All prayers originated from the misplaced belief that we are beggars: “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mathew 6:8) and insult God who is the very epitome of goodness (Mark 10:18)
iconoclastic
JoinedPosts by iconoclastic
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Public Prayers - Scriptural?
by OverlappingGeneralizations insomething that has always been a pet peeve of mine- public prayers.
is that even scriptural?
i know many churches (along with the jws) do it.
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If God exists ....
by iconoclastic inif god exists, he must be a god of freedom.
because he has endowed us with free-will, and never interferes with it (as confirmed by our own experiences).
that means he wants everyone to make their choice and reap the fruits accordingly.
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iconoclastic
All your various responses confirm the very first sentence of the excerpt (“The people of various tendencies can only be accommodated into the corresponding phases of cyclic history”). A God who accommodates every variety of people is easily understandable.
People make various remarks about God because they are disappointed at the way religions portray God and the hypocrisy of the believers.
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If God exists ....
by iconoclastic inif god exists, he must be a god of freedom.
because he has endowed us with free-will, and never interferes with it (as confirmed by our own experiences).
that means he wants everyone to make their choice and reap the fruits accordingly.
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iconoclastic
If God exists, He must be a God of freedom. Because He has endowed us with free-will, and never interferes with it (as confirmed by our own experiences). That means He wants everyone to make their choice and reap the fruits accordingly. This means many would choose as they like—bringing varying degree of goodness and badness, and God will naturally be impartial to everyone. This would mean the following:
1) God will have nothing to do if everyone makes right choices which safeguards the harmony within and without, or
2) God will have to recreate ideal situation if things go to the worst.
With this introduction, my friend sent me an interesting excerpt from one spiritual magazine he read this week, and it goes like:
“The people of various tendencies can only be accommodated into the corresponding phases of cyclic history. Each cycle of history runs like a special ship, a mammoth ship, which has 84 decks/floors numbered in descending order—first on top (smallest) and 84th (largest) being on the entrance floor, and it has a circular route around the globe. This ship is special in one more sense too that it starts the journey by taking a very few chosen travelers from the starting point putting them in the first floor (top-most floor), and when it reaches the second port, some more people will board but into the second floor and in which travelers from the first floor will also join; and when it reaches the third port, some more people will board but into the third floor, in which all people from the second floor will also join; thus when it reaches the 84th port, it will be fully crowded with all the passengers as everyone changed only the floor, but did not go out of the ship.
The higher the floor, the more the facilities and comforts will be and vice versa. First 20 floors are reserved for the people whose character is like that of gods and goddesses whose highlight is altruism. And the remaining 63 floors are for those who are passionately seeking personal gains in all their actions and for those who are always complaining never getting satisfied over anything. And finally when the time comes they are all together in the 84th floor, the Captain (God) takes measures to restore and rejuvenate the condition of the ship and of the passengers. And as they remember their past glorious journey, the souls resolve to recreate their original pure and divine state which will enable them to restart their journey as gods and goddesses.
In this journey, the good people take births in the good phase (first half of the cycle of history) number-wise—according to one’s merit and time, and will continue to take birth in the successive phases too. The mediocre people take birth in the mediocre phase (first part of the second half of the cycle of history) number-wise, and will continue to take birth in the next phase also. The selfish people take birth in the last phase (last part of the second half of the cycle of history) numberwise. Such a sketch of history ensures that good people are available throughout the cycle of history!
Thus the sketch of the history of mankind is such that people who have karmic accounts to be settled will come together again at the appropriate place and time. There is, in fact, no such thing as accident. Everything that happens to us happens by the Cause-and-Effect principle and not by chance. Hence there is nothing to be worried over receiving the unpleasant, and nor to be elated over receiving the pleasant. There is nothing to feel personal in any happening as everything is just ONE THING LEADING TO THE OTHER. Once an action is performed, it is like a seed planted—its sprouting, growth and fruition are absolutely certain—something the forces of nature will do meticulously precise in its own time and its own way. Once convinced of this, one can live in peace and freedom as he knows whatever happened or is happening to him is the fruit of what he sowed in the past, and what he does now will definitely have its appropriate fruits in the future. Hence, it allows one to be very passionate about all his duties and dispassionate about their results–which means one should add fullness to whatever one is doing now which would make every moment of his life joyful.”
I found this interesting, hence thought of sharing with you!
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Meditation answered my vital questions!
by iconoclastic insome time back, i was listening to sara lazar, a neuroscientist at massachusetts general hospital and harvard medical school, one of the first scientists to take the anecdotal claims about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and test them in brain scans..
that day i thought i should test meditation myself.
though i reaped many benefits (physiological and mental) over a period, what i want to share with you is the spiritual benefit i got.
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iconoclastic
SecretSlaveClass thank you for that
punkofnice, You believe in one thing, yet you respect another’s belief! If everybody were like you, this world would have been a paradise. Many people are prisoners of their own beliefs which were created by ego, which is actually a pseudo-independent entity, with induced sense of separation, though in reality there is no such thing as ego. This recognition is an intuitive `seeing' because in this recognition, even ego is seen as a thought, it is an attachment to a false image of what I am not. Yet people make their lives miserable because of their disagreeing and unyielding nature shaped by their ego
Now back to the subject—Knowingness or awareness is our true nature. It's this unchanging background, awareness along with information-of-object, that constitute thoughts, enabling knowledge of objects. So, what constitutes our experience is the projected knowledge of the world in the form of thoughts whereas we feel we are experiencing the world directly. Captivated by thought, all we experience is its composite dynamic form. However, through meditation, awareness dawns as witnessing of the objects of awareness—without the coloring by ego, and you come in contact with the truth by direct perception—unmediated.
So there is freedom in awareness, in meditation!
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Meditation answered my vital questions!
by iconoclastic insome time back, i was listening to sara lazar, a neuroscientist at massachusetts general hospital and harvard medical school, one of the first scientists to take the anecdotal claims about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and test them in brain scans..
that day i thought i should test meditation myself.
though i reaped many benefits (physiological and mental) over a period, what i want to share with you is the spiritual benefit i got.
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iconoclastic
Some time back, I was listening to Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, one of the first scientists to take the anecdotal claims about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and test them in brain scans.
That day I thought I should test meditation myself. Though I reaped many benefits (physiological and mental) over a period, what I want to share with you is the spiritual benefit I got.
One day, I had thought about questions such as: why many conflicted religions, what is the key to happiness and so on. That day, during my meditation, I had an illuminating thought thrown to me (by God, I believe):
“Religions are the products of the time and circumstance in which they were all born, and their scriptures are just like mirrors of people of that time, hence differ from one another. I have put the guiding principle in the sun which is known for its eternal duty—to give light and heat (which reminded me of Gen 1:14-16 and Mathew 5:44-48). Then I asked myself: “But how many people can know this by themselves?” Then came this thought: “People derive certain amount of happiness from whatever they choose to do.” But if they want real, and lasting happiness, they have to adopt the principle behind what sun does—practice of giving light (wise living) and heat (be empowering) to others with no thought of receiving anything in return. People will soon or later will come to this realization—each one in their own time. No need of haste as time is infinite!”
This brought an end to my search for meaning and happiness!
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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
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!
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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.