Finding God

chopitdown

bootlegger10 wrote:

It is a valid point. That could probably be one of the most difficult things to comprehend. Why do bad things happen?

Theologically, bad things happen b/c of sin. But it is a very tough idea to comprehend, no doubt. I think a lot of it has to do with our definition of a "loving God". We've turned the word love into a phrase that means only good things (i.e. stopping pain, we feel good etc...) and took away or at least greatly diminish the tough aspects of love (discipline, correction).

Here are some excellent links if you've got the time (they are audio lectures, free to download) to listen to them.

http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=277 (by DA Carson : the love of God)

http://www.bethinking.org/categories.php?CategoryID=3 ( a collection of talks on sermons re: suffering)

chopitdown

sponger wrote:

It's too bad projection bias is not talked about in the bible, or otherwise you would have recognized yourself doing it as you were typing that post.

everyone has bias and if you don't agree with someone it's an easy cop out to belittle their view and call them simple minded. I could say the decision to ignore the pursuit of God is to abandon the pursuit of understanding. That previous statement is just as ignorant as the statement you made.

melodious

I can understand how one could claim that bad things happen becasue of sin..but in that context sin sounds like some outside force that comes in to a Humans' mind and overpowers the will, when in truth there might not have been self discipline to withstand or withhold a behavior, thought, etc. inother words, the person who is committing violation, is allowing some outside entity to be responsible...

if a person doesn't have god in his/her life, then how can sin be blamed? in the context that has been presented to me by CiD, it sounds like sin is some outside force that is a cause or trigger...and that Humans are not responsible for the sin that is caused. but if a person completely disregards a Higher Power then i would imagine the term sin is obsolete????

it sounds to me like sometimes peopel can go around continuing to enact a wrong and then feel forgiven becasue a Lovign God is supposed to forgive...and i can't see how this repairs relationships...

*please do not think i am trying to debate; only explore...thanks...

melodious

chopitdown wrote:

what a small little world you must live in.

nah, sponger lives in a vast world.....think of all that undersea life....:)

sponger

chopitdown wrote:

everyone has bias and if you don't agree with someone it's an easy cop out to belittle their view and call them simple minded.

...which is exactly what you did.

I don't make a habit of using broad generalizations to discount a perspective with which I do not agree. However, I do feel it necessary to even the playing field when reading such terms as "false integrity" being applied to the ones with which I do agree.

Collin

melodious wrote:

and your point is? let's look at this from another side as opposed to looking at negative patterns...

people who have this false sense of integrity have no inner peace and could not withstand devastation on thier own, they seek others for a Source of resource and on the same coin, blame others for their pain. they are not able to flow freely becasue they are not seeking the Source within.. these people need to be encouraged and embraced...it's always best to find some good some how...sometimes it's a lot of work, but so worth the effort....i think it would be nice to look at people who are of god and don't even realize they are messengers...beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

What do you mean with this? All of it.

Who are people with a false sense of integrity?
What do you mean when you say "they seek others for a Source of resource"?
Why are they not able to flow freely, what does that mean, and what is "seeking the Source within"?

melodious

do you want a real life example?

people who have a false set of integrity are those who will say they forgive you and yet the forgiveness is only a set of words, but their actions by blocking out others and interfering by "fix it" or save the world idealogy...says an entirely different statemet...

or do it my way or hit the highway and then i will not give you recognition for trying to make a bad situation bettter...and then becsue you are different than me, i will go around "dissing" you so that you have no other options...

when i say seek a Source for a resource...meaning...well, my mom is great one for this...she goes to her bible studies faithfully on fridays and is in chruch on sunday, yet her detest and ire for people of other cultures contradicts all of God's intent...when I tell my mom that her behavior is unbecoming, and how does this serve God, she replies to me, Well that's the beauty of it...God has to accept me for who and what i do...I think that she thinks God serves her...and that she is not to serve the Good...

and there are others who think that within their click, they are the best fan or the best proponent for freedom and enlightenment but when someone comes to them after behaving innappropriately to apologize, they wish you the best, but say they don't want to interact with you....that's not false???...i wish you well, but i don't want to have anything to do with you....{cut off any free flow--door closes)


the idea of A Source is to find your balance within...the idea of a Source for myself is to find my heart and my rhythm...what makes me complimented and thriving....

flowing freely for me means just BE...without interfering with or without interference....
like standing back and watching something so marvelous...and wanting to attain that state, but always encouraging freedom...sort of like how we admire birds in flight or anything out in nature....

melodious

in a sense, i am exploring how to respond to some stimuli that has confused me..i hope you don't mind me asking for help.....

some people say the internet should only be for fun, but i might add tha i have found the greatest resolve by taking risks and asking....

Collin

melodious wrote:

do you want a real life example?

people who have a false set of integrity are those who will say they forgive you and yet the forgiveness is only a set of words, but their actions by blocking out others and interfering by "fix it" or save the world idealogy...says an entirely different statemet...

or do it my way or hit the highway and then i will not give you recognition for trying to make a bad situation bettter...and then becsue you are different than me, i will go around "dissing" you so that you have no other options...

when i say seek a Source for a resource...meaning...well, my mom is great one for this...she goes to her bible studies faithfully on fridays and is in chruch on sunday, yet her detest and ire for people of other cultures contradicts all of God's intent...when I tell my mom that her behavior is unbecoming, and how does this serve God, she replies to me, Well that's the beauty of it...God has to accept me for who and what i do...I think that she thinks God serves her...and that she is not to serve the Good...

and there are others who think that within their click, they are the best fan or the best proponent for freedom and enlightenment but when someone comes to them after behaving innappropriately to apologize, they wish you the best, but say they don't want to interact with you....that's not false???...i wish you well, but i don't want to have anything to do with you....{cut off any free flow--door closes)


the idea of A Source is to find your balance within...the idea of a Source for myself is to find my heart and my rhythm...what makes me complimented and thriving....

flowing freely for me means just BE...without interfering with or without interference....
like standing back and watching something so marvelous...and wanting to attain that state, but always encouraging freedom...sort of like how we admire birds in flight or anything out in nature....

Thank you. I think I understand a little better what you're saying. I don't see what this has to do with god, though.

Anyway, you should check out buddhism if you haven't already.

melodious

It's more like Warren G's, " I want it all.."

the best part of God is that even skeptics are included...

the people who i refer to in these examples are even part of this path we call our self. to honor living is to love and many say that love is part of God...

whether these individuals choose to look at me from an eye of love, does not affect the choices that i am to make concerning them. i would only want to serve a higher dimension of my own self.

when we say to think openly, well then to think openly is to at least acknowledge a possibility that there is God...shining thru...

justam

melodious wrote:

do you want a real life example?

people who have a false set of integrity are those who will say they forgive you and yet the forgiveness is only a set of words, but their actions by blocking out others and interfering by "fix it" or save the world idealogy...says an entirely different statemet...

or do it my way or hit the highway and then i will not give you recognition for trying to make a bad situation bettter...and then becsue you are different than me, i will go around "dissing" you so that you have no other options...

when i say seek a Source for a resource...meaning...well, my mom is great one for this...she goes to her bible studies faithfully on fridays and is in chruch on sunday, yet her detest and ire for people of other cultures contradicts all of God's intent...when I tell my mom that her behavior is unbecoming, and how does this serve God, she replies to me, Well that's the beauty of it...God has to accept me for who and what i do...I think that she thinks God serves her...and that she is not to serve the Good...

and there are others who think that within their click, they are the best fan or the best proponent for freedom and enlightenment but when someone comes to them after behaving innappropriately to apologize, they wish you the best, but say they don't want to interact with you....that's not false???...i wish you well, but i don't want to have anything to do with you....{cut off any free flow--door closes)


the idea of A Source is to find your balance within...the idea of a Source for myself is to find my heart and my rhythm...what makes me complimented and thriving....

flowing freely for me means just BE...without interfering with or without interference....
like standing back and watching something so marvelous...and wanting to attain that state, but always encouraging freedom...sort of like how we admire birds in flight or anything out in nature....

There's a lot in this bit...

I think though that everyone (you, your mother, the people who forgive but then stand back) alive is just trying to make sense of their world. We all have to steer the boat (or let it drift as you seem to prefer) the best we can.

Everyone wants love, everyone wants forgiveness and acceptance, but I think hurting others has consequences. People may choose not to be involved with things and people that hurt them...only God has to love unconditionally. People may try but they can't always do it if it brings out the worst in others.

People who forgive too much are called "enablers" by observers. And, they are not remembering to love themselves. So, where's the balance? Are we all meant to sacrifice ourselves? Only some of us? Who's to know what is right?

Shouldn't love and change for the betterment of all be joined?

Collin

melodious wrote:

It's more like Warren G's, " I want it all.."

the best part of God is that even skeptics are included...

the people who i refer to in these examples are even part of this path we call our self. to honor living is to love and many say that love is part of God...

whether these individuals choose to look at me from an eye of love, does not affect the choices that i am to make concerning them. i would only want to serve a higher dimension of my own self.

when we say to think openly, well then to think openly is to at least acknowledge a possibility that there is God...shining thru...

God, to me, does not exist. I do acknowledge that I could be wrong and that means that I also accept there could be a god. Just as a person who believes in god probably accepts he could be wrong as well, yet I'm sure he'll know, feel that there is a god. I feel and know that there is no god. And if a god were to exist, I think it would be nothing like the biblical god, or the muslim god or whatever... I think it would be something as a 'force', like gravity. A force that does not care about us, that does not comprehend us.

I do recognize god in other people, I see people who have done amazing things, who have been completely selfless, compassionate and basically wonderful human beings. If they say they made their choices because of god, or they were inspired by the beautiful entity which they call god or believe to be god... that's wonderful and great.

On the other hand, god is a meaningless concept to me. In the sense that it has no meaning, it is a void. I know there is a christian god, a muslim god etc. but I don't believe in these concepts, I can accept people do and when they talk about their god I know what they mean by it, yet I can't fill this void the same way they do. It's a blank to me. Some people fill this blank space, god, with goodness, beauty and respect. Others fill it with hatred, bigotry.

Anyway melodious, this is a nice thread. I think you might like these:

Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
Dhammapada

http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/buddhistquotes.html

melodious

There's a lot in this bit...

I think though that everyone (you, your mother, the people who forgive but then stand back) alive is just trying to make sense of their world. We all have to steer the boat (or let it drift as you seem to prefer) the best we can.

i find a lot of wisdom here ;however, i wouldnt' call my style a drift, moreso to roll with the waves as opposed to interjecting my will or control......

Everyone wants love, everyone wants forgiveness and acceptance, but I think hurting others has consequences. People may choose not to be involved with things and people that hurt them...only God has to love unconditionally. People may try but they can't always do it if it brings out the worst in others.

i can and appreciate this philosphy, but if people are
claiming God's grace, should we not try to be more open to look and see what is to be derived from an event, as opposed to summing up an opinion that was reinforced by an unpleasant event? are we to run from every unpleasant event or experience when we can choose another option or consider these events as learning tools in the lessons of life? ie opportunity out of adversity???

People who forgive too much are called "enablers" by observers. And, they are not remembering to love themselves. So, where's the balance? Are we all meant to sacrifice ourselves? Only some of us? Who's to know what is right?

this is true in the eyes of a majority. and yet true open thinking and pathfinding has to allow for trial and error. i think we can exercise forgiveness in every aspect of our interactions and perhaps our world might not be where we are...we can break forgiveness down to forgiving ourselves, and if we can forgive ourselves, it's ourselves we have to confront in reflection. if we don't break down forgiveness for ourselves, then how can we forgive anyone else....how does this shine Light of LOVE...

Shouldn't love and change for the betterment of all be joined?

this is the hope, but even this goes back to learning to shine together as one BEAM....there are many particles..so i guess even particles like the subject matter in my examples are part toooo....

melodious

Collin wrote:

God, to me, does not exist. I do acknowledge that I could be wrong and that means that I also accept there could be a god. Just as a person who believes in god probably accepts he could be wrong as well, yet I'm sure he'll know, feel that there is a god. I feel and know that there is no god. And if a god were to exist, I think it would be nothing like the biblical god, or the muslim god or whatever... I think it would be something as a 'force', like gravity. A force that does not care about us, that does not comprehend us.

does not the fact that god does not exist to you, support that god does exist to you? ...this is where i can see you, Collin, as an average HUman going about your business in life...where you are sitting in your laboratory of logical thinking pondering...and all of a sudden someone taps you on the shoulder and says, Congratulations! you have just won a scholarship from the universe for exemplifiying God in the hieghest manner...i think God is in you and all of us because after i have thought about this topic, it does seem that many people do seek some type of higher consciousness in some shape or form...is this God we seek, or an understanding between our rational and our actions.

I do recognize god in other people, I see people who have done amazing things, who have been completely selfless, compassionate and basically wonderful human beings. If they say they made their choices because of god, or they were inspired by the beautiful entity which they call god or believe to be god... that's wonderful and great.

do you think that maybe what is determined as God (an outside Deity) is just another interpretation of seeking self actualization? i agree here...but do these people psych themselves up becasue they can't recognize thier value to a cosmic system or do they commit righteous acts to serve a Higher source?

myself, i am a bit egocentric and this conversation is helping me "drift" away from that trait so that i can Serve and learn more humility. this is difficult to do...someone tells me to achieve humility is to serve others...and when i try to follow this philosophy another person suggests that i am being codependent ...you see this dilemman...

On the other hand, god is a meaningless concept to me. In the sense that it has no meaning, it is a void.

i already believe your mention of god contradicts these words...

I know there is a christian god, a muslim god etc. but I don't believe in these concepts, I can accept people do and when they talk about their god I know what they mean by it, yet I can't fill this void the same way they do. It's a blank to me. Some people fill this blank space, god, with goodness, beauty and respect. Others fill it with hatred, bigotry.

you seem to fill this blank with a variety...

Anyway melodious, this is a nice thread. I think you might like these:

Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
Dhammapada

http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/buddhistquotes.html

thank you for this...so very much...i can see where sunday evening meditation will be...thank you for helping me sort some stuff out...

sponger

melodious wrote:

when i say seek a Source for a resource...meaning...well, my mom is great one for this...she goes to her bible studies faithfully on fridays and is in chruch on sunday, yet her detest and ire for people of other cultures contradicts all of God's intent...when I tell my mom that her behavior is unbecoming, and how does this serve God, she replies to me, Well that's the beauty of it...God has to accept me for who and what i do...I think that she thinks God serves her...and that she is not to serve the Good...

Your mom's intolerance of other cultures is not derived from a lack of faith in god, or from her indifference towards the perception of what is unbecoming.

In fact, the fact that she is still honest about her judgmental views in spite their obvious contradiction to the teachings of your religion means that there is a part of her deep down inside that still wants to the know the truth.

What she is saying is, "Please help me have an open mind because religion certainly is not the answer."

An intolerance of other cultures cannot be explained away with the words "unbecoming" and "devotion to god." There are reasons why she harbors these points of view, and those reasons have to do with human nature.

In simple terms, your mom doesn't understand herself well enough to be able to identify the similarities between her culture and the culture of others. And yet even deeper below the surface is your mom's inability to differentiate between herself and her own culture.

Since she could learn to walk and talk, she was raised to believe not in herself, but in the culture with which she was expected to identify. As time went on, she lost touch with the person she was beneath those learned perceptions, and she substituted that lost persona with "culture."

But, culture is a nonsensical and regressive institution. It promulgates false beliefs about who we are as human beings. The mind becomes diseased with fear and an unmet yearning for acceptance, and the only way it is able to rationalize this grotesque state of being is by casting judgment on anything it identifies as foriegn to its realm of understanding.

In most cases, religion is the way out of this self-perpetuating pattern of negativity because god is the ultimate appeal to authority. The mind readily accepts the concept of a god because the mind has long succumbed to the notion of perceived "superiority" being the ends that justify the means.

And the fact that your mom rejects god as the justification for the abandonment of her judgmental views means that she holds onto her desire to remember who she was before "culture" stepped in and robbed her of her true sense of humanity.

...someone tells me to achieve humility is to serve others...and when i try to follow this philosophy another person suggests that i am being codependent ...you see this dilemman...

Humility is a by-product of curiosity.

Collin

melodious wrote:

do you think that maybe what is determined as God (an outside Deity) is just another interpretation of seeking self actualization? i agree here...but do these people psych themselves up becasue they can't recognize thier value to a cosmic system or do they commit righteous acts to serve a Higher source?

I don't know the answer to this.

myself, i am a bit egocentric and this conversation is helping me "drift" away from that trait so that i can Serve and learn more humility. this is difficult to do...someone tells me to achieve humility is to serve others...and when i try to follow this philosophy another person suggests that i am being codependent ...you see this dilemman...

It doesn't have to be a dilemma. Life is a process, I once read or heard that people don't change, they just become more themselves, and I agree with that. You aren't a fixed personality, you learn new things every day, you experience new things... your person expands. So if you want to learn more humility, do what you need to do. It's not because a person suggests you are codependent that it's true. Even if you become codependent, you might find your balance the very next day.

i already believe your mention of god contradicts these words...

I disagree, sort of. It isn't a completely blank word, I can fill it with the christian concept of god. But I don't believe in god. So I also don't believe in that meaning. I know some people say nature is god, or kindness towards others is god etc.
But to me nature is nature and kindness is kindness.

It's very hard to explain.

you seem to fill this blank with a variety...

Actually, I don't. Other people do. To me god is a concept of other people, this concept does not affect me. So whether a person believes in god or not is not important to me, because it has no meaning to me. Their actions, however, can affect me. Besides history has proven that a person's religion does not indicate whether that person is a good or bad human being.

If a person wants to be good, he can be good with or without god. If a person wants to be evil, he can be evil with or without god.

I am talking about belief on a personal level here, Christianity or Islam as a belief system is a different thing, imo.

melodious

sponger and colin:

she doesn't articulate...she only says becasue i say...can you imagine being raised with rule and no reason?

thank you for looking at this with me...the confusion that has been fed to me has brought me (as i have discovered) to be almost inept in communicating and breaking down rationale...i see my mom as narrow minded and try to forgive and teach her how to have an open mind but, it always ends up in a blasting match...nobody wins and i always feels sickened...

will be back to edit and respond...again thank you so much


she never went to church my entire life...i was raised to choose my own faith. my father never went to church and felt that churches were full of hypocrites (oklahoma --post depression) he was not a man of god, but yet in my opinion, he was more truthful and honest than anyone i had in my life at the tiem....he did have a bit of a temper though, and me being me....;)

sponger

melodious wrote:

sponger and colin:

she doesn't articulate...she only says becasue i say...can you imagine being raised with rule and no reason?

thank you for looking at this with me...the confusion that has been fed to me has brought me (as i have discovered) to be almost inept in communicating and breaking down rationale...i see my mom as narrow minded and try to forgive and teach her how to have an open mind but, it always ends up in a blasting match...nobody wins and i always feels sickened...

You can't teach someone to have an open mind by telling them it's unbecoming to have one that is closed, or that it's not the way in which god is to be served.

In fact, if your mind has been forced open by those two concepts alone then I would say there is doubt as to whether your views differ all that much from your mom's. You might just be supressing them because you know that you're not supposed to have them as a person of god. Just because you ignore them doesn't mean they're not there.

melodious

i didn't tell her that her closed mind is unbecoming; i told her that her racism and nativism, and patriotism is unbecoming...but mostly her racism....;). the ideas i posed about god serving her was how i interpret her application of al this chruch she goes to. i never made a comment to her; in fact i followed protocol and silenced myself, when she told me a bunch of rhetoric...

for me telling her or should i say asserting a principle that is righteous and correct to my mom when she is being ugly towards others is like a test of courage or a measurement for growth..... in past i would keep trying to attain her approval.

You might just be supressing them because you know that you're not supposed to have them as a person of god.

care to explain this..what you mean?


all i can say is that if i met someone like this person, that i don't think i would want to befriend him/her.. i feel that people who demmonstrate some sense of superiority over others feed more separatism ; therefore until i have the tools or peace to interact cordially it's best for me to stay away...bottom line, social cancer... i don't really think God has anything to do with how I feel about about "do unto others, as you would have done unto you..." Even when my back is turned on God, I still try to give the best of myself... she has a bit of bully mentality and it's a behavior that i find loathesome... i guess maybe i don't respond well...



i can see the engine's still running...
and the boxes are definitely abound..

good thing we all have choices...

sponger

malfunction