Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

This thread is hitting close to home on some philosophies that I have been discovering lately. Y'all may want to check out a book called "The Disappearance of the Universe: A Course in Miracles" by Gary Renard. It's very much what you are saying, J Stew, and it is also a lot about how Jesus was pretty much saying this too. He wanted us to be like him, not worship him.

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

Wow I read OP's post and didn't mind reading replies.

All I have to say is: DAMN HIPPIES!
hate hippie-talk [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

heeeee haaaawwwwww

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

[ QUOTE ]
Wow I read OP's post and didn't mind reading replies.

All I have to say is: DAMN HIPPIES!
hate hippie-talk [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

1) I don't know what this has to do with hippie talk

2) and either way, hippies have a lot more fun [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

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What is the basis for interpreting any of it literally, rather than mystically?

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I was going to tease you about "interpreting...it literally" but I'll just suggest if one is going to take the mystical approach to it, why do you need it? If 100 people come up with 100 'messages' from the same text isn't it obvious that the message isn't in the text but in the person?

Realizing that, we can see the similarity to the concept that we take our morals to our religion not the other way around. ( partly because we choose our religion).

Depending on how much validity you give to the above, it's understandable that some people view religion as a swaddling cloth around various existing needs, desires and viewpoints. On this aspect, it's not so much whether religion is good or bad, just that it is unnecessary.

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

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just that it is unnecessary.

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Yeah but if Joe schmoe grows up his whole life adhering to the values that poop from the concepts of society that he has in his head, which one could argue are not mostly not deeply fulfilling i.e. greed for power, blah etc., and then at some point he notices he's living some mechanical existence as a by-product of the concepts in his head, then religion can help point the way back to finding the thing inside of him, or point the way back to his Self. Religion sux when people read the thousand pages of chatter about something and take the chatter to be truth rather than the thing that wrote the chatter. So I think religion is good when it is used as a tool to figure out that you already know everything, are already complete, in a spiritual sense that is.

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

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So I think religion is good when it is used as a tool to figure out that you already know everything, are already complete, in a spiritual sense that is.

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It may act in the same way as breaking both your legs skiing and having to spend a lot of time looking up quietly at a hospital ceiling. That doesn't necessarily qualify the breaking of legs as 'good'.
If a run-in with religion acts as a whack on the side of the head, or a couple mugs of brandy and a good cigar in that it makes you more aware of a level of things you value that are often shoved below the surface then it served a useful purpose for you.

We may be saying the similar things, I'm just not willing to credit broken legs, good cigars or a taste of religion with any inherent value. All of them can and usually do have outcomes that range from sucky to frigging awful.

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

Yeah, to realize that religion is bullsht is to realize the thing that religion was pointing to in the first place. So you use religion, and then you crap on religion, but you crap lovingly because you see that not everyone knows to crap on religion. But if you crap on religion and don't know what you're crapping on or don't know the thing that religion points to, then it's ego-confusion crapping, not True crapping. This is contingent on someone going away from their original Self tho, cause if you never get away from that which you already are, there's no confusion. But how could one really do that, live on an island? We all want to see what indulgence is about, and then we realize that's not ultimately meaningful, so we try to find meaning in religion, then we see religion is bull, and we accept things exactly how they are and ultimately find Truth in that.

But I agree, the thing that causes someone to become aware of themselves is not important, theoretically, just like religion is not important once you know what religion points to. But if you ask someone who had a near-death experience, they'll prolly say they realized something that would be very difficult to realize without the shock of almost dying. Shock is good cause we're robots sometimes.

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

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Yeah, to realize that religion is bullsht is to realize the thing that religion was pointing to in the first place.

[/ QUOTE ] The post was spot on. But what exactly is religion pointing to?

Re: Another my take on God post . . .
 

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He wanted us to be like him, not worship him

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nh, sir.