries in the bible..
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iconoclastic
CalebInFloroda
Wonderful insight into the subject of inspiration. Thanks for that.
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Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead
by Viviane inrecently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.
i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.
first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.
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iconoclastic
Very Good inputs, viviane.
Sometimes conclusion depends on other things also. For example, Is wind the enemy of fire? Yes, if wind is wild and fire is only a flame-like, then fire will be put off; and No, if fire is wild and wind is normal, then wind will make the fire grow like wild-fire.
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Neither writers nor translators believe Scriptures are inspired of God
by iconoclastic inin most of the scriptures, the supreme father figure is originally presented as upholder of the law that every action has equal and opposite reaction.
later writers would come presenting a son of god who would exhibit a soft approach towards consequences of action.
one of the best examples is john 7:53 to 8:11 which is now accepted as one of the most famous forgeries in the bible..
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iconoclastic
In most of the scriptures, the Supreme Father figure is originally presented as upholder of the Law that every action has equal and opposite reaction. Later writers would come presenting a son of God who would exhibit a soft approach towards consequences of action. One of the best examples is John 7:53 to 8:11 which is now accepted as one of the most famous forgeries in the Bible.
Matthew 17:21 (“This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting”) is a duplicate of Mark 9:29 ( "This kind can come out only by prayer.). It was apparently added by a copyist in order to make Matthew agree with Mark. Interestingly, the whole account in Mark 9:14-29 itself is a forgery [Because Jesus is presented as a simpleton as he calls the demon as “deaf and mute” yet commands him “to come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mark 9:25)]; this makes Matthew 17:21 a type of double-layered forgery!
Translators too are no exception:
1) Isaiah 66:3:
“Whoever slaughters an ox is just like one who kills a human being” (International Standard Version)
“When such people sacrifice a bull, it is no more acceptable than a human sacrifice” (New Living Translation)
2) Mathew 16:18 is the best example of how churches try to modify translation to support their favored doctrines.
On what basis do believers put trust in scriptures?
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What was so new about The Theory of Evolution?
by iconoclastic inthe east had already been teaching the 10 stages of human evolution (that should happen in the life-span of a human being) using an allegorical story of 10 incarnations of god:.
1) fish (water borne life, a fish-like start in the womb of mother) amoebae or primeval evolution..
2) turtle (life moves into land, crawling child once outside the womb) amphibians..
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iconoclastic
Ruby456
I agree with you. One can be humane without the belief in God—and this is more important as religionists make a mockery of their belief in God as they worship God to receive material favors from Him, thus making themselves materialists (or beggars for material things).
Thus we have materialists on one hand who are materialists on their own right, and on the other hand we have believers in God, who become materialists with the help of God!
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Language shows how theology evolves
by iconoclastic inin some ancient languages, the word for god (which is actually the 3rd person in most of the modern languages) is called primary person; second person is called middle person, and the word for i (which is actually first person in most of the modern languages) is called perfect person.
this wording conveys the understanding of ancient people:.
when god is viewed as primary person, or put above everything else, and.
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What was so new about The Theory of Evolution?
by iconoclastic inthe east had already been teaching the 10 stages of human evolution (that should happen in the life-span of a human being) using an allegorical story of 10 incarnations of god:.
1) fish (water borne life, a fish-like start in the womb of mother) amoebae or primeval evolution..
2) turtle (life moves into land, crawling child once outside the womb) amphibians..
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iconoclastic
The East had already been teaching the 10 stages of human evolution (that should happen in the life-span of a human being) using an allegorical story of 10 incarnations of God:
1) Fish (Water borne life, a fish-like start in the womb of mother) — amoebae or primeval evolution.
2) Turtle (Life moves into land, crawling child once outside the womb) — amphibians.
3) Boar (adapting to land life) — mammals
4) Half lion-half human (Semi-human, growing from animal nature to human nature) — primates.
Evolution of man:5) Dwarf (Life between childhood and adulthood) — primitive human.
6) User of weapon (axe).
7) User of superior weapons like bow and arrow.
8) Agriculturist (plough)
9) Spinner of swadarshana chakra (swa = self/soul; darshana = vision; chakra = wheel) which means one’s realizing that he is a metaphysical being that continues to exist after the dissolution of the physical structure.
10) Kalki/Destruction (Homo spiritus) — leaving behind whatever acquired/accomplished materially, body is destroyed, and person moves into spirit world.
This is the ten stages that happen during one life-span of an individual. Simply put, a spark from God descends and incarnates into the watery womb of a woman where it starts its journey something like a fish, then comes out, and through other stages, finally reaches the finishing point where its physical body is dissolved, after which it continues to exist as a spirit being.
When what was originally meant to apply to the stages (an individual passes through his one life-span) is made applied to collective man (humanity as a whole, passing through various evolutionary stages and many generations) we have the Theory of Evolution. Hence the question whether Darwin was influenced by the East is not important, what is noteworthy is the twist it received—what was originally meant to highlight the evolution into spirituality evolved into something purely material!
Such a purely materialistic outlook would not have arisen if the believers in God ‘had a form of godliness that did not deny its power.’—2 Timothy 3:5