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Thread: what does it take to be divine?

  1. #1

    Smile what does it take to be divine?


    I post this question because I am really confused about how the Roman Catholics proclaimed a person to be divine. What does really it take to be divine? Is it the number of followers? Is it the miracles you've done which it so profound with the human world? Is it of your goodness? Is it how many loved you? Is it by not having sinned at all? Is it not marrying a woman or not doing sex? Is it the closeness of God? Or is it just to say you are divine?
    If divinity is measured by how numerous your followers would be, then we can say there are many divine people in this world. If we measure divinity by the miracles you've made, then perhaps those miracles beyond human comprehension that are performed by people and practice by some may be called divine as well. Like the paranormals, etc. If divinity is known because of your goodness, then I would rigth now audition for it so that I can be called divine. If for us, divinity is how we are loved by others, then each and every one of us would have been divined since we were born because we are loved by our parents and loved ones. Do we measure divinity by our sinfulness? Like if we sinned less, then we are more likely to be called divine. Or divinity is just like celebracy in priesthood. If you are not married, you're divine. If you have not sexed a woman or women, then you're divine. Divinity is measure by how close we are to our God Almighty since he's the one who created us. But I think, divinity is just a title given only to males. It is a title of supremacy and somewhat political in nature. We say Jesus is divine because he's a male. He has done wonderful things and the lots. But are we expecting that there will be another one to be called as divine? For me, I am expecting someone. HOw about you?
    P.S: In your reply, can you answer my question; what does it take to be divine? Thanks.

  2. #2
    Poor Hobo Artist bella_swan07's Avatar
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    Its impossible to answer your question. Every person believes differently. The definition of "divination" depends on the person. Its another nature vs nurture arguments. Basically, if you're brought up to believe no sex makes you divine, then by faith in what you are taught you believe it. Why do you think there are nuns. I can answer only what I personally believe divination is. Here's the better questions, What does divination mean to you? What is it to you? and Is there really a such thing as divination or is it a myth in stories of old?
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    Quote Originally Posted by accountansiyot View Post
    I post this question because I am really confused about how the Roman Catholics proclaimed a person to be divine. What does really it take to be divine?
    Ok I will try to answer this but it is based on my limited knowledge of catholicism (and even that knowledge is not really reliable as it is from being brought up a protestant/ "Rangers man" in glasgow).

    Divinity in the catholic church is determined by the Pope and councils such as the one at Nicea.As the catholics consider the Pope to be infallible (always correct) if he says someone is divine, then they are. I am not sure if the many saints are themselves considered to be divine or not......Perhaps one of the catholics on the forum can fill this out.

    On a personal level, as a non-believer, I do not consider anyone to be divine.
    There once was a scotsman named Drew
    Who put too much wine in his stew
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    And fell off his bunk
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    Vincit Qui Se Vincit Virgil's Avatar
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    Saints are not divine. They are holy people. From Wiki:

    Saint is a term used to refer to someone who is a holy person. The term comes from the New Testament, where it is used to refer to all Christian believers. Over the years the term has grown to be used and accepted in other Christian, religious, and even secular contexts, to refer to those who are considered to be exceptionally virtuous or glorified in heaven. Hence a "saint" (cont. with sinner) is a (usually deceased) person whose life is regarded by a community as a good example, and their life story is remembered for sake of inspiring others.
    There is much more and you can read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint
    Last edited by Virgil; 11-27-2006 at 02:30 PM.
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    to be divine u must have the ability of making 1 plus 1 equal 3 and making it make sense!

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    Bonafide...Savage. Neo_Sephiroth's Avatar
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    Hmm...What does it takes to be divine?

    Well...I think to be divine is to be godlike or like a God...

    Which means to be divine depends on who is your God...

    Eitherway, you can't be divine just because you have ONE characteristics of a God...Whatever that may be...

    You must have ALL the characteristics of a God...Whoever your God may be...

    Now, as far as I'm concerned, there are very few people in the world today that I would considered to be divined or near divinity...Still, I have doubts on them as well...
    "The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people and then they take themselves out of the slums. Christ changes men, who then changes their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature." ~ Ezra Taft Benson

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    Talking Divine by nature

    Hi! Saw this post and thought I would add my two penneth....

    I see it this way - very simplistically really...

    In the beginning God existed on his own - totally self-contained.
    He then decides to create a spiritual family and sets about creating His Son...

    (Colossians 1:15-17) .*.*.He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16*because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. 17*.*.*.


    Then he and his Son set about creating a multitude of other spirit sons - Seraphs - Cherubs and other lower ranking angels.

    Then he decides to use his Son to create a physical universe (universes??)
    and taking some of his own essence - i.e. part of his own spirit body - he changes that 'dynamic energy' into matter and explodes it in the big bang thereby creating the material universe.

    Isaiah 40: 26....*“Raise YOUR eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of DYNAMIC ENERGY, he also being vigorous in power, not one [of them] is missing.

    Then he chooses a planet that is exactly right for the life-forms he is planning to create and makes the first human pair (Genesis Chapter 1)

    He uses his Son to do this ('Let US create')

    (Proverbs 8:22-31) . . .Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago. 23 From time indefinite I was installed, from the start, from times earlier than the earth. 24 When there were no watery deeps I was brought forth as with labor pains, when there were no springs heavily charged with water. 25 Before the mountains themselves had been settled down, ahead of the hills, I was brought forth as with labor pains, 26 when as yet he had not made the earth and the open spaces and the first part of the dust masses of the productive land. 27 When he prepared the heavens I was there; when he decreed a circle upon the face of the watery deep, 28 when he made firm the cloud masses above, when he caused the fountains of the watery deep to be strong, 29 when he set for the sea his decree that the waters themselves should not pass beyond his order, when he decreed the foundations of the earth, 30 then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time, 31 being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men.

    Now.... this is my point....

    If we trace the atoms that make up our bodies back we trace them all the way back to that Big Bang and thence to the very body of God from whom all things were made...

    So as I see it WE ARE DIVINE in our nature inasmuch as the material we are made from was originally made from a divine source - The Very substance of Jehovah God himself!!

    Simples!


    David.

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    BadWoolf JuniperWoolf's Avatar
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    I'm pretty sure that Virgil's right, the Catholics don't actually make people "divine." Saints are people who get a special place in heaven, they aren't divine in the sense that they are actually a deity themselves.

    However, the ancient Romans did deify people (not Roman Catholics). When an emperor died, it would be declared to the masses that (rather then just being some dead guy) he was made into a god. They'd set up statues, temples, pray to the dead emperor... it wasn't just emperors either, it could be their friends or family too. One emperor had a pretty young boyfriend who was cruising around the Nile on a boat, getting drunk with his friends. The kid fell into the river and drowned, so the emperor just decided to make him a god, and it was so.

    So I guess in answer to your question, if you want to be divine you have to either be in a position of power or be friends with someone who is, then you have to die, then your deification has to be declared to the public who are then ordered to worship you. Nothin' to it, really.

    Quote Originally Posted by accountansiyot View Post
    If you have not sexed a woman or women, then you're divine.
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  9. #9
    Registered User Mrig's Avatar
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    To be divine is to be content with oneself and have self-realisation. ....like Budhha

    No race, religion, caste can claim to be divine. Budhha says Everyone can be Buddha

    and Budhha means The Enlighted One

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    Haribol Acharya blazeofglory's Avatar
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    Attaining divinity demands of us many things in Hinduism, purity of mind, body and thought, sacrificial deeds, submissiveness, renunciation, prayers, devotion and the like.
    Divinity is kind of attained thru understanding called Gyan. There is no synomym for Gyan in English. The nearest word is understanding. Understanding that one is the universe and all the stuff in it in a microcosm and with this understanding one will be enlightened.

    “Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””

    “If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

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    In my opinion, i don't think that the title of "divine" should be used exclusively for very few people.

    It is stated very strongly in the Catholic Bible that everyone is a child of god and are all equal. Maybe being divine isn't something that is only decided by the church, perhaps we were all born divine and special. And when we die, we might all go to the same place.

    However, if someone commits a heinous act, they would forever lose their divinity.

  12. #12
    Haribol Acharya blazeofglory's Avatar
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    Divinity is for sale now, and they have packaged it into different sizes, shapes and colors. It is customized and suited to meet your own needs and tastes in point of fact. There are so many addresses you can find in print, on TV commercials and in the Internet. All you must do is prepare yourself for spending your hard earned bucks everything will arrive at your door.

    Divinity is commoditized and differentiated tailoring it considering your savor. You can place order and developers or producers deliver divinity instantly to you. It has been cheapened by producing it through economies of scale and you can buy divinity in bulk amounts and refrigerate or shelve them for your future need. It is likened to buying a TV set or new car and the satisfaction you get is likened to having a new car. Mind you, you must change your car every two years or you will find it discussing after a while.

    Of course this is allegorically expressed here with the intent to tell you how cheap divinity has been. Of course earlier when I was a child divinity was on sale in churches or temples or synagogues or monasteries or mosques. But now you can find it wrapped up in beautiful and glossy enclosures fairly at a very economic price.

    I oftentimes visit temples to come across people who go there to redeem themselves from the sins they have committed and those businessmen who think that taking bribes or dodging taxes is a sin but you can cleanse yourself of it by donating a fragment of it. I see large masses lining up there for redemption.

    If you think your sin is too big you can go to a redeemer who has reengineered the booty taking into consideration the size and extent of your sin. The larger the sin the larger the divinity package you must purchase.

    In this world everything is purchasable with no exception with divinity.


    When I was a child we prayed in chorus. I was told that God is pure divinity and powerful and he is a benefactor. Later on I had come across a pack that had a different idea about God, divinity and heaven. They told me God is a name thru which the corrupt pundits or some priests can cheat the poor and there used to be discussion that involved the topic of indulgence, the fat money those who sell divinity providers amassed. The topic went beyond such issues to a world of communisms and how they developed their countries and the like.

    Now of course I do not hold these ideas and I do not hold any particular faith or belong to a particular political ideology and I look on an equal footing now.
    That said I am not a die hard atheist and they are not better off with their disbeliefs. All the same all I feel is that today religions have been platforms for atrocity, crime, violence and the like and they birthed fundamentalists massively and I have heard about things in churches and temples.

    Divinity in its purest form may or may not exist but the way they are kind of advertized today is something that entails the fact that there is no check and people in being religious are succumbing to irreligious-life.

    “Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””

    “If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

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    Out-Z the Z Molpadia's Avatar
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    This question is inherently flawed.

    The collective and broadly accepted understanding of what we'd categorize as divine is in all actuality an accepted fallacy. The inherent problem is that the concept of divinity entails a perfect higher state of being; yet this concept was completely created by imperfect, fallible human beings.

    How are we, as an eternally fallible creature, supposed to define, categorize, comprehend, and understand a higher state of being? How are we supposed to comprehend something that by our very own definition is supposed to be beyond our capacity to understand?

    Defining and understanding divinity is a flawed approach to an end that was never there. No matter how much logic we may use, or how fine-tuned our reasoning skills may be, the act of defining something which we did not possess the ability to create a concept of in the first place is a charade acting in a theater of futility.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kilted exile View Post
    Ok I will try to answer this but it is based on my limited knowledge of catholicism (and even that knowledge is not really reliable as it is from being brought up a protestant/ "Rangers man" in glasgow).

    Divinity in the catholic church is determined by the Pope and councils such as the one at Nicea.As the catholics consider the Pope to be infallible (always correct) if he says someone is divine, then they are. I am not sure if the many saints are themselves considered to be divine or not......Perhaps one of the catholics on the forum can fill this out.

    On a personal level, as a non-believer, I do not consider anyone to be divine.
    Nicaea would be in modern day anatolia. Hence, this council you speak of could certainly not be catholic but orthodox...

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    Our wee Olympic swimmer Janine's Avatar
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    A whole lot of magic for a whole lot of miracles!
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