Oh my gosh Isidro. That sounds horrible. My sympathies to to you and hope you have recovered. I commend that it has not warped your attitude toward life and God. You must be a strong person.Originally Posted by isidro
Oh my gosh Isidro. That sounds horrible. My sympathies to to you and hope you have recovered. I commend that it has not warped your attitude toward life and God. You must be a strong person.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I agree .
I guess advising people to do good and be good - in the Holy Quran and the Bible - declares that there gonna be lots of evil , hence , it's a key which tells us that God has intended the two sides of gooodness and evil to be in the world .
I'm still trying to figure out why the tree no one was supposed to eat from was smack in the middle of the garden; and the talking snake was left to babysit Eve while Adam took walks with God at twilight
Is that free will or baiting ?)
Of course there is freewill in heaven. Could any person be truly happy in any other situation? Could we be happy if we were not allowed to think for ourselves? Of course not. Heaven is the natural result of exercising our agency and choosing what is good and harmonious to other people. In my view, we have existed forever and will exist forever and this lifetime is a concentrated learning arena, much like this forum itself, where we learn by experience that goodness really is more desirable than evil in the long run and we learn by our own experience where happiness may be attained. Do we stop learning and experiencing after we reach the pearly gates? Of course not. We keep refining our characters, seeking for what is benevolent and out of the generosity of our hearts help others to do the same. In this forum we do the same thing. Is anyone forced into this forum? Of course not. But we mutually agree to be here and help each other to learn. Same concept, grander scale. Welcome to heaven my friend - you are already there.
And thank you, Virgil. Story of my life. You should learn some of the more grotesque chapters, for unfortunately that isn't the worst!I love the comment about the garden of Eden. Beautifully put!
The existence of a bad world does not exclude the possibility of God, which, I believe, may have been the intention of the thread title. God is the infinite - infinite knowledge, power, peace, and bliss. That is Atman, or Brahman, or Sacchidananda. Also God is Lord, not just an impersonal light. But there is a spiritual light, but it is not all of God. But even that impersonal spiritual light is pretty significantly different from the material world. It is different in that it is eternal. In relation to that, the material world is temporary. But the material world comes from the spiritual light.
This is not just speculation. Speculation has little value. Just us saying, "I think it may be like this, I think it may be like that." What is the value of that? We should only speak about what we have experienced, what we know is true. Sages and seers have spoken of spiritual existence, of God, and so forth. It is not that they should be accepted blindly. But it is pretty amazing that what they say is so very similar. You can know someone is not a genuine mystic if they speak of negative things, or dark things all the time. What value is that? Not all those who speak of love, light, God, etc., are genuine, but no genuine ones do not.
There are so many topics - one of the most important ones is consciousness. Anyway, it is possible to realize that all is connected, it is possible to realize one's true nature. Our true nature is divine. Divine means, pure love, pure intelligence, pure bliss, and pure peace, etc. This is truth as I have understood it. God is the source of all of that, God is the Lord of Love, as described in the Vedas, etc.
Also, God is the only reality. This is all illusion. The material world. And atheists and all others who deny God also deny that this is illusion, and they decry all who say that it is, they do this very much. But it is a dream within a dream as the saying goes. Enlightenment means to know God, the unlimited divine, the infinite. You see, there are infinite levels of existence. God is the source of all.
Countless persons have realized that this is all an illusion, and they have never told anyone. They have realized the divine truth and they kept quiet. A few of those who realized this gave their lives to teaching others, such as Buddha, Christ. They gave their lives to trying to let people know that they were actually at one with the universe, or in Christ's case, that they were under the care of an infinitely merciful God. The Buddha taught that our true self is buddha-nature, as the Hindus teach that our true self is the divine soul. So that is what Hinduism is about. The self-realized sages and seers from Hinduism are also, like the Buddha, trying to let people know, that they are themselves the divine, that their own source is infinite peace, truth, and bliss.
The argument that an evil world, a bad world, excludes God, is a completely thoughtless one. Some suffer in this world, and this is true. But this doesn't mean we should give up our ideals, our loves, our hopes, our dreams! It's absolutely absurd to say anything like this! The fact that some suffer does not mean there is not good in the world! And anyone who says so, is just as evil as those who are causing the suffering! Who would say, "People have suffered, so do not smile!" Surely I am not advocating irreverent laughter at a funeral. But what I am saying is, it's just a thoughtless proposition to assume the non-existence of an infinite reality because of the existence of a finite one.
Yes, the finite exists. But that does not exclude the existence of the infinite. This is one of the most important truths that has been waged war upon.
The divine means pure love, infinite peace, knowledge, and bliss. The infinite is a truth in our world and in the spiritual world, just as it is a truth in mathematics. The divine is the source of all that exists. The divine is not different from the truth, and also the absolute. These are all accurate of the divine - truth, eternal, and absolute. Truth exists, and by its nature, there is no contradiction in it. But one should only accept what one knows to be true, what one has experienced. But also, one should never give up until one has attained the highest goal, enlightenment. Nothing else matters. Why? Because, in sleep, in dreaming, if it goes on too long, then eventually we become more and more restless, until panic and desparation, to wake up. Dreams are nice in moderation, but how much more splendid is it to wake up, to open one's eyes, to stretch one's legs, walk around and see the sunlight! So therefore the desire for liberation is a forerunning necessity in spiritual life - a desire to know the truth.
Last edited by NikolaiI; 10-01-2009 at 01:38 PM.
Bravo NikolaiI! I thoroughly enjoyed your commentary. Quite refreshing after talking to so many who would like to entirely deny any kind of supernatural existence.
Why is freewill needed in paradise? Because we cannot as intelligent beings be happy under the yoke of coercion. We cannot be happy being forced to be something. Individual agency certainly must exist as it is necessary for happiness and heaven is all about happiness. The point is that we would employ our faculties for choice for good - not out of being forced but out of love one for another. Consider this as pertaining to freewill. Let us assume we all have it, are all celestialized in mind and body etc. We want to create a society among ourselves and make it as beautiful as possible. We have Michelangelo do all the sculptures. How does he choose what to sculpt? It is not an ethical choice he is making, but one of fancy. He can either create this kind of beauty or that kind. Hence agency is needed, as it is certainly requisite to unleashing creative genius. Does that take care of the rub?
And my dearest Virgil, and also NikolaiI, God got me through trauma and over 850 panic induced seizures. I don't have a warped idea of God because the very situation gave me first hand knowledge of who God is. So when I speak of religion, I speak by very prolonged and intense experience. No, I am no prophet and don't claim to be.
Last edited by isidro; 10-01-2009 at 03:51 PM.
If there will be freewill in Heaven, what's to prevent Heaven from becoming like Earth? I always thought the Christian excuse for the world being the way it is, is that man's disobedience through the use of his freewill, created all the nastier aspects of life (it always seemed a bit odd to me that an all-knowing, all-powerful God somehow escapes all blame from setting things up like this, but there you go). But if man has freewill in heaven then what's to prevent man from screwing up heaven too? And what is the point of freewill in heaven? I mean I thought freewill was supposed to be the essential tool that gets you either into heaven or into hell. So what's the point of it in heaven? And considering that God set up the paradise situation knowing full well what was going to happen, how can you be sure he hasn't got a similarly amusing experiment for the afterlife??
The Garden of Eden story has always baffled me. Its like you handing an axe to a madman and then after the carnage is all over, claiming that you are not to blame, its the evil that mad men do that's to blame... or rather the madman himself that's to blame.... but whoever it is, its certainly nothing to do with you handing him the axe.
Faith is believing what you know ain't so - Mark Twain
The preachers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves - Henry David Thoreau
The way to see faith is to shut the eye of reason - Benjamin Franklin
The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery - Leo Tolstoy
It's a bad sign when you are sitting at your office doing finances and put work on pause to answer a comment on a thread.
Ahem.
Okay, here is my whole answer (I've been dancing around it trying to keep my entire opinion to myself). We are children of a living God. We have existed forever, as God has, and have therefore the ability and capacity to eventually become as God is now. Yes, God is all powerful and all knowing and nothing He does is an accident. Going back to Milton. Could He not have stopped the original sin? Yes. Of course. But in order to understand this, we need to understand that God is our parent, and a loving one at that, not skulking around waiting for us to mess up so He can cart us off to everlasting damnation. He knows that we fail sometimes and therefore provided a Savior so that we could pick ourselves up and keep going. He knows that we learn most profoundly from our mistakes. He lets them happen because He respects us enough to let us learn without entirely breathing down our necks and striking us with lighting every instant. He let the original sin happen because He knew that if we were to learn from our own experience we would need to be in a rather toughened world with no memory of our having existed forever previously. This is how we really see what we are made of and try to improve it.
In heaven we keep improving but in a different capacity. When you are around someone or something that is bright and beautiful and you love and which inspires you to be your best, you will do your best. That is the difference between heaven and here and why it won't be like earth. We will be in the constant presence of a God we know and love and who knows and loves us and by that love we will be more powerfully inspired to be the best we can be. We would have learned by our own experience here that good really is better than bad and once having made up our own minds about that point and being in heaven, we continue to learn, not by coercion but by love and inspiration.
Who is to blame? Don't even worry about it. Just use the opportunity we have to pick ourselves up off the floor and keep learning by our mistakes. That is what repentance is for.
I always find myself agreeing with "The Devil's Advocate"; maybe it's the carnage from a fundamentalist upbringing
I really have never "gotten" several of the "lessons" in the Bible. As I am a very protective parent; I've never punished my child after turning her loose "in the garden".
I do have great spiritual faith; and I believe that many of the bible stories are historically accurate, I'm just not always sure of the writers "take on things"
You are a lovely human being, not omnipotent, not omniscient but fallable like the rest of us. Milton was a poet using the Bible as his reference point, as most intellectuals did till Darwin. The Bible has been shown to be unreliable and historically inaccurate in the main. If however, you are arguing that God is personal to you then best of luck. Being a decent and moral human does not need supernatural cement.
Of course I am terribly fallible. Back to Milton:
"God created man sufficient to stand but free to fall."
Yes, you are quite correct about the Bible. It is of the same texture as Swiss cheese. It has gone through so many linguistic translations, so many opposing Popes, changed and exploited by power hungry priests, inspired debates and votes on what doctrine is right with the voted consent toted as God's revelation that it is very hard to believe the Bible. In truth, I would not believe Christianity myself if I did not have another witness.
I do. It's called the Book of Mormon - are you shocked?
Thanks for all the compliments, people. Making me a little blushed and self conscious now.
And I love your last sentence there. Made me grin. Beautifully put.
Not at all, as I was saying to one of my wives the other day. Love of my life that Book of Mormon has some bloody good ideas, apart from the religious stuff.
I do. It's called the Book of Mormon - are you shocked?
Oh Jocky, that is beyond the funniest thing I have EVER heard in my life! I am laughing almost to tears.
Good one!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
Well if you get fed up of your hubby I could always find room for you in my harem.Oh Jocky, that is beyond the funniest thing I have EVER heard in my life! I am laughing almost to tears.
Good one!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
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