The Debate of God.

[Thief]

You can only be led when there is communication between you and that which you imagine is leading you. Again, 'Truth', in this case, 'God's' Truth as you stated it, is useless unless it is communicating accurate information to you. Otherwise, it is Truth in a vacuum, and has no meaning.

I sense that you are putting it on a pedestal, instead of seeing it as something we can use in the ordinary world of here and now. You see it as something to be gained in some future; something to aspire to; something by which you can be guided by in becoming something other than what you are.


Such truth needs to be so communicated to man if God desires for man to grow spiritually toward a greater happiness; without it, man remains in the realm of conditioned awareness, or delusion. To cut to the chase, God wants man to share in Absolute Joy, in divine union, and the only way we can really know this state is to see things as they actually are.

In all of this posting,you first lean one way....nothing is real....all is illusion.
And then the other way, as if we have 'something' to gain.

As long as you retain your 'perception' of 'truth'......

 

[godnotgod]

In all of this posting,you first lean one way....nothing is real....all is illusion.
And then the other way, as if we have 'something' to gain.

As long as you retain your 'perception' of 'truth'......

That's a good observation, but I take issue with the idea of 'something to gain'. It is not that. It is more like: 'Everything comes out of Nothing'.

Every-thing is illusory because it is temporal and has no abiding substance. It comes and goes. Only Nothing is intemporal. It is the background against which Everything is manifested. In the West, we are trained to focus on the foreground of life, and to ignore the background. When you are able to see the foreground (The Relative) together with the background (The Absolute) as a single unity, then you will see things as they actually are.

 

[Thief]

That's a good observation, but I take issue with the idea of 'something to gain'. It is not that. It is more like: 'Everything comes out of Nothing'.

Every-thing is illusory because it is temporal and has no abiding substance. It comes and goes. Only Nothing is intemporal. It is the background against which Everything is manifested. In the West, we are trained to focus on the foreground of life, and to ignore the background. When you are able to see the foreground (The Relative) together with the background (The Absolute) as a single unity, then you will see things as they actually are.

A caution here for you.

I've had....'difficulties'.... here of late.
Attempts to discuss in the Absolute seems to be frowned upon by the authorities.

They think of it as proselytizing.

But to continue anyway....
I think your trying to equate the natural flow of the creation....
with the concept of illusion.

As if reality fails, just because it changes now and then.
It is the change that makes reality functional...and real.

 

[godnotgod]

The argument, as you’ve presented it on this forum, is a faith-based plea to a metaphysical ideology, and I’m sorry but it is both a doctrine and a metaphysical explanation by the very definition of the terms despite any protestations to the contrary.

Thus Sprach Lord Cottage, der Head Cheese!:bow::biglaugh:

 

[godnotgod]

A caution here for you.

I've had....'difficulties'.... here of late.
Attempts to discuss in the Absolute seems to be frowned upon by the authorities.

They think of it as proselytizing.

Heaven forbid! I'm afraid we'll need to go underground to avoid persecution. Such fuddie-duddies! God only knows he needs a little promotion from time to time.

But to continue anyway....
I think your trying to equate the natural flow of the creation....
with the concept of illusion.

As if reality fails, just because it changes now and then.
It is the change that makes reality functional...and real.

"The universe is the Absolute as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation"

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

You can only be led when there is communication between you and that which you imagine is leading you.

So a hunter lost in the woods is 'communicating' with the sun as he follows it westward? That strikes my ear as a fairly strange use of the language. How do you imagine that this communication takes place -- especially since the sun is presumably unconscious? Is it simply that the sun is sending out photons and the guy is able to sense them, and you call that 'communication'? But why would you need to think of the sun as communicating with the lost hunter?

Again, 'Truth', in this case, 'God's' Truth as you stated it, is useless unless it is communicating accurate information to you. Otherwise, it is Truth in a vacuum, and has no meaning.

My own curiousity can communicate knowledge to me? I can communicate accurate (Godly) info to myself?

Did you read my message -- the one to which you've just responded? If so, can you explain how my God can 'communicate information' to me? You sound as though you imagine God as some Being in the Sky. If that's so, fine. But why do you tell me that your God does not fit properly into my theology? My theology has no SkyCreatures in it, capable of communicating information to humans. My theology doesn't even have a conscious God.

I sense that you are putting it on a pedestal, instead of seeing it as something we can use in the ordinary world of here and now. You see it as something to be gained in some future; something to aspire to; something by which you can be guided by in becoming something other than what you are.

1) Putting it on a pedestal: Sure. Sometimes I put God on a pedestal.It's where an ideal belongs.

2) Not using it in the here and now: How could I not use new knowledge in the here and now? That doesn't make any sense to me.

3) To be gained in the future: Sure. I hope to still be gaining it in the future, just as I gain a little more every minute of every day.

4) Something to aspire to: Ummm... no. That would be like saying I aspired to have sex with beautiful women as a young man. It implies that I sat down and made a decision to aspire. But I made no decision to chase women or to chase Truth/God. I just woke up each morning and did it.

5) Something to guide me in becoming something other that what I am: Of course. Every new thing I learn changes me. Same with you or anyone else. It's within the very definition of learning. To learn is to change oneself.

And when the datasand wears 'The Truth' completely away into total formlessness and emptiness wherein you can no longer grasp form, where there is even no mor datasand, then what?

That can't happen. It's an image in my mind. So your question is like asking me, "What happens when you become comatose or die and can no longer hold an image in your mind."

My answer is, "I don't know what will happen then. But what relevance is your question?"

Your temporal boulder of 'Truth' is a relative truth, and so not a truth at all.

How curious that you tell me what my words mean. Anyway, any person who considers his truth to be more than relative truth is almost certainly lost in delusion.

The problem is that you have made Truth an object via of the subject that is you. Where no such subject/object exists, you yourself are the Truth. You yourself are the guiding beacon.

I'm sorry but I'm not Buddhist. If you want to sit and explain Buddhist doctrine to yourself, here in this public place, I guess I'll withdraw myself from the discussion. I may respond very little or not at all. Depends on whether you can move me.

Has it ever occurred to you that your very pursuit is what keeps Reality just out of reach?

I tell you of my passion to keep Reality out of my reach -- by always pursuing and never finding. And you ask if I've considered that my own behavior might be keeping Reality out of my reach.

You know, you are welcome to read the messages which I post to you here.

That you pursue 'Reality' because you have been deluded to somehow think you are separate from it, when, in actual fact, it is impossible for you to ever be separate from it?

How could anyone be separate from reality? You're talking about some kind of spirit beings? No, I have no belief that I am actually a ghost, existing outside of reality somehow.

 

[Thief]

Heaven forbid! I'm afraid we'll need to go underground to avoid persecution. Such fuddie-duddies! God only knows he needs a little promotion from time to time.



"The universe is the Absolute as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation"

Almost at a point of agreement there.
But time does not exist.
It is only a quotient on a chalk board...numbers.

Strike the words in red.....and you've got it.

 

[godnotgod]

So a hunter lost in the woods is 'communicating' with the sun as he follows it westward? That strikes my ear as a fairly strange use of the language. How do you imagine that this communication takes place -- especially since the sun is presumably unconscious? Is it simply that the sun is sending out photons and the guy is able to sense them, and you call that 'communication'? But why would you need to think of the sun as communicating with the lost hunter?
My own curiousity can communicate knowledge to me? I can communicate accurate (Godly) info to myself?

Your example of following the Sun does not equate with your statement that:

Truth is... the beacon which leads us on.

To lead is an active, conscious action. But never mind. The mere act of illumination is communication. In fact, it is the highest form of communication.
Zen claims perfect silent Transmission of the Light from the First Patriarch down through to the last.

Did you read my message -- the one to which you've just responded? If so, can you explain how my God can 'communicate information' to me? You sound as though you imagine God as some Being in the Sky. If that's so, fine. But why do you tell me that your God does not fit properly into my theology? My theology has no SkyCreatures in it, capable of communicating information to humans. My theology doesn't even have a conscious God.

Now isn't that uncanny...I was just about to qualify my use of the term 'God' as just a facility in order to have common ground for discussion with you, since you are the first to have mentioned it...then I thought: "Nah, it won't be an issue", and here we are.

To refresh your memory, you had stated:

"My view is that no one can speak God's Truth to us."

My goodness! The way you have things set up is that your God hoards the 'Truth' to himself, since no communication of it between your God and man is possible, but even if your God could, no human is capable of 'seeing things as they are' anyway. It seems Truth is just a plaything for you; something you enjoy watching being worn into different forms by something you call 'datasand'. If this is the proverbial 'shape-shifting' the Christians are always harping about, then you have the wrong department: that is Satan's field of operations.

But if you are right, then all those mystics through the ages who have reported going into ecstatic trance are lying or deluded or both. The yogis who experience kundalini are just putting us on. Divine Union, the most intimate form of communication between man and the divine nature, is completely impossible. Man is doomed to the grave without being fulfilled by the gifts of the Incarnation. God, whatever God is to you, must be laughing his **** off, assuming your God is in possession of such a thing.

If your God is a God sans consciousness, how is it that it is in possession of 'Truth'?

How curious that you tell me what my words mean. Anyway, any person who considers his truth to be more than relative truth is almost certainly lost in delusion.

That which is relative implies the Absolute. What do you suppose it is that allows you to experience relative Truth?

I'm sorry but I'm not Buddhist. If you want to sit and explain Buddhist doctrine to yourself, here in this public place, I guess I'll withdraw myself from the discussion. I may respond very little or not at all. Depends on whether you can move me.

What I said was not Buddhistic.

I tell you of my passion to keep Reality out of my reach -- by always pursuing and never finding. And you ask if I've considered that my own behavior might be keeping Reality out of my reach.

How could anyone be separate from reality? You're talking about some kind of spirit beings? No, I have no belief that I am actually a ghost, existing outside of reality somehow.

No one can exist apart from Reality, so why is it out of your reach? Why is it that you fail to see things as they are when claiming Enlightenment in the same breath? To see things as they actually are is what the realization of Reality is.

 

[Lenbenhear]

HERE IS THE BOTTOMLINE TRUTH: GOD THE ETERNAL - will *never* be REAL to you UNLESS you have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ by way of REVELATION of THEHOLYSPIRIT. ... if you never have such a life-changing encounter: it is primarily due to TWO MAJOR factors: 1) you did not sincerely SEEK GOD with your heart to know Him, ... and 2) GOD, seeing your heart, chose NOT to draw you by His Spirit.

as to answers to objections: please google "apologetic reasons for Christian faith" - there's an abundance of answers. especially Dr.Ravi Zacharius and Lee Strobel, and many other apologists for the Christian Faith.

happy hunting. ... "seek [with all your heart] and YOU WILL find Him."

 

[Heathen Hammer]

*bzzzt!*

Wrong.

 

[jasonwill2]

HERE IS THE BOTTOMLINE TRUTH: GOD THE ETERNAL - will *never* be REAL to you UNLESS you have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ by way of REVELATION of THEHOLYSPIRIT. ... if you never have such a life-changing encounter: it is primarily due to TWO MAJOR factors: 1) you did not sincerely SEEK GOD with your heart to know Him, ... and 2) GOD, seeing your heart, chose NOT to draw you by His Spirit.

as to answers to objections: please google "apologetic reasons for Christian faith" - there's an abundance of answers. especially Dr.Ravi Zacharius and Lee Strobel, and many other apologists for the Christian Faith.

happy hunting. ... "seek [with all your heart] and YOU WILL find Him."

Why not The Accuser (HaSatan in Hebrew) and Great Tester instead of Jesus? Or any other god? Why does it have to be Jesus?

 

[godnotgod]

HERE IS THE BOTTOMLINE TRUTH: GOD THE ETERNAL - will *never* be REAL to you UNLESS you have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ by way of REVELATION of THEHOLYSPIRIT. ... "

'Jesus Christ' never existed. There was, however, a certain Jewish mystic Nazarene Essene by the Aramaic name of Yeshu, whose teachings did not include a virgin birth, animal, let alone human sacrifice, the drinking and eating of blood/flesh, either in actuality or symbolically, as a mechanism for sin redemption, nor the resurrection of the body. All of these pagan doctrines were infused into Yeshu's teachings as a device to convert tens of thousands of pagans into the new Christian religion, who already had the promise of eternal life in Mithraism. In fact, the idea of a scapegoat that would carry off man's psychological burdens into the wilderness can be traced back to Syria in the 24th century BC. The pagan doctrine of blood sacrifice for sin redemption involves a superstitious belief that the blood is the life-force. The teachings of Yeshu came from the East, in which the life-force is the breath, not the blood. It is the vital life-force of the breath that we find behind the 'Word' that was 'made flesh' in the very beginning of the Bible, uncannily similar to the Hindu idea of God speaking the world into existence.

 

[godnotgod]

Why not The Accuser (HaSatan in Hebrew) and Great Tester instead of Jesus? Or any other god? Why does it have to be Jesus?

Because Jesus, who is God in the flesh, is the only acceptable host in the eyes of the Father-God. Men had tried all other types of hosts; grain and animals, but the 'punishments' kept coming in the form of locusts, disease, and floods. So the only acceptable host, the only immaculate host without blemish, the perfect 'Lamb of God', was God himself.

Adam & Eve had closed the Gates of Paradise for all of mankind with their Original Sin of disobedience. The shedding of divine blood was the only way of re-opening them, as man was incapable of paying the 'debt' himself.

...or so the story goes.

 

[godnotgod]

Almost at a point of agreement there.
But time does not exist.
It is only a quotient on a chalk board...numbers.

Strike the words in red.....and you've got it.

Even Causation is illusory.

1st observer: the flag is moving
2nd observer: no, the wind is moving
3rd observer: wrong! both flag and wind are moving!
passerby: all wrong! your minds are moving!

Causation can only take place in Time and Space, so without them, is also illusory.

When you mistake a rope for a snake, the 'snake' is not caused, because it never existed to begin with.

 

[InfidelRiot]

Even Causation is illusory.

Even your arguments are illusory.

 

[godnotgod]

Even your arguments are illusory.

You are referring to what I said about Causation being an illusion?

 

[otokage007]

Because Jesus, who is God in the flesh, is the only acceptable host in the eyes of the Father-God. Men had tried all other types of hosts; grain and animals, but the 'punishments' kept coming in the form of locusts, disease, and floods. So the only acceptable host, the only immaculate host without blemish, the perfect 'Lamb of God', was God himself.

Adam & Eve had closed the Gates of Paradise for all of mankind with their Original Sin of disobedience. The shedding of divine blood was the only way of re-opening them, as man was incapable of paying the 'debt' himself.

...or so the story goes.

To me, Adam and Eve, and also Satan, are an example to follow. An example that individuals must think for themselves and an example that whoever is God, he has no right to judge u or punish you, and you don't have to obey him, or anybody else. We are free, and we are moral because we chose to be moral, not because someone up there commands us to be moral and we are afraid of him.

 

[Lenbenhear]

You will NEVER know GOD NOR enter His Kingdom UNLESS you are drawn by THEHOLYSPIRIT. GOD is hidden "from the conceited", - the "wise and prudent in their own eyes" ... and is revealed to the childlike that seek Him and reach out to Him in faith & trust.

when there is opportunity, I will be glad to list some of the best Christian apologetic websites for those who are interested. for those who are NOT interested: they are welcome to ignore both the links and my posts.


Peace to those who love peace & pursue it.

as to precisely & accurately DEFINING GOD: well, ... how can the finite grasp or "perfectly define" THE INFINITE. how can a creature of time grasp or truly understand ETERNAL BEING. ? they can't. only in part, ... and as HE WILLS to reveal Himself *by revelation*.

 

[jasonwill2]

You will NEVER know GOD NOR enter His Kingdom UNLESS you are drawn by THEHOLYSPIRIT. GOD is hidden "from the conceited", - the "wise and prudent in their own eyes" ... and is revealed to the childlike that seek Him and reach out to Him in faith & trust.

when there is opportunity, I will be glad to list some of the best Christian apologetic websites for those who are interested. for those who are NOT interested: they are welcome to ignore both the links and my posts.


Peace to those who love peace & pursue it.

as to precisely & accurately DEFINING GOD: well, ... how can the finite grasp or "perfectly define" THE INFINITE. how can a creature of time grasp or truly understand ETERNAL BEING. ? they can't. only in part, ... and as HE WILLS to reveal Himself *by revelation*.

Hail Satan: The varieties of theistic ("traditional") Satanism

As everyone can see from the above link, Satanism is very diverse. I don't see why it wouldn't work as a universal religion of liberation and freedom.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Your example of following the Sun does not equate with your statement that: "Truth is... the beacon which leads us on." To lead is an active, conscious action.

I'm thinking you'll have very much trouble in life expressing yourself with human words. You'll never be able to say to your shipmate, "Look, that lighthouse beacon will lead us into the harbor." I'm not sure how you'll phrase such a thing, but you may spend a lot of your time trying to work around normal English usages, I think.

Now isn't that uncanny...I was just about to qualify my use of the term 'God' as just a facility in order to have common ground for discussion with you, since you are the first to have mentioned it...then I thought: "Nah, it won't be an issue", and here we are.

Perhaps you might have read my message carefully. If you'd done so. you would have seen that my "God" looks nothing at all like anyone else's God. It's just a word I use. In your case, I actually defined it for you, only to have you reply by speaking of 'God' as if it meant some White-Bearded Guy up in the clouds.
Maybe we should speak about language a bit. It is one of my few special areas of interest. It's possible that I could explain things about it which you haven't yet considered.

My goodness! The way you have things set up is that your God hoards the 'Truth' to himself, since no communication of it between your God and man is possible...

You're not paying the least attention to what I'm saying. I've told you twice now that my God is not even a conscious being, and you play a little game about me thinking that my God is hoarding the truth to himself.

Maybe at some later time, we can speak together in good faith.