tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post1181111348475081677..comments2023-10-31T07:23:38.101-04:00Comments on Musings of a Madman: Faith? What it means to me...Musing Madmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06440317878587644101noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-6630089076608008182009-12-30T06:05:17.056-05:002009-12-30T06:05:17.056-05:00WHAT IF??? WHAT IF??? WHAT IF??? The God you and...WHAT IF??? WHAT IF??? WHAT IF??? The God you and I were taught about wasn't quite, exactly right? What IF??? The interpretation of the Bible and of its God we were force fed was askew??? Do you think perhaps, if only for a moment, you might reconsider your current view point? What if I told you that an all powerful being existed and that He created everything in existence? What if I told you that this God, after creation, stepped back and allowed His creation to shape and form based upon a set of physical laws that He himself, in his phenomenal cosmic power and not so itty-bitty living space, had defined? Now for the kicker. What if I proposed that God chose a more "hands off" approach than the one you were raised to believe? That life, death, good people, evil people, happiness, and despair were all just what the creation allowed to happen based upon its interactions, circumstances and choices? You see, to me, the view of a God that controls everything removes human choice. This is the ultimate version of a scape goat. I cannot be held responsible for my actions because God made it so. Bah!! I say. You see the one place the Thumpers may have got it right is that man has free will and that all things turn out for God's glory. What better example of something for God's glory than a creation that freely chooses Him? Sure, they professed of free will but also professed of God's control. The problem is that a God that controls everything can easily be blamed for everything. However, if you stop thinking that God will guide your life into some non-existent Christian Utopian bliss free of life's troubles then when the inevitable troubles of life come along you will see them for what they are...life with all it's extreme joys and severest pains. Its yens and yangs. Its ups and downs. So many people are drawn to an all powerful God that controls their life because it removes their responsibility and gives an easy door at which to lay the blame when things go wrong. Others, such as ourselves, are simply born into the absurdity and one day wake up. <br /><br />At some point an analytic mind can no longer take the contradictions. It must break free or else cease to be analytic. Some, such as I did once, went as far the other direction as it dared away from Christianity as I knew it to be. That KJV only Baptist babel. I skipped right past anything that may have more reasonable and straight to the only other alternative I had heard of. However it was during a lengthy time of study and research that I came to my realization that the truth wasn't where I was nor where I had been. It was somewhere in between. Study of all sorts of religions and belief systems viewed with a skeptical scientific lens led me to where I am now. Science is irrefutable, but as has been throughout time, it doesn't hold all the answers. So I fall back on the feeble crutch that thousands of years of humans have used when science failed to answer...God. A view of God much like the book Angles and Demons, which I am proud to say I read long before either of the Dan Brown movies. God held it all in His his fingers, defined the laws of nature, and then simply opened His fingers..BANG. Faith of that event, sure. But science of what followed. Once the answer to where did the spec of matter come from is answered, then God will no longer be needed I suppose. <br /><br />So, what do you think? Easily the shortest theological treatise in history I'm sure but still rather lengthy far as I'm concerned. All the above I hope will be spice for further conversation and contemplation. Love to have someone to bounce it all off of after all.<br /><br />-BenAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05599067705789411684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-20412987068799532522009-12-30T06:05:03.139-05:002009-12-30T06:05:03.139-05:00To be perfectly honest what I find mind boggling i...To be perfectly honest what I find mind boggling is the adherence to the silly notion that an all powerful God controls every aspect of my existence, who raises up whom He will and puts down whom He will, that rides on the whirlwind, can at one time be responsible for everything good in the world but not of the evil. Could the hand of God that predestined the life of the very man who would betray his Son to death be at the same time the same hand that would be denied any guilt of the other lives in the world that would work evil? That is to say, IF God made everything that is good and right in the world and at the same time have guided the life of Judas, how could that hand be held blameless for the acts of Hitler? Stinging question I know. I know the pat answer to the question as well as you, but the answer does not fit. It is contradictory so as to remove blame for evil in the world from the Hand that controls everything. And when that contradiction is pointed out...it's the ways of God that we are not to understand. Have faith. HAHAHAHA<br /><br />At this point my true motive for my post must be revealed, my friend. It is, in fact, to offer you an alternative look at God that from your post and from your/mine upbringing I feel you have not seen or thought of. Sinister I know.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05599067705789411684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-83156500229736428852009-12-30T06:03:54.347-05:002009-12-30T06:03:54.347-05:00Now for some outright difference of opinion/wordin...Now for some outright difference of opinion/wording. I am going to address a few different points but I think they all stem from one central argument. It's the particular people in which you are referring and not the entirety. You'll see what I mean momentarily.<br /><br />"the defensive nature of religion" - religion does not necessarily have to be defensive by nature. It simply will sound that way coming from the lips of those who aren't really trying to convince you but rather themselves. Their faith, and truly their entire life and worldview, rests upon such shaky foundation that when you shine a light on the termites at the base, their minds simply cannot comprehend what they are seeing and so they recoil and become defensive. As you point out, an all powerful God of the sort you and I were raised to believe in, does not require the defense of such feeble and fallible beings as humans...unless...He wasn't real. This point is what I see as the pinnacle of the arrogance of those who believe as we were raised. To think, that The Almighty should need my verbal defense is nothing short of preposterous and the height of self importance. Talk about diminishing that which cannot be diminished...as they would claim.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05599067705789411684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-86734899486876967062009-12-30T06:03:30.000-05:002009-12-30T06:03:30.000-05:00Now for a few points that you may wish to include ...Now for a few points that you may wish to include in your future considerations and discussions of this viewpoint. One of a couple holes I notice is your explanation is the lumping together of all religions into one category of all being mutually exclusive. I do not know if this was a minor oversight in an otherwise well crafted post or something you haven't considered. In either case I offer to you that the only religions holding exclusive claims on the keys to heaven are those of the monotheistic, Abraham origin. That is to say Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. No other religions, to my knowledge, express a "one door" theology. <br /><br />The evidence of things not seen. From my memory this is often used to relate to the effects of the Holy Spirit. The changed lives (evidence) caused by the Holy Spirit (things not seen). Your argument however does not take into account scientific experiments in which some sub-atomic particles cannot be seen but their effects of motion in a gas filled chamber can be observed. I bring this up only to mention the hole in the argument. Not that I disagree.<br /><br />Your circle of life analogy might benefit from the mention of The First Law of Thermodynamics.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05599067705789411684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-17837188512598861662009-12-30T06:03:02.632-05:002009-12-30T06:03:02.632-05:00You bring up a point and argument near and dear to...You bring up a point and argument near and dear to my heart. Perhaps it is why I didn't go back to my porn. If you would, please permit me to offer some complimentary along with some contradictory statements. A little bit of "right there with you" along with some "have you considered this angle".<br /><br />First let me say that I applaud you for your final conclusions of the necessity of religion/faith in a society being necessary. This concise, albeit hurried, explanation undoubtedly due to its inclusion near the end of your blog. I do the same thing after I have been going on for some time. You will most likely notice it at the end of my post. I was also quite pleased to read your conclusions on the non-scientific basis of faith and the somewhat scathing review of those who take up its fullest meaning. I particularly liked your addressing those silly "chair" and "air" arguments. They do show an utter lack of thinking beyond the depth of a mud puddle.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05599067705789411684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192903164206626018.post-69649462284508514402009-11-24T13:21:39.722-05:002009-11-24T13:21:39.722-05:00haha I have tried to leave a comment twice now
Ok ...haha I have tried to leave a comment twice now<br />Ok - three is a charm.<br />But before writing another novel I first want to see if it works this time<br />SylviaSylvianoreply@blogger.com