What led you to God?

Well, negligent parents act like that. Good parents carefully work with there children educating them as proper to their age and understanding and only allowing them prividges that correspond to their abilities to responsibily handle them.They don't leave loaded firearms out and tell an ignorant child not to touch them. They lock them up. According to the myth in Genesis, God was an irresponsible and negligent parent. If he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree he had recourse to a number of effective means to do that. But maybe he wanted them to eat of the Tree? Maybe he wanted to blame them and have an excuse to kick them out of Eden? Maybe he is an abusive parent who uses Satan as an excuse for his allowing bad things to happen to his children? Maybe Adam and Eve were too boring and God wanted them to learn about good and evil and have lots of conflicts to liven up the story?As the song from The Fantasiks's goes "Why did the kids put beans in their ears? They did it cause we said 'No'". If mere modern humans can figure that out why can't God?lfen

Robin,What other religion do you recognize and how do you characterize them?I don't know which religions your are referring to as "modernist", nor am I entirely clear why you would limit it to sentimentality. I see religion has having multiple functions.lfen

Your phrase "if he does neccesarily exist." doesn't parse. I can't figure out your point.Brian was mocking the primitive concept of God that is found in the OT and making hilariously funny comments about the silliness of upholding such awkward formulations in modern times. You can be offended or not as you choose, but do it on behalf of yourself. Brian can't be mocking God as he has stated many times he doesn't believe God exists.I can see why a person might choose to refer to the totality of the universe and existence as God but I am amazed that the hold of tradition over the human psyche is so great that people cling to primitive and poorly formulated explanations for the source of things as is found in the OT.lfen

Faith,I don't want to get personal about this but I'm curious as to your understanding of how something like a high fever, the inhalation of nitrous oxide in the dentist office, or ingestion of quantities of a chemical like alcohol, amphetamine, effect feelings and consciousness?I recall some one telling me about a surgery they had. In being preped they were given a shot of something and then were left on a gurny in the hall waiting to go into the operatin room. They were looking at the wall in the hall when suddenly it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. This person said they were laughing away as they were wheeled into the operating room.All these substances involved in these feelings are molecules interacting with neurons, no?lfen

The implication is that it is looking good out there for those with strong faith. Having strong faith in God means you enjoying seeing people killing one another, polluting the environment, and treating one another badly, etc. and so forth? How is that?lfen

Well, yeah, but Robin, reality is not WORDS! I think you are still to much in love with words and are thus in spirit a literalist. A disappointed literalist hence a nihilist. What I've been saying to you off and on these many months is that your primary mistake is thinking that it's in the words. It's not. The words are part of the social contract of the ego. Words have a function but only of relative truth like science.The primitive mistake in the early days, I'll cite the OT as my prime example but there are plenty of others arose because language seemed magical at that time and still is to many folks.Understand that words are fingers pointing at the moon. Christians cling to their religion. The Buddha knew that religion was only a vehicle, his metaphor was of a raft to cross over to the other shore, once arriving you don't carry the damn raft around with you! And because you can't eat words, wear words, etc. doesn't mean you say life is meaningless!!! Life is not words! Words are for meaning. Life is! Being! It is in the silence not the speaking. Even those old sheep herders sometimes had intimations of it and wrote things like, "Be still and know I'm God." But stillness doesn't make for good business, or for ruling the state, or setting up a Temple monoply. The business of religion is yak, yak, nag, nag, and keep those dimes, and dollars flowing in.lfen

Religious arguments are about whose pronouncements are to be taken authoritatively based on a claim that they are authorized by this something the word "God" points to, to speak for it. "Moon" was filler for the blank. "Dog" is an equivalent filler. "Mind"? I'm hesitant. "God" is a noun as is "moon" and "dog" but is it the same sort of thing? Is it a thing at all? Well, sometimes Christians on this board treat the word "God" as if it referred to an object, the biggest, most important object, true, but something that could nonetheless be an object. In that case I'm saying they have taken the finger for the thing pointed at.lfen

You wrote to Brian, You were making a division between people of strong faith vs what? people of weak faith, no faith such as atheists? There are Muslims, Mormons, Jews, Hindu's and on and on people of strong faith. And there are a range of people of moderate, indifferent, weak, and no faith. I was tweaking you about over simplifying your statement. I'll be very careful if or how I do that again in the future.I'll just say, "It's not looking good out there for those without a strong faith!" is possbily a catchy slogan but it's not a very meaningful premise.I think you will find this board is not a very good place to attempt to rhetorically persuade people to signing up to your viewpoint. That was the too oblique message my remark was intended to convey. I sometimes let my annoyance with rhetorical apologetics get the better of my inhibitions. I love the way Brian can tear those kinds of pretensions apart but I just get a little snide. I'm neither ashamed nor proud of that. I'd prefer not to indulge my annoyance but I sometimes do.lfenOh, click on the little button that says "peek" at the bottom of this or any other post to see how the quotes and effects are done.

Robin,This question is entirely optional and it's fine by me if you ignore it altogether, but I'm wondering if you have children?lfen

Robin,You ever read Vonnegut's THE SIRENS OF TITAN? Do you think the purpose of having children is to have some one to freely love you?What if tonight you were awakened by a glowing presence that you absolutely knew to be God and that prescence told you in some undeniable way that it created you to freely love it? How would that improve your life or make you feel better?I'm really not getting why it's important to have been created for some purpose.lfen

Robin,Well, can you relate purpose to children or the caring for children?lfen

Robin,Are you using "purpose" as synonymous with "function" as in use? Humans use things, even other humans. You are wanting humans to have been designed by something else to be used for some purpose this something else has? Why? Why can't humans have their own purpose(s)?I'm really not understanding what this discussion is about, or why or where the problem is.lfen

Robin,Emotion and sentiment are a part of the function of the human brain. They are part of our experience, of the way we view life. I suspect only sociopaths are capable of holding a viewpoint that doesn't contain something of sentimentality that is to say are capable of not caring about anyone or anything else in the world.Have you read any of U.G. Krishnamurti?lfen

Jar,Exactly! And the same with us. Purpose is not inherent. Purpose is a relationship, a context. I just can't yet grasp why it is, or what it is Robin is looking for. Maybe he feels human individuals lack context?lfen

Faith, and also RobinI'm replying to your comment Faith because because it's what you said that gave me idea. I think we maybe foundering on an ancient philosophical chasm dating back to Plato and Aristotle, realism and nominalisim. I've become so Aristotelian in my thinking that it has taken me this long to even think that Robin is seeking an ideal form.And I understand the appeal of this to literalist who want language to not just be a model of reality but that it be such an ideal model that it can be taken as reality, it's correspondences are so close.I don't think purposes can be defined by naming things. Purpose is in context and relationship. One of the few things in the OT that impresses me if correctly translated is God saying to Moses that his name was "I am that I am". But the political use of religion veered the entire tradition to the purposes of the priests and so God had to have a purpose also.My whole recall of the Plato Aristotle difference is so dusty. I don't know if I'll be able to find the pieces in the disorganized attic of my memory, but I suspect this is why we are having such troubles talking about this.lfen