Personal "God" and self-representation

by Narkissos 50 Replies latest jw friends

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  Carmel

  My personal take is that our understanding of the Creator has evolved through time from a mythical super man to an abstract entity with human ideas, and finally to what is referred to as an "unknowable essence". Human social, cultural and political evolution is promulgated by the subtle philosophical shift from age to age. As we "mature" our awareness of the deity as a "personal" God receeds further and further into oblivian. Concomitant to that is the awareness of the similarity of other culture's and religions commonality, albeit, they are described differently and manifest or reflect different biases. Ultimately we are brought to the conclusion that we are all one human family with much more in common than ever iterated by our past narrowmindedness. Our values are amazingly similar, inspite of our diversity.

  We not only can tolerate diversity, we can celebrate it, be it color of skin, language, customs or cosmology.

  Indeed, leaving the UU cave advances the awareness of our unity in diversity.

  carmel
• 

  frankiespeakin

  I think I can explain not very well this.

  But I will try, dropping the personal always hard to please God was a relief for me although it produced some problems. I no longer need a vengefull god to punish me before I do good, I do it because I want to. I think if everything is "one" with no second then we all are god even the chair I'm sitting on is god. I think everything that exist in this dimension is needed just the same or equally,, and it is all human concepts anyway,, everything we see in the world is just concepts of the 5 senses and with the help of tools in phsysics we can see alittle more but still only concepts and not the thing apart from the concepts. So perhaps we can say everything is sacred because everything is the same thing and that thing must be sacred because only it exists even though it is all things.
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  JAVA

  The Western philosopher Descartes, mostly remember today as the "I think, therefore I am" guy was greatly interested in reconstruction of knowledge. If one is able, for example, to remove all that we believe and start over, where would it take us?

  Removing ourselves from monotheism or theism altogether does not in itself destroy the god or gods, for "if they think, they are." But if one removes the belief of theism, it is genuinely possible to articulate unity and diversity without the constraints of my god is better than your god.

  I think the less invested one is in a belief constructed by others, the more able one is to be diverse. That doesn't mean a person will be diverse, and seek greater unity, but group theism doesn't have a great track record either. Having a personal belief (which is my myth) has helped me to except others without the filters I had before.

  "Speak not concerning designs of the gods and buddhas." -- Zen monk Ryokan (1758-1813)
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  Carmel

  JAVA, hope you meant accept others...

  carmel
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  JAVA

  Words, damn words!
  
  Yep Carmel, that's what I meant, but not what I typed. As usual, I'm ALWAYS my worst editor, and spell check didn't pull me out of that hole, or is it whole? :-)
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  Golf
• 

  Golf

  I have already commented about my believing a Creator since childhood. I didn't have to be influenced by any human or organization. This belief has remained to this day. There is no mystery and doubts about it.
  
  
  Golf
• 

  JamesThomas

  "...if one removes the belief of theism, it is genuinely possible to articulate unity and diversity without the constraints of my god is better than your god...I think the less invested one is in a belief constructed by others, the more able one is to be diverse."
  
  Java, I have found that when beliefs and conceptual interpretations (not just beliefs in a god, but all beliefs especially those concerning who I am) are absent, a sense of unity and oneness is more readily apparent. In other words: the less there is of me, the more there is of God.
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  Abaddon

  if you don't believe in a personal God anymore, (how) did this affect your personal self-representation? Are you, for instance, more tolerant of your (and others') own diversity and contradictions?

  Now that you mention it, yeah.

  Although I can rant away at times, and have an embaressing lack of tolerance to lack of tolerance... yeah, and, so what?

  I know I am fundametally a decent human being for all my faults and contradictions, and firmly believe that aside from those who harm, incite the harm of, or condemn innocent people (I know what Im ean by 'harm', the semantics isn't relevent to this question), everyone else is a decent human being despite their faults, even if their opinions are diametrically removed from mine.

  I used to, a long time ago as a JW, put people in boxes. You know, he did that so he goes in that box. Now whilst people with similar beliefs will behave in similar ways (so you make a similar but less clearly defined catagorisation), it doesn't mean they go in a box.

  Of course, there are still boxes. I saw an extraordinary program yesterday, where torturers ( A Frenchman who had torutred in Algiers, an Israeli security agent, a Latin-American murderer and torturer, and yet more... ) spoke about what they did, why, and how they felt about it. Yes, there's a box for them.

  But in the vast variation of human opinion, I don't judge people in that summative, arbitary fashion.

  At the moment my 'thing' is going around giggling to myself at how funny humans are. We try so desperately hard to pretend we are not animals. We should get over it.
• 

  SixofNine

  We try so desperately hard to pretend we are not animals. We should get over it.

  Indeed. I like to call us "comparison monkeys". Narkissos, for instance, would be known as a "cheese eating comparison monkey" Although I think with quotes like this:

  inasmuch as meaning comes from difference between signifiers, if "all is sacred" nothing is "sacred" anymore

  ...he should perhaps be known as "the king of the comparison monkeys.