The Biggest Wild Goose Chase In History.

by Blueblades 14 Replies latest jw friends

  • Blueblades
    Blueblades

    A.N. Wilson, author of Jesus: A Life. Called The Quest For God The Biggest Wild Goose Chase In History. From Karen Armstrong's book: A History Of God.

    What do you think? Is the quest for God the biggest wild goose chase in history, or, is it just one of many other wild goose chases in history.

    If you found God then there is no wild goose chase, because your quest is completed.

    If you have not found God, have you stopped chasing? Are you still chasing? And is A.N. Wilson right? That the quest for God is the biggest wild goose chase man has ever chased?

    I am no longer chasing something that I can't chase.

    Blueblades

  • John Doe
    John Doe
    I am no longer chasing something that I can't chase.

    Poor choice of words?

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    I am there with you. I can't chase anymore. I look at massive churches in
    my drives and think, "How do they fill the seats?" The calander is sprinkled
    with holidays based on the chase.

    Society goes through trends of scoffing at the Bible and religion versus trends
    of appreciating spiritual values. Currently, the Bible is okay to dissect, but
    spirituality apart from religion is not okay to attack. I can live with that.

    There may be an internal harmony to the galaxy or universe separate from
    a doctrinal belief. There may be karma within the physical universe. I can
    do good and contribute to that harmony and have some positive karma
    apart from beliefs. That means that on Christmas, I can share in the hopes
    for peace on earth, and on St. Patrick's Day, I can wear green. But I cannot
    be forced to chase doctrinal truth. There is no proof that a standard is
    accurate or that God has shown people the way.

  • Bring_the_Light
    Bring_the_Light

    Still looking, but it gets a lot easier once you know for sure it isn't a matter of a big a-hole judging your worth based on whether or not you believe extremely implausible things and will kill you if you don't believe extremely implausible things. Once you get over that crap, chasing God is a pleasure IMHO.

    Seriously. Take JW perspective.

    1. God loves you if you believe extremely implausible things and live accordingly.

    2. Your work for god is to tell others about the extremely implausible things. If they believe the extremely implausible things they are good, if they do not, they are bad. Why they can't seem to understand that EVERYBODY would do what god wants if he were to just ask in a plausible manner is really beyond me. This notion that failing to believe extremely implausible things makes you bad is something I could never understand. I never understood why knowing "the truth" would be anything but a comfort (not a requirement). Even if it were true, what sense does it make to judge people based on their gullability?

    The meaning of life is to just "know" the truth which is made very difficult by the fact it is extremely implausible. Really really good people are those who can suck it up against all reason, evidence or observation and believe what others don't. <--- Take comfort in my goid news folks, 100% certainty, this ain't how "it is".

    Bring_the_Light

  • VoidEater
    VoidEater

    Once found, it's easier to move on to more pragmatic quests...

    It seems to me the search for truth doesn't necessarily make the world a better place - though once found, you can focus your energies on things like making the world a better place (in whatever way you can).

  • Blueblades
    Blueblades

    One of the biggest wild goose chases is still going on for those who are still Jehovah's Witnesses. Chasing the "CARROT" is a wild goose chase that one will never catch.

    I chased it for 33 years.

    How many years did you chase the "CARROT"?

    The Carrot is what the Watchtower keeps inserting in their articles, "Everlasting Life On A Paradise Earth".

    Blueblades

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    I believe that mankind's search for God is nothing more than a whopper of a wild goose chase. Mankind is never going to find a God that is all three of (1) omnipotent, (2) omniscient, and most importantly (3) maximally benevolent. They invent one so they can use religion to control the masses, and then another religion does the same with slightly different rules.

    Along with that, the witlesses are involved in the longest wild goose chase of them all. They are wasting their lives distributing wastes of paper and washtowels/asleeps to people and studying them with others. Ultimately, they are trying to get into some new order, which is more like the New Dark Ages. That, to me, is the ultimate wild goose chase.

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    The way I see it,,somewhere down in our evolutionary past our brains got bigger the reasons for this is up for grabs one reason could have been big heads where sexy so the the big headed one amoung our anciestors got all the attention sexually with more big headed babies resulting,,, sorta like the silverback gorrilla get all the babes or something> bigger headed made sharper tools and so survived longer and had more kids because he was a good provider and had lots of babes wanting a piece of his action. the list can go on and on.

    Anyway as our heads got bigger we started making tool and useing our frontal lobes more and more,, learning by comparisons making sense of the world through reasoning,, then came the ability to make fire on demand,,, wheels came tumbling along probably after that,, gradually people started telling stories as the tools they made,, gave them the advantage to do so,, they learned to plant seed,, and inventions and understandings continued to grow as the years past and here we are today with an ever expanding world view that is very hard to keep up with.

    So somewhere back in time we developed all sorts of ideas about some maker of tools, like us,,humans,, this imaginary maker of tools could be the ultimate supreme one or he/she may be just one of a pantheon of tool makers or gods,,,all based on our limited framework and reasoning ability. We gave these gods human qualities,, some where mean,,, some benevolent and they helped us make sense of the mysterious, and so mythology about the world,, we still use mythology even in science today as in the electron circling the nucleous of an atom composed of protons and neutrons, there is no such thing it is all Imaginary but we still use that bit of mythology because it works for us in our understanding of the world the same as our ancestors used thiers.

    Many today have all kinds mythology about god or gods and of course there is no concrete proof they exist. Many find it no problem in the lack of proof,, they just beleive it has worked for them so far so why mess with it. Others see that there is no proof and wonder about a first cause based on the logic that is deeply ingrained, from the observable and ancient past that,,, tools have a maker so perhaps there should be a make but what the hell he looks like or thinks like is not discernable,, does he think like the sun or moon or does he think and feel like a galaxy,, or does he think and feel love like a human(anthopomorphize).

    And some wonder not about a god but an indiferrent force and some like to call that god.

    Anyway that's my rendition of the wild goose chase,, I feel no need to beleive in a god because I have no valid concept that I can think of,, even though I might use the mythological term god,, what I mean by that term is anybodies guess even mine.

  • quietlyleaving
    quietlyleaving

    Frankie, here is an interesting article about neanderthal man. I wonder what influence they had on our concepts of god

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1028929/Neandertool-Man--British-dig-finds-dozy-apemen-like-think.html

    (couldn't cut and paste the article)

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    I take a more shamanistic aproach to the question of catching the wild goose god. Both worlds or 3 worlds the lower, middle, and upper are all an illusion they are all in your mind just the same way as the color red is an illusion in our minds there is no color red "out there" but as far as we can tell it is energy radiating at a certain frequency,,somewhere out there we "assume" according to our lying senses,,which mythology we have come to except as gospel truth,, but is not.

    So my view of god is just that,,, another illusion,, my view changes all the time, based on how my mind processes the term and who I'm addressing,, and what state I'm in alter or regular state of conscieousness. All three worlds are an illusion and if I can grab a sirit animal while in the lower world I will,, if it gives me or someone else power,,, be it all an illusion,, I don't concern myself,, as long as the effects are good,,, what do I care?,, I'm comfortable with this way of looking at things and how to be force for good or healing.

    I don't need to put faith in any super Diety, although I know a shamaness that uses Micheal the arch angel and told me to call on him for protection, and so I do, do I beleave that Micheal will protect me yes I do,, do I beleive he really exist all I say is what the hell is meant by "really exist" if everything is a mind interpetation or an illusion. Thoughts are real but still just movements of energy in the mind I'm conscoius but at what level of conscoiusness do I know all that goes on around me??How much does my world view effect what I experience in the world or able to experience in the world?

    So for me to absolute faith in a deities existence thier has to be a benifit, if I find it can heal or effect good I will but so far that has never happened.

    We all know about the placebo effect beleif has.

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