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Reading the last few exchanges, I find myself wondering about one contemporary usage in some Christian churches. Among many groups over here, the Deity is addressed as "Mother-Father God". Is this to be read as covertly anti-semitic? It doesn't raise my paranoid, post-Holocaust hackles and this is the first time I have ever considered it.
And, of course, there is the fact that Jesus is reported as telling his followers to call God a 'Father'. Not very mainstream in Judaism, whether Second Temple or rabbinical.
What battle? I am fighting no battles. I don't believe in God...end of story.
What experience is being lost? I experience the universe every day of my life, and don't see a need for a God or Gods.
I see a need, but not necessarily for myself.
Belief can help some people to cope with the immensity of life.
I mean.. don't you think it's quite shocking?
To be something out of nothing?
To be "thrown" (hats off to Heidegger) into this world with an infinite background of causality behind our existence and every thought?
So, the creative mind creates.
A God.
Yar, I'm an atheist.
Not sure if I always have been.
But, to stretch words a little, I'm an agnostic atheist.
I'd like to think I'm more understanding of people who have religions, and believe in God(s), but there are times.. rawr. lol
Anyway, I was saying that people - some - find the idea of God useful. Makes them feel they're not alone.
Ach, but I'm a monist too.
I'm alone, and yet.. not alone.
Wouldn't feel too confident of considering myself Buddhist. Yet.
I'm still admiring it shyly from afar.
And, of course, there is the fact that Jesus is reported as telling his followers to call God a 'Father'. Not very mainstream in Judaism, whether Second Temple or rabbinical.
Might that be because of the male bias of the time. "Man gives the seed that brings forth life."
In actuality, the man spreads the pollen to the woman that bares the seed and brings forth the fruit.
Reading the last few exchanges, I find myself wondering about one contemporary usage in some Christian churches. Among many groups over here, the Deity is addressed as "Mother-Father God". Is this to be read as covertly anti-semitic? It doesn't raise my paranoid, post-Holocaust hackles and this is the first time I have ever considered it.
And, of course, there is the fact that Jesus is reported as telling his followers to call God a 'Father'. Not very mainstream in Judaism, whether Second Temple or rabbinical.
Hence the move in Liberal Quaker Meetings to use the words Love, Light or Spirit, instead of God ........ being less masculine and embracing the non-gender specific nature of the Infinite.
Hence the move in Liberal Quaker Meetings to use the words Love, Light or Spirit, instead of God ........ being less masculine and embracing the non-gender specific nature of the Infinite.
Part of my point - and which I address elsewhere, but when will I finish? - is that, by calling the Deity "Father", Jesus was already taking a step away from "Yahwism". The way in which the theologians (and, after them the churches) have tried to conflate Yahweh and The Father has flawed the message right at the start.
I also believe that we are in a time where a new name will emerge, be it Love, Light, Spirit or something as shocking as "Father" (to Jesus' contemporaries), to serve us for another few generations.
Part of my point - and which I address elsewhere, but when will I finish? - is that, by calling the Deity "Father", Jesus was already taking a step away from "Yahwism". The way in which the theologians (and, after them the churches) have tried to conflate Yahweh and The Father has flawed the message right at the start.
I also believe that we are in a time where a new name will emerge, be it Love, Light, Spirit or something as shocking as "Father" (to Jesus' contemporaries), to serve us for another few generations.
Finish when you are finished Simon.
It may be that in those times 2000 years ago, the Mother had very little independent power. She was from birth to death in the thrall of a man. If a woman were widowed her brother in law was bound by the Torah to take her and her children into his household and treat her as a wife.
To use the word "Mother", Jesus would have been assigning to God a role of subservience and powerlessness. I think his use of the word "Abu" was to bring his followers to think of the Infinite as a closer relationship - not the distant, condemnatory, "jealous God" of the Old Testament but a family member, a loving protector and provider.
I agree, Knitwitch, and I wonder what designation would best describe the vision of the "?" today. My own, till this very moment in private use, is "Friend".
This is, approximately, the content of my version of the Lord's Prayer - the words are only poor reflections of practising to live the prayer:
Dear Friend,
who lives in my heart,
open my eyes to our joint inheritance, this world,
and to live in harmony with all that is.
May we go forward in agreement together.
Show me that I have enough for my needs.
Help my wounds to heal
and help me to heal those I have wounded.
Be with me through the traps
and give me strength in times of trial.
Parents can be neglectful or cruel but friends stay friends because you love each other. If you stop loving each other, they stop being friends but parents stay parents no matter how badly they behave.
(Personal issues? Moi?)
I thing Eternal Friend would be about the size of it.
And I love the prayer. My mantra "May I walk in the Light all the days of my life" about sums it up too.
Parents can be neglectful or cruel but friends stay friends because you love each other. If you stop loving each other, they stop being friends but parents stay parents no matter how badly they behave.
(Personal issues? Moi?)
I thing Eternal Friend would be about the size of it.
And I love the prayer. My mantra "May I walk in the Light all the days of my life" about sums it up too.
I agree. (:
That's why I love my friends who've stuck with me.
I know I'm very annoying.
We are all, in the end coloured by our environments, if not products of them.
A man is leaving a pub in Northern Ireland... on passing a dark alley he is grabbed suddenly by unseen hands and pulled into the alley.
A voice from the dark says "Are ya Catholic or Protestant"?
The man wishing to avoid a fight at all costs says "I'm an Atheist"!
To which the voice replys "Aye... but are ya a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist"! :-/
You are quite right, Les, about environment, background, culture and heritage: our context. That's precisely why it is crucial to know if one is a Catholic atheist or a Protestant one. They are not the same!
For thousands of years, people have worshiped thousands of different gods at the same time. Over time, that number has decreased to just one. I might suspect that we are growing increasingly closer to coming to the exact, true number.
I quibble with your statement to the extent that there are probably a billion Hindus who are not (in my humble opinion) approaching the correct number of gods.
I found the original post in this thread to be outrageously insulting. Tell me, Grasshopper, when did you stop beating your wife? I think the same person also said that there is something beyond logic. How? Logic is like you. Wherever you go . . . there it is.
God is a fantasy. It's an unnecessary add-on. God belief is tits on a boar. God plus your breath is 2 things and you only need one.
There can exist no atheist without at least one believing in god. Atheist act as if they are free from a god created universe but they are not free at all.
In fact they are just one of the poles on the same magnet. Equidistant from a god that resides in the center.
To be free from god is to be free from aetheism.
To utter a single discourse against a god made universe is to be placed on the magnet and be linked to god again.
There is an experience of this human life beyond aetheism and god one more pure and original untainted by all of man's discourse.
Can you attain it ?
How far is an athiest from god ?
NOT VERY FAR. :winkc:
Good Day ...
The words "athiest" and "God" are often misunderstood and rarely used by people who realize its implications. Or, perhaps the words themselves have lost their meaning due to overuse by too great a variety of perspectives. A word at its best only points in the general direction of the truth.
There can exist no atheist without at least one believing in god. Atheist act as if they are free from a god created universe but they are not free at all.
In fact they are just one of the poles on the same magnet. Equidistant from a god that resides in the center.
To be free from god is to be free from aetheism.
To utter a single discourse against a god made universe is to be placed on the magnet and be linked to god again.
There is an experience of this human life beyond aetheism and god one more pure and original untainted by all of man's discourse.
Can you attain it ?
How far is an athiest from god ?
NOT VERY FAR. :winkc:
Good Day ...
Who is this god fellow and how is he relevant ?
Everytime ive been approached by someone wanting to tell me about god i ask them the same question.
I suspect you are right ... not very far. Let me share a story:
I was at a party, standing with a group of people. A man standing beside me had already stated that he was an atheist, and that there was no life after death. A Christian woman, responded by saying he was wrong, and sharing what she believed happened after death ... upon which the man leaned toward me and said, "Won't she be surprised after she dies!"
Uh huh. Even when we don't believe, we want to believe.
There can exist no atheist without at least one believing in god. Atheist act as if they are free from a god created universe but they are not free at all.
In fact they are just one of the poles on the same magnet. Equidistant from a god that resides in the center.
To be free from god is to be free from aetheism.
To utter a single discourse against a god made universe is to be placed on the magnet and be linked to god again.
There is an experience of this human life beyond aetheism and god one more pure and original untainted by all of man's discourse.
Can you attain it ?
How far is an athiest from god ?
NOT VERY FAR. :winkc:
Good Day ...
An atheist is not very from god, and also not very close. An atheist could be an element that resides outside of a 'God' sphere.
Atheist ,although they say they don't believe in God, they speak of IT more times than Christians do, but they don't put the god concept to their heart, meaning that they have other things far more important than thinking about god.
God doesn't reside in the center, nor at the sides .
To be free from God is to be free in all aspects. To be free from God, means that you broke your slave mentality(don't mean to offense Christians here...if you want to know why I've written this, come to the Romania thread in G.B., and give me a sign before that ) and chose to live without worries.
God, as a person did not create the universe. The universe constantly self-constructs and self-destructs. And this process has been happening for a looooong looong time.
God is a concept that nobody could understand. IT is and IT isn't at the same time. IT is matter and IT is void at the same time. I guess ITS name is Paradox.
Comments
And, of course, there is the fact that Jesus is reported as telling his followers to call God a 'Father'. Not very mainstream in Judaism, whether Second Temple or rabbinical.
I see a need, but not necessarily for myself.
Belief can help some people to cope with the immensity of life.
I mean.. don't you think it's quite shocking?
To be something out of nothing?
To be "thrown" (hats off to Heidegger) into this world with an infinite background of causality behind our existence and every thought?
So, the creative mind creates.
A God.
Yar, I'm an atheist.
Not sure if I always have been.
But, to stretch words a little, I'm an agnostic atheist.
I'd like to think I'm more understanding of people who have religions, and believe in God(s), but there are times.. rawr. lol
Anyway, I was saying that people - some - find the idea of God useful. Makes them feel they're not alone.
Ach, but I'm a monist too.
I'm alone, and yet.. not alone.
Wouldn't feel too confident of considering myself Buddhist. Yet.
I'm still admiring it shyly from afar.
In actuality, the man spreads the pollen to the woman that bares the seed and brings forth the fruit.
How far are you from your breath?
Hence the move in Liberal Quaker Meetings to use the words Love, Light or Spirit, instead of God ........ being less masculine and embracing the non-gender specific nature of the Infinite.
Part of my point - and which I address elsewhere, but when will I finish? - is that, by calling the Deity "Father", Jesus was already taking a step away from "Yahwism". The way in which the theologians (and, after them the churches) have tried to conflate Yahweh and The Father has flawed the message right at the start.
I also believe that we are in a time where a new name will emerge, be it Love, Light, Spirit or something as shocking as "Father" (to Jesus' contemporaries), to serve us for another few generations.
Finish when you are finished Simon.
It may be that in those times 2000 years ago, the Mother had very little independent power. She was from birth to death in the thrall of a man. If a woman were widowed her brother in law was bound by the Torah to take her and her children into his household and treat her as a wife.
To use the word "Mother", Jesus would have been assigning to God a role of subservience and powerlessness. I think his use of the word "Abu" was to bring his followers to think of the Infinite as a closer relationship - not the distant, condemnatory, "jealous God" of the Old Testament but a family member, a loving protector and provider.
My six penn'orth
This is, approximately, the content of my version of the Lord's Prayer - the words are only poor reflections of practising to live the prayer:
Dear Friend,
who lives in my heart,
open my eyes to our joint inheritance, this world,
and to live in harmony with all that is.
May we go forward in agreement together.
Show me that I have enough for my needs.
Help my wounds to heal
and help me to heal those I have wounded.
Be with me through the traps
and give me strength in times of trial.
Parents can be neglectful or cruel but friends stay friends because you love each other. If you stop loving each other, they stop being friends but parents stay parents no matter how badly they behave.
(Personal issues? Moi?)
I thing Eternal Friend would be about the size of it.
And I love the prayer. My mantra "May I walk in the Light all the days of my life" about sums it up too.
I agree. (:
That's why I love my friends who've stuck with me.
I know I'm very annoying.
A man is leaving a pub in Northern Ireland... on passing a dark alley he is grabbed suddenly by unseen hands and pulled into the alley.
A voice from the dark says "Are ya Catholic or Protestant"?
The man wishing to avoid a fight at all costs says "I'm an Atheist"!
To which the voice replys "Aye... but are ya a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist"! :-/
You are quite right, Les, about environment, background, culture and heritage: our context. That's precisely why it is crucial to know if one is a Catholic atheist or a Protestant one. They are not the same!
I quibble with your statement to the extent that there are probably a billion Hindus who are not (in my humble opinion) approaching the correct number of gods.
I found the original post in this thread to be outrageously insulting. Tell me, Grasshopper, when did you stop beating your wife? I think the same person also said that there is something beyond logic. How? Logic is like you. Wherever you go . . . there it is.
God is a fantasy. It's an unnecessary add-on. God belief is tits on a boar. God plus your breath is 2 things and you only need one.
The words "athiest" and "God" are often misunderstood and rarely used by people who realize its implications. Or, perhaps the words themselves have lost their meaning due to overuse by too great a variety of perspectives. A word at its best only points in the general direction of the truth.
Who is this god fellow and how is he relevant ?
Everytime ive been approached by someone wanting to tell me about god i ask them the same question.
It actually refers to the impersonal Law of cause and effect / matrix of co-depentence origination
Namaste
I suspect you are right ... not very far. Let me share a story:
I was at a party, standing with a group of people. A man standing beside me had already stated that he was an atheist, and that there was no life after death. A Christian woman, responded by saying he was wrong, and sharing what she believed happened after death ... upon which the man leaned toward me and said, "Won't she be surprised after she dies!"
Uh huh. Even when we don't believe, we want to believe.
An atheist is not very from god, and also not very close. An atheist could be an element that resides outside of a 'God' sphere.
Atheist ,although they say they don't believe in God, they speak of IT more times than Christians do, but they don't put the god concept to their heart, meaning that they have other things far more important than thinking about god.
God doesn't reside in the center, nor at the sides
To be free from God is to be free in all aspects. To be free from God, means that you broke your slave mentality(don't mean to offense Christians here...if you want to know why I've written this, come to the Romania thread in G.B., and give me a sign before that
God, as a person did not create the universe. The universe constantly self-constructs and self-destructs. And this process has been happening for a looooong looong time.
God is a concept that nobody could understand. IT is and IT isn't at the same time. IT is matter and IT is void at the same time. I guess ITS name is Paradox.
MY ANSWER: As far as he chooses to be.