Why I am not an atheist

@Jacques Maritain,

Jacques Maritain;172703 wrote:

Well that touches upon issues of God-manhood, which I'm not prepared to get into at this moment.

I respect that. Do you like Nicholas of Cusa at all?

---------- Post added 06-03-2010 at 07:07 PM ----------

Zachariah;172695 wrote:

Believe in God, Belief in theory! As they say. Why not know, or at-least have the subtle burn in your heart or icy minds that think thoughts of gold(Mined from observation of reality)?

"I saw no god, nor heard any, in any finite organical perception, but my senses discovered the infinite in everything.."
Blake having tea with Isaiah and Ezekiel. I think he has Isaiah speak that line.

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@Twirlip,

To use Kierkegaard's term, Nietzsche certainly did wallow in his "despair to be oneself." For that, no he's not much of a reliable guide on how best to deal with suffering and life. If anything he just offers a cheap high. Nevertheless, his basic observation still stands. How best to achieve that result one has to look for guidance elsewhere.

---------- Post added 06-03-2010 at 08:11 PM ----------

Reconstructo;172707 wrote:

I respect that. Do you like Nicholas of Cusa at all?

I really can't say. I haven't gotten around to reading much about him or any of his works.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;172706 wrote:

I think you have an exaggerated notion of christianity's depth. Basically it's a doomsday cult, and the New Testament includes examples of typical cult strategies, like the creation of financial and emotional dependence. Control of sexual behaviour is another typical strategy.

Suirely you have an equation for that don't you? You seem to have an equation for everything, so presumably there is one for the nature of existence and suffering also isn't there? Although I am not good at equations, they are too deep for me.

---------- Post added 06-04-2010 at 10:12 AM ----------

hopeless fragmentation alert. I am bailing out of here until the originator of the OP turns up again.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

Do people still look at the bible only literally? Who has the ears to hear of higher men, here?

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;172706 wrote:

I think you have an exaggerated notion of christianity's depth.

A simple glance through Christianity's 2000 year history shows that it's rather hard to exaggerate its depth.

Quote:

Basically it's a doomsday cult, and the New Testament includes examples of typical cult strategies, like the creation of financial and emotional dependence. Control of sexual behaviour is another typical strategy.

Early Christianity certainly was a "cult" in the manner commonly meant as a small religious grouping. However to interpret Christianity as some early form of Jonestown wouldn't really fit.

---------- Post added 06-03-2010 at 08:18 PM ----------

Zachariah;172714 wrote:

Do people still look at the bible only literally? Who has the ears to hear of higher men, here?

Biblical literalism is a rather latecomer in the history of Biblical interpretation. Allegorical readings go back to Philo.

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@Jacques Maritain,

No other person has made the impact Christ has on humanity; He brings out both light and compassion, while also showing our dark side, through those without God, that pretend or worse the ones that have a philosophy of rejection, then there are even those that completely ignore, dirty as we are.

Isn't everyone a part of a cult, satanic or heavenly?

No really we are a culture even on this very website.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;172706 wrote:

I think you have an exaggerated notion of christianity's depth. Basically it's a doomsday cult, and the New Testament includes examples of typical cult strategies, like the creation of financial and emotional dependence. Control of sexual behaviour is another typical strategy.

Historically, you may be write. I can't say. But the tradition has accumulated a literature and an art that is something special. No matter the historical facts, the Gospels are, in my view, as deep as the Tao or Buddhism so far as I understand them.

If you look at Blake, he interprets Christianity as something highly erotic. And he attacks the pseudo-Christianity which he saw as repressive and self-righteous. Because Blake saw Christ as a liberator. His Christ was a hero of the Spirit over the Letter. The Letter Kills. Energy (Desire) is Eternal Delight. I have been a hard core atheist, and I still don't believe that any concept is God. But humans when full of love can experience the world, and especially other humans, as something worthy of the term Divine.

In my mind, religion has nothing to do with beliefs. Beliefs for the most part get in the way. It doesn't matter what sentences one asserts but how one feels and how one acts because of this feeling.

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@Reconstructo,

That religion was most important part of Christianity, I always thought. Without union what's the use? Binding oneself to divinity is the essence of the Torah and Gospel.

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@Zachariah,

Zachariah;172714 wrote:

Do people still look at the bible only literally? Who has the ears to hear of higher men, here?

For thousands of years man has been profoundly symbolic. We may have technology that those of the past did not, but in many cases they were far more aware of human depths.

---------- Post added 06-03-2010 at 07:32 PM ----------

Zachariah;172724 wrote:

That religion was most important part of Christianity, I always thought. Without union what's the use? Binding oneself to divinity is the essence of the Torah and Gospel.

Exactly. But what if Divinity is the World seen thru the eyes of Love?

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

I love how people use technology as a means of proving evolution, dumb as they are, that's not a genetic improvement. Where are our men worthy of the Laurel? We have become the Last man!

What if divinity is the Word seen with the inner eye?

1 Reply

@Twirlip,

I suggest this thread get back on topic, or be moved to evangelism or christianity.

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@Zachariah,

Zachariah;172729 wrote:

What if divinity is the Word seen with the inner eye?

Great phrase! I think that must be part of it. As long as seeing this word makes you feel something.

I strongly object to the tendency to focus on a religion as a matter of belief, rather than as a state being. This is not aimed at you but just a thought associated with the above.

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@ughaibu,

I'm not an athiest, because I had a experience where I wept for 6 hours and felt a burning pain, when a priest prayed over me: this experience lead to empirical prayer and fasting and extrasensory guidance; guidance that I don't know how to explain without a God.

What man has turned religion into is bad: herd instinct, security.

Athiest are looking for security on this topic as well, they are a big herd nowadays, everyone of them looking in one direction!

1 Reply

@Zachariah,

Zachariah;172737 wrote:

Athiest are looking for security on this topic as well, they are a big herd nowadays, everyone of them looking in one direction!

Yeah looking in the direction away from make believe.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;172711 wrote:

ughaibu;172706 wrote:
I think you have an exaggerated notion of christianity's depth.

Suirely you have an equation for that don't you?

X = 0.

jeeprs;172711 wrote:

hopeless fragmentation alert. I am bailing out of here until the originator of the OP turns up again.

Unfortunately the originator of the OP is himself feeling hopelessly fragmented.

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@Twirlip,

breathe in, breathe out.
breathe in, breathe out.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;172731 wrote:

I suggest this thread get back on topic,

As the OP, for what it's worth, I'd have no objection to it being simply terminated. It would be a mercy killing, because the original impetus petered out almost immediately, and has been replaced by more or less random arguments about religion in general, which don't really belong in a single thread. There's nothing terribly wrong with the thread, it's just become untidy and rather pointless now.

ughaibu;172731 wrote:

or be moved to evangelism or christianity.

Neither suggestion makes the slightest sense. The original subject of the thread was neither evangelical nor Christian. (No-one else has evangelised either, not even for atheism.) If people want to obsess about Christianity (for or against) in a thread which has nothing specifically to do with it, that is their concern, and no reason to move the entire thread in the direction of their obsession.

1 Reply

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;172762 wrote:

If people want to obsess about Christianity (for or against) in a thread which has nothing specifically to do with it, that is their concern, and no reason to move the entire thread in the direction of their obsession.

Threads can be split, keep the original stuff here.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;172763 wrote:

Threads can be split, keep the original stuff here.

Yes, that makes sense. The thread seemed to reach a natural end with my post #140, which went down like a lead balloon. It sputtered on gamely with Reconstructo's post #141. I'm not sure whom jeeprs was addressing in post #142, but it still looks like part of the same broad argument. After that, I completely lost track.

I don't know if the rest of the thread (assuming a natural point of division can be found) should be moved, but splitting it off seems harmless.

1 Reply

@Twirlip,

Twirlip;172765 wrote:

Yes, that makes sense. The thread seemed to reach a natural end with my post #140, which went down like a lead balloon. It sputtered on gamely with Reconstructo's post #141. I'm not sure whom jeeprs was addressing in post #142, but it still looks like part of the same broad argument. After that, I completely lost track.

I don't know if the rest of the thread (assuming a natural point of division can be found) should be moved, but splitting it off seems harmless.

Well did you ever really define what you were first talking about? Because it seemed to me that the entire thread has been off topic since your opening post. Not to annoy you with rehashing that bit but I sort of lost interest there in the middle when it was a back and forth match on "what to do and what not to do" one liners.

I still don't think I understand your reasoning for your position.

1 Reply

Why I am not an atheist

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