An Ideal God
Lately I have been wondering what faith-based beliefs would actually do good for a person. These days we have a choice of gods who all say that we must do this to become happy. In other words, they require us to forget about our thinking and instead make us strive to lose our rational mind. There are also gods that make us feel as if we don't have control of our own existence. I feel like that is a problem to.
What I was thinking about was, is there are type of god that would actually motivate a human to pursue happiness stronger without making him feel as if he has lost control? Could we use religion to benefit our lives. It would probably have to be a deist god of some sort. I was thinking concepts related to animism, pantheism, and such would be more attractive to this type of thought. See, Nietzsche presented the conflict of pursuing happiness and truth. We must pursue both, but one's answer is dependent on the other. We can pursue happiness in truth or pursue truth in happiness. In other words, one has to come before the other and the fact that one does changes our possible answer on the other. So whether or not god is real is not the question we should be asking. Whether believing in a spiritual entity is beneficial to humans is what we should be asking. My question is, what entity would benefit a human who is pursuing individual happiness? Is there even an entity besides himself? Must an individualist view himself as a god? Also, if this idea has been discussed before in other writings please give me some references. |
One of the reasons I've had more of a problem with Christianity then any other religion is, I remember this from when I was younger, there was a Priest who was talking about how great Catholicism is because it doesn't make you shoulder everything and save yourself. That's because Jesus saves you and you can lean on him, he then made a smug remark about how other religions you have to work towards Heaven (I'm using this term broadly to refer to whatever any particular religion's ideal end result is) all on your own and rely on yourself. I've always had a problem with externalizing the blame and placing it on some metaphysical/fictitious being and just asking for forgiveness. I guess that's why if I had to believe in some sort of universal justice it would be karmic law as opposed to some sort of divine Abrahamic arbiter. Basically what I'm getting at with all this is I don't feel the modern Christian god (the American one that protects soccer moms and suburban housing) is very helpful, realistically or idealistically.
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I agree with Ethan.
I think maybe, the reason there is nothing you can find on this, is because it may not have to do with a god. Does that make sense? |
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Jesus had a fine understanding of spiritual dynamics and the essence of "what" god is, and our right relationship with "him" (or her, or it). History has simply contorted that message to fit its own purpose and agenda. |
I think the most perfect God is the Holy Trinity,
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i was about to say the perfect god is yourself. so long as you're able to recognize that it only applies to yourself and that everyone else is governed by their own god too. |
You know something... I can't really blame people for their belief in their gods. My parents are Christian and always make it a point to tell me every time something good has happened, it's because god did it. I know my dad got paid 200 dollars for cutting some grass, but if he want's to believe it was a blessing from god, then that's fine.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking, "You got 0 dollars to your name, you're struggling because you're waiting for god to bless you, then when you're at the end of your rope, you cut some guy's grass for 200 dollars of labor, and he gives you 200 dollars.... well done, Jesus." But he's happy because I guess faith is easier to swallow than responsibility. Whatever puts a smile on your face, pop. |
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An ideal God would be someone who doesn't let suffering be apart of life.
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How can there be happiness if there's no suffering? What you're asking for sounds like hell.
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I was always taught that the point of suffering was to prove your love of God, no matter what happens. |
elliott (:
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By suffering, I don't mean ooooh no my girlfriend dumped me. I need to cry.
I mean things like war, povity, disease. You're saying that if there's no suffereing how would you know what happiness is? well, you'd still know what suffering and pain are, just on your own personal level. |
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What is war but a conflict between differing parties? How is that different from the ending of a relationship? One is more likely to have a bloody outcome then the other but they're still cause by the same things, war tends to be a bit more complex but that's because you're dealing with states as opposed to individuals. Still difficult relations and war are both caused by a lack of empathy and understanding. The same can be said of poverty. As far as disease goes...I'm not going to get into it but from a technical aspect you're asking for a perfectly sterile world which is impossible.
It seems absurd to be you consider yourself an atheist and your problem with god is the fact that suffering exists. You're basically rejecting god on the grounds that the world given to you is imperfect; which is never really denied. Most religion acknowledges human folly, Christianity in particular talks about humanity haven fallen. The worlds imperfections are explicable in holy texts and obviously inherent in the observable world. As I said, your position strikes me as absurd. |
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Cancer causes pain and death. two very essential components of pleasure and life. I don't know why God created cancer. Why did he create hangnails for that matter? |
You're kind of defeating your own argument by acknowledging war and relationships have similar causes you know. To treat it like one can exist in your ideal world and the other can't, despite having the same/similar causes is to create an inconsistent world where there's no real structure other then arbitrary lines in the sand.
I also don't understand how you can argue that individual suffering is acceptable but mass suffering is unacceptable. Why? Because people die in a war? Again this goes back to the cause - it has to deal with men with too much power and an ego complex conflicting with men of a similar nature. Or forcing themselves on no men at all but a loose array of people. It's all Hobbesian brutality though, even if it's one individual deciding they don't love another individual as opposed to entire states. It's unpleasant but when you throw more people into the conflict you're upping the stakes that much. I honestly don't understand how you can treat it one as objectively bad all the time and one as an acceptable life lesson. Besides, who's to say war doesn't touch anyone anything? Also, again, I think you're showing your own biblical ignorance here. Sickness and so on comes from man's falling and estrangement from god. The cure for cancer is divinity, even if it's not of this world (not including when that divinity becomes of this world in the form of Jesus) and it's remaining devout during that trial that leads to that divinity (see the story of Job which argues against most of your objections.) It's the lesson learned in the suffering that makes that divinity worthwhile. If faith was never tried there would be no real conviction there, only a hollow sort of acceptance. |
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Not why did God create pain, not why did he create suffering, not why did he create painful deaths, not why did he create violence.. But WHY did he create hangnails?! :laughing: When I read "Why did he.." I expected to read something really profound and inciteful |
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But we know we don't like it and many of us truly never get past that. We ask god "why?!?!?" There's pain to give contrast to joy and so we can internalize and grow through the lessons that rough periods in our life provide us with. Who hasn't gone through a traumatic experience and wound up a wiser more mature person as a result. It's true, as George s. Patton said "what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger" |
If a masochist likes pain then is it really pain or is it bliss? In which case is bliss to them, or at least the estrangement from pain, pain in itself? In which case doesn't this all still apply to them just in opposite terms? DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD: ??
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Now it makes sense to me.
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Let me rephrase the question of this thread because it has become another atheist vs. Christianity thread. What I am asking is can we create a god for ourselves that will actually motivate use to pursue our happiness without getting in the way. An undesirable god is one that creates a justice system for us because that undermines our control over our own destiny.
Religion in the past has viewed their gods as the masters of the universe who control their lives. What if we could create a divine being in which we are the master of it or share the status of being a master with it? Of course, the one option is ourselves being gods, which we really are to a degree if you believe in free will. However, we don't have the divinity that "gods" have. So what kind of belief in a divine being would be able to sit out of our lives, but at the same time give us motivation to pursue happiness? My idea is that instead of a religion creating us we create a religion for us that will actually benefit ourselves as individuals. |
I would just like a god that gives me awesome, godly foot massages at the end of every day.
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Zeus was created from a lack of understanding, and lightning. Quote:
And Why would anyone but an atheist go about creating gods? |
the perfect god is making the game-winning shot with two seconds left on the clock,
the perfect god is kissing your best gal on the boardwalk while watching a sunset, the perfect god is a corner office at an advertising firm on michigan avenue. |
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I never implied that any sort of divine or spiritual exists. I am merely saying that if there is a positive aspect to believing in the divine and spiritual, how can we keep this while at the same time getting rid of the idea that god is more powerful than you and etc. Because really, what if there is a positive to believing in a divine power? We don't just believe things because we think they are true, at least that isn't how I work. I personally take stances on things based on how I will benefit in the end aka what will lead me to happiness. So what if believing in the divine is part of achieving happiness? Then there must be some way to contain the belief in the divine without believing in divinity that they hinder our ability to exist ourselves or there is some divine punishment for choosing to live. Basically, I ave already stated why Christianity is not the religion that is acceptable to this idea. Christianity states that there is a god above man that can interrupt man whenever he wants. It also say that you should believe in a morality based on the reason that the morality exists in a sacred text. That belief alone undermines the human. See, I am not thinking about religion as it is traditionally thought out. Traditionally, God is the master and we are the slave. What I am saying is can we use the idea of god to make god our slave. What I mean is can we benefit at all in believing in a divine power that is limited to the extent where man becomes equal to it? Would it be cutting to the chase to view Man himself as the god of the universe? |
Suffering gives us the inspiration to overcome obstacles, create great works of art and come up with groundbreaking ideas.
If there was no pain or errors in the world, it would be a very boring and useless place. |
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I'm speaking from a Judeo-Christian perspective simply because, as big3 previously reminded us most of our cultural upbringing has been in the "anglosphere" where our religious conditioning, theist or atheist, has been largely of the Christian paradigm. If we truly believe God to be perfect and holy then we cannot ascribe qualities to "him" that we have already been lead to believe are "sin" such as wrath. we are culturally conditioned to believe in a God that has negative qualities that aren't inherently "his", but rather qualities we've ascribed to "him". If you at any point in time see yourself as a slave to God, then you are really a slave to a religion's influence on your perception of God. |
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If God became our slave, why isn't he a cow, or an insect, and why would we care?
I'm just not seeing your point in why we would create a fantasy world where we were the masters. Either buy a subscription for an MMO or get into bondage. |
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We learn from our mistakes, and overcoming pain and suffering makes us who we are today, and as boo said, out of great pain comes great works of art and groundbreaking ideas. |
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Edit: So back on topic, I wish I could remember the name of it but theres a theory out there, with science behind it that says God is all knowing and all present because when the universe collapses on itself, all the thought in the universe, which has the same general capacity as energy (neither created nor destroyed) will be brought together and energized with the friction and heat from the universe collapsing on itself. From this, I always operate as if God is a collective of those who've come before. You'll really need to explore the theory though because its predicated on humans being able to take their concious mind into the mechanical body. Aagin, thoughts are the safe as software, blah blah blah. |
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