If God Is...?

[uscitizen]

No. There is no proof of any god. Seeing is believing.

There is a good chance that Fermi and Co. never saw an atom. Yet they figured out how to split them.

Would you climb on a plane to China if you had not been there before ?

Nonsequiter.

 

[Samson]

No. There is no proof of any god. Seeing is believing.

There is a good chance that Fermi and Co. never saw an atom. Yet they figured out how to split them.

Would you climb on a plane to China if you had not been there before ?

Nonsequiter.

I'm guessing your answer is "No, I would not fly to China because they eat dogs."

 

[uscitizen]

I flew to china and ate no dogs. Did eat pigeon though and green eggs and ham.
Ate only with sticks for a few weeks.

don't think God was involved though.

 

[Samson]

I flew to china and ate no dogs. Did eat pigeon though and green eggs and ham.
Ate only with sticks for a few weeks.

don't think God was involved though.

Dog is God spelled backwards.

 

[uscitizen]

I flew to china and ate no dogs. Did eat pigeon though and green eggs and ham.
Ate only with sticks for a few weeks.

don't think God was involved though.

Dog is God spelled backwards.

Is that significant in some way?

 

[there4eyeM]

"Dog is God spelled backwards."

Only in English.

God is, or isn't, only in you.

 

[Samson]

"Dog is God spelled backwards."

Only in English.

Well, it is a fine theological point you make, but I'm certain its not a conicidence that dogs are eaten by the Heathan Chinese.

 

[there4eyeM]

It's an eater eat eater world.

 

[Samson]

It's an eater eat eater world.

You're gonna confuse the hell outa USCitizen.

 

[uscitizen]

It's an eater eat eater world.

You're gonna confuse the hell outa USCitizen.

Nope just you. I am fond of 69 or 68 and I can owe her one

 

[Samson]

It's an eater eat eater world.

You're gonna confuse the hell outa USCitizen.

Nope just you. I am fond of 69 or 68 and I can owe her one

Nonsequiter.

 

[Foxfyre]

If God is, doesn't it make sense that She's WAY bigger than all of the Ancient Stories put together, let alone any one of them?

Google Search: Books considered 'Holy'

Is your preferred Ancient Story really the LAST word on God? Really?

Okay children. Let's drag the train back onto the tracks here. Actually AVG-JOE presented us with a really interesting thesis.

I've always looked at the ancient stories as the explanation or interpretation or struggles to understand God, G-D, YHWH, or by whatever name is assigned to a supreme being. Ancient peoples were limited in understanding by their personal experience, language, and human intellect, but a careful chronological study of the manuscripts edited into what we call The Old Testament alone will show a people evolving in an understanding of who they were, who YHWH was, and what YHWH required, expected, or wanted of them.

For us Christians, those stories evolve and continue seamlessly into the New Testament, which in my opinion cannot be understood without a good grounding in the Old.

But did any of those ancient ones or have any modern theologicans or philosophers figured it all out? I don't think so. The Apostle Paul described our understand as looking through a dark glass. And Christians believe the day will come when we will be free and will see and understand perfectly. I am guessing we will all be really surprised about a lot of things at that time.

 

[there4eyeM]

We seem to forget that words are human inventions and evolve, change and morph with time. We also forget that past progress creates new psychological as well as social contexts and conditions. Thus, many times things said in the past seem to make different sense today, such as the use of creator instead of God in the Declaration for example.
The best we can do with the Old Testament stories is to use them metaphorically. Much of its contents has little to do with us otherwise. Whatever they meant in their time may never be fully known.
In any case, human choice outweighs dead laws when that is what they are found to be.

 

[Listening]

No. There is no proof of any god. Seeing is believing.

There is a good chance that Fermi and Co. never saw an atom. Yet they figured out how to split them.

Would you climb on a plane to China if you had not been there before ?

Nonsequiter.

Horsehockey.

If LL climbed on a plane to a place she'd never seen before, she'd be trusting in something.

It very much applies.

Is this how you have so many posts.....? Stupid little one word turds ?

 

[AVG-JOE]

We seem to forget that words are human inventions and evolve, change and morph with time. We also forget that past progress creates new psychological as well as social contexts and conditions. Thus, many times things said in the past seem to make different sense today, such as the use of creator instead of God in the Declaration for example.
The best we can do with the Old Testament stories is to use them metaphorically. Much of its contents has little to do with us otherwise. Whatever they meant in their time may never be fully known.
In any case, human choice outweighs dead laws when that is what they are found to be.

...and The Word was God.

The Word is God.

The written word. Have you any idea what a game changer the simple preservation of the documentation of life was?

Maybe what makes the stories special, not only the ancient writings of the Jews but also the Christians and Muslims, both of whom claim connection to the truly ancient writings through the Jews, is that they are the oldest documentation of what became the feelings of Western Civilization on the subject of 'God', and history is written by the victors not the vanquished.

To be sure, the ancient writings of other cultures survived Western conquest, most are revered as the basis for most of the religions that survived. Coincidence?

If 'The Word' is God then the Internet is going to be one Holy ride into Sentience.

Exciting times, eh?

 

[Foxfyre]

We seem to forget that words are human inventions and evolve, change and morph with time. We also forget that past progress creates new psychological as well as social contexts and conditions. Thus, many times things said in the past seem to make different sense today, such as the use of creator instead of God in the Declaration for example.
The best we can do with the Old Testament stories is to use them metaphorically. Much of its contents has little to do with us otherwise. Whatever they meant in their time may never be fully known.
In any case, human choice outweighs dead laws when that is what they are found to be.

I think that it isn't that the laws are 'dead' so much as we understand them differently in the 21st century. Sometimes it is unfortunate that the Old Testament manuscripts were organized and edited together in the way they are as the text is so often out of chronological order to the point it is difficult to make sense of it. But if through dedicated and competent Bible study we are able to put it back into chronological order, we see the people evolving, changing, and understanding differently as the centuries pass. Some universal truths remain engraved in granite. And others give way to more enlightened understandings. The God of love shown to us by Jesus is the same G-d but seen in a very different way than was the Old Testament G-d.

Take the Semitic cultural taboo on eating pork for instance. Though the larger teaching was to accept Cornelius, the gentile, as a Christian, we see in Acts 10:9-16 a presumed lifting of at least some of the kosher laws:

Peter’s Vision

9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.​

So why a taboo on pork in the Old Testament? We have all been taught the dangers of eating undercooked pork that is never to be served in any way but well done. During much of the Old Testament, the ancient Jews were a nomadic people who would not have had the time or means to properly cure pork or cook it safely. So a taboo on pork made perfect sense. For kosher Jews and most other Semitic people today, it remains unacceptable. And who knows? Maybe we would all be better off not eating some things. Certainly there is nothing inherently unhealthy in a Jewish kosher diet.

 

[Borillar]

We seem to forget that words are human inventions and evolve, change and morph with time. We also forget that past progress creates new psychological as well as social contexts and conditions. Thus, many times things said in the past seem to make different sense today, such as the use of creator instead of God in the Declaration for example.
The best we can do with the Old Testament stories is to use them metaphorically. Much of its contents has little to do with us otherwise. Whatever they meant in their time may never be fully known.
In any case, human choice outweighs dead laws when that is what they are found to be.

I think that it isn't that the laws are 'dead' so much as we understand them differently in the 21st century. Sometimes it is unfortunate that the Old Testament manuscripts were organized and edited together in the way they are as the text is so often out of chronological order to the point it is difficult to make sense of it. But if through dedicated and competent Bible study we are able to put it back into chronological order, we see the people evolving, changing, and understanding differently as the centuries pass. Some universal truths remain engraved in granite. And others give way to more enlightened understandings. The God of love shown to us by Jesus is the same G-d but seen in a very different way than was the Old Testament G-d.

Take the Semitic cultural taboo on eating pork for instance. Though the larger teaching was to accept Cornelius, the gentile, as a Christian, we see in Acts 10:9-16 a presumed lifting of at least some of the kosher laws:

Peter’s Vision

9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.​

So why a taboo on pork in the Old Testament? We have all been taught the dangers of eating undercooked pork that is never to be served in any way but well done. During much of the Old Testament, the ancient Jews were a nomadic people who would not have had the time or means to properly cure pork or cook it safely. So a taboo on pork made perfect sense. For kosher Jews and most other Semitic people today, it remains unacceptable. And who knows? Maybe we would all be better off not eating some things. Certainly there is nothing inherently unhealthy in a Jewish kosher diet.

My understanding as a Christian is that the OT dietary laws were only binding upon the Jews as part of God's covenant. Christians have a new covenant, established by Christ, and the old laws are no longer binding. Happy that that is the case, as I do enjoy lobster, pork chops, ham, bacon, and sausage.

 

[AVG-JOE]

And Cheeseburgers. Don't forget Cheeseburgers



Bacon Cheeseburgers. Yum.

 

[Foxfyre]

LOL. By all means the Wendy's Baconator is an amazing invention.

But again it is a matter of the human race, most especially those who consider themselves among the 'chosen ones', evolving in understanding over the centuries, even the millenia that their stories have been recorded. If Christians see themselves as continuing the story, and many of us do see ourselves that way, it is only natural that our own understandings of what God has done for us and what God expects of us would evolve over the centuries too just as it did for the ancient ones.

 

[Jackson]

Can't decide if I am an atheist or just incredibly pissed of at God. I can't accept that any God that gives a damn about us would allow what happened to a woman as selflessly giving and widely adored as my mother, she died after long and horrible suffering, can't forgive him/her/it for that, easier to just consider the universe empty and meaninglessly chaotic.

These are hard questions. But there are answers, some don't come for many years. Sometimes it comes with wisdom. In my personal life I had a similar question and the answer came long after my prayers I thought were unanswered.