A letter to God

[blazeofglory]

Dear God,

Subject: Oh God! Do you really exist?

I am writing this with a lot of suspicions. I am told that you exist and you are merciful. All of us are your children no matter whether we are black or white. You are very just and help the downtrodden and do something to uplift all. You often take form of material beings through Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Muhammad and the like.

I say from the heart that that is a lie. You are indifferent and apathetic to all, totally unconcerned. Unmerciful and uncaring for I have too many evidences to document my points. Where on earth are there examples of you alighting from your high throne in heaven to uplift the fallen? Did you stop the Tsunami taking its toll on so many innocent souls? Are there any validating works to approve of your merciful acts of relieving all those all fortunate people who are drowned in the ocean / hell of never-ending tortures or pangs of pains?

I was told by my poor parents to pray every morning and evening convincing that God will help us in times of need. When tens of thousands died in an earthquake in China did God come in their times of need? Or he simply recoiled just because they have not prayed sufficiently. There are wars and people all over the world are persistently warring and is this what God wants among his children?

I often read in the Bible wherein there is a mention of the “Chosen Seeds” and is that the reason why there is an ever increasing gulf between the rich and poor? And you want purposely some people to suffer and others to bask in unending joys? That is why Mother Teresa, a great acclaim social worker and undisputed devout Christian proved to the world at the end of the day she too was suspicious of you, of your acts, of your promises. People are simply misled and misguided. I was indoctrinated into sets of beliefs that this world was created by you and you created in addition to this cosmos all human beings, animals, plants and the like. Then if so why did you create poor people just to suffer eternal pangs of pains and live in the hell of sufferings?

I have plenty of evidence to validate my doubts and document my points and charges against you.

I write it out of the free will you have conferred on me to speak for and against you and expect a reply from you to convince me of the fact that you are merciful.

I know I will come across plenty of people who support you and some oppose you and also those who have advantaged themselves over the rest preaching something in praise of you. They are wearing cloaks of righteousness and speak words of mercifulness, live with embodiments of God and benevolence but in substance they are wolves in the forms of human beings. That is why the world is getting a worse place to live in.

Yours Sincerely,

Blaze

[Chester]

Dear Blaze,

I am not an old, bearded man wearing sandals and sitting above you on a throne directing the events of this world, deciding what happens, and what does not happen. I am in your world. I live with you and I love with you and I suffer with you.

I am not who you think I am, and I am not where you are looking.

Come find me,


God

[Pendragon]

Dear Blaze:

Echoing Chester's words to an extent: If you are looking for me, where are you seeking? To find a God who comes up to your own standards? Who fits your description of what God really should be? Dare to go beyond your own thinking, or the thinking of anyone else, ignore everything except the longing in your heart to find me, and you can find me.

I really do love you.

God

[Petronius]

Dear Blaze,

God appreciates your support and, as always, is delighted to recieve so many positive messages from his beloved subjects. Surely you will understand that, as he is constantly busy keeping things working flawlesly in the wonderful world you live in, he rarely finds the time to respond personally to all the letters he recieves.
Nevertheless, he assures you of his reciprocated love - in proof of that, you will be recieving a mind-language original copy of the Holy Book and a signed postcard together with this letter, for which you will only have to pay a 7.75 shipment tax.

Keep up the good faith!

Sincerely,


God's Public Relations Staff

[Jozanny]

What made The Name of The Rose such an effective work of fiction, is the absolute impact of the final question of the poisoner to William, "What happens if they laugh at God?"

Because once the Roman Church lost temporal and the absolute authority that created it, such laughter was possible, and God, for all intents and purposes, dies.

By the 25th century, I doubt Christianity will be recognizable from someone of my generation.

[Virgil]

What made The Name of The Rose such an effective work of fiction, is the absolute impact of the final question of the poisoner to William, "What happens if they laugh at God?"

Because once the Roman Church lost temporal and the absolute authority that created it, such laughter was possible, and God, for all intents and purposes, dies.

By the 25th century, I doubt Christianity will be recognizable from someone of my generation.

Jozy, I think Eco was commenting on laughter undermining Church authority, not undermining God. I recently reread The Name of the Rose (see my comments on the forum book club) a few months ago. I think William gives a good defense of laughter fitting in with God early on in a debate with Jorge (I think that's his name).

As to religion dying in the 25th century, I'll tell you waht. I'll bet you the Catholic Church will still be going strong in the year 2400. ;) Of course my soul will have to collect from your soul. Given that I should be in heaven and you'll be in hell (given your lack of faith) I'll make a stop down there to collect. :p :D

PS, I'll pray for you and put in a good word. :)

[Jozanny]

Jozy, I think Eco was commenting on laughter undermining Church authority, not undermining God. I recently reread The Name of the Rose (see my comments on the forum book club) a few months ago. I think William gives a good defense of laughter fitting in with God early on in a debate with Jorge (I think that's his name).

Same difference. I am thinking I seriously have to reread Rose. I think it is much more challenging to an educated reader than Eco's later FP, which I've read three times and don't love. I think I also want to own Rose, and will buy my own copy soon.


As to religion dying in the 25th century, I'll tell you waht. I'll bet you the Catholic Church will still be going strong in the year 2400. ;) Of course my soul will have to collect from your soul. Given that I should be in heaven and you'll be in hell (given your lack of faith) I'll make a stop down there to collect. :p :D

PS, I'll pray for you and put in a good word. :)

Ah. Catholicism wasn't actually what I was driving at. I think the number of Protestant sects, in the modern era, has essentially made Christianity so universalist as to be nearly meaningless. And Roman Catholicism in the US very nearly may be looking at the same meaninglessness.

America's religion, my friend, is consumerism.

I'll wave to you from Satan's mouth:p --my take on Dante's trope of the fallen angel.

[patrickbeverley]

Dear Blaze,

TLDR.

God

[Simao]

Dear God,

Subject: Oh God! Do you really exist?

You often take form of material beings through Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Muhammad and the like.


Blaze

Just to clear things up here. Mohammed is NOT considered a God in Islam and not son of God or anything for that matter he's just a messenger.

[El Viejo]

Dear Blaze,

I've never actually written God a letter, that I recall anyway, but have had an uncounted number of conversations with Him. He does 'answer.' It's like writing a play or a story. You put the words in the character's mouth that must go there.

The words that must go there differ according to who is writing the story.

EV

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't think Virgil was serious.

I wonder about that! I find it very hard to penetrate or even imagine the true thoughts or feelings of deep, deep believers, those for whom it often seems like a matter of life or death to defend even the most obscure corners of their beliefs. For myself I once coined this aphorism: Nothing to prove - everything to discover. Alas, I don't always live by that. I'm the other side of the coin of those who subscribe to what seems to me to be a vividly coloured Classic Comics view of history and eschatology. I confront the granite dogmatism of believers with my own, alas!


I also think that it is not quite outlandish to suggest that ethnic groups like Italians have somewhat more sympathy for Catholic hierarchy than others. When I was a teenager in rehab in Manhattan, and still a believer, I remember a debate with an African-American security guard, and he basically told me that his interpretation of Revelations meant "the Catholic Church was the great w***" I will not spell it out because I know I am wading into sensitive waters.

But now that I am in my mid-forties, I know a little, not too much, about how liberation theology altered mainline Protestant theology for minorities--hence to my point--Christianity is so splintered that some sects can hardly be said to fit under the umbrella of "the same faith".

Not that this is anything new. Christians had life or death arguments about Gnosticism and the true nature of the divinity of Christ before the Roman Empire standardized the theology towards what would become "the Holy Roman Empire" through the dark ages and beyond.

It is one thing to talk about Michelangelo's representations of God. Most of the Western world was ruled around that conception, successfully, if sometimes inhumanely, until Henry 8 had the wives thing going--although the Protestant Reformation would have happened without him.

Today it is so not the same. Jesus and his father (ahem) are personal deities. Religion is now about personal testament, and in terms of evolutionary theory, a much weaker temporal force, which I will still wager, give or take a few hundred years, would look like a religion from Mars to the authors of the godspels.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Even now, those who 'know' the 'truth' are busy knocking it into the heads of their kids that there cannot be any other truth and that they depart from it at their peril.


They, those founders, still had a dialectical tension with establishment Judaism as it survived under the heel of the Roman state. Christianity no longer has that problem.

And in the US, it tries to meld itself to our consumer culture, and everyone and everything is *blessed* under it, including Andrew Sullivan, whose blog I'd enjoy a lot more if he'd stop going off on tangents about gayness and faith. He sent me a screen shot though of a skyscraper outside of my building so I am a little fond of him yet.:p

Christianity, in general, has gotten too far away from its original intent, and because of that it won't survive as Michelangelo once recognized it.


Many thanks for this lucid - and above all serene - exposition of your point of view.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Well, if Virgil is serious, a few things:

1. I do not believe God exists, but since I cannot prove this, I will never say, definitely, that there isn't one--although it gives a human body such freedom to reach that imperative statement.

2. Given this non-belief, heaven and hell have no spatial significance. They are simply concepts of simplified human moral systems, and so I will not gaze up at Virgil from hell. Identity will vanish and the small, very small amount of solid material that makes up the human body eventually recycles--which is why Hinduism is so much closer to the truth of evolutionary process. Reincarnation is no doubt as fabled as Yahweh, but it is still closer as a scientific value to what science can explain--and perhaps consciousness and memory affect particles in some way, some how--this I am willing to entertain as an eventual progression in epistomology.

I have yet to find the believer who would entertain let alone answer this question:

In an analogy with Schrodinger's Cat, let's posit a universe in which 'God' both exists and does not exist - depending on which of two doors you open and enter through. Beyond door #1 is a universe in which God exists according to any one of the numerous theologies.

Beyond door number 2 is a universe in every visible, measurable aspect similar to #1 except that as far as can be known no God exists.

What prompts you to open which door?

[Chester]

I have yet to find the believer who would entertain let alone answer this question:

In an analogy with Schrodinger's Cat, let's posit a universe in which 'God' both exists and does not exist - depending on which of two doors you open and enter through. Beyond door #1 is a universe in which God exists according to any one of the numerous theologies.

Beyond door number 2 is a universe in every visible, measurable aspect similar to #1 except that as far as can be known no God exists.

What prompts you to open which door?
I'm not getting this question. If I'm a true believer, I'm not going to believe in a door number 2, am I? What am I missing here?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm not getting this question. If I'm a true believer, I'm not going to believe in a door number 2, am I? What am I missing here?

Good point. There is something nonsensical in my question, which is the premise that a "true believer" can even hypothetically be a perfectly free agent for a time.

An unexamined premise to my question is that believers chose at one point to believe whereas in the majority of cases (I believe ) their beliefs were inculcated into them long before they had the intellectual maturity to examine what was being handed down to them.

My argument should rather be, would there be one more case of malaria, one more abused child, one more starving family or country if there were no God?

[Chester]

My argument should rather be, would there be one more case of malaria, one more abused child, one more starving family or country if there were no God?
And, again, I'm thinking a believer would have trouble answering because I would think a believer wouldn't be able to separate out God, as though God is just some element that is somehow thrown into the mix and is easy to extract. For a believer God is a necessary being. Still not following, I'm sorry.

[Sweets America]

Dear God,

Subject: Oh God! Do you really exist?

I am writing this with a lot of suspicions. I am told that you exist and you are merciful. All of us are your children no matter whether we are black or white. You are very just and help the downtrodden and do something to uplift all. You often take form of material beings through Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Muhammad and the like.

I say from the heart that that is a lie. You are indifferent and apathetic to all, totally unconcerned. Unmerciful and uncaring for I have too many evidences to document my points. Where on earth are there examples of you alighting from your high throne in heaven to uplift the fallen? Did you stop the Tsunami taking its toll on so many innocent souls? Are there any validating works to approve of your merciful acts of relieving all those all fortunate people who are drowned in the ocean / hell of never-ending tortures or pangs of pains?

I was told by my poor parents to pray every morning and evening convincing that God will help us in times of need. When tens of thousands died in an earthquake in China did God come in their times of need? Or he simply recoiled just because they have not prayed sufficiently. There are wars and people all over the world are persistently warring and is this what God wants among his children?

I often read in the Bible wherein there is a mention of the “Chosen Seeds” and is that the reason why there is an ever increasing gulf between the rich and poor? And you want purposely some people to suffer and others to bask in unending joys? That is why Mother Teresa, a great acclaim social worker and undisputed devout Christian proved to the world at the end of the day she too was suspicious of you, of your acts, of your promises. People are simply misled and misguided. I was indoctrinated into sets of beliefs that this world was created by you and you created in addition to this cosmos all human beings, animals, plants and the like. Then if so why did you create poor people just to suffer eternal pangs of pains and live in the hell of sufferings?

I have plenty of evidence to validate my doubts and document my points and charges against you.

I write it out of the free will you have conferred on me to speak for and against you and expect a reply from you to convince me of the fact that you are merciful.

I know I will come across plenty of people who support you and some oppose you and also those who have advantaged themselves over the rest preaching something in praise of you. They are wearing cloaks of righteousness and speak words of mercifulness, live with embodiments of God and benevolence but in substance they are wolves in the forms of human beings. That is why the world is getting a worse place to live in.

Yours Sincerely,

Blaze

Actually, it came to my mind that maybe people think that God doesn't exist because they mistakenly think that God is good and compassionate. Starting from this point and seeing the catastrophes and miseries of the world would logically make people think that God doesn't exist, or that if he does exist, he just doesn't care.

But, if we still think that God exists, maybe the thing is that he's just not good. I'm only talking about the Christian God here. From what I've read of the Bible, this particular God has appeared to me as being a mean and revengeful person who constantly threatened, killed and hurt his human creation because he was dissatisfied with it or because he wanted power. I've stopped counting the hurt he originated through the different episodes of the Bible that I read.

So, starting from this observation, I could understand that maybe such a God exists, as it would explain all the misery of the world, the natural catastrophes and such. This could be a repetition of what is written in the Bible, as perhaps God is still dissatisfied with the world, and with those who dare saying that they don't believe in him, because he demands to be worshipped. This would make sense.

I so hope that such a God does not exist, and to answer Prince's question, I would open the second door because there is no way I wish to be under the glance of someone like this.

[PrinceMyshkin]

And, again, I'm thinking a believer would have trouble answering because I would think a believer wouldn't be able to separate out God, as though God is just some element that is somehow thrown into the mix and is easy to extract. For a believer God is a necessary being. Still not following, I'm sorry.

I appreciate your willingness to ask and ask again without growing belligerent or defensive. For me there are two, possibly inseparable questions: 1) What is the root of your belief other than what you've been taught or have derived from the earliest texts that are available to us, none of which present any irrefutable evidence of the existence a God and indeed present diverse and contradictory descriptions of him (God "the father", that is) and 2) why it should bother me that you or others hold these beliefs?

[Chester]

Well I'm not sure any type of knowledge really comes to us in any other way than "what (we've) been taught." This seems to be at the root of all of our beliefs, theistic or otherwise. Even direct awareness (which many believers would - and do - claim, even if it can't be admitted as evidence, per se) is a form of being taught. But being taught (second-hand or through first-hand experience) is how we gain any kind of knowledge. This seems to me to be simply describing how we learn.

I can't answer your second question other than to suggest that it probably should not "bother" you at all, although it may (or may not) cause you to wonder.

[Jozanny]

I don't know about that Chester. My family were simple working class Catholics, my father the first to make it up the rung to upper middle class, but neither he nor my mother taught me to become an atheist. I think you have a somewhat conservative view of what informs the human experience.

[Logos]

Please discuss the topic and not each other--such posts which are inflammatory or personally directed towards another member in a negative way [or posts quoting them] will be removed with no notification/warning.

--

[blazeofglory]

Please discuss the topic and not each other--such posts which are inflammatory or personally directed towards another member in a negative way [or posts quoting them] will be removed with no notification/warning.

--


Dear Logos,I apologize if I have started a wrong thread. I did not mean it to provoke personal topics and any inflammatory issues at all while posting this. As this forum respects individual differences and reserves lots of space for varied opinions I thought I was at liberty to express my views. All I wanted here was to read different opinions and how they respond to a particular topic. I am really a proud member on this forum and have learned immensely by reading others and seeing how they comment my writings and almost ninety nine percentages are constructive criticisms and that can guide us and of course help us hone our writing styles.


Blaze

[Logos]

blazeofglory there's no need to apologise :) My "warning" was not directed at anyone in particular; but it is in regard to some conflicts that have arisen because of this thread. They have been, and will be, kept off the boards as per the forum rules.

Now anyone else wishing to participate in this thread? please, out of respect to the site rules, us mods, and to blaze, let's get back to the topic :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Dear God,

Subject: Oh God! Do you really exist?

But of course I exist! As surely as does your memory of your first love, or the dream you had the other night. This entire question of "existence" or "reality" is one that vexes me as much as, I know, it vexes you who are the product of my imagination!


I am writing this with a lot of suspicions. I am told that you exist and you are merciful. All of us are your children no matter whether we are black or white. You are very just and help the downtrodden and do something to uplift all. You often take form of material beings through Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Muhammad and the like.

Yes, and to some I am a Goddess. To others I am Black Liberation. Or Universal Brotherhood...


I say from the heart that that is a lie. You are indifferent and apathetic to all, totally unconcerned. Unmerciful and uncaring for I have too many evidences to document my points. Where on earth are there examples of you alighting from your high throne in heaven to uplift the fallen? Did you stop the Tsunami taking its toll on so many innocent souls? Are there any validating works to approve of your merciful acts of relieving all those all fortunate people who are drowned in the ocean / hell of never-ending tortures or pangs of pains?

All that you say above is true because the world as you have experienced it is a manifestation of who and what I am - and I am NOTHING if not imperfect!


I was told by my poor parents to pray every morning and evening convincing that God will help us in times of need. When tens of thousands died in an earthquake in China did God come in their times of need? Or he simply recoiled just because they have not prayed sufficiently. There are wars and people all over the world are persistently warring and is this what God wants among his children?

I often read in the Bible wherein there is a mention of the “Chosen Seeds” and is that the reason why there is an ever increasing gulf between the rich and poor? And you want purposely some people to suffer and others to bask in unending joys? That is why Mother Teresa, a great acclaim social worker and undisputed devout Christian proved to the world at the end of the day she too was suspicious of you, of your acts, of your promises. People are simply misled and misguided. I was indoctrinated into sets of beliefs that this world was created by you and you created in addition to this cosmos all human beings, animals, plants and the like. Then if so why did you create poor people just to suffer eternal pangs of pains and live in the hell of sufferings?

I have plenty of evidence to validate my doubts and document my points and charges against you.

I would ask you above all to bear in mind that all the things that have been written about me - all the pleasant fictions and yes, the not so pleasant ones as well - were written by men and women who had their own axes to grind, and the ones who later interpreted those stories for the presumably less intelligent or less well-informed had their own axes to grind as well.


I write it out of the free will you have conferred on me to speak for and against you and expect a reply from you to convince me of the fact that you are merciful.

I know I will come across plenty of people who support you and some oppose you and also those who have advantaged themselves over the rest preaching something in praise of you. They are wearing cloaks of righteousness and speak words of mercifulness, live with embodiments of God and benevolence but in substance they are wolves in the forms of human beings. That is why the world is getting a worse place to live in.

Yours Sincerely,

Blaze

Ah, Blaze, Blaze my beloved son, when will you at last understand that this "god" to whom you address yourself is nothing but a projection of the best that you aspire to be and the worst that you fear you might be, struggling it out on a screen that you call "God".

[Judas130]

Yes, and to some I am a Goddess. To others I am Black Liberation. Or Universal Brotherhood...




I'm liking your idea of universal brotherhood. if we look at Spinoza's theory:

if god is infinate, he must co-exist with everything. God must therefore be the only thing whose explanation lies within itself (all living thing can be caused by something external, but God can't because there is nothing external to God. God is therefore the whole of the natural order. Although living things may be appear to be separate they are, in reality, parts of a larger whole - which is God. The one true thing is the world as a whole.

---
if you take that, and think, we are all children on this earth, and think, the earth, and ourselves within it is God, you can arrive with universal brotherhood.

[YALASH]

Anyone might want to read ....THE QUESTION OF SUFFERING in online REVELATION, RATIONALITY, KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH .

[mosimo]

I have yet to find the believer who would entertain let alone answer this question:

In an analogy with Schrodinger's Cat, let's posit a universe in which 'God' both exists and does not exist - depending on which of two doors you open and enter through. Beyond door #1 is a universe in which God exists according to any one of the numerous theologies.

Beyond door number 2 is a universe in every visible, measurable aspect similar to #1 except that as far as can be known no God exists.

What prompts you to open which door?

You say that the question is unable to be answered be a believer. A believer in what? I am guessing that you are indicating a believer in a god if not God, but the use of 'believer' has in history usually been used to refer to Christian. Looking at the question from my point of view the question is very easy to answer. If one is a Christian or believer in God because they are afraid of God and wish to appease Him by believing in him then maybe they would wish to go to door number two to escape the constraints of a God.

Nevertheless, those who have a more realistic image of God seeing Him as he is(caring, but just and ruling the world not playing with it) would have to chose the world with a God.

Think about the world without a God. Many of you are questioning the existence of a God because you see troubles and think the two cannot go together. Without a God the highest authority would be man. There would be nothing stopping one man from killing another morally as no moral laws would exist. Once you get humans in control you get things like Hitler. He had enough people behind him that he could make whatever laws he wanted. He ruthlessly killed millions of Jews and others just because they were Jews and did not have blond hair and blue eyes. There would be no quest for common good but everyone would only wish for personal gain.

Others have been noting the godlessness of the current generations. Given that can you then understand the punishments that God is inflicting on Earth. If you created a machine and it refused to work what would you try to do? Fix it. But if it started not only to refuse to work but also to destroy things(abortion, deforestation, pollution, mass murders) would you let it continue. We are God's creation and for that point are required to worship Him even if he maims us and kills our entire family for no apparent reason. He loaned us this Earth and we destroy it like a three year old trashing his father's computer. What else do you expect. Maybe someone will start paying attention. At this rate if nothing happens yes by the 25th century there might be very few left.

As strong as the Catholic church is now you must realize that it has lost some of its former glory. Not because the faith is wrong but because the people who believe are being weakened by consumerism. How many monks are there in the US? How many new orders of Nuns and Monks have been started in the last century as compared to the previous centuries?

I am not Roman yet I am Christian an the world is in a sorry shape.
Originally I started to answer the question of the two hypothetical countries and I rambled back to the original letter. I have reached the end of my flame so I am going out.

For any who remember me. I am back atleast for a time but I will post my return statement on the part of the forum meant for that.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is about as good an argument as could possibly be made that this IS a world WITHOUT God! You say, for instance:



Think about the world without a God. Many of you are questioning the existence of a God because you see troubles and think the two cannot go together. Without a God the highest authority would be man. There would be nothing stopping one man from killing another morally as no moral laws would exist. Once you get humans in control you get things like Hitler. He had enough people behind him that he could make whatever laws he wanted. He ruthlessly killed millions of Jews and others just because they were Jews and did not have blond hair and blue eyes. There would be no quest for common good but everyone would only wish for personal gain.

But according to you we had God AND we had Hitler! (And Stalin and Pol Pot &c) Your argument must be that without God Hitler might have killed 6,000,001 Jews instead of the estimated 6,000,000 he did have killed?

Without God Stalin might have been responsible for the death of 20,000,001 of his opponents instead of the estimated 20,000,000?

[mosimo]

This is about as good an argument as could possibly be made that this IS a world WITHOUT God! You say, for instance:




But according to you we had God AND we had Hitler! (And Stalin and Pol Pot &c) Your argument must be that without God Hitler might have killed 6,000,001 Jews instead of the estimated 6,000,000 he did have killed?

Without God Stalin might have been responsible for the death of 20,000,001 of his opponents instead of the estimated 20,000,000?

No rather without God we would not have had those people who hid and smuggled people out of Hitler's grasp. There would have been no America as we know it. There would be no Briton. South Africa would still be in aparhteid. Every country would be a Zimbabwe and a Russia and a China. There would not be anything to stop them. no other countries would have cared to stop the oppression. If you have ever imagined what hell would look like that is what you would get. there would not be time for cleaning squads to even cleanup the mess of dead and massacred people (even if cleaning squads existed). Take yourself for example. If you see someone stranded on the road do you stop to give them help. Without motivation no one would stop to give any consideration to anyone else. man cannot be given the position of highest authority. Hitler and Stalin are examples of men who tried to play like there was no God. Did they die happy deaths? Even with there being a God man can shake his fists at God but God does not care that man will fall in the end. Would you say that either of Hitler or Stalin where successful. God is in control but he allows for people like Hitler to have their free choice like you are given a free choice. After the fall God still intricatly works in all of Earth's happenings yet he does not make everything soft and cushy. If everyone was going to go to heaven no matter what they did do you think they would worship him. Hitler and Stalin were punishments on mankind because we have rejected God and further punishment is coming. For those who obey God there is nothing they look forward to more than when God besides their day has come.

Have you ever asked yourself what would the use of you even existing be if when you come to die you just cease to exist. What is the meaning to life if everyone dies and no longer exists. Life therefore has to be a test of a person with a reward to come after. Life is meaning less if this is all there is. Pleasures are short lived. Misery is abundant. Have anyone ever not considered suicide. even as a fleeting thought. How about actually getting the knife out or the rope. Have you seen the room start to dim as the pain is over. your own blood is thick in your own hands and you collapse to the ground. Life is so fragile and yet so beautiful how could it be just a freak show. This cannot be all yet who knows what really comes after?

If you look at history as a puzzle which God has been putting together many pieces come together. Like why did Europe 'discover' the Americas right at the time when the natives were so ungodly? Why did the Romans destroy the human sacrificing nation of Punic? Why did the Romans subsequently fall when they fell to their detestable practices?

If there is no God why is everything logical. Why do trees grow up. Why do the number of foxes increase when their is an over population of rabbits. Even look at global warming. The melting of the ice caps are resulting in a increase of Ocean algae resulting in a reduction of green house gasses. the only problem there is that Humans are still producing too much for the natural means to correct. Yet there is another way God can use nature to fix global warming. If the problem does not correct Greenland melts and stops the flow of the gulf stream throwing Europe into an ice age. Stopping half of the worlds production of green house gasses. problem solved.:idea: Do you think God is going to tolerate us trashing his wonderful world. That even in itself shows that God is in a way loving. He wont allow for ourselves to kill ourselves.

I dont even know if I am making sense. Yet I am typing as fast as the thoughts are comming to my head. reply to my questions and I will try again.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Dear Mosimo: Yes, I was tempted to reply to your questions and to your interpretations of God's role in human history, but I don't see the point of doing so. My conjecture is that you need to believe in 'God' and to see him as you do. Without knowing you much better, I don't have the means or the right to conclude that you might be happier without these beliefs. I personally believe that I am a happier person and have more freedom without such beliefs.

I won't debate this further unless we should happen to meet and we each came to understand in light of our respective history and character why each of us needs to believe as we do. I wish you well in what I think is your desire to live a moral life.

[blazeofglory]

No rather without God we would not have had those people who hid and smuggled people out of Hitler's grasp. There would have been no America as we know it. There would be no Briton. South Africa would still be in aparhteid. Every country would be a Zimbabwe and a Russia and a China. There would not be anything to stop them. no other countries would have cared to stop the oppression. If you have ever imagined what hell would look like that is what you would get. there would not be time for cleaning squads to even cleanup the mess of dead and massacred people (even if cleaning squads existed). Take yourself for example. If you see someone stranded on the road do you stop to give them help. Without motivation no one would stop to give any consideration to anyone else. man cannot be given the position of highest authority. Hitler and Stalin are examples of men who tried to play like there was no God. Did they die happy deaths? Even with there being a God man can shake his fists at God but God does not care that man will fall in the end. Would you say that either of Hitler or Stalin where successful. God is in control but he allows for people like Hitler to have their free choice like you are given a free choice. After the fall God still intricatly works in all of Earth's happenings yet he does not make everything soft and cushy. If everyone was going to go to heaven no matter what they did do you think they would worship him. Hitler and Stalin were punishments on mankind because we have rejected God and further punishment is coming. For those who obey God there is nothing they look forward to more than when God besides their day has come.

Have you ever asked yourself what would the use of you even existing be if when you come to die you just cease to exist. What is the meaning to life if everyone dies and no longer exists. Life therefore has to be a test of a person with a reward to come after. Life is meaning less if this is all there is. Pleasures are short lived. Misery is abundant. Have anyone ever not considered suicide. even as a fleeting thought. How about actually getting the knife out or the rope. Have you seen the room start to dim as the pain is over. your own blood is thick in your own hands and you collapse to the ground. Life is so fragile and yet so beautiful how could it be just a freak show. This cannot be all yet who knows what really comes after?

If you look at history as a puzzle which God has been putting together many pieces come together. Like why did Europe 'discover' the Americas right at the time when the natives were so ungodly? Why did the Romans destroy the human sacrificing nation of Punic? Why did the Romans subsequently fall when they fell to their detestable practices?

If there is no God why is everything logical. Why do trees grow up. Why do the number of foxes increase when their is an over population of rabbits. Even look at global warming. The melting of the ice caps are resulting in a increase of Ocean algae resulting in a reduction of green house gasses. the only problem there is that Humans are still producing too much for the natural means to correct. Yet there is another way God can use nature to fix global warming. If the problem does not correct Greenland melts and stops the flow of the gulf stream throwing Europe into an ice age. Stopping half of the worlds production of green house gasses. problem solved.:idea: Do you think God is going to tolerate us trashing his wonderful world. That even in itself shows that God is in a way loving. He wont allow for ourselves to kill ourselves.

I dont even know if I am making sense. Yet I am typing as fast as the thoughts are comming to my head. reply to my questions and I will try again.

I will ask you, why do you think the way you do, and what makes you think after all. Thoughts generate in reaction to what you sense around through your sense organs around the world.

There is classical debate over whether it is thought or matter that comes first. I can not prejudge this notion and I can not back up my ideas with any thing.

Materialists say matter comes first and theologians say mind or deities come ahead of mind. They choose to think that thought creates things and their arguments proceed to the extent thoughts materialize into things and the world is a infestation of God, and everywhere comes out of God and sinks in God.

In fact I do not these ideas to entangle my minds at all, for there is nothing with us to validate the fact that God exists or no any evidence that God does not exist. We are torn between different ideas and no particular ideas substantiate these facts.

Our thought patterns are borrowed, born of our social circumstances and are circumscribed by what we see around.

When you say God exists this thought is not yours and ideas have been embedded in your minds and your thoughts are rooted in certain external factors. You are not an originator of ideas and just a reactor and all I said here are not mine and only the effects of what I have read or heard or learned.

This is my argument and I have nothing to arm my arguments with therefore can not say that all I said are indisputable ideas.

I am just open to the forum and am resilient to listen to you and have no prejudgment at all.

[mosimo]

Dear Mosimo: Yes, I was tempted to reply to your questions and to your interpretations of God's role in human history, but I don't see the point of doing so. My conjecture is that you need to believe in 'God' and to see him as you do. Without knowing you much better, I don't have the means or the right to conclude that you might be happier without these beliefs. I personally believe that I am a happier person and have more freedom without such beliefs.

I won't debate this further unless we should happen to meet and we each came to understand in light of our respective history and character why each of us needs to believe as we do. I wish you well in what I think is your desire to live a moral life.

Sorry if you saw this as a debate. I only meant this to be a means of expressing each other to another listening and responsive person. no conflict intended. Yes it would be necessary for one to understand God as I believe in him for you to be able to understand my belief of how God works in history. But that was not what I was asking for you to understand. rather I wished for you to enlighten me further on your own views of life and its meanings. Is is entirely OK if you do not wish to continue this discussion here.
Nevertheless for anyone else who might wish to answer my question let me narrow the question down.

For someone who does not believe in a God or for that matter any spiritual creatures. What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist? What is the reason you exist?

[mosimo]

I will ask you, why do you think the way you do, and what makes you think after all. Thoughts generate in reaction to what you sense around through your sense organs around the world.

There is classical debate over whether it is thought or matter that comes first. I can not prejudge this notion and I can not back up my ideas with any thing.

Materialists say matter comes first and theologians say mind or deities come ahead of mind. They choose to think that thought creates things and their arguments proceed to the extent thoughts materialize into things and the world is a infestation of God, and everywhere comes out of God and sinks in God.

In fact I do not these ideas to entangle my minds at all, for there is nothing with us to validate the fact that God exists or no any evidence that God does not exist. We are torn between different ideas and no particular ideas substantiate these facts.

Our thought patterns are borrowed, born of our social circumstances and are circumscribed by what we see around.

When you say God exists this thought is not yours and ideas have been embedded in your minds and your thoughts are rooted in certain external factors. You are not an originator of ideas and just a reactor and all I said here are not mine and only the effects of what I have read or heard or learned.

This is my argument and I have nothing to arm my arguments with therefore can not say that all I said are indisputable ideas.

I am just open to the forum and am resilient and have no prejudgment at all.

In the matter versus thought debate I would have to say the matter and thought were created at the same time. Or rather both have always existed. When God created the world he did not create matter but he created energy and therefor the time space continuum. See matter is not really effected by time but energy is. Thought as we know it is really the transfer of electrons in our brains. Yet for God to have created the world would he not have had to been able to process thoughts? Not in the sense that we think. Being finite no human can truly comprehend the majesty of complexity of God even if the God we are talking about is only in theory. Therefore God is in fact the origin of all thoughts and our brains being tied to the constraints of time are only processors(like computers are only processors of our thoughts and not originators). So yes in a way I am agreeing with you yet in a way there is still a difference.

You state that there is no evidence that God exists yet if no God existed where would the World have come from? Even Evolution does not have any theories on where the energy to cause the big bang came from. If that is not enough proof you will never find proof.

You probably are thinking though that because I said your thoughts are from God it in itself is proof that God does not exist. Rather look at your thoughts again. even if you denied the fact that God even did exist. I did not say that our minds only process thoughts that originate from God but rather that God is the origin of thought. Christianity explains the existence of thoughts that go contrary to God's like this. God created us. Yet he gave us free will. If he gave us free will yet only allowed us access to godliness would there be free will. So he also allowed evil into the world in the form of Satan. How therefor can God be the source of all thought and yet there exist evil thoughts if God does not contain evil within himself? In the same way that light and darkness exist. Evil is in reality just the absence of God. therefore The first Man and woman were given a choice a lot like the two doors choice. they chose the one they did not know they chose to allow evil into the world or rather to push God away. The result is this world with God in yet still lack of God in other places. this is our trial ground. We are given the chance to see what life with God is like and what life without God is like. Therefore in this world there are proofs that God does not exist because evil(the lack of God) does exist. If evil did not exist this would be heaven and if God did not exist this would be hell.


You asked where my ideas came from. I have experienced evil spirits and have seen glimpses of God in such a way that I cannot believe other than that there exists a spiritual world. The resulting analysis is my reaction and my effort to explain the spiritual realm. The explanation is strongly influenced by the Bible but that is because all other resources that I have tried to look to for an explanation of the spiritual realm have all fallen short.

Additionally everyone has a prejudice of sorts. Enlighten us more on your interpretation of why there is contrary evidence toward the existence of God.

[blazeofglory]

What you said about God and free will is not your idea, or at least not your original ideas at all, they are borrowed. The idea of Free Will is an invention done by Christianity and particularly in the middle ages and this is a baseless idea.

There is nothing called free will and not even determinism, things happen as they will have to happen and taking religious views to phenomena have no validity or authenticity in them.

Man is nature and can not go beyond it and God is said to be beyond nature and natural phenomena and as such God is a subject that can not be defined in terms of natural science. It is supernatural and we can not prove it and we simply can believe it.

[mosimo]

Therefore am I getting from you that since there is no such a thing as free will all aspects are preordained to happen at given times. I cannot make the choice to move my hand the choice has already been made for me? and I could not stop myself from killing that kid with the weird glasses therefore it is wrong for the state to punish me by locking me up in this cell. nothing that is going to happen can be changed.

That is to say I have never killed anyone nor am I in prison but the fact remains can criminals then be responsible for their actions if they cannot control themselves?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Sorry if you saw this as a debate. I only meant this to be a means of expressing each other to another listening and responsive person. no conflict intended.

Indeed, if any one saw this as a contest over whose beliefs were superior, it was I! And I consider that a defect of mine. You on the other hand present your point of view entirely WITHOUT the dogmatism that so often offends me in believers. And (see below) I take that as an expression of the meaning of life to you.


Yes it would be necessary for one to understand God as I believe in him for you to be able to understand my belief of how God works in history. But that was not what I was asking for you to understand. rather I wished for you to enlighten me further on your own views of life and its meanings. Is is entirely OK if you do not wish to continue this discussion here.
Nevertheless for anyone else who might wish to answer my question let me narrow the question down.

For someone who does not believe in a God or for that matter any spiritual creatures. What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist? What is the reason you exist?

I do not believe that there is any predestined meaning or purpose to life. I believe that how it began may be entirely separate from why it began, that there may be no "why" to it, that the meaning of life is that which each of us gives to it. You appear to identify purpose, for yourself, as service to God - but what God, which God, how certain can you be of his attributes. If one has come to know him from one or several of the many books about him, then surely you are aware that he displays different characteristics at different times (not all of them benevolent). Therefore you pick and choose the characteristics that appeal to you because of who you are.

The greatest meaning or purpose life has had for me is in my contribution to the making of my children and now the children they are raising. I can hardly help but be loving to them; but that love brings me great happiness, whether it is returned or not. And from my love for them there flows love for others as well.

[mosimo]

Therefore the highest good a human can do is train his or her children to be successful.

Therefore tell me if I am wrong but as I am reading the accumulative end of all generations of man therefore is a Utopian society. You gather information and knowledge in your life time which you pass on to your children who in turn pass it on to their children. The final out come therefore should be a society with all the questions of life answered. No use for religion, No wars, no famines, no poverty of hardships of any kind.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Therefore the highest good a human can do is train his or her children to be successful.

Therefore tell me if I am wrong but as I am reading the accumulative end of all generations of man therefore is a Utopian society. You gather information and knowledge in your life time which you pass on to your children who in turn pass it on to their children. The final out come therefore should be a society with all the questions of life answered. No use for religion, No wars, no famines, no poverty of hardships of any kind.

I would not like even to predetermine the end of life or even of my children's lives. The best that I can be is the best that I can be in this moment and trust to whomever happens to witness or be touched by that best to be their own best. Just as I must - I believe - be humble in the face of the mystery of how I come to be here, how I come to have this quality that I call "consciousness," so must I be humble in the face of what the next moment, the next week, might bring.

To my children I would wish May you have as free and as joyful a life as I have had - plus 10 - 100%!

[mosimo]

Yes I would have to agree there is nor really any chance of their ever being any true Utopian society in this world. The desire for ones children to have a free and joyful life is the best and only wish one can have in this world.
But I was thinking the question you asked with the two worlds and the two doors what would your answer be? Would you choose the world where man is the highest form of authority or would you choose the one with the omniscient mysterious God?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Yes I would have to agree there is nor really any chance of their ever being any true Utopian society in this world. The desire for ones children to have a free and joyful life is the best and only wish one can have in this world.
But I was thinking the question you asked with the two worlds and the two doors what would your answer be? Would you choose the world where man is the highest form of authority or would you choose the one with the omniscient mysterious God?

I would choose the door that led to a universe without God because

1) In that universe we would all be responsible to ourselves and to each other for our behaviour. What life do we have unless we have and exercise free will to the best (and even, alas, the worst) of our ability to do so? and

2) Because if the universe in which we live is indeed under the eye and authority of 'God' then we are in worse trouble than I think we are currently in because God evidently condones or is indifferent to Global warming, Darfur, HIV-Aids, Malaria, child abuse &c. &c..

[mosimo]

In your point number 2 you state the possibility of a God existing in this world. Do you or do you not believe that a God exists?

[PrinceMyshkin]

In your point number 2 you state the possibility of a God existing in this world. Do you or do you not believe that a God exists?

I call myself a "lapsed atheist," does that answer your question? I call myself that because while I see no evidence that 'He' exists, I can no more prove that than can those who believe in his existence.

But why on earth do you want or need my vote? God exists or He does not whether I believe in him or not! Nor does his existence depend on how many believe that he does.

[mosimo]

It is not a vote thing. I was asking you because I wished to see how someone who disbelieved in God entirely would answer the question. Because If that person had no idea what a God would be like would he choose one or not. When you used God as one of your reasons I was a little confused so the question was to clarify the issue for me.

[wilbur lim]

Dear God,

Subject: Oh God! Do you really exist?

I am writing this with a lot of suspicions. I am told that you exist and you are merciful. All of us are your children no matter whether we are black or white. You are very just and help the downtrodden and do something to uplift all. You often take form of material beings through Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Muhammad and the like.

I say from the heart that that is a lie. You are indifferent and apathetic to all, totally unconcerned. Unmerciful and uncaring for I have too many evidences to document my points. Where on earth are there examples of you alighting from your high throne in heaven to uplift the fallen? Did you stop the Tsunami taking its toll on so many innocent souls? Are there any validating works to approve of your merciful acts of relieving all those all fortunate people who are drowned in the ocean / hell of never-ending tortures or pangs of pains?

I was told by my poor parents to pray every morning and evening convincing that God will help us in times of need. When tens of thousands died in an earthquake in China did God come in their times of need? Or he simply recoiled just because they have not prayed sufficiently. There are wars and people all over the world are persistently warring and is this what God wants among his children?

I often read in the Bible wherein there is a mention of the “Chosen Seeds” and is that the reason why there is an ever increasing gulf between the rich and poor? And you want purposely some people to suffer and others to bask in unending joys? That is why Mother Teresa, a great acclaim social worker and undisputed devout Christian proved to the world at the end of the day she too was suspicious of you, of your acts, of your promises. People are simply misled and misguided. I was indoctrinated into sets of beliefs that this world was created by you and you created in addition to this cosmos all human beings, animals, plants and the like. Then if so why did you create poor people just to suffer eternal pangs of pains and live in the hell of sufferings?

I have plenty of evidence to validate my doubts and document my points and charges against you.

I write it out of the free will you have conferred on me to speak for and against you and expect a reply from you to convince me of the fact that you are merciful.

I know I will come across plenty of people who support you and some oppose you and also those who have advantaged themselves over the rest preaching something in praise of you. They are wearing cloaks of righteousness and speak words of mercifulness, live with embodiments of God and benevolence but in substance they are wolves in the forms of human beings. That is why the world is getting a worse place to live in.

Yours Sincerely,

Blaze

Dear Blazeofglory,

Maybe you could be more insightful of it.What we blame is ourselves.You cited some natural disaster,wherein it is natural obviously,however God create this nightmare in light of us.We harm the Earth,we are not in peace and glee,inflation is present and many more.

Regarding thy doubt of why indigent people have to suffer, and on the contrary,affluent ones do not,life is literally different.We love money,and the affluent shall have a ceaseless happiness,while the indigent shall not.The indigent have no scope to live happily,for money is unsufficient,all we talk about is money.

And Almighty God have no choice but to wept.

[blazeofglory]

All I feel is people idealize their ideas, become philanthropic and charitable in their characters and predilections, but in point of fact deep down we have our primitive motives to detect us and lead us to dominate others. We keep on amassing wealth, and monopolize resources and own everything we come across.

And God has one answer to our all questions:

There are chosen seeds that need to be taken care of.

[xtianfriborg13]

Dear Blaze,

I am not an old, bearded man wearing sandals and sitting above you on a throne directing the events of this world, deciding what happens, and what does not happen. I am in your world. I live with you and I love with you and I suffer with you.

I am not who you think I am, and I am not where you are looking.

Come find me,


God

Very. Well. Said!