Do you think it odd that your God never acknowledges you? Is that rude?

[Fort Fun Indiana]

We don't live in a theocracy.

Correct, we do not. But that doesn't mean that we don't face the risk of people trying to codify their magical beliefs into law and policy, so that is not an appropriate rebuttale to the very true claim that we do face this risk.

The laws of any society should reflect the values of that society.

I disagree. They should reflect well reasoned attempts at protecting objective well being of people. I do not think gays should be put to death,no matter what the majority of a society believes.

"Because Jaysus says so" should not be considered a compelling argument for anything.

 

[fncceo]

We don't live in a theocracy.

Correct, we do not. But that doesn't mean that we don't face the risk of people trying to codify their magical beliefs into law and policy, so that is not an appropriate rebuttale to the very true claim that we do face this risk.

The laws of any society should reflect the values of that society.

I disagree. They should reflect well reasoned attempts at protecting objective well being of people. I do not think gays should be put to death,no matter what the majority of a society believes.

"Because Jaysus says so" should not be considered a compelling argument for anything.

Religious ethics, even xtian religious ethics, are an integral part of our national culture, the culture of the West. You can't exorcise an integral part of our culture without suffering a diminishing of that culture.
I can't think of a single example of any law currently in the US that is based solely on a religious edict in opposition to the ethical or moral standards of the community. I can point to several laws that don't represent the wishes of everyone in a community, but not one based a scriptural injunction.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You can't exorcise an integral part of our culture without suffering a diminishing of that culture.

To say that magical beliefs do not belong in a rational discussion of law is not exorcism of those beliefs. Saying so would be quite a stretch.... but you do reflect reality, in that religious people in this country have come to view anything but complete pandering to their magical nonsense as a form of oppression.

I can't think of a single example of any law currently in the US that is based solely on a religious edict in opposition to the ethical or moral standards of the community.

Which of course, if true, is due to the efforts of people to keep that from happening. You don't get to use the success of those efforts as evidence that they are not required. To do so is absurd, akin to pointing at decreased auto deaths as evidence we no longer need seat belts.

 

[MisterBeale]

Do you think it odd that your God never acknowledges you? Is that rude?

We all have a God. I say that in the broader sense of the word, as God is an ideal you have created for yourself. From atheism to fundamental, you will, in that sense, have a God/Ideal, be God your God natural or supernatural.

God/ideals can only be exhibited or expressed through a person.

We all give plenty to our Gods and their human mouth pieces, --- mostly false prophets if the bible speaks the truth, --- yet God never acknowledges what you do for him or her.

I, as a Gnostic Christian clergy, self-appointed (as is fit), has been acknowledged and do not include myself in the “you” of the opening question.

Why does God not acknowledge all but the few?

Why are you, of the supernatural God type, a cash cow and devoted slave to what amounts to a deadbeat parent and absentee God and his less than moral religion thanks to lying clergy?

You love God but the lack of acknowledgement from God shows that God does not love you back. That means that it is not a true love. This is in accordance to the standard that Jesus set. It is a shame that the Jesus followers, Christians and Muslims, will not do as he bids them do, as was the Jewish tradition of archetypal prophets, and elect a new God that might return your love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YB4J-keW3A

Can you forgive a rude God?

Regards
DL

So sorry to hear that you are ignoring god.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

So sorry to hear that you are ignoring god.

Which one?

 

[fncceo]

but you do reflect reality, in that religious people in this country have come to view anything but complete pandering to their magical nonsense as a form of oppression.

I consider myself to be a religious person and I feel no such oppression. Perhaps your generalization is just projection?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

but you do reflect reality, in that religious people in this country have come to view anything but complete pandering to their magical nonsense as a form of oppression.

I consider myself to be a religious person and I feel no such oppression. Perhaps your generalization is just projection?

And perhaps it is based on quite a hit of evidence. Sorry that I didn't qualify. My statement not to mean "all religious people", and i should have.

That being said, perhaps your odd argument -- using the success of efforts to maintain secular government as a cudgel against those very efforts -- arises due to your own desires to codify your magical nonsense into law and policy, and you are covering for it?

 

[fncceo]

but you do reflect reality, in that religious people in this country have come to view anything but complete pandering to their magical nonsense as a form of oppression.

I consider myself to be a religious person and I feel no such oppression. Perhaps your generalization is just projection?

And perhaps it is based on quite a hit of evidence. Sorry that I didn't qualify. My statement not to mean "all religious people", and i should have.

That being said, perhaps your odd argument -- using the success of efforts to maintain secular government as a cudgel against those very efforts -- arises due to your own desires to codify your magical nonsense into law and policy, and you are covering for it?

Might be. But, I might realize that all laws are based on the our cultural ethos and that ethos contains ethics derived from our religious heritage. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

But, I might realize that all laws are based on the our cultural ethos

Which is , itself, based on classical liberalism, scientific enlightenment, and secular government. These are the things that distinguish it from 17th century England, or 21st century Saudi Arabia.

 

[MisterBeale]

No one has to believe in any dogma or secular philosophy.

Very true. But some things are hard not to believe, as the evidence is overwhelming. And I find it a bit disingenuous to present an authoritative code that supposedly dictates our eternal well being as "just another philosophy". Such claims (and threats) based on dictated, supposedly divine authority go far beyond, for instance, the implications of most philosophies.

Agreed. And most of it stems from political enforcement of religion down through the ages. Do I believe in a living God? Yes, I do. Will I enforce said belief on others with the sword? No I will not. However, will I raise the sword to defend my belief from those who would take it out of my own mouth and the minds of others who believe similarly? Yes, if atheist led purges were ever rolled out violently. I believe in countering anti-faith with faith, but only on a personal non-violent or non-culturally aggressive level. I have no need to make anyone believe as I do. Just allow us both to believe as we would choose.

I would also defend your right to hold your beliefs. But I would not say you had a right to have your religious beliefs codified into law. Secular government is one of the crowining achievements of mankind.

Actually, in the U.S., we have the RIGHT and expectation to practice or have some faith.

It is a false teaching in public schools that we have a "secular" government. We have a government that has always be very religious, it just does not enforce or support any one religion over another.

There is, really, a big difference.

All of the founders were very godly men and all of them were practicing.

 

[MisterBeale]

So sorry to hear that you are ignoring god.

Which one?

There is only one cosmic consciousness. . . .

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Actually, in the U.S., we have the RIGHT and expectation to practice or have some faith

"Actually", i did not say otherwise.

It is a false teaching in public schools that we have a "secular" government

No, that is a fact. While we may have religious people in government, our government as an institution is quite secular.

All of the founders were very godly men and all of them were practicing.

And all of them agreed that secular government was a better way than theocracy. Thank goodness for that.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

There is only one cosmic consciousness. . . .

Far out, man.

 

[MisterBeale]

Actually, in the U.S., we have the RIGHT and expectation to practice or have some faith

"Actually", i did not say otherwise.

It is a false teaching in public schools that we have a "secular" government

No, that is a fact. While we may have religious people in government, our government as an institution is quite secular.

All of the founders were very godly men and all of them were practicing.

And all of them agreed that secular government was a better way than theocracy. Thank goodness for that.

NOW, it is a fact that our government is secular; however, it is not how the original documents were designed. It was ruled later by the minions of destruction in the court system.

All of the founders never agreed to anything in regards to "secularism." I don't even think the word existed back then. They all agreed that the nation should be firmly rooted in godly principles.

http://www.jcmatthews.org/uploads/5/3/7/7/5377341/in_caesars_grip.pdf

 

[MisterBeale]

There is only one cosmic consciousness. . . .

Far out, man.

When you realize the very ground you are walking on, and the seat you are sitting on has it's own form of consciousness?

It sure as hell is man.

It sure as hell is.

Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?



". . . . The obvious way around the combination problem is to posit that, although consciousness is indeed fundamental in nature, it isn’t fragmented like matter. The idea is to extend consciousness to the entire fabric of spacetime, as opposed to limiting it to the boundaries of individual subatomic particles. This view—called “cosmopsychism” in modern philosophy, although our preferred formulation of it boils down to what has classically been called “idealism”—is that there is only one, universal, consciousness. The physical universe as a whole is the extrinsic appearance of universal inner life, just as a living brain and body are the extrinsic appearance of a person’s inner life.


You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize the obvious problem with this idea: people have private, separate fields of experience. We can’t normally read your thoughts and, presumably, neither can you read ours. Moreover, we are not normally aware of what’s going on across the universe and, presumably, neither are you. So, for idealism to be tenable, one must explain—at least in principle—how one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition, each with a distinct personality and sense of identity.


And here is where dissociation comes in. We know empirically from DID that consciousness can give rise to many operationally distinct centers of concurrent experience, each with its own personality and sense of identity. Therefore, if something analogous to DID happens at a universal level, the one universal consciousness could, as a result, give rise to many alters with private inner lives like yours and ours. As such, we may all be alters—dissociated personalities—of universal consciousness.


Moreover, as we’ve seen earlier, there is something dissociative processes look like in the brain of a patient with DID. So, if some form of universal-level DID happens, the alters of universal consciousness must also have an extrinsic appearance. We posit that this appearance is life itself: metabolizing organisms are simply what universal-level dissociative processes look like. . . . "

IOW . . . we are all one.

 

[MarathonMike]

God doesn't need to harm children. Yet I see these cancer wards full of children. Their parents think this is a test. what kind of a "GOD" tests

Pretty sure he's busy.

Not if he's actually omnipotent.

Omnipotence doesn't necessarily denote effective work habits.

Why does god kill innocent little kids? Recently, I was in Denver's new children hospital.God kills kids all the time.I am like, take me, instead. I am a zillion years old and these poor kids deserve mercy. God kills them anyway, like bugs on a windscreen. So much for "gods mercy".

It was exactly that fact that drove me to conclude that there cannot be an intervening God. Why doesn't he help the most innocent? Because you either intervene or you don't. On the human scale it is unconscionable cruelty to the most innocent. But God is an infinite being and on an infinite scale we are blips on a radar screen and will soon enough be part of the infinite. JMO

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

NOW, it is a fact that our government is secular; however, it is not how the original documents were designed

Of course it is. It was literally one of the main points of the design of our constitution.

 

[MisterBeale]

NOW, it is a fact that our government is secular; however, it is not how the original documents were designed

Of course it is. It was literally one of the main points of the design of our constitution.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

This does not establish a secular state, in fact, quite the reverse, it guarantees local governments can choose to do what ever they wish with regards to religion if the voters so choose.

The courts have ruled quite the reverse, which some view as unconstitutional; i.e., the establishment of a "secular religion."

 

[hobelim]

There is only one cosmic consciousness. . . .

Far out, man.

When you realize the very ground you are walking on, and the seat you are sitting on has it's own form of consciousness?

It sure as hell is man.

It sure as hell is.

Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?



". . . . The obvious way around the combination problem is to posit that, although consciousness is indeed fundamental in nature, it isn’t fragmented like matter. The idea is to extend consciousness to the entire fabric of spacetime, as opposed to limiting it to the boundaries of individual subatomic particles. This view—called “cosmopsychism” in modern philosophy, although our preferred formulation of it boils down to what has classically been called “idealism”—is that there is only one, universal, consciousness. The physical universe as a whole is the extrinsic appearance of universal inner life, just as a living brain and body are the extrinsic appearance of a person’s inner life.


You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize the obvious problem with this idea: people have private, separate fields of experience. We can’t normally read your thoughts and, presumably, neither can you read ours. Moreover, we are not normally aware of what’s going on across the universe and, presumably, neither are you. So, for idealism to be tenable, one must explain—at least in principle—how one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition, each with a distinct personality and sense of identity.


And here is where dissociation comes in. We know empirically from DID that consciousness can give rise to many operationally distinct centers of concurrent experience, each with its own personality and sense of identity. Therefore, if something analogous to DID happens at a universal level, the one universal consciousness could, as a result, give rise to many alters with private inner lives like yours and ours. As such, we may all be alters—dissociated personalities—of universal consciousness.


Moreover, as we’ve seen earlier, there is something dissociative processes look like in the brain of a patient with DID. So, if some form of universal-level DID happens, the alters of universal consciousness must also have an extrinsic appearance. We posit that this appearance is life itself: metabolizing organisms are simply what universal-level dissociative processes look like. . . . "

IOW . . . we are all one.

 

[MarathonMike]

Your criticisms of God are actually criticisms of Christian religion which is a construct of man. God is unknowable by man, but it is at least plausible that God is an interested observer, not an active participant in what he/she/it created.

No more plausible than God being an uninterested entity who has just moved on to a more interesting species.

If all God can be is a deadbeat absentee dad, why should we even want to acknowledge that such a prick exists?

Regards
DL

You seem to need God to be an "involved Dad" in order for you to believe in God's existence. That seems a narrow view of what an all being might be.

Indeed. If a deadbeat dad wants respect from his children, then he should not remain a deadbeat dad.

If God cannot walk the dad path properly, that shows a character defect and that would help explain why he is shown to be a genocidal son murdering prick.

Regards
DL

You do not appear to be rational in your discussion about God. Did you have expectations of God that were not met?

No.

I see you do not put any reasons on your criticism.

Do so or be seem for the liar and poor judge ot rationality you seem to be.

You show a lot of hate with your chastisement without correction.

Do you also spank your kids without correcting them?

Regards
DL

Never spanked my kids and they are grown now. Please show me any hint of hate or chastisement in my comments to you. I simply pointed out that you appear to have a lot of hostility toward God because he does not fulfill your image of what he should be "an involved Dad". Peace out Mike