Have you also taken part in labelling God as omnipotent and omnipresent independent existence,
because Christians supposedly all do exactly that?
But let us not dismiss it and look at this label in detail.
What you can do is not put a "full stop" after creation, but a comma. After all, the story that has begun is still in full swing.
A Christian can certainly say that he believes in the omnipotence of God, who, in full possession of omnipotence, created the earth and the universe.
At the same time, however, a Christian can believe that a creation will go its way from the moment it is set in motion.
If you feel uncomfortable or offended by the personal pronome of God, fill the term with one which suits you more, but spare the discussion about the term itself, in order to freely tackle the subject.
This interpretation allows us to imagine God as something that grants creation a life of its own, because what is the point in a God who always knows everything about anything, exactly what precisely happens, when exactly, by whom exactly, how exactly and where exactly.
It is compelling logic to consider this aspect as ridiculous, to say the least.
Such creation would completely lose its meaning and, begun under such conditions, would be immediately and confidently abandoned, recognising the nonsensical nature of its continuation.
So I could say that when God created paradise,
he was not really satisfied with its composition and when he realised that it would not develop a life of its own, under the conditions so far set, he pulled a big prank. After all, this very realization I call a logical thought (as an attempt of interpretation).
God introduced the rather static state - paradise, animals and human creatures who are neither particularly happy nor particularly sad, and who all live in eternal and infinite bliss with each other - to the serpent.
He threw sand in the gears.
Knowing that the human creature, because after the end of the paradisiacal state it was endowed with consciousness and reason, WILL go its own way. It can be interpreted that God does not wish to exert any detailed influence on this independent life, as he "lets it go on".
As clear as God is about the fact that the human mind will get confused and man will fall into error, it is also clear that from Genesis on God has gone from being a creator, manipulator (like in the great flood) to an additional state of a wondering spectator. Which I see as the consequence of Genesis and the further books of the bible.
That is why God can not use omnipotence in our respect,
for a reason, which is caused in the time factor of existence itself. As an ongoing one.
Just as a person has no deliberate influence on the fact that his hair should grow or that his breath should stop flowing or his heart should stop beating. He could only make rough corrections, but not fine-tune anything.
A person can commit suicide and thereby exert absolute influence on his hair growth, his breathing and his heartbeat. But you wouldn't call that fine-tuning.
God shared power with man at the very beginning of the story of man's creation.
Because man is in full fact empowered, he is henceforth responsible for his individual actions. It is not for nothing that they say "knowledge is power".
Knowledge can indeed be very agonising
and power is not something that really makes you happy, especially with no chance in sight to share it. On the contrary, holding power is one of the most exhausting and challenging states imaginable (ask single moms or dads). Equally, power can be extremely boring. It creates tension between these two states.
Because this is the case, a person in power needs some rules that allow him to recognise where he is abusing power and where he needs power in order to be able to act at all.
At this point, the paradox that makes man the absolute plaything of God and God the absolute player is resolved,
because from now on both mankind and God play in co-production.
At the same time, it is also clear that God has become involved in the human game. The part of God that has humanised itself is the part that has dissolved in all people or is in them as a "divine spark". This is reminiscent of the saying: "God is in you and you are in God".
The other books of the Bible can be understood as a continuation of the story and what we humans of past and present experience as trial and error, as gaining and losing knowledge. Depending on how we use our power.
The Christian set of rules,
summarised in the Ten Commandments, is therefore not to be understood as an unfair instrument from the perspective of realising one's human power, but as a realistic recognition of all cosmic players (God and humanity) in relation to each other, but as humans, developing independently in detail, i.e. within a set of rules for the sake of self-knowledge.
Where it gets interesting is when the differences become blurred,
and where one could explain the mysteriousness about oneself by saying that where the difference between God and humanity is fluid, and one begins to confuse one with the other, there lies something wonderfully truthful. Where God, as dwelling in man, marvels and where man, as dwelling in God, recognises.
Just to be clear, in such a state of being high, I will also come down to earth again.
I cannot always be on LSD, can I. Let's reserve that for special occasions.
The Ten Commandments are not written
so that they would never be broken, they are written because it is perfectly clear that they WILL always be broken.
Every mother and father knows that their child will break the rules they have set. Shall they decide against them?
It is crystal clear to parents that as the first creators of their child, they are also the first creators of its rules. Who else would they designate? Similarly, it is clear that God, as the creator of man, is the first rule-maker, who else should be named?
Reminder: If you again are in trouble with the term God, or if you are not coming from a Christian background, make your personal translation in order to put yourself out of trouble.
Don't forget the snake
If a person doesn't want to see his power, he turns the whole thing around and says: "God Almighty made me the way I am, with my faults and weaknesses. And then he punishes me for it because of them? Even though I can't help being a sinner because God made me that way. Then he also says: "Besides, I don't believe in God. And I certainly don't believe in a God like that." To which I would answer: "Congratulation!"
Indeed, when you put it like that, it can only seem absurd.
If you don't challenge your mind to think any further, you have just performed the remarkable act of feeling that you have bounced off the paradox you have just discovered.
But now demands to be freed from this paradox.
A fine example of opposing one's power, but also of not giving anyone the mandate to resolve the contradiction. Since the only one in having that mandate is the individual himself. After all, he can talk to God, can't he? Since he, at the same time, would also perform self talk.
But if the individual remains too impressed by the talk of God's omnipotence and believes himself to have no power at all, then he is mistaken, because of course he has all the means at his disposal to become aware of his thoughts. To become aware of Gods voice from within.
He can, of course, pretend that he does not understand the matter. And would be demonstrating an act of self-deception.
I mean, really, I wouldn't want to kill that very divine spark, since I may kill a lot of what I call "myself".
Overall, I would think that the style used in the Bible,
especially the books of the Old Testament - can be seen as deliberate and intentional means of exaggeration, similar to how we exaggerate advertising in our modern media.
In order to convey a message effectively, it MUST even be presented in this exaggerated form, because otherwise it might be easily overheard or overlooked.
So there is talk of a "vengeful", "angry" and "jealous" God. You can behave in a fearful or hostile way. But clearly you cannot overlook these very humanly traits.
You can also understand the language as metaphorical exaggeration.
Pictures:
Helmut Bischoff (German Painter) with whom I had a little cooperation a very long time ago on a book I had written named "Paradise found".
While I do not wish to denigrate or in any way diminish or demean your beliefs, I understand you to be seeking rational and constructive criticism and comment on your post, so I will undertake a minor point.
I suggest that this is demonstrably not factually correct. It is easily shown that from the standpoint of science, we are utterly nescient as to the nature and cause of our thoughts. It is also blatantly apparent that we do not exercise such control and means that have been proposed, and not yet falsified, that we have managed to ascertain. I could go on at length, providing examples of ways in which we misconceive of what consciousness is, our grasp of what it is, where it comes from, and etc., ad nauseum, but I will not because it's not important to my point nor useful to you and your purpose in posting.
I will just say that we are incompetent to discuss higher states of being when we can't even categorize or characterize the lowest states of being, or even our own state of being. We are utterly and blatantly incompetent to make judgments as to the character and composition of God, gods, ourselves, or even worms, fish, or biofilms. We can make a few carefully worded characterizations of our physical world, of our bodies, and the bodies of such creatures as we have long and insightfully studied, but there are almost no definitive statements we can state factually regarding spirit, consciousness, or mind.
We, and I mean anyone and everyone, can but speculate.
Thanks!
Or we can think of religions as capricious criteria, imposed on us by what I will call "gods," that we game pieces have to follow so the gods can have their fun with us.
We are divine creatures, and gods have to toy with us so we don't overthrow them.
I love the way you think. I can't always follow it, but I love it nonetheless.
Thank you :)
Your comment immediately provided me with questions.
If you were a god, how would you get the most enjoyment out of the game? Would you want to know all the cards or would you want to play a game after neither you nor the human already knew the entire deck? What would be fair, what would be entertaining?
Would you want sometimes you and sometimes the human to win? Would what you call overthrowing be the annihilation of your divine existence? What exactly would the human who accomplished this have achieved as a consequence?
Very interested in an answer, as I don't have one myself yet, but an inspiring thought is germinating in me.
Or asked again, on a second read through of your response. If we ourselves are divine creatures and we overthrow the gods, what would we gain, what would we lose?
The humans are not the gods' opponents. Other gods are. The gods and their human forms are not gods as we westerners have been led to believe, acting for human benefit through mysterious means, but more like the roman and greek gods (petty, cruel, jealous of each other, murderous, spiteful). They play the game of planet earth against other gods, a competition, like a vast video game, with humans (who are very unlike these gods) as mere game pieces. I see this all very clearly now. Religion is mind control so these fucking entities who wanna be gods can win their fucking game. It's time for humans to realize all this, and to take back control. Humans are the true creators - the gods have no power other that the power we give them by believing anything they say. Just say no to everything you are expected, by anyone, to assume as truth. Oh you get me on these wonderful rolls of thought. Where have you been?
You leave me somewhat perplexed with that.
Are you thinking of the sort of thing we mean by new world order?
I would think, however, that what you have commented on
falls precisely on the open ears of those who shoot every religion in the wind and denigrate it as a cult, while the communityless cult is sold as a moral and flawless and free world.
Behind my sewing machine. Time consuming (I produced videos as well).
Do you have/had any new engagements on stage?
what do you mean by communityless?
all communities, however they are tied together, operate on a specific level of the game, as single entities. As we rise in levels of the game (do you play video games? I don't) The dudes at the top, whom some might call gods, are also single entities (comprised of all the players down to we littles) battling with each other. The new world order fits into my fantasy here, in that it is simply a consolidation/federation of some of the gods who are currently playing in the top levels of the game. Someone is playing them though. Or maybe it's chaos up there, and nature is taking her course. We littles pay the price when the gods fight. Like downvote wars right here on hive.
I was thinking more of something like the community of local people, like the one I grew up in. Gatherings, like for my mum's funeral, which I wouldn't have missed for the world. If you manage to isolate those locals from each other, and it's of permanent nature, I describe it as "communityless". You see where I'm going with this...
Other than that, no, I don't play computer games of any kind. I play cards with my husband and his son and with my brothers when we get together, or other table top games. I sometimes visit the grannies or talk to the aging parents of my childhood friends when I visit home. I think it's important for Christians to gather and pray and sing at the funeral of a loved one because those are the songs and prayers we know (at least as I came to know them). The wake afterwards was always a comforting thing for me too. Things like that.
The union of the powerful is a separate topic, covered by me repeatedly in other places. I don't regard any of them as god or gods. They may have killed everything divine in them, who knows.
It is in those communities that we can break the game. Or so I hope. That's the level I am in the game, and I'm putting all my stake right here with my local friends, family, and neighbors. The few Christians I know well are apocalyptic. I hope I didn't offend you with my views on western religions.
Hey, have you read this. I don't know who wrote it, if it was Azzarello or this Crosby dude, but it captures what I have been talking about. I just this minute came across it. It's long, but a quick skim might give you a better idea of my vision of what is going on here. We are being played, and have been being played for centuries on end. It all escalated during WWII. Some of the upper players saw great opportunity and went for total domination of the game. They formed a federation (Club of Rome, CFR, that type of thing). Everyone is playing their assigned parts, and playing the game at their level. But the whole thing depends on us doing our assigned parts. We don't have to do that. We do, because life is easier if we spend our days doing paperwork, hoping we don't get financially screwed by, chiefly, by the governmental and medical cartels, which are the same thing via public/private partnerships/federations. Oh my goodness I have had enough of this vision I am having! Gotta run and breathe somewhere, maybe hug a tree to come back to the here and now.
Oh! I auditioned just yesterday for the role of the witch in Into The Woods! Even if I don't get the part, I auditioned very well, another notch up in my performance credits - I didn't fall on my face at an audition for a musical! It was fun. I love to audition. I get to perform under very high stakes! Today I am morosely waiting, accomplishing nearly nothing, for their choice. I really want this one. It would be a shit ton of work, and might bring me out of a stupor.
Good luck for you. Having some hard work done, needs to find a place where it can unfold. Always good to do something out of the four walls to escape stupor, I agree. Do you find it difficult to remember your text?
I even have problems to recite poetry and never trained myself in doing so.
I have never tried to recite poetry, and learning lines takes a lot of work, using mnemonic devices to remember the next line, writing out by hand for tactile and visual reminders. Lot of work, which always seems impossible at first, then it gets to be fun, a challenge I welcome. Then there are the performances, which transport me elsewhere.
I do believe in an omnipotent (and omniscient and omnibenevolent) God. From my experience I have even come to believe that he would not only be omnipotent, but also the source of power. This is because, if you do what is right, I believe, you become more powerful. And if you do that which is not right, you become more powerless.
Have you not seen, in my opinion, that people who have a vice, to give an example, seem incapable of getting out of it? They feel powerless and unable to stop doing the wrong (even if they want to). Because the more they do it, the less power they have.
I think it is true that:
But if you avoid the wrong, I think one will feel more powerful.
So I do believe in an omnipotent God.
I can go into more detail if needed, but I think that sums it up well.
Cheers to you!
Although I don't believe in an omnipotent and omnipresent God, I wouldn't, for example, make our relationship with each other dependent on it and now attack your person because I couldn't understand why you do it, for example. I believe in a potent and powerful God which includes all traits I can imagine.
Ultimately, what exactly an individual understands by God belongs to their inner world, which is as difficult to explain as God himself. Especially as I do not understand faith as being detached from the practically real world. From faith derives the acceptance of recognising the Ten Commandments as a set of rules and the greatest realisation for me lies in seeing that I am fallible and a fool who can make a fool of himself and others. That does not make me a helpless irresponsible plaything of God, but quite the contrary, it provides me with the insight that despite my fallacies, I am still responsible for them.
I understand Christianity as an endeavour to unite people under this concept and the resulting practical actions and to offer a coherent world view. Also as a place of reflection, confidence and refuge. Many who see themselves as non-Christians forget that if Christianity didn't exist, everything else would be gone and they underestimate what they take for granted as support. In a youtube comment I read:
I fully understand what you mean with
Modern westerners tend to disagree, since they see that power lies in the hands of those who are without God. So they feel powerless. Which in a sense, is true, for power is defined as "who has the money and the influence to steer the wheel of leading the masses". It's the outward look but not the inward.
I am always happy to go into more detail since I feel every dialogue about the matter enriches you and me.
I can agree with the gist of it.
I have my own theory about the "power" of these people. It's just that, despite all the wrong things they may be doing, they had to do some right things to get to accumulate it. Not everything is black and white. Even some "not good" people can have some merit. But this enters into a different set of thoughts.
But, in my opinion, I hesitate to call it "power" altogether. I think that, perhaps, many times we not know what power is. The way I see it, power can be something even spiritual, so to speak, far removed from what is ordinarily called power. It has nothing to do with an office, a position or a popularity contest. A person who has nothing can be more powerful than a person with thousands of fortunes. But we are so used to thinking with our eyes that we do not believe in the invisible, and power is one of these unseen things. Maybe it's more something that you feel.
There is a story of a monk who was disobeying a foreign military. The military said to him, "Don't you know that you are facing a man who can kill, if he want so?" The monk replied, "Don't you know that you are facing a man who can let himself be killed, if he want so?"
Power resides in virtue, I think, or perhaps follows it. I think it was Aquinas who said that power and good are one and the same thing, although I am not sure about it. I see power as something in itself, just like good or justice, etc. It is non-physical. Being powerful is more a quality of the psyche.
But I digress.
I welcome any point of view, so you can feel free to add to it as you please.
What you said about power I actually tried to wave into my post. Though in a more implicit way.
The story of the monk reminds me of my grand dad, and his experience in prison camp. Maybe you remember it, when I talked about the historical events within my own family. It comes very close to what you have given as an anecdote about the monk.
We see that all along in movies, yet we don't apply that to our own lives, since we are usually in no way ready to face death (and I am not saying that I am that kind of human).
The term "power" is loaded, that is right.
When you are faced with what it actually is, when it is talked about one person wanting the other one to bend, submit to whatever might be the issue, the better term is probably "violence" or "coercion". Someone using violence upon you, to give into his will is one who, in principle, feels powerless to use other means than violence.
There is also the phenomena, when people feel powerless, they find the umbrella under which they want to gather, in order not having to be the ones personally to act out violence, but having others doing it for them.
So yeah, I agree with your additional thoughts on "power".
I completely agree.
Yes, I do. It is undoubtedly a impressive story. Maybe in the future we can talk more about it.
Greetings.
Interesting ideas, @erh.germany. I don't really have much to add to them. I find Christian beliefs fascinating and a great attempt at explaining how and why the universe is the way it is. They have certainly left their mark in history. My own preference is to look at the God issue from a scientific-technological perspective. This requires reframing the issue in the language of science and technology, which is a tedious and difficult thing to do. It may be misguided, but it is what my nervous system prefers. I do enjoy seeing how others frame their understanding of these higher matters and appreciate the effort you put into it!
Thank you.
If you out yourself and say that you are a Christian, you are immediately faced with the "omnipotent and omniscient" God figure. I think my whole post was to say that I am a Christian, but I do not believe in omnipotence and omniscience. That may send me right to hell, but I risk it.
I just was browsing through old comments between you and me where I was giving a Kruzmaka-story. We had quite some fun there. It was a pleasure to re-read our comments. You must go there now and do the same :)
The way I understand it is that this idea of an all-powerful and all-knowing being is not found in the bible, but it was developed by religious scholars and practitioners through the ages. Christianity's history is very interesting. I hope that it has been a force for good in your life. I was raised in a Christian household but somewhere along the line, I unhooked my neural tentacles from the mother ship. :D
Yes, I remember the fun times. heh 😜
I find that understandable.
As always, the talent of communication tips the scales. If you master the art of dialogue as a Christian, you can get along with everyone, regardless of their worldview. This in no way means betraying your Christian roots and convictions, it just means that someone knows how to communicate on all levels and can speak the other person's language as well as their own. I have experienced this in my job, where I have had to deal with many different people. If someone is an architect, you try to talk to them in architectural images, if someone is a mechanic, in these images, and if someone is a football-trainer, you ask them about the details of their profession in order to find an approach, and so on. You adopt the metaphorical language of the other person and then communication is much easier. Now it's a lot to ask of both Christians and non-Christians to be able to do this, isn't it? And one wants to hit the other on the head because they don't want to move towards the other in their expression.
:)
I agree that you can adopt the language of the other if you wish for communication to advance along a given line, but sometimes there's just no point in it. So, you move on and create your own symbolic communication system with a little help from your friends. This is how new religions and paradigms are formed. It depends on your strengths, weaknesses, and interests in a given topic. For instance, matters of God, or as I prefer to call it Higher Intelligence, I explored at length when I was younger. I discovered what I needed to discover in the language that I understood at the time. I tried to discuss these matters with people in that language, and I just got the blank stare, so I moved on. My interest in metaphysical dimensions changed from exploration to actual participation in the (un)reality of being part of a vast cosmic nervous system that produces the emergent fractal elements of higher intelligence. 👽 This is the neurological planet on which I landed, though I take it for granted that there are many other planets out there with their own unique metaphysical realities and systems of communication.