Santa V God - Page 21

cyberpi · 05-28-2008, 08:00 PM

I see a number of polarized beliefs here:

1. People can / can not change.
2. People are enabled by / victim of what they hear.
3. Words are communicated in faith / faith is communicated in words.
4. Religion is for being / is for feeling.
5. Belief is a risk / is a stability.
6. Profit is given for religion / religion is given for profit.
7. Man is a creation of God / God is a creation of man.

I'm sure there are more...

Alex P · 05-28-2008, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

You do!! Could you please explain it to me then, I'm dying to find out where I'm going with this

I think it has smoothly run along the speed of "same car, different badge." Which is right

And I think a few people are now trying to kind of take it off track

Tao_Equus · 05-28-2008, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

You mean like "G-d the Creator," that kind of thing?

Yes.

Tao_Equus · 05-28-2008, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyberpi

I see a number of polarized beliefs here:

1. People can / can not change.
2. People are enabled by / victim of what they hear.
3. Words are communicated in faith / faith is communicated in words.
4. Religion is for being / is for feeling.
5. Belief is a risk / is a stability.
6. Profit is given for religion / religion is given for profit.
7. Man is a creation of God / God is a creation of man.

I'm sure there are more...

Every coin has at least 3 sides

Tao_Equus · 05-28-2008, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex P

I think it has smoothly run along the speed of "same car, different badge." Which is right

And I think a few people are now trying to kind of take it off track

Off track? Is it not then a train or a tram?

cyberpi · 05-28-2008, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Every coin has at least 3 sides

The Earth has many sides, but not infinite.

Alex P · 05-28-2008, 09:27 PM

Everyone is winking and I just had to join in.

China Cat Sunflower · 05-29-2008, 01:09 AM

To me the goal is to understand myself and understand how things work. I'm not interested in worshiping some deity, or becoming more Buddha or Christ-like. I'm not looking to become like the horse whisperer, or some kind of Indian shaman. I don't care for kumbaya spirituality. I'm not trying to become one with all the fuzzy little critters. And I don't care about past or future lives. Basically, I want to manipulate Murphy's law. I want to understand the power structure so I can undermine it. I've found that there's no way to hang on to the fluffy blanket and do that. All the institutions and entities that want to control me are banking on the fact that I won't have the balls to undo myself. They're wrong.

Chris

Alex P · 05-29-2008, 01:13 AM

You didn't wink :|

How do you undo you?

China Cat Sunflower · 05-29-2008, 01:51 AM

I don't like guys winking at me.

Chris

seattlegal · 05-29-2008, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

I don't like guys winking at me.

Chris

Alright Chris, I'll wink at you.

China Cat Sunflower · 05-29-2008, 06:18 AM

See, now that's different. Although, now that I think of it, Alex did admit to wearing a skirt. Groovy mortarboard by the way!

I never get any satisfaction out of these God debates. Things always devolve into impossibly simplistic dichotomies, and I just never feel good about any position I take because I can never think of how to say what I'm thinking. Oh well....

Chris

seattlegal · 05-29-2008, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex P

You didn't wink :|

How do you undo you?

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~Carl Gustav Jung

Oh, btw, here's your wink, Alex:

Tao_Equus · 05-29-2008, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

To me the goal is to understand myself and understand how things work. I'm not interested in worshiping some deity, or becoming more Buddha or Christ-like. I'm not looking to become like the horse whisperer, or some kind of Indian shaman. I don't care for kumbaya spirituality. I'm not trying to become one with all the fuzzy little critters. And I don't care about past or future lives.....

That is a good way to put it. Something that has cropped up on this thread and is a common response is that I am somehow 'missing' something, that I am deficient or incapable. Its like people saying how dare you come to the teddy bears picnic without a teddy. Or you aint a black man so you cant say the word nigga. Well you do not have do be a theist to understand exactly what God is in the human psyche. The example you give there Chris is superb because you could choose to label yourself anyone of them and everybody here would give you respect. You have virtually unlimited scope to adopt or even invent a paradigm and people will be, or will at least act, credulous. Yet present all paradigms as stemming from the same source, the human mind, and qualify it with the simplest examples of why this fact is indeed fact and you get nothing but derision, irrelevant point picking and accusations that it is you with the closed mind. This reads as though I am angry. I am not. It might read as though I feel I am not respected here. I do not feel that either. But I do feel the burden of 'proof' that is demanded of me far surpasses that which the theist feels adequate to support their beliefs. I never expected the almost rhetorical question at the head of this thread to run like this. I have put forward my case as far as I care to go with it. I think I will retire now to the politics threads where I am more naturally at home.

's for everybody

tao

seattlegal · 05-29-2008, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

That is a good way to put it. Something that has cropped up on this thread and is a common response is that I am somehow 'missing' something, that I am deficient or incapable. Its like people saying how dare you come to the teddy bears picnic without a teddy. Or you aint a black man so you cant say the word nigga. Well you do not have do be a theist to understand exactly what God is in the human psyche. The example you give there Chris is superb because you could choose to label yourself anyone of them and everybody here would give you respect. You have virtually unlimited scope to adopt or even invent a paradigm and people will be, or will at least act, credulous. Yet present all paradigms as stemming from the same source, the human mind, and qualify it with the simplest examples of why this fact is indeed fact and you get nothing but derision, irrelevant point picking and accusations that it is you with the closed mind. This reads as though I am angry. I am not. It might read as though I feel I am not respected here. I do not feel that either. But I do feel the burden of 'proof' that is demanded of me far surpasses that which the theist feels adequate to support their beliefs. I never expected the almost rhetorical question at the head of this thread to run like this. I have put forward my case as far as I care to go with it. I think I will retire now to the politics threads where I am more naturally at home.

's for everybody

tao

It sounds like you agree with Dhammapada 1, Tao, and this post seems to highlight verses 11 & 12

11. Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential.

12. Those who know the essential to be essential and the unessential to be unessential, dwelling in right thoughts, do arrive at the essential.