What Would God Do?

Post by **myrna minkoff** » August 18th, 2009, 11:58 pm

What would God do?

<center>I think God would shoot craps with a contingent universe</center>

Thinking about God gives me the The Metaphysical Homelessness Blues

I can’t explain what happens when I try to think about God. I draw a blank. Not in the sense of being an atheist but in the sense that my brain is just burned out thinking about what it is that most people call god.

I suppose I believe in the God of Spinoza, whatever that is.

I understand
You got to fear God
you got to be more afraid of god than anything else you can think of. That is the beginning of wisdom I have heard.

Because John Hagee may be right. Probably. I just can't think about it anymore.

John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a "hunter," sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God's will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.

Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/2 ... 02892.html

Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Roethke</center>

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 12:16 am

Never understood that whole "fear of God" trip.
Why would I fear God?
I love Him.
And He loves me.
I have no question on this.
Where's the fear in that?

It may be that there's something in scripture I just don't grasp.
But I think it's more like something about being human.
Why would anyone fear God?
Even sinners.
All sins have been absolved, according to scripture.
So what's to fear about God?

Could it be because He sees when you pick your nose and stuff?
Sees everything you ever do?
Knows everything you ever think?
A complete lack of privacy?

Imagine the future, enlightened, telepathic Earth.
You know, after 2012?
Complete lack of intellectual privacy.

You just gotta ignore it, get over it, and go on with your life anyway.
God loves you.

Peace,
Barry
PS: I have a tattoo on my left arm. It's a tao symbol, commonly known as the yin-yang, with the words GOD (above) and MAN (below), and the pointy tail-ends of the two halves of the sign formed into arrows. I derived this one day while doodling with the purpose of trying to explain to myself how I feel things work. I drew the word GOD. Then I drew the word MAN. Then I drew arrows from GOD to MAN and from MAN to GOD. Inside the arrows I wrote words like prayer, belief, and faith (in the MAN arrow), and providence, grace, and divine intervention (in the GOD arrow). Then I realized something and drew a circle round the whole thing, then a curvy line between the two words and arrows. What resulted was the TAO.
Here's how I think things work: what MAN gives to GOD is what GOD gives to MAN. What that means is, if you don't like God, work on liking yourself more; if you think God is mean, try to be less mean; if you think God is something to fear, stop fearing yourself.

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 12:36 am

From the night sky full stars
I feel a tender indifference
I fear your god

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 12:49 am

Read the post script. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I just speak my mind.

Peace,
Barry

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 1:14 am

Ten four on duality
My mind does not just flip flop it does teraflops

"The human brain not only can hold two contradictory ideas at the same time but insists on it." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I never realized until recently that the seal of Solomon is a yin yang sign.

The two triangles interlocked. Representing male and female.

I think this is my favorite yin yang symbol, during world war two down in Fells Point in Baltimore there was a huge sign on the Broadway Market.
I did not know what it represented at the time just that it was a military insignia. I think it is a strange symbol for a military unit to use.

You are a good guy Barry.

I am giving you my best answer

I think G*d would shoot craps with a contingent universe.

Albert Einstein would probably disagree.
But I think truck drivers probably know more about it than he does.

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 6:29 am

Back in the forties some congressman was concerned about Einstein being an atheist. I think he called for an investigation because we don't need no stinking atheists here.

Well they say Einstein dodged the bullet by saying he believed in the God of Spinoza.

Have you ever read Spinoza? I have not. Way over my head. All I can do is be a Google poseur.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.
Baruch Spinoza
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quote ... 01337.html

Einstein was the inadvertent father of quantum physics. He was not proud of his baby. Or so I have read in scientific journals like Readers Digest and Newsweek

This whole issue of contingency is the basis of a popular argument for the existence of God. I cannot recall who first presented this, but it has appeared in various forms ever since. It goes like this:

P1: The physical universe is made up of contingent parts
P2: Since these contingent parts will eventually fail to exist, given enough time the universe as a whole should fail to exist.
P3: The physical universe exists.

Conclusion: Thus, something non contingent exists which created the physical (and contingent) universe. We will call this non contingent being God.

Conclusion: Thus, something non contingent exists which created the physical (and contingent) universe. We will call this non contingent being God.

This is an interesting argument, because everything we know in the universe does in fact appear to be contingent upon something else. Although this was used as an argument for God, it is really only an argument for non contingent being, since calling non contingent being God is quite arbitrary. So the question is, does the argument have validity?

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=6852

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 12:15 pm

I think the sticking point in peoples minds when discussing "God" is the word itself. I sometimes call it the G word, like the F word, like it's become a bad word. But for me the two words God and universe have always been interchangable in my head. Whenever I use one I know I could just as easily be using the other. I used to see a guy, a life-coach/mental health counsellor dude. Every time I would use the word God he'd respond back with the word universe in its place. He was uncomfortable using the word God. There's all these connotations to the word, you know? Baggage. I've dropped all the baggage, and so I can use the word God and know I just as well mean the universe - universal consciousness; not just here on Earth or even in this time - and experience no inner contradiction, no cognitive dissonance.
It's really too bad that "God" has become a bad word. It's like the flag: not the thing itself but the symbol. It's easy to lose sight of that. And "God" is a good word because it's small and easy to say, to use. "The universe" is rather cumbersome. Bummer.

Peace,
Barry

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 3:29 pm

G-d is the square root of minus one, that is about as close to it as I can come imagining G-d.

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 3:45 pm

God probably never talked to Geo. Bush. He was probably lying. Geo, I mean, not God.

I think God is Jewish as well as human, as well as alien, as well as...whatever...everything...living, dead, born, not born, born again or otherwise. I think God is LOVE. Is LOVE Jewish? Is Jewish LOVE? Do the questions really matter?

God has a mother and a wife. God is a mother and a wife. God is a father and a husband, a father and a mother, a husband and a wife, a child and a parent, a Jew and a Gentile. God is part of a pair-bond, just like everything.

Peace,
Barry

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 3:47 pm

I don't know I was editing while you were posting.
Sorry
I said but deleted "God lost all credibility for me when he started talking to George W. Bush"

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 3:53 pm

How do you know that God did not speak to George Bush?

I said "probably." I don't know for sure. I have my suspicions. The only time I ever saw that man unequivocally speak truth was when he looked to and spoke of his family during one of the debates. Suddenly I saw, he spoke truth. Beyond that, I don't know.

Peace,
Barry

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 3:57 pm

I wish you well Barry.

The more I say the more scared I get. Like I said your god scares the shit out of me so Does George's

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 19th, 2009, 4:15 pm

I won't edit my comments anymore, I should have said it makes me nervous because I don't have a problem with G-d, it is only when I try to talk about it that it becomes a problem.

I know what G-d is when I don't try to talk about it. The moment I try to put it into words it sounds like nonsense.

I think life is beautiful. I am very grateful to be alive. That is how I pray these days. By being grateful.

Post by **Jacob** » August 19th, 2009, 4:51 pm

A question was asked! I answer as best I can! In summary...

What is right is subjective to a god, since it calls the shots. We perceive what is right and fair in this dimension of thought, because that's how it came to be. It follows its own laws, since it makes or breaks them as it pleases. If a god was one of us, it's sure good at hiding. If we are all a god, we've sure broken up the heck of ourselves away from a single entity.

Post by **Barry** » August 19th, 2009, 6:58 pm

THe question was not, "What would a god do?" but "What would God do?"

Even in the polytheistic realm - life under a polytheistic rather than the current monotheistic paradigm - there was always one god paramount among all the rest. Ra, Zues, et al, etc.

It seems to me we have evolved. Rather than many gods of various confusing often contradictory natures, now we have just one. What scares me is that in the future, if the anti-religionists have their way, there will be none.

God forbid this should ever come to pass on this planet, because then it will just be people fucking with people forever and ever. And who will we all blame then?

What if the aliens showed up in the future and said, "Oh...You don't believe in God anymore? That's too bad. We have to blow you up now."

Peace,
Barry
PS: I feel a story coming on.

Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

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