I'm not sure rationalizing faith has any merit in terms of having faith, but I have a lot of trouble accepting that which seems irrational. Perhaps that in itself is irrational, in regards to faith, but such is only natural.
When I was young I was baptized, at that time I was too young to understand the value of it, or the legitimacy of it. Around age 10 I asked that I be baptized again, and was, because I wanted to ensure it was a conscious act on my behalf, rather than a commune ordered by predecessors... If that makes sense. I wanted to ensure I proclaimed my belief to myself, not just to everyone else.
Even then, just as now, I'm not sure I truly believe in God. I believe there is something out there, greater than us; there has to be, the universe is too large for any other path of logic. Logic holds more truth and carries more weight than anything else, so I find it a valuable transgression of thought.
And even with that said, I just can't see how such a greater thing could truly be so interested in us. We deserve to live life just as much as a seagull or dog or any organism on earth does. Too what degradation of humanity are we justified in being valued by a greater being, such that "he" forever loves us, and will assimilate us into another "Life" after our current life?
True story, there was only one time that I thoroughly believed that I believed in God. It was a time in my life where I was at a complete bottom of my self created pit. I lost everything, and valued nothing. I had recently been re-abused by a parent, whom I had thought had passed from their previous life in which it was the norm -- ie my childhood.
It was nearly 2am, & had sat on my car in the 40 degree weather in shorts for over an hour, listening to the wind, recovering from a buzz of alcohol consumed earlier. As I sat there, I found myself internally shouting at God. Questions like "WHY ME", "What did i do to deserve this", "what the hell am I supposed to do now", "where the f*** are you when I need you", and even things like "screw you God",etc.
Fully enraged by the apparent lack of God, but totally succumbing, or attempting to succumb, to that which I thought did not exist. I was so mad at God, because if he did exist, what permits him to permit such pain and anguish on that(whom) which he "so loves" (seriously). And suddenly, while sitting on my car, smoking my 7th or so cigarette , hands clenched from anger at God and the world, shaking from the cold weather(cold for a texan in shorts outside for over an hour), a strong, VERY strong, gust of wind hit me in an otherwise calm breezy night. It was as if I was slapped by the wind, even the trees nearby bent in it's wake. And I went silent.
It blew the hat off my head, shoved me back against the windshield of the car, and I was forced into silence, within my mind. At that exact moment, I became overwhelmed with warmth, I was no longer shaking from the cold, all of this happening in less than 2 seconds mind you. And words became clear to me, became clear to my suddenly silenced mind, empty mind. "It's time for change". It even gives me chills to this day, thinking about it. All I could do was murmur the word... "Wow"...
It was so sudden, so provided, and so powerful, that it instantly made me cry, I couldn't help it, and the whole thing forced me to smile. I was crying with a smile, with joy in my heart, warmed by the event in cold weather. Suddenly fully believing in God, so happy that I had thought that I had found him & that I understood what I needed to do so suddenly, so accurate, so right.
I have to ponder whether this was actually God speaking, even though the words were just... Made available. There was no tone, no voice speaking, it was just there, as if a large billboard with those words suddenly was placed in front of my eyes... not visually, but rather the effect that such a visual appearance would have... took place.
The shocking part, is that the next day I drove by the same spot that I was sitting at when this took place, and unbeknownst to me at the time, it was the back-end parking lot of a baptist church!! How ironic.
It is the only time that I truly thought that I believed in God... but even though it still gives me chills, can it not be explained by a weak mind longing for strength? A mind of a being who needed change, and was in some form of denial, and needed to remind them self that change is necessary? Could the warmth be simply a bodily reaction to the fear generated in the circumstance? The wind just a coincidence of circumstance, a cause leading to an effect?
And to what end would either case lead? it seems to me that God is available to be believed in, just as much as we need something to believe in -- we make him valid by simply believing. But that doesn't mean he exists, it just means that we need the idea of him; is that not true as a statement?
I suppose I wish I could believe, I wish that I had something such as the idea of God, that I could believe in, that would assist me in my passing of life here on earth. But I have experienced too much trauma in my childhood, things that I did not deserve but was spoon fed anyway. For that I cannot forgive the world, I cannot forgive... "god".
We have organs and a brain, just like a dog does. Dogs have dreams, desires, thoughts, and passion. But a dog also has NO concept of God or anything of that nature, because it cannot communicate on that level with other dogs or entities as it is, and furthermore, the dog does not need God. Why do you think that is? A similair questions is, why don't dogs stare up at the sky, at the stars? They are always looking down, because they can make sense of it, because it promotes well-being.
In what way does that make the dog less deserving of God's love; in what way does that make humans more deserving. Both are vessels containing patterned processes formed by neural connections in a bodily tissue. Point being, how can God truly exist, by obvious logic, when his statement that "he loves all his children"( as quoted in many bible variations) is inherently false? If he does exist under said context, then he would have to be a liar.
It seems to me that God is just a higher-intellectual being's rationalization of inability to comprehend. And assume for a second that this might be the case, would that not work perfectly as a supplement for faith? Would that not make it just as legitimate -- thereby legitimizing the logic stating that God is an idea within a neural network, self generated to promote well-being?
When I was young I was baptized, at that time I was too young to understand the value of it, or the legitimacy of it. Around age 10 I asked that I be baptized again, and was, because I wanted to ensure it was a conscious act on my behalf, rather than a commune ordered by predecessors... If that makes sense. I wanted to ensure I proclaimed my belief to myself, not just to everyone else.
Even then, just as now, I'm not sure I truly believe in God. I believe there is something out there, greater than us; there has to be, the universe is too large for any other path of logic. Logic holds more truth and carries more weight than anything else, so I find it a valuable transgression of thought.
And even with that said, I just can't see how such a greater thing could truly be so interested in us. We deserve to live life just as much as a seagull or dog or any organism on earth does. Too what degradation of humanity are we justified in being valued by a greater being, such that "he" forever loves us, and will assimilate us into another "Life" after our current life?
True story, there was only one time that I thoroughly believed that I believed in God. It was a time in my life where I was at a complete bottom of my self created pit. I lost everything, and valued nothing. I had recently been re-abused by a parent, whom I had thought had passed from their previous life in which it was the norm -- ie my childhood.
It was nearly 2am, & had sat on my car in the 40 degree weather in shorts for over an hour, listening to the wind, recovering from a buzz of alcohol consumed earlier. As I sat there, I found myself internally shouting at God. Questions like "WHY ME", "What did i do to deserve this", "what the hell am I supposed to do now", "where the f*** are you when I need you", and even things like "screw you God",etc.
Fully enraged by the apparent lack of God, but totally succumbing, or attempting to succumb, to that which I thought did not exist. I was so mad at God, because if he did exist, what permits him to permit such pain and anguish on that(whom) which he "so loves" (seriously). And suddenly, while sitting on my car, smoking my 7th or so cigarette , hands clenched from anger at God and the world, shaking from the cold weather(cold for a texan in shorts outside for over an hour), a strong, VERY strong, gust of wind hit me in an otherwise calm breezy night. It was as if I was slapped by the wind, even the trees nearby bent in it's wake. And I went silent.
It blew the hat off my head, shoved me back against the windshield of the car, and I was forced into silence, within my mind. At that exact moment, I became overwhelmed with warmth, I was no longer shaking from the cold, all of this happening in less than 2 seconds mind you. And words became clear to me, became clear to my suddenly silenced mind, empty mind. "It's time for change". It even gives me chills to this day, thinking about it. All I could do was murmur the word... "Wow"...
It was so sudden, so provided, and so powerful, that it instantly made me cry, I couldn't help it, and the whole thing forced me to smile. I was crying with a smile, with joy in my heart, warmed by the event in cold weather. Suddenly fully believing in God, so happy that I had thought that I had found him & that I understood what I needed to do so suddenly, so accurate, so right.
I have to ponder whether this was actually God speaking, even though the words were just... Made available. There was no tone, no voice speaking, it was just there, as if a large billboard with those words suddenly was placed in front of my eyes... not visually, but rather the effect that such a visual appearance would have... took place.
The shocking part, is that the next day I drove by the same spot that I was sitting at when this took place, and unbeknownst to me at the time, it was the back-end parking lot of a baptist church!! How ironic.
It is the only time that I truly thought that I believed in God... but even though it still gives me chills, can it not be explained by a weak mind longing for strength? A mind of a being who needed change, and was in some form of denial, and needed to remind them self that change is necessary? Could the warmth be simply a bodily reaction to the fear generated in the circumstance? The wind just a coincidence of circumstance, a cause leading to an effect?
And to what end would either case lead? it seems to me that God is available to be believed in, just as much as we need something to believe in -- we make him valid by simply believing. But that doesn't mean he exists, it just means that we need the idea of him; is that not true as a statement?
I suppose I wish I could believe, I wish that I had something such as the idea of God, that I could believe in, that would assist me in my passing of life here on earth. But I have experienced too much trauma in my childhood, things that I did not deserve but was spoon fed anyway. For that I cannot forgive the world, I cannot forgive... "god".
We have organs and a brain, just like a dog does. Dogs have dreams, desires, thoughts, and passion. But a dog also has NO concept of God or anything of that nature, because it cannot communicate on that level with other dogs or entities as it is, and furthermore, the dog does not need God. Why do you think that is? A similair questions is, why don't dogs stare up at the sky, at the stars? They are always looking down, because they can make sense of it, because it promotes well-being.
In what way does that make the dog less deserving of God's love; in what way does that make humans more deserving. Both are vessels containing patterned processes formed by neural connections in a bodily tissue. Point being, how can God truly exist, by obvious logic, when his statement that "he loves all his children"( as quoted in many bible variations) is inherently false? If he does exist under said context, then he would have to be a liar.
It seems to me that God is just a higher-intellectual being's rationalization of inability to comprehend. And assume for a second that this might be the case, would that not work perfectly as a supplement for faith? Would that not make it just as legitimate -- thereby legitimizing the logic stating that God is an idea within a neural network, self generated to promote well-being?
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