Thanks for these unfamiliar perspectives. I agree with you that conversion has nothing at all to do with "joining a cause or a party". So many do seem to understand it that way, though!

A black hole like all the others. Remember though that the word maya (illusion) comes from an older word which meant "wisdom".

Enigmatic! ;)

Don't get me wrong, I don't know what everyone should do, but neither did they -- my major point of disagreement though is "throw away the raft?" I bet you were entirely empty inside.

I don't think "throw away the raft" is a Christian notion; more Buddhist. Perhaps the Christian would say "allow the raft to be supercharged".

Probably why Christianity was massively more successful, but everyone is human, everyone needs wants, hurts, and is corruptible. It's always about control, I'm no different. This place has become super interesting with all of the attention. I could, and maybe I am subtly inserting my own agenda. Maybe the Buddhists are right, maybe it's the Christians, maybe I'm a clever psychopath. I'm not nearly as interesting as you are, never forget that.

I don't know quite what to make of what you say here, Wosret. Are you "speaking in parables to the blind"?

Lol, you know, Diogenes used to like to walk around Athens during the day with a lamp, saying that he was looking for an honest man. The joke being, that they all had no idea how in the dark they were -- but to quote Roy Zimmerman, I'm not a cynic, I'm a hypocrite. Hypocrites believe in something.

X-) Good ol' Diogenes; he was an honest man; so honest, in fact, that apparently he used to masturbate in public.

Don't cynics believe their cynical thoughts? I would have thought it is the hypocrite that believes in nothing except his ability to deceive?

He only did that to upset everyone's precious sensibilities.

I meant belief more in the sense of hope, and acting with respect to that. Of course everyone believes things... way too many things...

True that! But tbh, I don't see anything much wrong with hope; provided you can justify it to yourself without self-deception.

It is thought 'māyā' is actually from a Sanskrit root mā meaning 'to measure' (although that is not definitely established.

"Maya (IAST: māyā), literally "illusion" or "magic",[1][2] has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In ancient Vedic literature, Māyā literally implies extraordinary power and wisdom" - wiki

Not hard to find.

Right. That citation also includes the point about 'measure' that I mentioned. Same linguistic root as 'metre'.

OK here's a moment of inspiration for y'all. When Christianity says 'creation ex nihilo' it mean 'something that comes out of nothing'. And that is the very thing that is discovered through meditation. There is a deep spring of joy that comes from nothing, right in the middle of everything. That process of creation out of nothing is actually going on inside you also - that is what much of the allegorical teaching of the religions is about. It is very hard to convey, but through dedicated practice it becomes clear, as a form of joy that bubbles up from inside the depths of being itself. Out of nowhere, created from nothing. When you're attached to 'things' then you're not alive to that, as the 'things' you are attached to don't come from nowhere. Hence the advice, let go of things.

You find the same teaching in Zen as in Christian mysticism, they're all tapping into a common source, and then speaking about it in the framework of the spiritual culture in which they have been formed.

I could probably feel joy surrounded by inhumanity if I chose, but would you?

I think a lot depends on your ability to. Otherwise, where is your humanity? If you choose, because of the inhumanity of others, to become callous or indifferent, then how does that help humanity? You've actually already addressed that point, recently.

Your humanity is in sorrow, empathy, self-examination, honesty, and forgiveness. Not in feeling bliss while watching hell from the best seat in the house. If it depended on your ability, then you're a weakling.

I'm not here to trade insults, and am not sure why you are.

That was an if then statement. What would be your justification for it then, other than inability to bear it? That's why you're deluded.

You're babbling. This is a thread about 'exorcising the Christian notion of God', if you have anything useful to contribute then please do. Otherwise, you will forgive me if I don't respond.

The heretic label doesn't bother me. Everyone is someone's heretic. There are a few notable philosophers and theologians who are Death of God theologians and their takes on God are different, but Thomas Altizer best illustrates how God can both exist and cease to exist. He does so by using a Hegelian metaphysic of the Absolute's kenotic self-limitation whereby God creates the world (self-limitation one) in order to fully enter into it (self-limitation two) in the Incarnation. So, Altizer's reading of the Incarnation is atheistic in the sense that the transcendent God is now fully a part of history in the Holy Spirit. It's akin to a Hegelian reading of modalism in the early church.

I love Tillich, though I need to read more. Most of the thinkers I was inspired by here when I wrote this post are deeply influenced by him. I like his notion of God as the Ground of Being. I have come a ways since this discussion and no longer hold to either kataphatic theology or apophatic theology, though I am partial towards the latter. I simply don't know what I think God is. These thoughts were my exorcising the Calvinist version of deity I came to believe in for some time and have had to shake. Radical Theology has given me a new home to think as a Christian.

I found out about Tillich mainly through the Internet, although since have read more of him. I feel he's a kindred spirit. And, if you don't know what God is, then you know more than those who think they do. ;-)

We're just creatures. Inherently, and when we are wronged, or we see others wronged, part of us wishes to pay back that suffering and pain a thousand fold -- but those that hurt us are just people, that themselves were hurt, and now fear monsters. There are no monsters though, just people. — Wosret

I don't know about that. Some people hurt others because they like it, or they want power and money, or their ideological belief requires it. Not everyone feels empathy, or cares about consequences.

Eternal hell doesn't square with a perfectly good God.

The Calvinists make a good point about free will. How can God be sovereign and not in control of where people end up for eternity? You can't have it both ways.

Their problem is that the then have to reconcile the perfect good with God predestining who is damned.

Eternal hell doesn't square with a perfectly good God.

The Calvinists make a good point about free will. How can God be sovereign and not in control of where people end up for eternity? You can't have it both ways.

Their problem is that the then have to reconcile the perfect good with God predestining who is damned. — Marchesk

I'm going to defend some smarter Calvinists, and not the ones like Fred Phelps. I'm going to avoid all the theological reasons the Calvinist may have (certain Bible verses can point to some type of elect) in favor of philosophical ones.

Calvinists might have a different conception of good then most people. They are probably of the divine command theory of good. They think all goodness is found, by its very nature and definition, in God. What we consider good might be very different from its actuality. Think of the allegory in the cave: the good we see is a shadow, and only through the light can we possibly understand good. Even though the Calvinist would claim to see some goodness, they would claim that the goodness is ultimately in God, of whom we cannot ultimately understand.

Also, most of them are probably some form of free will compatibilist- they think that the free will that gives us moral responsibility exists and this free will is compatible with determinism. Everything is preordained, but this preordination does not conflict with the moral responsibility necessary to send one to hell.

Even though the Calvinist would claim to see some goodness, they would claim that the goodness is ultimately in God, of whom we cannot ultimately understand. — Chany

I think the Calvinists make a better argument regarding God's sovereignty (or omni-nature), but it still has the problem of redefining the good to be a non-human concept. Which you can do, but the cost is that the meaning shifts.

God is all-good. Meaning, God is all-good in a way we don't understand. Which could easily apply to a God who loves torture, or anything at all, since we're no longer dealing with human conceptions of good.

That's not a "good" solution to the problem of evil, and it's easy to parody with an evil God.

The good needs to be understood independent of God, or else you end saying nothing of meaningful about the good. Good ends up being whatever God happens to be, which could be anything.

Like the Platonic conception of good, we can understand it in a very real sense, but there is still a lot we do not understand. We may come to understand it one day, but in our current state, we do not.

Also, as I said in the initial thread regarding the evil god concept, the skeptical theist may admit that the argument holds weight. Even then, I wonder about the parallel actually holding. I can imagine a world where there is more evil and there is the potential for hope more easily than a world with free will and less moral evil.

Figure I'll make some comments on the OP since this thread has already been resurrected.

I suppose if I had to ask a question, I would ask something about the relevance of Christianity after the death of God. — Preston

Are you familiar with Berdyaev? If not, I think you would find him to also be a kindred spirit. Given the topic of God post-death-of-God, you might start with The Divine and the Human. It's one of his last works, but he got more lucid later on, so it's not a bad start. One of his themes is that Western society is going through a necessary period of "God-forsakenness". So the "death of God" is an important step towards what he sees as a third epoch of revelation: a revelation from Man towards God.

If God is to be considered a just God, S/he cannot let evil go unpunished. If God knew of an evil event and had the capacity to stop the event, S/he would be morally obliged to stop the event. — Preston

I always think of it like this: does a good parent shield their child from all possible negative experiences in the world? No, the parent trains the child to have autonomy, and through that autonomy, the child comes to experience the negative things in life through his/her own eyes. The parent can't prevent this, only train the child for it. From there, I guess the argument would be "God could prevent those things if he's all powerful". This has always rubbed me wrong. On a not very philosophical level, I think life teaches us that pain is a gift. "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." - Kahlil Gibran. This rings true on an existential level. The idea that God should prevent tragedy is short-sighted and weak-minded. It's another anthropomorphization of God as referee. Maybe the way we treat refs in sports is a good analogy for how we treat our projection of what we think God is...and when we complain, we're usually the spectators, not the athletes...

So no, God's potency isn't limited. That's almost a mis-application of terms, or a way of looking at God from the wrong angle. God doesn't have potency at all; God is love. God's love is androgynous, or equally male and female. The potency is counter-balanced by the tenderness.

So, this notion of freedom means that God cannot be omniscient. I generally see God as wise, but not someone who knows what I will type next, nor necessarily knowledgeable of whether or not I am typing. — Preston

Again, these arguments against omniscience to me are almost pointless. Why does it matter if God knows what I'll physically do next? It's another anthropomorphization. I think the idea of "All-Knowledge" is, like you say, tied to wisdom, not some comic book superpowers. Total and complete knowledge in a mystical sense means knowledge of the participatory side of reality, not the rational abstraction of it. Divine All-Knowledge is before/after rationality (or under/over it). This ties back to Berdyaev; imagine physical reality as a calcified objectivization of spirit, and the need for God's All-Knowledge to apply to that realm is null; All-Knowledge doesn't apply to a form of reality that's only an empty husk.