Bible Humper

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> I didn't even suspect this. "On your knees" jokes have made blowjobs the only thing to pop to mind when I see that kind of thing.

Ooooooops

Defiant Heretic

So exactly what evil did he deal with? Murder? Rape? Torture? Genocide? All these things still happen today. The only ‘sin’ you can apply here is the original sin mentioned in Genesis. This god, whom you say is honorable and just, seems to be more concerned about who’s ancestors ate some fruit than with all the horrible things that happen on a daily basis! Why would such a being even be worthy of worship at all?

[ November 17, 2002: Message edited by: Defiant Heretic ]</p>

bluefugue

Worthy's got nothin' to do with it. If you don't worship him, he will smite you.

Hey, I may not like a guy wielding an Ak-47, but I will probably do as he requests...

Synaesthesia

Hey, buddy, you don't see any people eating from the tree of knowledge, do you?

There ya go, God did deal with the real evil.

Secondly, why is God worthy of worship? Duu, because he can grant heaven and hell. Good enough reason for me, I'm not going to second guess his moral character if he's calling the shots.

GaryR50

A simpler question, that I've always posed, is "what is god?" Ask it, adn you always get a different answer, depending upon whom you're talking to. There seems to be great disaprity and disagreement, among religionists, as to what, exactly, they are arguing the existence of. If you can get them to admit that they don't know how to even define "god," then any further argument ceases to be necessary, as they cannont even define their terms. A fundamental of any serious debate is an agreement as to what the terms used are, and what they mean to the debaters. If no agreement as to definitions can be reached, or if terms cannot be defined satisfactorily, then there is no point in debating them. In short, showing them that they don't even know what they're talking about usually shuts them up right away.

Gary

Jobar

<a href="http://members.tripod.com/vpcnk/bandu.html" target="_blank">Here is what Amos is talking about-</a> he is treating Christianity as a way to enlightenment, a mystical path to truth. I knew such a thing was possible, from having read Eckhart- but I think Amos is the first person I have met who has walked that path.

The problem is that Eckhart was executed for heresy in the fourteenth century. Still, Amos, I would that your interpretation of the Christian mythos were the commonly accepted one.

As to maya and nairatmaya- mmmm, I would disagree, but I know others might not. I think the self IS the non-self. Thou art That.

Amos

It was like that before the Reformation!

Never would the Church execute its own. Eckhart must have been wrong.

Amos

[/qb]

More like the first guy dumb enough to talk about it as if he did walk the path. If the 'ego' is conscious mind (false I), and the 'self' is subconscious mind (true I), the conscious mind must be placed subservient to the subconscious mind if intuition is to be in charge of our destiny. That must be true, of course.

The above does not mean that our ego is 'no more' because God forbid that we would be non-rational zombies after the annililation of our ego (faculty of reason). So anatta (surpression of ego) is equivalent to our desire to be more godly and less human.

Anatta is prior to nairatmaya which is when the subconscious mind is in charge of our destiny. I think it is needed to stimulate/stifle our period of artham (wealth) and kAmam (desire) while we are in search of destiny.

In our mythology the abandonment of the apostles prior to crucifixion indicated that reason would prevail after crucifixion because the apostels were the eiditic images of Jesus to be recalled after resurrection and therefore into the upper room of his subconscious mind. See the subservient place that reason occupies? see also how the naked ego was wounded so it could be placed subservient? (all the sense were pierced).

So if I agree that "self is non-self" it would have to be after the self has been inflicted to bear the spiritual stigmata.

There is also the God of Abraham and Isaac and it seems to me that Buddhism is leaning more towards their salvation story. But here also, there are different "vehicles" in Buddhism.

Fiach

Fiach

You are getting to the modern variant of Pascal's Wager. If you are trying to decide from among four choices for your belief, these are your choices.

1. There is no God. We die. And its over. We are not punished for what we thought while alive.

2. There is a God who is non-conscious, created everything, but needs no worship nor recognition, since it is a natural force unaware of its own creation.

3. There is a God, who is conscious, intelligent, but kind, merciful, loving, and will take all of us to a paradise of peace, love, and positive intellectual stimulation after we die.

4. There is a God. This God is cruel, homicidal, vindictive to a point of unimaginable sadism. He is creator of Burning Hell for those who fail to worship him correctly to the letter. He is supremely insecure and will also send to Hell all of us who dare to doubt his existence or are horrified by his depraved acts in the Bible. So we are saved only by absolute, unthinking, debasing, blind belief, and by submissive, abject slavery and worship of this terrible monster.

So whom do you choose to believe in?

No.1 there is no penalty if you reject this one.

No.2. There is no penalty if you reject this one.

No.3. There is no penalty because this God is too nice to want to hurt people.

No.4. This monster god is to be feared. Failure to believe or worship abjectly will result in unimaginable eternal punishment.

So the only way you can suffer is failure to believe in the very WORST GOD. If he doesn't exist you lose nothing as in 1, 2, and 3. If he does exist and you fail to worship, you face eternal torture and agony which would not happen if 1, 2, or 3 were true.

So, the lesson is to imagine the very worst God your mind can conceive and worship him.

Fiach