17 minutes ago, Bangkokazy said:

If God exists. Is he the most perverted person who has ever lived

Your argument is truly impressive....for all the wrong reasons. 

Congratulations 

8 hours ago, StreetCowboy said:

If there is no God, and no eternal damnation, then I can believe with no consequence
If there is God, and eternal damnation, that would far outweigh any possible cost of attending church, listening to preachers, abstaining from pork etc.  

We have mentioned Pascal's wager a few times on this thread, and it makes sense, apart from the fact that imho there's nothing like  "eternal damnation ".

Eternal damnation in my eyes is pure terrorism from monotheistic religions, conniving with rulers, to keep the people mentally enslaved.

Reincarnation and karma are in my view more logical explanations for the injustice we can see in this material world.

The parables of the prodigal son, and the one of the lost sheep, show that mistakes, or sins, can be forgiven, and when we fall down we are given another chance.

Just my opinion of course. 

 

Immortality means one thing.

It means either the consequences of your having lived, the benefit for all mankind of your having lived, you've contributed something to the wealth of humanity.

And in that sense you are immortal.

Or you can be a poor slug who doesn't think, who has no consequence, no reason to exist, who just lives and dies.

And that's the choice.

Lyndon Larouche

A man once knocked on the door of God’s house.

"Who's is there?" asked God from within.

"It's me," said the man.

"Go away then. There is no room for two," said God.

The man departed and wandered in the arid desert until he realized his error. Returning to the door, he knocked again.

"Who's is there?" asked God as before.

"You," answered the man.

"Then come in," God replied.

1 hour ago, xylophone said:

Ermmm....because you don't know what an allegory is? 

On 6/10/2021 at 7:49 PM, jvs said:

I have read and reread most of this topic and i see a lot of people have giving up commenting,some have just been ignored  and lost interest i guess.

While they probably got us to 404 pages, it's much nicer without all the faux God hate speech.

On 6/3/2021 at 7:25 PM, Sunmaster said:

Like I said, the world appears grim if we only focus on those things that don't yet work as they should. The good thing is that we have a choice on what we want to focus on. 
Change doesn't happen overnight, especially on a global scale. 

If we extend the argument to include the "God Factor", then it gets even more interesting. If you accept that God is another word for Absolute Perfection, then it follows that everything God creates is perfect as it is, even though we are sometimes unable to see it. God then must be perfection all the time, for everything....otherwise he wouldn't deserve the title of God, right? Ok, if God is All There Is, at any given moment = then everything there is, is always perfect. It's not logical to say "God created a perfect world, but then made a mistake and put humans on it. Once they die out, the world will be perfect again."

But no problem if you don't agree. ???? 

I've been thinking about "God created a perfect world, but then made a mistake and put humans on it. Once they die out, the world will be perfect again."

In a light bulb moment the answer came to me while reading "The Beach" when Richard talks about an infinite universe having infinite possibilities. IMO God created the universe with infinite possibilities to see if the perfect intelligence could evolve. That subject was hinted at in Arthur C Clark's " Childhood's End".

I just don't believe that humans are the species to evolve into perfection- we are IMO too primitive, too brutal, too blinded by arrogance to progress enough before exterminating ourselves.

 

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

just don't believe that humans are the species to evolve into perfection- we are IMO too primitive, too brutal, too blinded by arrogance to progress enough before exterminating ourselves.

 

Your post makes a lot of sense to me, and of course we have all the reasons to be critical of humankind as a whole. 

But we are individuals, and we can choose our paths, with full awareness. 

So the "path to perfection " is in fact an individual thing. 

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Your post makes a lot of sense to me, and of course we have all the reasons to be critical of humankind as a whole. 

But we are individuals, and we can choose our paths, with full awareness. 

So the "path to perfection " is in fact an individual thing. 

I think you haven't read Childhood's End, but in brief it deals with the transformation of humanity into spiritual beings that are presumably the highest possible plane of evolution below God.

On a whole different level from individuals striving to attain nirvana.

3 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

So the "path to perfection " is in fact an individual thing. 

My thought also

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

the highest possible plane of evolution below God.

"God" is a human construction.

1 hour ago, canthai55 said:

"God" is a human construction.

Sigh. 405 pages and still the same old narrative.

Sigh  squared

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I think you haven't read Childhood's End, but in brief it deals with the transformation of humanity into spiritual beings that are presumably the highest possible plane of evolution below God.

On a whole different level from individuals striving to attain nirvana.

Yes, I believe that there must be countless,  perhaps infinite planes of evolution. 

Not hard to believe at all.

16 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sigh. 405 pages and still the same old narrative.

Well then - give us your narrative about what you think God is ?

An old white guy with long hair and a beard (revisionist hippy from the 60's) sitting on a cloud, wreaking vengeance on the sinners while ushering the saved into heaven ?

1 hour ago, canthai55 said:

Well then - give us your narrative about what you think God is ?

An old white guy with long hair and a beard (revisionist hippy from the 60's) sitting on a cloud, wreaking vengeance on the sinners while ushering the saved into heaven ?

He is not God,  he is a demi-god imho ????

On 6/15/2021 at 11:33 AM, canthai55 said:

Well then - give us your narrative about what you think God is ?

An old white guy with long hair and a beard (revisionist hippy from the 60's) sitting on a cloud, wreaking vengeance on the sinners while ushering the saved into heaven ?

I've been doing that for the past 405 pages. If you can't be bothered to read past pages I certainly can't be bothered to repeat myself.

On 6/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

I think you haven't read Childhood's End, but in brief it deals with the transformation of humanity into spiritual beings that are presumably the highest possible plane of evolution below God.

On a whole different level from individuals striving to attain nirvana.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just finished reading it and found it resonated with what I believe about human evolution. We are far from having reached our full potential. Even though it looks like we are stuck, if you "zoom out" and look at the whole from a greater distance, I think it becomes very clear that we are steadily progressing as a species.

Evolution doesn't go in a straight line. Sometimes we make a big jump, then retrace a few steps, only to leap to new heights again. 

On 6/14/2021 at 1:59 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

Sigh. 405 pages and still the same old narrative.

Sigh...405 pages and still the same ol' zero-evidence based claims, superstition and nonsense.

8 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

Sigh...405 pages and still the same ol' zero-evidence based claims, superstition and nonsense.

Hey, welcome back, we missed your ....well....erm....skepticism. ????

1 minute ago, Sunmaster said:

Hey, welcome back, we missed your ....well....erm....skepticism. ????

Thanks? Haha. Just thought to check back in. Amazing y'all are still at it. Impressive. 

 

Checking back out now...surely to the contentment of many. ????

If there was a god,why would he let people die of a thing like coronavieus,or perhaps he is busy checking on the billions of other planets and galazies he created.

1 minute ago, bert bloggs said:

If there was a god,why would he let people die of a thing like coronavieus,or perhaps he is busy checking on the billions of other planets and galazies he created.

What would be a better solution in your opinion? Let people live without disease, free from death? Forever trapped in a physical body with all its limitations?

 Thanks, but no thanks.

 

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

What would be a better solution in your opinion? Let people live without disease, free from death? Forever trapped in a physical body with all its limitations?

 Thanks, but no thanks.

 

Doesnt have to be free from death ,but why make us suffer before we die? Thats wicked,why not live then die peacfully? 

On 6/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

I think you haven't read Childhood's End, but in brief it deals with the transformation of humanity into spiritual beings that are presumably the highest possible plane of evolution below God.

On a whole different level from individuals striving to attain nirvana.

There are plenty of other good story books too.

22 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

Doesnt have to be free from death ,but why make us suffer before we die? Thats wicked,why not live then die peacfully? 

Similar questions have been asked a zillion times.

I wonder why it's so hard to understand that joy and suffering are part of the "package " of what we call life, or existence. 

Would you prefer not to exist?

Well, I know already the answer????

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Similar questions have been asked a zillion times.

I wonder why it's so hard to understand that joy and suffering are part of the "package " of what we call life, or existence. 

Would you prefer not to exist?

Well, I know already the answer????

The reason that we live as we do ,is that we have always lived this way even before god was invented 

8 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

The reason that we live as we do ,is that we have always lived this way even before god was invented 

Well, this could be debatable, but should one accept it as true, the problem with suffering and death would still exist.

I think that some things we have to accept as reality, as sad as it is,  but of course we can try our best to make the best out of it.

Complaining about life not being fair is understandable,  but it would be extremely boring to complain the whole life.

 

4 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, this could be debatable, but should one accept it as true, the problem with suffering and death would still exist.

I think that some things we have to accept as reality, as sad as it is,  but of course we can try our best to make the best out of it.

Complaining about life not being fair is understandable,  but it would be extremely boring to complain the whole life.

 

Life is what we make it,mind you i do believe some of us are luckier than others,most of my life when something i thought bad happened ,something better came along to replace it.