Weird
Pogo I tried 2-3 times to reply to your message but can't post it. Blank posts are coming up instead.
I will try this, sorry for shooting "blanks" at you?
I noticed that, wasn't sure what to make of them or what I was missing. Maybe you should delete them by way of cleanup?
1. If you are taking a broader impersonal approach to the whole picture,
limiting God to a personal Creator may not work for you but run into conflicts and walls.
You might be less frustrated framing God as self-existent eternal Nature or Universe with no beginning and no end.
And all these other paradigms are subsets of describing the creation process WITHIN the bigger process
that is beyond our human perception. Like breaking it down into smaller stories within the bigger story.
I tried to delineate that in
my first rumination here. In fact my very first point was "what do we even mean by 'God'?" That isn't "frustration", it's defining terms. That question was never really answered, but it doesn't need to be. And I pretty much said the same thing about self-existent Nature and the question of microcosms and macrocosms (see "orishas" and "forests/trees", same post)
2. As for why create man, free will etc.
Well why bear children? If children will only grow up to know suffering and pain before dying like everything else dies.
I don't know -- I don't have children, but that wasn't any part of the reasoning. It would not have occurred to me, and if it did it wouldn't sustain, as it doesn't make much sense.
The answer is the value of living and loving as an expression worth sharing in and of itself.
Of living and growing and enjoying life anyway, despite our human flaws and limitations.
What is wrong with life for the sake of sharing and expressing love?
Of enjoying the sharing, growing and "discovery" within our Relationships with each other
and also the greater world we are all connected with, like a microcosm within a bigger
ecosystem, all interconnected with synergistic dynamics we have yet to discover.
Those are
human values. They're all good ones but they're
human values about
human needs. Humanity and its social construct is part of the
natural world.
But here we speak of the
supernatural, therefore those paradigms take a hike and we're in new territory. If we first define "Creator" as all-powerful, and we secondly declare this Creator is somehow
dependent on his own creation, then we have contradicted our own definition and our house of cards falls. A creator is by definition
INdependent.
More illustratively, ascribing human values to a being we just got done describing as supernatural belies the human origin of the whole story. It's like pulling the curtain and showing the man with the levers. Once you've seen that guy it's not possible to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain and forget what you saw.
3. And just because someone can't make the same children come out as the ones that came out before, does that mean creation is faulty?
Don't know. I never made a point like that.
What if laws of gravity exist and then these cannot be changed.
Once the laws are made, then things based on those laws have to follow a certain way to be consistent.
So what if there are some things no longer possible once the system is set up a certain way?
If the earth already travels around the sun in one direction, so what if it cannot be changed to revolve the other way?
Does this mean the powers of the universe are any less, just because once
things are set in motion they stay in motion?
Now you've lost me. I don't follow the point here.
Thanks
Pogo
1. I was able to delete the 3 blanks. I got the same weird quirk on other threads, and had to delete all those also!
Maybe my browser is freezing up from ads or something. Sorry!
2. Sometimes I can see the older msgs, sometimes they don't show up but disappear.
From what you recapped, we sound like we are on the same page with accommodating
these other contexts and angles. Great!
3. For "sustainability" are you going by "human conditions" or perceptions of sustainability?
each person/relationship is unique, so the value is in that uniqueness and QUALITY of sharing
not in the material time things last which is limited to this world.
The point of love being eternal and unconditional is that it transcends material conditions
of life and death "in this world"
4. RE: seeing God's mechanisms as the levers etc.
Even after we know how forgiveness works to heal all things,
we still have to take the leap of faith and see what happens when we choose the path
of forgiveness, letting go and accepting first, and then find out where that leads.
Even when we see how the patterns and stages of grief and recovery work,
we still don't know till we get there what greater things are in store after we agree to let go and move forward.
We can look and see with our eyes WIDE OPEN and still not know till it actually happens
what is going to happen and how. So there is no need to hide anything, I don't get this
analogy or paradigm either.
I have met two people who teach the process as being shown everything in advance
that we are going to experience before we are born, agreeing first, then erasing all that so we live it blind?
WHAT? I don't agree with whoever is teaching it that way.
No human on earth can see all the things that our actions in life are going to lead to in advance.
So even if we agreed to what we could see, that isn't the whole picture anyway.
I think we receive as much insight in advance as needed to get things done.
We can't know everything, but we need to know enough to take the right steps and direction
and figure out the rest as we go.
If you are referring to this business of showing us knowledge
then hiding it from us, no I don't agree with that teaching. I've seen it before
and just don't relate that way, but other people do, if this is what you mean?
I think it sounds controlling and manipulative, but knowledge of the laws is unconditional.
When we are ready to know things, the more unconditional we are with how we will use the knowledge,
where we don't hold it against others to monopolize or manipulate,
then we are more ready to handle greater responsibilities and knowledge.
There is no manipulation of knowledge there, except what we make of it.
And people who abuse knowledge to manipulate others will be limited in their knowledge
because they are expending extra energy using it for selfish purpose, in comparison
with those who share freely who will receive greater understanding because it won't be abused for control games.
5. What I am saying about the laws not changing once they are in effect,
you were questioning if God created things why can't God create them again,
as if questioning how can God be 'all powerful' and yet can't do some things.
And I was saying just because the world is created with fixed laws in place,
where some things aren't going to happen that go against these laws,
doesn't mean God is contradictory or can't be "all powerful."
If we are designed as humans and aren't meant to turn into butterflies or elephants,
then that is not going to happen. It's not part of the laws of nature or physics to do that.
It does not serve purpose in life to change from one species to another.
That is not what it means for God to be all powerful and in control of all things.
I was just giving other examples of things not even God can do
but which don't negate "God as creator" or being all powerful.
I think I would agree more with you than disagree on these points.
I'd say most contradictions are with people, because we are not perfect in our
representation of what God means.
6. As for what do we mean by God
I find most people's concept of God falls into a few main concepts:
1. God as Truth, Wisdom, universal laws or collective knowledge of all things over all time and space
2. God's will as Good will, greater good for all humanity, or public good for all society
3. God as creator or Creation, Universe, Nature, Source of Life or laws thereof
4. God as love, as positive life energy, unconditional love
5. God as the ultimate absolute [fill in the blank] -- whatever someone puts as the highest source, power, or authority above all other things [pick one, some people even make Govt their God that decides what things are true and real or not yet]
so each expression of God is just a subset of the greater God that is the
source of all these other manifestations from one approach or the other.
For Jesus, I try to understand someone's perception of Justice, does this come from
the inside out, from other sources? Do they believe in Retributive Justice or Restorative Justice?
I find the key factor in whether people can work with other religious or political views is not which affiliation we are,
but to what degree we FORGIVE and INCLUDE others. Where we cannot forgive or include all people of all other groups,
that is what reinforces biases in our perceptions, communications and relations.
As long as we agree to forgive and work with our differences,
we can communicate about the same concepts and principles "underneath" --
where the language we use does not have to become "conditions for accepting each other" that cause rejection instead.
Most of the conflicts are in perceptions because people fear and divide by groups.
We get past the fear and forgiveness issues, the other answers can be worked out
even if our differences in beliefs remain as they are. Our perception of those differences may change
and that's enough to bridge gaps and reach an understanding anyway.
