Just for us believers (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, February 06, 2012, 23:10 (4652 days ago) @ dhw

MATT: I cannot have empathy and sympathy for something so distant, abstract, and so completely different from my own existence. [...] God does not need empathy or sympathy from me. [...] I am incapable of discerning what is coming from me and what is coming from God. Because I cannot make that distinction, I cannot, therefore, conclude that God exists.
> 
> I'm looking forward to Julia's response, as Matt has brilliantly summed up a feeling which I'm sure many of us have. I would only add that the world as I see it is so filled with beauty and ugliness, kindness and cruelty, wealth and poverty, altruism and egotism, love and hate that I cannot find any reason to suppose that it works along lines other than those that we create for ourselves or that impersonal Nature creates for us. A relationship with God can only be a relationship with what we imagine God to be, and the world we live in suggests to me that God may himself be a mixture, may be indifferent, may be absent, or may be non-existent. 
> -There's a deterministic element you're treading upon here, subconsciously perhaps: It has often been said that "God has a plan for everything and everyone" and it has always struck me funny, this observation:-What if its God's plan that I am to be an unbeliever? If God hardened Pharoah's heart, who's to say that the role of unbelievers is determined fully by God to test the faithful? (ie, I've been sent here as a satan.) -I say this, because at this point, my convictions on many of these topics are quite firm. (Or, as David might say, infirm, as a fence sitter could "wobble" either way.) --
> Matt: [Buddhism] defers unanswerable questions [...] and focuses on developing yourself and your capacity to love.
> 
> I think the focus on love is what you, Julia and I may have in common, but it raises the whole question, not of God needing love from us but of whether we need his (imagined?) love. Your experiences and mine, Matt, suggest that we don't, but it's clear from Julia's website and posts that for her, God's (imagined?) love is inspirational. It will be fascinating to see what she makes of all this, although I'm sure neither of us would wish to question the reality or the admirableness of the effects created by her faith-I've never been able to understand inspiration of this sort... it is a welcome addition, I think, to have such a person here with us. While I don't understand, I hope if she reads this that she realizes that I too, don't mean to try and trample underfoot what has clearly inspired her.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"