|
Post by Freedom on Oct 9, 2009 7:31:13 GMT -5
Last year a couple of fellows i was conversing with made a statement, agreeing with each other on their statements "if you don't believe in god, you believe in nothing - how can you not believe in god, you have to believe in something?"
This form of thinking puzzles me, how does one interpet it?
|
|
|
Post by maddogblues on Oct 13, 2009 13:29:22 GMT -5
Interesting. Most people of the Christian faith have a specific concept of God. Some can even imagine what their God looks like. Others represent him to themselves, the Christian God is male, by way of character traits such as loving, jealous vengeful just and so on. I just began reading Paul Tillich's book 'Biblical Religion and the search for Ultimate Reality.' I sat reading it yesterday and realized that his views in contrast to your run of the mill Christians were quite a bit like those found in the Upanishads. He did not mention them, and his approach was to search this idea out through classical western philosophical means. Some links: www.theology.ie/theologians/tillich.htmI was introduced to Tillich by George clarkson a wonderful man who had gone to Oxford University in Wales had a phd and gave up his religious affiliation with the church at the request of the woman he wanted to marry. I met him in the Quaker congregation at Poplar Ridge where he was serving off and on as a pastor. He had studied under Tillich. Upon his recommendation I bought some of Tillich's books. Tillich did not view God in an anthropological framework like most Christians do, but through the concept of 'being', which he explains in a carefully stated philosophical framework. As I said when reading it I recognized his concept of 'being' seemed an awful lot like what I had found in the Upanishads and other Hindu writings which were also highly philosophical. As far as I can tell 'being' is the primordial human question that is in every human. Christians put a lot of emphasis on 'believing' the right thing and in the right way. For many it is a matter of life and death with the greatest consequences at play. However coming to grips with the 'ground of being' is not a group activity, and is a mystical encounter that the individual enters into with the thought in mind of finding out how things 'are' Ground of Being One of the sophisticated concepts used by great Christian theologians is that of "The Ground of Being." This concept indicates, not that God is the fact of things existing, but that God is the basis for the existence of all things. God is more fundamental to existing things than anything else. So fundamental to the existence of all things is God, that God can be thought of as the basis upon which things exist, the ground their being. To say that God is The ground of being or being itself, is to say that there is something we can sense that is so special about the nature of being that it hints at this fundamental reality upon which all else is based. The phrases "Ground of Being" and "Being itself" are basically the same concept. Tillich used both at different times, and other theologians such as John McQuarrey prefer "Being Itself," but they really speak to the same concept. Now Sceptics are always asking "how can god be being?" I think this question comes from the fact that the term is misleading. The term "Being itself" gives one the impression that God is the actual fact of "my existence," or the existence of my flowerbed, or any object one might care to name. Paul Tillich, on the other hand, said explicitly (in Systematic Theology Vol. I) that this does not refer to an existential fact but to an ontological status. What is being said is not that God is the fact of the being of some particular object, but, that he is the basis upon which being proceeds and upon which objects participate in being. In other words, since God exists forever, nothing else can come to be without God's will or thought, and since there can't even be a potential for any being without God's thought, all potentialities for being arise in the "mind of God" than in that sense God is actually "Being Itself." I think "Ground of Being" is a less confusing term. God is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds. How Can "a Being" be Being Itself? jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/15189.htm"Part of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what is being said. I say that God is 'necessary being' not "a necessary being," not because I forgot the "a" but because God is not "a being." He is above the level of any particular being that participates in being, but exists on the level of the Being, the thing itself, apart from any particular beings. There is Being, and there is "the beings." This is a crucial distinction, but it leaves one wondering what it means and how it could be. I think the answer lies in the fact that God is ultimate reality. God is the first, and highest and only necessary thing that exists, and thus, had God not created, God would be the only thing that exists. Could one somehow ponder a universe in which God had not created, in which God was all that was, one might well ask "what is it to be in this universe where there is only God?" In such a universe the only conceivable answer is "to be is to be God." In that sense God is Being Itself."
|
|
|
Post by Freedom on Oct 13, 2009 15:36:55 GMT -5
Tillich makes many good points, the problem with organized religion is it does not allow free thinking, it is a indoctrinating process from birth. Tillich would be hard pressed finding converts.
Even if the major religions can be traced back to india, to sanskrit scripts, it does not prove the fact that events recorded actually took place. Our moral character transcended into writing comes from a primal origin, survival. How this is interpreted from oral lore to script and conveyed thousands of miles from it's origin to alien lands is up to those that inherit the teachings.
The sun, the moon and the earth is my spiritual guiding light, everything in between i question.
|
|
|
Post by maddogblues on Oct 14, 2009 11:40:06 GMT -5
Tillich makes many good points, the problem with organized religion is it does not allow free thinking, it is a indoctrinating process from birth. Tillich would be hard pressed finding converts. Even if the major religions can be traced back to india, to sanskrit scripts, it does not prove the fact that events recorded actually took place. Our moral character transcended into writing comes from a primal origin, survival. How this is interpreted from oral lore to script and conveyed thousands of miles from it's origin to alien lands is up to those that inherit the teachings. The sun, the moon and the earth is my spiritual guiding light, everything in between i question. For Tillich coming to grip with existence was the key thing. He did it in a clearly western way. Religion as most know it is foolish when you try and make it sound real. It simply is not able to be believed without accepting absurd ideas. Once you do that you are on a very slippery slope. When I came to my senses I realized that the things I had been required to believe just did not make sense. They did not conform to reality. The trinity blood atonement the virgin birth. I could no longer agree to believe them. At the same time I still kept a belief in something called 'God' that I could not be described but which 'had' to be out there making things work. Man as Tillich makes note has something in his nature that requires an investigation into ultimate reality. I've always had it. Religion sidetracks this desire and gives a one size fits all kind of answer. The genuine article is a one on one personal venture IMO. Traditionally this one size fits all religion has been used by societies and governments to define themselves and maintain social order.
|
|
|
Post by Freedom on Oct 14, 2009 19:58:46 GMT -5
Religion as most know it is foolish when you try and make it sound real. It simply is not able to be believed without accepting absurd ideas. Once you do that you are on a very slippery slope. Space aliens come to mind, though people would think i'm crazy if i really believed that. ;D
|
|
|
Post by maddogblues on Oct 17, 2009 22:10:54 GMT -5
Religion as most know it is foolish when you try and make it sound real. It simply is not able to be believed without accepting absurd ideas. Once you do that you are on a very slippery slope. Space aliens come to mind, though people would think i'm crazy if i really believed that. ;D I heard a guy call in on 'Air America' today make a case for that. He was from Oregon. He claimed JFK and Jimmy Carter were reincarnated beings. And that there was a hologram coming to take the 144,000 from this God forsaken planet. That seems absurd to me. But what does not seem absurd is that 'something has to give'. This planet could hardly get more fucked up. It's quite possible, in my way of thinking, that there are 'vibes' out there influencing people and helping to get all kinds of receptive people ready for something. God only knows. No definition for God except some kind of way of doing things right.
|
|
|
Post by az on Nov 2, 2009 1:22:04 GMT -5
A lot of people seem to severely need to believe in something, abything. It fills a void and makes them feel better about the fact that one day they're going to pop off and probably cease to exist in any shape or form
|
|
|
Post by maddogblues on Nov 5, 2009 22:44:02 GMT -5
A lot of people seem to severely need to believe in something, abything. It fills a void and makes them feel better about the fact that one day they're going to pop off and probably cease to exist in any shape or form The 'god' phenomenon has been around as long as man. The fact that it is mysterious and unprovable are two descriptions to describe life in an atheist belief system. I can't prove there is a god, and no one can prove there isn't one. Both are articles of faith. Both perspectives can be intuitively understood, but neither can be proven scientifically.
|
|
|
Post by Freedom on Nov 5, 2009 23:08:02 GMT -5
A lot of people seem to severely need to believe in something, abything. It fills a void and makes them feel better about the fact that one day they're going to pop off and probably cease to exist in any shape or form The 'god' phenomenon has been around as long as man. The fact that it is mysterious and unprovable are two descriptions to describe life in an atheist belief system. I can't prove there is a god, and no one can prove there isn't one. Both are articles of faith. Both perspectives can be intuitively understood, but neither can be proven scientifically. Heard a interesting comment from a self professed atheist the other day: "Evolution and creationism are one and the same, creationism evolved around six thousand years ago." ;D
|
|
|
Post by maddogblues on Nov 6, 2009 19:35:29 GMT -5
The 'god' phenomenon has been around as long as man. The fact that it is mysterious and unprovable are two descriptions to describe life in an atheist belief system. I can't prove there is a god, and no one can prove there isn't one. Both are articles of faith. Both perspectives can be intuitively understood, but neither can be proven scientifically. Heard a interesting comment from a self professed atheist the other day: "Evolution and creationism are one and the same, creationism evolved around six thousand years ago." ;D I don't see them as different from each other. Nature, in a practical materialistic sense, is our creator. But saying that does not answer the metaphysical question of where did nature come from? Man has proposed theories, mainly in poetic form. The Upanishads being the most beautiful in my estimation. What I have come to understnd is that these are 'myths', they are designed to make the human brain think, to be a springboard. If taken literally they are foolishness. My belief is that human consciousness is a universal creative force. We create the world in our thoughts. Just look around at what we've been thinking lately.
|
|