Where have I read this claim before? Oh yeah.... it precedes every babbling argument that you make. It is the only reason that everyone in the world doesn't agree with you.
Nothing wrong with that statement. I don’t think his reference to a personal God means what it means today. I suspect that what he’s saying is that IHO God is not just a personal God, but that an individual need to consider God in broader contexts that include other people and the planet and beyond. I have no problem with that at all.
I’ll give you a mulligan on this one. Try reading it again. I’m not going to bother responding to you Dr. Robert in this thread. This topic seems to make you crazy and most of your posts on it tend to be like this, and they’re just not worth spending time on.
I am somewhat familiar with Einstein and AFAIK, Einstein's view of "God" was a hands-off "diety" or "entity" that is the ultimate creator of "everything" but then let the creation run itself and start to fulfill its potential. But this "God" wasn't someone that you had any personal relationship with, prayed to, answered prayers back and such. For Einstein, "God" was "nature" not some anthromorophic being that people pictured of the OT/NT. Einstein's religious beliefs are very close to what is called "Deism". That is how I understand what Einstein meant that "God" is not a "personal God". But "deism" isn't really a religion since with an impersonal god, there is no practical difference between a deistic worldview and an atheist one. I should point out that many of the founding fathers were in fact deists not fundy, devout types like George W Bush. Contrary to popular belief, many of the founding fathers were much closer to being atheists than fully religious devout types of the modern fundy variety.
I'm not sure if you're an avid reader or interested in this stuff that much, but I highly recommend a book called <I>Blue Like Jazz</I> - I think you will find a lot of it will resonate with you. It's from a Christian who really struggles with the issues of spirituality vs. all the other stuff you mention. He talks about all of his conflicts and struggles and much of the stuff you talk about from a very human and non-religious perspective, and its not a "trying to convert you" book. He fully admits that a lot of that stuff sucks and how he's left churches because of that, etc. It's a GREAT read (I'm in the middle of it now).
Most popular Grizzled arguments: 1) You are crazy. 2) You aren't reading my posts. 3) I'm not going to respond to you. 4) Never answer a question, and never be specific. If possible, make up new adjectives to be as vague as possible. By the way, you hijacked this thread so I see no need to be nice.
Thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely check it out. As a trade, I recommend the mystic jesus. Very intriguing.
Well it actually includes everything. This was my sig for a while: "A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." ~Einstein God the concept is the personal god. Christians call this understanding Pantheism. This means there is no separation between man and god (the fall). You "worship" nature... Like there is something wrong with considering the universe as divine and a part of god. When you you understand emptiness, this type of understanding becomes blatant, not heretical.
OK, I am an odd bird, I suppose. I am only interested in religion academically, but to me Christianity makes the most sense coing out of a fairly monolithic church. I simply cannot get behind the "personal relationship" and free, open interpretation. Sure, that is more democratic, but since when is religion supposed to be? For example, Christianity by nature is pretty morally absolute. To me such absolutes are destroyed when opened up to infinite personal interpretations and relationships. Look at Christianity - a huge variety of beliefs and "rules" that often contradict each other. To me they start to cancel each other out. So for Christianity I prefer Cathololic (direct or once-removed) because it just makes the most sense to me lgocially and theologically. My personal exposure (attending/participating as opposed to reading) has been to just about everything, by the way. Catholic all the way to fire and brimstone pentecostal. As far as the original question - Mencken held a eulogy for deceased gods and I think such trends will continue over the extended course of human history (growing in probability the longer we exist) but I highly doubt religion will die. It is simply part of being human.
Hmmm…. now we’ve morphed the discussion into something interesting. Well done! I’ll take your word for Einstein’s position. I guess what I see in his position is certainly the kind of language that relates to higher levels of consciousness, which is interesting in itself. One could tie this into Kohlberg’s model for moral development too, I suspect. As we’ve discussed before, I don’t see higher levels of consciousness as spiritual in and of themselves, though. I do see them as part of developmental continuum. They are real, IMO, but my personal spiritual experience does involve the presence of an other. Regarding the components of Pantheism, I think a lot of Christians would have no trouble seeing nature as God’s creation. They would respect it as God’s creation, but they wouldn’t worship it as God. That would be a difference. A Christian is reconciled with God through Christ so in many respects it is as if the fall never occurred. So again there are a lot of similarities, a lot more that most would think I suspect, but there are key differences too, principally the existence of an other, a distinct and separate God.
I'm sure I've never said this to you, or anyone else here before. I'm sorry if I offended. I was joking, but my point is there is really no way to respond to you when you post like this. For example, you list this as one of my most popular arguments when I'm quite sure I've never even said it before. How do I respond to that? I can't. You're just going to say whatever it is you're going to say I guess.
I guess the next question is will God abandon humans. Given cyclical religious awakenings, I'm willing to bet that some people feel that has happened or will happen, which is why they exceed the bounds of other people when dealing with morality. It's not always simple to leave the judgement exclusively up to God.
This is where I jump ship. God is a part of your mind, heart and life, and us in his. Yet he is separate. hmmmm indeed...
we've been through this a few times here...but this is more false than most would care to acknowledge. if you're saying thomas jefferson, i'm in agreement. who else, specifically?
