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An appeal for the logic of religious belief
- Thread starter Popeyesays
- Start date
Rolling_Stone
Well-Known Member
It was suggested in another thread that I put stringent limits on my limitless deity. I suppose the writer means by this is that I avoid the question of God’s goodness by stripping him of limits and boundaries and thereby absolving him of responsibility.
By stripping Infinity of limits and boundaries I do, in a way, place limits on God. Or, rather, I would if excluded limits and boundaries. I do not. Creatorship is the aggregate of God’s acting nature: it’s who he is and that which IS. We are co-creators: it’s what we do, and we are inseparable from that which IS. But we’re not the main event: our reality is relative to the Infinite and we are nowhere near the apex of the created order. Between us and the Infinite there is room for a vast hierarchy of qualitative variations, all dancing on the stage of Oneness. It takes unimaginable gall and vanity to think the “gods” should shape reality to fit our wants when their aim is to assist us in our personal evolution. How dare anyone at our level of existence question their methods when we don’t know what we need! Are there influences in opposition to our growth? Undoubtedly, and none greater than ourselves. Growth entails change, and change is a fearful thing indeed, for we have a lot vested in in the details of our ideas and personal history with which we identify.
When our religious instinct, an instinct that drives us to transcend ourselves and towards Oneness, is centered around the ego, we seek validation either by dominating, submission to, or conforming with the consensus on the issues that define us. “Success” is based on the feedback from others rather than the sense of well-being that emanates from within when we release our attachment to outcome. My view of God is not dependent on feedback and therefore not restricted to what’s “out there,” “common sense,” or consensual “knowledge.” There is an element of a sense of well-being that emanates in my expression and my understanding. And it is here where the gadflies gather with all their “facts.” (“Facts” are certainly important and we have to deal with them, but to isolate a part of life and call it the whole of “reality” is to distort reality and disintegrate life. It’s a kind of lunacy that gadflies describe as being “realistic.”
The goal, as I see it, is not to merge with God the way a drop of water merges with the ocean, but “by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will.” And “such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.”
By stripping Infinity of limits and boundaries I do, in a way, place limits on God. Or, rather, I would if excluded limits and boundaries. I do not. Creatorship is the aggregate of God’s acting nature: it’s who he is and that which IS. We are co-creators: it’s what we do, and we are inseparable from that which IS. But we’re not the main event: our reality is relative to the Infinite and we are nowhere near the apex of the created order. Between us and the Infinite there is room for a vast hierarchy of qualitative variations, all dancing on the stage of Oneness. It takes unimaginable gall and vanity to think the “gods” should shape reality to fit our wants when their aim is to assist us in our personal evolution. How dare anyone at our level of existence question their methods when we don’t know what we need! Are there influences in opposition to our growth? Undoubtedly, and none greater than ourselves. Growth entails change, and change is a fearful thing indeed, for we have a lot vested in in the details of our ideas and personal history with which we identify.
When our religious instinct, an instinct that drives us to transcend ourselves and towards Oneness, is centered around the ego, we seek validation either by dominating, submission to, or conforming with the consensus on the issues that define us. “Success” is based on the feedback from others rather than the sense of well-being that emanates from within when we release our attachment to outcome. My view of God is not dependent on feedback and therefore not restricted to what’s “out there,” “common sense,” or consensual “knowledge.” There is an element of a sense of well-being that emanates in my expression and my understanding. And it is here where the gadflies gather with all their “facts.” (“Facts” are certainly important and we have to deal with them, but to isolate a part of life and call it the whole of “reality” is to distort reality and disintegrate life. It’s a kind of lunacy that gadflies describe as being “realistic.”
The goal, as I see it, is not to merge with God the way a drop of water merges with the ocean, but “by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will.” And “such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.”