Living in a broken world


What exists is Great!
One of the reasons i like this way of talking is that it makes a mockery of the age old question people always ask each other .... "Do you believe in God?" ..... i mean come on, a person who does not believe in what exists *is* a FOOL ! Shouldn't their doubts be mocked?

I think my word substitution cuts the confusion out of theological doubt.
Tags
- theology
- terrorism is great
- terrorism exists
- item 18103
- god
- what exists
- personal god
- thrivingfamily.com
- religious attitudes
- respect for otherness
- respect
- allhu akbar
Comments
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.[1]
Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of a deity, gods or goddesses), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.[2]
The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith, belief system[3] or sometimes set of duties;[4] however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social".[5] A global 2012 poll reports 59% of the world's population as "religious" and 36% as not religious, including 13% who are atheists, with a 9% decrease in religious belief from 2005.[6] On average, women are "more religious" than men.[7] Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.[8][9][10]

Yeah sure, an equation with the same thing on both sides is always true: a=a, 1=1, and that which is = what is.
But what i have said here is quite different. In essence I am saying A = B. God = that which is. Linguistically it is a definition of God which anchors belief in something that the heart can feel and the mind cannot deny.
It is what my heart accesses, thinks about, when i say i believe in God. It is a clear feeling: that which is happening here is Great, I love it.
Phillip Yancey's questions in the article,
- Is God competent?
- Is God really so powerful?
- Is God fair?
- Why doesn't God seem to care about pain?
simply evaporate when God is simply that which exists.
So in this way of talking feeling and acting, God does not stand apart from that which is, perhaps creating it ... perhaps dinking with it ... no, God is that which is. If your faith is based upon believing God is just everything, then those questions seem childish confusions.

Anti-religionists will approve your mememe
.. ZZ v.3 p.343 ssq. gives the gist of evolution of the word God or scores of names of such etc.
Similar to the words/concepts/etc. infinity, everything, nothing, & being the word God is not grokable in physical writing. Enjoy making your own mememe for it.

i am not sure what you refer to with your prhrase "physical writing" ... and i am curious how it is different than just writing. It bring to my mind the contemplation of not physical writing ... what would that be?
incidentally when i use the word writing here i am talking about the whole semantic process: the thing itsself, the symbol of it, and a person's association (interpertation) of the symbol to the thing.

ok, yes of course ... the more dimensions available for expression, the deeper and subtler the things that can be expressed and frequently the less ambiguous. but while the bandwidth of communication increases, the semantics of the situation remain the same.
.. ZZ v.3 p.343 ssq. gives the gist of evolution of the word God or scores of names of such etc.
Similar to the words/concepts/etc. infinity, everything, nothing, & being the word God is not grokable in physical writing. Enjoy making your own mememe for it.

i am not sure what you refer to with your prhrase "physical writing" ... and i am curious how it is different than just writing. It bring to my mind the contemplation of not physical writing ... what would that be?
incidentally when i use the word writing here i am talking about the whole semantic process: the thing itsself, the symbol of it, and a person's association (interpertation) of the symbol to the thing.
Anti-religionists will approve your mememe

yep, that is what writing does


Here is some of our dialogue ...
Seth: hmmmm ....
Kristen: Seth, you gotta give me a little more to go on. Food you read the whole article? He wrote wonderful books
Seth: I'm not criticizing what he wrote ... it's pretty traditional theology. I just have a totally different attitude. I wrote more about it here ... http://fastblogit.com/permalink/?item=18103
Kristen: Your observation about what exists is duly noted. There is a certain figure that existed in carefully recorded history, Jewish history, Josephus' writings, the Koran
Kristen: we've chatted on the subject and you know my tone. Honestly, I would love a response since you are open minded to what exists. What do you do with the news that Jesus existed?
Seth: well thanks, Kristen for caring. For me Christ Jesus refers to us ... it points to our humanity ... to your children and my children and our growing and loving and and living together. My faith in that ... in humanity ... in us ... in Christ .... is not based upon the hearsay of history ... i can feel it in what i do say and love. You see i am just trying to point to the thing itself ... not the words about it, not the gossip abut it, which has evolved down through the ages.
Note i am trying to use words to point to actuality .... changing the words ... not the things themselves. Sometimes when we use words we are just reciting pleasant sounds by habit forgetting what they actually point to.
What i can feel is that what people are really talking about when they use the word "Christ" is our humanity itself and what we do when we feel most human. And what i can feel when people use the word "God" is all that actually exists.
I have something different for those words which you are not likely to dislodge.

Useful dialogue is what we do to get our words aligned so that we understand each other.

ok, the question is how they differ.
The major difference that i have noticed is that the anthropological (and also traditional religion) view seems to assume that there are beings called "Christ" & "God" who exist outside of humanity itself and all that exists. Me, I just think that presumption is a confusion of reference. I believe the same beings exist, i just like to point to them as directly as i can. The duality inherent in the traditional view, does not help me grock these existances nor become a better person ... rather the duality just serves to confuse what i am thinking about or feeling.
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