Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

[brokenhead]

Of course, if a God is omnipotent, why could he not end his own life? He can, because he is omnipotent. He is also eternal, because he has not chosen to do so. What is your objection, exactly?

An eternal God lacks the power to commit suicide.

Can an omnipotent God experience regret after taking his own life?

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Why does an eternal God lack the power to commit suicide?

"Can an omnipotent God experience regret after taking his own life?"
You are being facetious, and you are doing so in a characteristically ham-fisted manner. I answer with this: Can a mere human experience regret after taking his own life?

[David Quinn]

Of course, if a God is omnipotent, why could he not end his own life? He can, because he is omnipotent. He is also eternal, because he has not chosen to do so. What is your objection, exactly?

An eternal God lacks the power to commit suicide.

Can an omnipotent God experience regret after taking his own life?

Why does an eternal God lack the power to commit suicide?

If he committed suicide, it would immediately mean that he wasn't an eternal God. An eternal God is powerless to commit suicide by the very fact of his eternalness.

"Can an omnipotent God experience regret after taking his own life?"
You are being facetious, and you are doing so in a characteristically ham-fisted manner. I answer with this: Can a mere human experience regret after taking his own life?

No more than an omnipotent God can.

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[brokenhead]

If he committed suicide, it would immediately mean that he wasn't an eternal God. An eternal God is powerless to commit suicide by the very fact of his eternalness.

You are not answering the question. I did not ask what would happen if he committed suicide, I asked why would he be powerless to do so? He simply chooses not to. Therefore he is eternal. He is eternal because it is his will. Or are you claiming God's will is an illusion, like man's will is?

[David Quinn]

If he committed suicide, it would immediately mean that he wasn't an eternal God. An eternal God is powerless to commit suicide by the very fact of his eternalness.

You are not answering the question. I did not ask what would happen if he committed suicide, I asked why would he be powerless to do so? He simply chooses not to.

He would be compelled to choose not to in order to be eternal. He would have no choice but to submit to the dictates of the logic involved here.

Therefore he is eternal. He is eternal because it is his will. Or are you claiming God's will is an illusion, like man's will is?

Of course. Given the reality of cause and effect, nothing can ever have free will.

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[brokenhead]

He would be compelled to choose not to in order to be eternal. He would have no choice but to submit to the dictates of the logic involved here.

Why would he have no choice? He is God, right? He may decide he does not wish to be eternal. It's entirely up to him. Who is going to stop him?

This is just silly semantics, even you will agree. An eternal God would not lack the power to commit suicide; however, if he used it, he would no longer be eternal.

Can we agree on that?

You do not see God as a person, and I do. That's the only real difference in our views, David. All of our disagreements boil down to that. I do not denigrate logic, as you may think. Neither do I extoll it. I think in humans, logic and experience are linked. In human beings, experience arises from one's personhood. We are like gods because we are persons.

[David Quinn]

He would be compelled to choose not to in order to be eternal. He would have no choice but to submit to the dictates of the logic involved here.

Why would he have no choice? He is God, right? He may decide he does not wish to be eternal. It's entirely up to him. Who is going to stop him?

His attachment to being eternal would stop him.

This is just silly semantics, even you will agree. An eternal God would not lack the power to commit suicide; however, if he used it, he would no longer be eternal.

Can we agree on that?

It isn't semantics at all. It is a logical reality that even a God has to abide by. A temporary God certainly has the power to commit suicide, if he so chooses, but an eternal God doesn't have that power. It is one of the limitations of being eternal.

You do not see God as a person, and I do. That's the only real difference in our views, David. All of our disagreements boil down to that.

It's a pretty massive difference. It is like saying, "We are poles apart in our fundamental relationship with reality, there is an infinite chasm between us in this regard, but other than that there is no real difference between us!"

One leads to the opening up of the mind to the freedom and glory of our infinite nature, the other leads to the slavish imprisonment of being a devotee to another being.

I do not denigrate logic, as you may think. Neither do I extoll it. I think in humans, logic and experience are linked. In human beings, experience arises from one's personhood. We are like gods because we are persons.

On the contrary, we are like gods not because we are persons, but because our true nature is infinite. We are literally made in God's image.

Christians, bless them, always manage to invert that saying to the complete opposite of its true meaning.

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[Ataraxia]

On the contrary, we are like gods not because we are persons, but because our true nature is infinite. We are literally made in God's image.

Christians, bless them, always manage to invert that saying to the complete opposite of its true meaning.

-

Right on, well put.

I recently re read Nietzsche's 'Antichrist'--he really hones in on that point throughout the treatise; and rather gets to the heart of the matter in S15

Antichrist: 15. Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes (“God,” “soul,” “ego,” “spirit,” “free will”—or even “unfree”), and purely imaginary effects (“sin,” “salvation,” “grace,” “punishment,” “forgiveness of sins”). Intercourse between imaginary beings (“God,” “spirits,” “souls”); an imaginary natural history (anthropocentric; a total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general feelings—for example, of the states of the nervus sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical balderdash—, “repentance,” “pangs of conscience,” “temptation by the devil,” “the presence of God”); an imaginary teleology (the “kingdom of God,” “the last judgment,” “eternal life”).—This purely fictitious world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the latter at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of “nature” had been opposed to the concept of “God,” the word “natural” necessarily took on the meaning of “abominable”—the whole of that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (—the real!—), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the presence of reality.... This explains everything. Who alone has any reason for living his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to suffer from reality one must be a botched reality.... The preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for décadence....

[brokenhead]

bh: Why would he have no choice? He is God, right? He may decide he does not wish to be eternal. It's entirely up to him. Who is going to stop him?
DQ: His attachment to being eternal would stop him.

But you are attributing to a putative deity a human quality, one that you regard as a shortcoming in humans, and one that you claim an enlightened human does not suffer from. You are therefore maintaining that a human being can transcend something that God cannot. This is why you are being silly.

DQ: It isn't semantics at all. It is a logical reality that even a God has to abide by. A temporary God certainly has the power to commit suicide, if he so chooses, but an eternal God doesn't have that power. It is one of the limitations of being eternal.

It absolutely is a case of a trivial semantic disagreement! An eternal God would have the power to commit suicide. Only by abrogating his eternal nature can he do so. It is a choice he has because he has will. It is precisely the same as saying I am a living being. I may choose to commit suicide. If I do so, then I am no longer living. I was a living being, now I am no longer a living being. God is an eternal God; by acting to commit suicide is no longer eternal, in precisely the same way that I would no longer be living. For you to claim otherwise is no more than a semantic objection, and a poor one, a trivial one, at that.

bh: You do not see God as a person, and I do. That's the only real difference in our views, David. All of our disagreements boil down to that.
DQ: It's a pretty massive difference. It is like saying, "We are poles apart in our fundamental relationship with reality, there is an infinite chasm between us in this regard, but other than that there is no real difference between us!"

Perhaps. I did not intend to minimize the difference, but rather to point out that most of out disagreements reduce to it.

DQ:One leads to the opening up of the mind to the freedom and glory of our infinite nature, the other leads to the slavish imprisonment of being a devotee to another being.

Quite the contrary. Your point of view leads to the slavish devotion to one's own ego, whereas mine frees one from it, and opens up the heart and soul as well as mind to the freedom and glory of our eternal nature.

I do have hope for you yet. That may very well be my most glaring flaw.

DQ: On the contrary, we are like gods not because we are persons, but because our true nature is infinite. We are literally made in God's image.

We are made in God's image because we are persons and because our true nature is eternal. If you believe you are infinite, you have yet to experience humility.

DQ: Christians, bless them, always manage to invert that saying to the complete opposite of its true meaning.

Proof that you labor under the debilitating burden of your own ego. I, on the other hand, do not presume to know what Christians "always manage" to believe about anything.

And that is the real massive difference between us. You think you can kiss the sky without ever having to kneel.

[brokenhead]

I would also like to point out that as we are bound by gravity when we are on the earth, so we are bound by our conceptions of temporality and cause and effect. To extend views forged in the furnace of space and time to venues which may exist external to space and time as we understand it is the height of chauvinism and folly and arrogance. All the qualities, in short, David, that you hold so dear and extol. Your point of view is closed and mortal; mine holds the promise of life eternal.

[David Quinn]

bh: Why would he have no choice? He is God, right? He may decide he does not wish to be eternal. It's entirely up to him. Who is going to stop him?
DQ: His attachment to being eternal would stop him.

But you are attributing to a putative deity a human quality, one that you regard as a shortcoming in humans, and one that you claim an enlightened human does not suffer from. You are therefore maintaining that a human being can transcend something that God cannot. This is why you are being silly.

A loving God is already a God riddled with attachments.

DQ: It isn't semantics at all. It is a logical reality that even a God has to abide by. A temporary God certainly has the power to commit suicide, if he so chooses, but an eternal God doesn't have that power. It is one of the limitations of being eternal.

It absolutely is a case of a trivial semantic disagreement! An eternal God would have the power to commit suicide. Only by abrogating his eternal nature can he do so. It is a choice he has because he has will. It is precisely the same as saying I am a living being. I may choose to commit suicide. If I do so, then I am no longer living. I was a living being, now I am no longer a living being. God is an eternal God; by acting to commit suicide is no longer eternal, in precisely the same way that I would no longer be living. For you to claim otherwise is no more than a semantic objection, and a poor one, a trivial one, at that.

The act of suicide only puts an end to the life of a living being. It doesn't wipe away the reality of his past existence as a living being.

A God committing suicide, however, would wipe away his past reality as an eternal God. It would reveal that he was never an eternal God to begin with.

God - the true God, the Tao - is eternal because it is utterly beyond life and death. There is no possibility of it ever disappearing. By contrast, a God that is personal and has the capacity to commit suicide is, at best, merely a being that may or may not extend his life indefinitely.

DQ: On the contrary, we are like gods not because we are persons, but because our true nature is infinite. We are literally made in God's image.

We are made in God's image because we are persons and because our true nature is eternal. If you believe you are infinite, you have yet to experience humility.

On the contrary, it is the greatest humility. To assert one's finiteness, or indeed to assert one's very existence, is the very epitome of arrogance as it involves the willful diminishing of God's infinite nature. It is a hostile act towards God.

"The kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead." - Meister Eckhart

DQ: Christians, bless them, always manage to invert that saying to the complete opposite of its true meaning.

Proof that you labor under the debilitating burden of your own ego. I, on the other hand, do not presume to know what Christians "always manage" to believe about anything.

To be willingly blind is not something to be proud of, nor is it humility. It does help in matters of love, however.

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[brokenhead]

A loving God is already a God riddled with attachments.

You are doing it again. You are arbitrarily assigning God attributes and then criticizing those attributes. Why not call him a retard and lambaste him for being stupider than you are?

A God committing suicide, however, would wipe away his past reality as an eternal God. It would reveal that he was never an eternal God to begin with.

Again, you are claiming to know the unknowable, so I will do the same silly thing. If God committed suicide, it could not reveal anything, because there would be no one around for anything to be revealed to.

God - the true God, the Tao - is eternal because it is utterly beyond life and death. There is no possibility of it ever disappearing. By contrast, a God that is personal and has the capacity to commit suicide is, at best, merely a being that may or may not extend his life indefinitely.

Your comprehension of what is meant by a personal God is shadowy and incomplete. You are making erroneous suppositions based on your incomplete knowledge. I find that people with a vague and selective acceptance of Christ's message - people such as yourself - often mistake the notion of a personal God with the confused idea of a human God, or one with human frailties or other finite attributes.

Here is the crux of your misunderstanding. You are assigning to God's personhood the limitations of his creatures that also have personhood. Rather, the proper view is to look at the personhood of these otherwise limited creatures and see therein the gift of eternal life. God is not like us. We are like God.

On the contrary, it is the greatest humility. To assert one's finiteness, or indeed to assert one's very existence, is the very epitome of arrogance as it involves the willful diminishing of God's infinite nature. It is a hostile act toward God.

To deny one's own existence is to fail to recognize God's hand. This is the arrogance. Denying God's loving nature and claiming such a nature would be a weakness is, I argue, the real hostile act to wards God.

"The kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead." - Meister Eckhart

"The kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead." - Meister Eckhart

To be willingly blind is not something to be proud of, nor is it humility. It does help in matters of love, however.

To be willingly proud is to be blind, and nor is that humility and is solely the refuge of the loveless.

[David Quinn]

A loving God is already a God riddled with attachments.

You are doing it again. You are arbitrarily assigning God attributes and then criticizing those attributes. Why not call him a retard and lambaste him for being stupider than you are?

Again, I am talking about a logical reality that even a God has to submit to. It is impossible to love without attachment.

A God committing suicide, however, would wipe away his past reality as an eternal God. It would reveal that he was never an eternal God to begin with.

Again, you are claiming to know the unknowable, so I will do the same silly thing. If God committed suicide, it could not reveal anything, because there would be no one around for anything to be revealed to.

The truth would remain, as truth is eternal.

God - the true God, the Tao - is eternal because it is utterly beyond life and death. There is no possibility of it ever disappearing. By contrast, a God that is personal and has the capacity to commit suicide is, at best, merely a being that may or may not extend his life indefinitely.

Your comprehension of what is meant by a personal God is shadowy and incomplete. You are making erroneous suppositions based on your incomplete knowledge. I find that people with a vague and selective acceptance of Christ's message - people such as yourself - often mistake the notion of a personal God with the confused idea of a human God, or one with human frailties or other finite attributes.

Here is the crux of your misunderstanding. You are assigning to God's personhood the limitations of his creatures that also have personhood.

"His"?

Rather, the proper view is to look at the personhood of these otherwise limited creatures and see therein the gift of eternal life. God is not like us. We are like God.

Oranges are like mandarins, but mandarins are not like oranges. Christian logic.

"Gift of eternal life" is a catchy slogan, but what does it mean? When you look at a person and see the "gift of eternal life", what is it that you see?

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[Ataraxia]

Denying God's loving nature and claiming such a nature would be a weakness is, I argue, the real hostile act to wards God.

Well I would like to kindly request you argue it. Because to sustain a charge that someone is "denying God's loving nature" presupposes that God has a loving nature. Can you demonstrate this is so?

Who is claiming to know the unknowable around here? Seems to me it be you.

[brokenhead]

Denying God's loving nature and claiming such a nature would be a weakness is, I argue, the real hostile act to wards God.

Well I would like to kindly request you argue it. Because to sustain a charge that someone is "denying God's loving nature" presupposes that God has a loving nature. Can you demonstrate this is so?

Who is claiming to know the unknowable around here? Seems to me it be you.

I just did argue it. David made a statement and I countered it. If you are going to ask me for elucidation, why do you not also ask David? It is because you buy into his restrictive viewpoints.

For instance, David claims something would be a "hostile act" toward God. Why can he anthropomorphize Deity without your questioning it? It shows your intellectual prejudices.

BTW, I am heartened that you have been correctly punctuating your posts. They are now readable, if little else. There may be hope for you yet, too.

[brokenhead]

Again, I am talking about a logical reality that even a God has to submit to. It is impossible to love without attachment.

This is so small minded as to be pure fallacy. This is a mere assertion that you often make. Do you think if you repeat it enough, it will become fact instead of a philosophical stance, that is, entirely your opinion? Perhaps if you put on your ruby slippers and tapped the heels together as you repeat it.

Look, I am not saying that many people do not experience attachment and think it is love. But I for one have experienced love without attachment, and I know of many, many instances where the true selfless nature of love manifests itself. I have experienced love and I have experienced abject attachment. I submit to you that I can tell the difference, and I assure you there is one. If the self is removed from love, there remains nothing that can become attached. You do not seem to understand the difference between love that comes from one and Love that comes through one. Until you do, you might want to reconsider posing as any kind of expert on the subject. There is no such thing as an expert on Love, whereas anyone can be an expert on love. I do not claim to be an expert on Love; rather, I claim to have known it and to know for a fact it is not the same as the love that spawns and is spawned by attachment. As you know, hatred is also spawned by attachment, as is anger and jealousy. Your failure to understand Love which is free of attachment leads you and your sheep-like followers like Sue to conflate love and hatred. The absurdity of it is what attracts your sheep; they hold to that epitome of ignorance as some kind of ultimate revelation. They might as well take up for a mantra "Shit stinks," since that at least is a true statement.

The truth would remain, as truth is eternal.

This is as catchy a slogan as any I have come up with, and a hundred times as nonsensical and meaningless. Truth cannot remain where there is utterly nothing else. First, a thing requires what it is not in order for A=A. Therefore, truth by itself cannot logically be eternal. Second, A+A cannot hold even if "not A" exists unless there is a thing to perceive it. If there is utterly nothing else, therefore, truth cannot logically remain by the tenets of your own logic.

"His"?

His, her, its, whatever.

Oranges are like mandarins, but mandarins are not like oranges. Christian logic.

This is a legitimate distinction, one which I am not surprised appears to be beyond you.

But let me try to dumb it down for you. I was not speaking of oranges, mandarins, or any other kind of fruit. I was speaking of Man's relationship to God. I meant, as if you really did not know, that Man is in God's image, not God in Man's.

"Gift of eternal life" is a catchy slogan, but what does it mean? When you look at a person and see the "gift of eternal life", what is it that you see?

I see someone who comprehends the difference between philosophical "infiniteness" and real eternal life. I see someone who believes and wants to experience a real existence beyond that short one suffered upon the mortal coil. I see someone who grasps his true nature, his full potential, and is unafraid to bow to it and the source from which it springs.

You are threatened by humility; a person possessing the gift of eternal life embraces it as the key to his own divine nature. He embraces it as he embraces Truth, for his divinity is Truth; a philosophy that holds the cessation of life in human death is the extent of human potential is a dead philosophy by that very fact. You must understand immortality by the unending chain of effects and thus causes which continue on the physical plane caused by a person in this life; you are blind to the actuality of the continuation of the human soul an another form, in unbroken existence, on higher planes. You do not understand that all you see and philosophize about is but the tip of the iceberg.

Some day you will appreciate all the time and effort I spend to educate you beyond the confines of your stultifying philosophy.

[Anders Schlander]

Quote:
David:
Oranges are like mandarins, but mandarins are not like oranges. Christian logic.


Broken:
This is a legitimate distinction, one which I am not surprised appears to be beyond you. But let me try to dumb it down for you. I was not speaking of oranges, mandarins, or any other kind of fruit. I was speaking of Man's relationship to God. I meant, as if you really did not know, that Man is in God's image, not God in Man's.

Part of our Conscious is part of the nature of god, we are images of god in the entire creation, because we create our own worlds - yet we are strictly playing by the rules laid out in the beginning.

So we are neither really in god's image, we are operating in god's creation - playing by the rules, because we don't make them. We abide to them. There is however, a glimmer of god's creativity in us.

On the other hand, as we might have a glimmer of god in our human 'minds' so too, could god be a glimmer of our human minds. Yes? Because there is no inherent reason that the 'creative' god, master of the universe laws, and the origin, could not have inherented that creativity from human minds - god being a glimmer of human - or God made in mans image.

A personal god is certainly made in humans image - based on everything we know and observe, there is no god that makes special 'cause and effect' rules for humans, because he's personally attached to humans over anything else in the universe. As such he cares equally about everything - enough to keep the universe with rules. Rules, that uphold the universe, rules of space mass and difference, that differentiates something that can be called a universe, to something that is not a universe. The rules and what we observe have made the 'game', the universe, that we are part of set itself apart from ultimate apathy - the nothing, and at the same time, not even nothing...


Pardon me if i don't make much sense, i'm not even sure if I have anything to contribute. But i'll try to explain clearer in other posts if you don't mind if I give posting a try here

either way, im from denmark - student

[brokenhead]

Pardon me if i don't make much sense, i'm not even sure if I have anything to contribute. But i'll try to explain clearer in other posts if you don't mind if I give posting a try here

either way, im from denmark - student

Welcome to GF!

[Robert]

You are threatened by humility; a person possessing the gift of eternal life embraces it as the key to his own divine nature. He embraces it as he embraces Truth, for his divinity is Truth; a philosophy that holds the cessation of life in human death is the extent of human potential is a dead philosophy by that very fact. You must understand immortality by the unending chain of effects and thus causes which continue on the physical plane caused by a person in this life; you are blind to the actuality of the continuation of the human soul an another form, in unbroken existence, on higher planes. You do not understand that all you see and philosophize about is but the tip of the iceberg.

Some day you will appreciate all the time and effort I spend to educate you beyond the confines of your stultifying philosophy.

brokenhead, permit me to ask you what is this education you refer to?

Honestly, from what I get from your posts here is pretty much the standard fare that you get from intellectual Xian types - I don't mean that as an insult - that when confronted with logical arguments that actually hold water, resort to vague non-precise evocations of 'higher planes of existence, eternal souls, humility' and the like.

If this is some kind of method that you use as a teacher, well, maybe you'd be justified. I just don't see how you can expect someone like David (and those on these forums you associate with his philosophy) to see how you have anything new to offer as an education. I really don't.

[brokenhead]

brokenhead, permit me to ask you what is this education you refer to?

Well, I am largely being facetious.

I just don't see how you can expect someone like David (and those on these forums you associate with his philosophy) to see how you have anything new to offer as an education. I really don't.

I am pointing out that David is as closed minded as any mindless Christian. I harbor no illusions about his ability to consider the validity of anyone's viewpoint other than his own.

Honestly, from what I get from your posts here is pretty much the standard fare that you get from intellectual Xian types - I don't mean that as an insult - that when confronted with logical arguments that actually hold water, resort to vague non-precise evocations of 'higher planes of existence, eternal souls, humility' and the like.

Well, I do try to say it in different ways in hopes that it doesn't always come across this way.

You have to understand, that just because it is a point of view you have seen elsewhere does not mean it is invalid.

I am not in any way shoveling out pabulum. In other words, you assume that because you have not experienced other planes of existence that my mention of them is a regurgitation of something I read somewhere and have not seen for myself. You are assuming incorrectly.

I have explored things, spirituality in particular, in a non-recreational manner. I just wish to convey to those who can hear, those who will listen, that the philosophy presented at GF while valid is extremely limited.

You say the arguments Quinn et al propound are logical. My computer is also logical. I would not take lessons in spirituality from it.

I have attempted to share only what I know first-hand. Unlike David, who quotes Kierkegaard, Buddha, and others, I try to give a personal view of what I consider to be the truth.

And if you had even the slightest familiarity with the New Testament, you would see that when David quotes Christ, he does so extremely selectively. Bear in mind that the assholes at the "God Hates Fags" website also quote Christ selectively.

Go take a massive dose of LSD and come back and tell me you still think Quinn is the shining example of rational thought on Reality in all its glory.

Or go without food for a month.

Do anything to shake off the mindless complacency David dishes out and thrives on.

Look, I have said before that I think the principals here are highly inteligent and that I appreciate this site as a place where thoughts can be exchanged in a way that I have not seen equalled on the web. Yet for me to agree with the prevailing mindset of our hosts would be like placing my head in a plastic bag. I am not prepared to do that.

[Robert]

Fair enough. I'm not trying to defend GF, I think this philosophy which is a mix of logic and spirituality that's represented here is destined to be forever troublesome to a lot of people, myself included. It's not easy stuff, not fluff feel-good metaphysics that you can take or leave on a whim, it requires a decent amount of will power to get to grips with (well, for me at least). Everyone has to make up their own mind about what they think is true, and for some this is a terrifying idea, since you may not like what you discover.

I have experienced altered states through LSD, I understand what you mean. I don't place an exaggerated value on this kind of experience, mind you.

In other words, you assume that because you have not experienced other planes of existence that my mention of them is a regurgitation of something I read somewhere and have not seen for myself. You are assuming incorrectly.

I may be making that assumption, but as far as I can tell, what you offer as critcism here is, like I said, very familiar. I'd like to see more actual critiques of the ideas and philosophy at GF, I think it would be healthy for everyone.

The 'other planes of existence' that you've experienced could very well be delusional. How can you tell that for sure they weren't? By using logic and reason, you decide for yourself. To deny this simple fact would be as poor as those Xian types who say that human reasoning isn't good enough to understand God.

[brokenhead]

The 'other planes of existence' that you've experienced could very well be delusional. How can you tell that for sure they weren't? By using logic and reason, you decide for yourself. To deny this simple fact would be as poor as those Xian types who say that human reasoning isn't good enough to understand God.

I find it difficult to convey what has been perveived in an altered state. I have experimented with a number of drugs and have had a variety of results. These results lead to my world view as do non-altered-state experiences.

Robert, your quote here differs from the one I addressed in another thread in that you speak of the human apparatus "understanding" God, while in the other thread you used the expression "defining God."

I do believe human reasoning is up to understanding God. That is arguably its highest purpose.

But when you attempt to define God, you are left with the choice of doing so logically as is our good hosts' wont, or doing so in a personal way, which they seem to eschew on philosophical grounds. If I may paraphrase their objection, I take it to be that your phrase "you decide for yourself" is heresy.

[Robert]

If I may paraphrase their objection, I take it to be that your phrase "you decide for yourself" is heresy.

I mean that it has to be your own mind that identifies what's true, no one else can do that for you.

[brokenhead]

If I may paraphrase their objection, I take it to be that your phrase "you decide for yourself" is heresy.

I mean that it has to be your own mind that identifies what's true, no one else can do that for you.

And I agree with this without reservation.

[Ataraxia]

I just did argue it. David made a statement and I countered it.

You countered by making an unsupported claim(God loves us). That isn't an argument. So I respectfully asked you to support the claim.

That you declined is duly noted.

If you are going to ask me for elucidation, why do you not also ask David? It is because you buy into his restrictive viewpoints.

When I first joined this forum I repeatedly challenged David in regard to 'God'. However once I understood how he defined the term I could see there is no logical refutation of it. I believe in the same God--but like Frank Lloyd Wright I just spell it nature.

For instance, David claims something would be a "hostile act" toward God.

The reason i didn't question it is because I sense David is being poetic there.

Why can he anthropomorphize Deity without your questioning it? It shows your intellectual prejudices.

You on the other hand i sense are being literal. You believe "God loves you", right?

Of course I'm intellectually prejudiced. I'm biased towards arguments that demonstrate logic and clear thinking, as opposed to spurious claims.

[David Quinn]

Again, I am talking about a logical reality that even a God has to submit to. It is impossible to love without attachment.

This is so small minded as to be pure fallacy. This is a mere assertion that you often make. Do you think if you repeat it enough, it will become fact instead of a philosophical stance, that is, entirely your opinion? Perhaps if you put on your ruby slippers and tapped the heels together as you repeat it.

Look, I am not saying that many people do not experience attachment and think it is love. But I for one have experienced love without attachment, and I know of many, many instances where the true selfless nature of love manifests itself.

Give me an example and I will show you how it is borne of attachment.

You do not seem to understand the difference between love that comes from one and Love that comes through one.

Describe this difference.

The truth would remain, as truth is eternal.

This is as catchy a slogan as any I have come up with, and a hundred times as nonsensical and meaningless. Truth cannot remain where there is utterly nothing else. First, a thing requires what it is not in order for A=A. Therefore, truth by itself cannot logically be eternal.

Like a lot of people, you confuse truth and existence. If something is true in the here and now, then it is automatically true for all time. A truth such as 1+1=2 remains true for all time, regardless of whether anything exists or not. Not even the world ceasing to exist could falsify it.

Second, A+A cannot hold even if "not A" exists unless there is a thing to perceive it. If there is utterly nothing else, therefore, truth cannot logically remain by the tenets of your own logic.

1+1=2 remains true regardless of whether anyone perceives it or not. No longer perceiving it is not the same as falsifying it.

Oranges are like mandarins, but mandarins are not like oranges. Christian logic.

This is a legitimate distinction, one which I am not surprised appears to be beyond you.

But let me try to dumb it down for you. I was not speaking of oranges, mandarins, or any other kind of fruit. I was speaking of Man's relationship to God. I meant, as if you really did not know, that Man is in God's image, not God in Man's.

So ..... man's image is like God's image, but God's image is not like man's image .....?

No, sorry, it still does not compute.

It is like saying to a father, "Your son looks just like you, but you do not look like your son."

"Gift of eternal life" is a catchy slogan, but what does it mean? When you look at a person and see the "gift of eternal life", what is it that you see?

I see someone who comprehends the difference between philosophical "infiniteness" and real eternal life. I see someone who believes and wants to experience a real existence beyond that short one suffered upon the mortal coil. I see someone who grasps his true nature, his full potential, and is unafraid to bow to it and the source from which it springs.

This is not telling me anything. What is the actual thing that you see when you see the "gift of eternal life"? Give us something concrete and real.

You are threatened by humility; a person possessing the gift of eternal life embraces it as the key to his own divine nature. He embraces it as he embraces Truth, for his divinity is Truth; a philosophy that holds the cessation of life in human death is the extent of human potential is a dead philosophy by that very fact. You must understand immortality by the unending chain of effects and thus causes which continue on the physical plane caused by a person in this life; you are blind to the actuality of the continuation of the human soul an another form, in unbroken existence, on higher planes. You do not understand that all you see and philosophize about is but the tip of the iceberg.

LSD-type experiences have a lot to answer for. They can convert people to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Muslim, paganism, and even atheism, depending on what their environment, mood, culture, personal issues, recent reading, and subconscious minds happen to generate during the experience. And sure, it all seems real to them at the time, even though each of these people is subsequently converted to wildly divergent world-views.

Talk about building your house on sand.

Go take a massive dose of LSD and come back and tell me you still think Quinn is the shining example of rational thought on Reality in all its glory.

If you think that an LSD experience, or indeed any kind of experience at all, can in any way undermine or diminish the wisdom that I speak about, then it shows that you have no understanding of it whatsoever.

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