Do you think God is an egoist?

What I’m saying is that the only way to transcend ego is to fully own it.
Because you can’t escape it.

The only reason you should repent of your ego is if you have made it your God.

You repent because it's a sin. It separates you from God.

Wrong again. I wrote it and checked to see that they were playing Saturday before posting. But don't apologise.

PS - A bit disappointed you'd think I'd think that was a reasonable way to attack you - considering a) I don't want to attack you, b) if I did it would be a lot harsher than ribbing you based on your football team, c) I'm in any position to criticise someone else's football team.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I knew the half time score which was the FT score when I posted before you so I doubt it.

Where did you post it? In this thread? Do you think I stalk you? You're being odd.

The post I made just before your post on this thread talking about the football. I didn't talk about football because I didn't think it was relevant. And I've never accused you of stalking me, but don't let that stop you calling me mentally deranged because I dared to disagree with you.

When falsely pious people give empty statements for answers it really reflects badly on anyone professing a belief in God.

No **** Sherlock, making yourself your own God a sin? Who'd a thunk it.
God wants 'you', not your groveling.

Oh, I see. You're one of those people who likes turning religious discussions into biting, spitting, ego battles with provocative language. I'll pass.

I wasn’t going to spit on you, but as JC said, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”.

Do you understand that?

Wrong! The ego or self can be seen as an illusion, that there basically is no self, no center of being. In some traditions the goal is to live in that Transcendent state. But I believe it is possible and sufficient to recognize the illusion and live without fanaticism. All ego and fanaticism is caused by attachment to one side of a pair of interdependent opposites.

That wasn’t my Quote, dude.

But your reply sounds very zen Buddhist.

Hi Iz - I just looked back on all the posts you made in this thread on Saturday - can't see any mention at all of football until I mentioned it.

Can't see when I called you mentally deranged either. Emotional yes, but that isn't code for deranged (in my world at least). YMMV.

Sorry. Quoting quotes that quote quotes can be very confusing.
As far as the zen "no self "statement, that's the way I've seen it. Basically, ultimate reality statements cannot be intellectualized. The intellect is useless in that sense. I have to agree with zen.

Yes, that means you don't compromise morality to appease people. So do you mean that you feel there is some morality you are upholding by spitting on me? Maybe the 'morality' of ego supremacy?

Ego can be understood purely in terms of the emotions that bind people to identities and symbolic actions relative to those identities. E.g. when someone insults a collective identity like a nation (e.g. "Swedes are idiots", and you vicariously identify with that identity, even if it's not as your own, (e.g. "hey, all the Swedes I know are good people") and get defensive, you are having a pride (emotional) reaction to the symbolic attack on that identity that is the same fundamental cognitive-emotional mechanism as when someone insults you directly and you get defensive.

Pride and shame are the basic emotions of ego and they cause you to orient toward those who exercise power over those identities by praise and ridicule. Ego allows you to be controlled behaviorally, like a dog, by praising and shaming you. You may be thinking you are doing the right thing in some situation and someone ridicules you and the shame triggers you to stop doing what you thought was right. Some people mold their entire modus operandi according to behavioral structuring they were programmed with using shame and ridicule.

They may never have been taught to listen to their own conscience or think independently for themselves. Instead, they were always conditioned using shame and praise to respond to egoizing commentary that dragged them back away from their independent mind and conscience to respond to social cues, conformity to which would shield them from shaming and make them eligible for praise and other behavioral rewards.

The really ironic thing about this social aspect of ego is that it is what causes you to get pulled back into social-conformism when you are successfully exercising independent thought and acting accordingly. I.e. if you are acting independently and you feel pride for it, maybe because you are praised, that can cause you to re-orient yourself to social-judgment, which gives those praising you control over you. This, I think, is why the culture of audience-celebrity worship is so prominent in modern society; i.e. people have to be constantly brought back into social submission/conformism to use them as cogs in a machine instead of allowing independent thought to be the guiding force in a society of voluntary relationships and interactions.

I don’t think you understood.