dog

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

i will no longer use the word god. instead it will be dog. that word god has caused me so many problems with people.

now that i am a philosopher and not a thinker i want to explain my thoughts. i am mostly interested in the origin of matter, energy, and life.
i really dont think there is some sky daddy. i dont think there is heaven and hell. i cannot be sure.
so i believe in dog. i do not believe in supernatural bullshit. whatever other people believe is their business. just dont kill me over it.

2

turtle, the luxury and right of free will affords you the ability to address any entity as you wish. Depending on the society in which you exist, that right could be tempered depending upon your conscience.

My thought in getting to know God requires true intent. If you wish to not know of God, then it would be best to never give creedence to such of an idea. Of course it is also your right to pass continual denouncement of God. I’m not sure how it will benefit your mind, but if this is where you find comfort, then who has any legitimate claim to keep you from it?

Apparently this subject has some bearing of importance to you or you would not bring it up. Trying to find helpful answers in a forum such as this may not work. Humbleness has to fit into the framework in a relationship with God. It isn’t an admonishment of God, but something in the accordance to be willingly given of an understanding heart of a believer. God can never be anything to me except ‘God’, nothing that ever equates to ‘dog’.

There now, no one was killed in this response.

3

liteninbolt thank you for your good post. i have learned many things on this forum already.
i have expressed my thinking about the nature of things. i am not asking anyone to accept my dog.
you have expressed your religious beliefs. have you implied that humble and understanding only come from belief in god. did sky-daddy offend you. if so i am sorry.

4

Alright, but just recall that in the standard Western culture (and indeed most of Asian cultures as well), calling something a dog is a heavily derogatory term and therefore is the complete and insulting opposite - to most peoples understanding of English words - to any god.

What I’m getting at is that you may want to replace the word god with the word dog, but on ILP I’ll have to remind you that if you want to do so, then you’ll have to do so with a good amount of buffering in every use of the word “dog” in place of the word “god” so to make sure that people do not become insulted by what they could easily see as condescending name calling.

Imagine if I said, “I will no longer use the word turtle. Instead it will be bitch.”?
That can easily become a problem, regardless of what I mean.

Just sayin’.

5

thank you for your post.
i wish you had replied with my whole topic.
you have misinterpreted my topic.
i was not calling god a dog. far from it.
i was expressing my very deep religious thinking.
since it doesnt include god you attacked it.
my live dog represents the heart of what is good in life. and that is what i will follow.
i am talking about religious thinking not the usual god thinking. religion to me is not just beliefs about a western god.

i dont plan to equate the word dog with the word god.
i just dont like the WORD, the WORD god.
i am sorry for using the word sky-daddy because it can be offensive.

6

You are quite welcome turtle.

Humbleness comes about through reverance when someone understands the importance place in their lives. For some it is quite sudden in the quickening of the Spirit. While others observe this after years of getting to know God. We all are in varying degrees of spiritualness concerning God. From knowing nothing to righteous devotion.

As for being offended about the ‘sky-daddy’ connotation, I am not offended. If any offense could be taken it would be from The Lord. In my estimation, we need not get angry for anything pertaining to God…He is big enough to take care of Himself. If anger has to be applied, it would be unto myself for displaying any anger at all. Placing judgement on people’s words and action is way above my spiritual payscale.

7

I had a dyslexic friend one time who repeatedly said there is no dog.

(Not as bad as Gina, my spelling-challenged prostitute acquaintance who went to work in a warehouse…)

Hello, is this thing on?

Can you hear me in the back?

8

this thing is on. jump in.
i love my dog more than any human. i can trust my dog more.

i do not like using the word god. it screws things up.

9

Often heard. How much of that is because of control?

God can’t be controlled.

10

right–i can control my dog.

do you believe in a god.

11

There is wisdom here. Ultimately, of course, that means humans can’t be controlled, including you and me . . . .

12

it is very hard to trust a human.

13

Yes

Must be tough for an atheist or agnostic.

I don’t know your specific situation but have you tried to rebuild trust in humans?

14

There can be good and bad consequences by trusting.
You need to evaluate carefully. If you trust too easily, that might not be wise. TRUST evaluation is a key in human relations.

15

Sure, that’s a fairly balanced statement, but that’s not what you said initially. You said ‘it is very hard to trust a human’ which is weighted heavily to the mistrust side of the scale.
Human relationships can certainly be difficult but they are worth pursuing and that requires trust.

16

This is a very important topic—TRUST.
Each person is different. There are different ways
of having human relationships. All humans have feet of clay. You can hope but your expectations need to be realistic. I would be more cautious than some.

17

I find it has served me more than well to openly trust every human being until they show me reason to not trust them.

And humans do work like animals in nature; how they dress, move, and speak does tell you visual information about what they are as a human.
Some people will show me reason to not trust them just by how they present themselves in the world.
However, most have yet to show me any reason not to trust them with familiarity.
Only one is trusted with my life and could cripple me; and that is whom I married.

I also have had a car stolen by one individual, $1,500 by another, rent money that was abused on drugs by roommates, lived homeless because I was foolish enough to follow a crush to a town where only the girl was someone that I knew - and it didn’t work out, and I have a harder time remembering who’s parents are still married rather than who’s divorced.

Sometimes; it really sucks to trust. It really, really sucks.
But then again, sometimes the wildest shit happens because you did trust and then bad shit did happen.

That crush I followed that ended up with me living on the streets?
That lead me to stay at a hostel one night when I scraped enough money together to get off the street for a night. There I bumped into an outstanding didgeridoo player with an ungelled, yet dyed, mohawk, and the Eye of Ra tattooed on his eyes. As well; his happenstance traveling companion; a very brutish-looking and tall (I’m 6’1’’ so when people are taller than I by nearly a head it grabs my attention) South African named Benjamin (don’t remember the didgeridoo guys name; he was emotionally strange so my mind has probably blocked the name out).

They wanted to get to my hometown and make money off of fish (at least Ben did), and I wanted to get back to my hometown.
We made a trade; they would take me home, and I would find them boats to work on.
The adventure along the way lead us to working on a ranch in the hills of Homer while we waited to leave on the fairy days later.

And this adventure set the seed for my itch to get out of my hometown again and go explore and travel more again.
And that adventure that eventually did come, when I had made enough money again, was the adventuring that eventually landed the most amazing woman walking in the door of the pub (the only pub in Alaska - all the rest are bars) I was working in.
And she’s now my wife.

So…I still think it’s quite a good idea to trust openly; but just be ready to roll and ride the wave wherever it goes.

But really, it’s not about what you gain from trusting.
To me; it’s always been about what you retain.
I can’t shut people out from open trust by default and retain who I am; that would be a cardinal shift in character.

18

Any more than it is to trust God or dog? All of these entities, remember,
are filtered through the human mind… so ultimately it boils down to
whether or not you trust yourself.

19

Howdy The Stumps (is that how they talk in Alaska)
… ever think that it is in actually reality these events led you to meeting your “now” partner and not the others.

Why is it that we as humans (not you specifically) look at the negative events in our lives as something to be avoided.
But it is these negative events that shape us.
Positive events do not shape us at all as they serve little function in who we are.
Our positive events mostly function to inspire us to move forward.
Positive events encourage us to hope, dream and imagine - and finally to create.

Instead of clutching at positivities and rejecting negativities we can use these to thrust us forward.
They are both our best friends and the most useful tools we have – they are even better than our partners.
We can use these both to create our futures - to create something that does not yet exist.

20

It may be that reality cannot have a beginning, because things existing before reality would be unreal.
Allot of natural formations are spherical and moving in cycles. Reality might also be a loop which doesn’t
have a beginning or an end. If we don’t believe it’s a circle, then we’re left with the paradoxes of a linear reality,
which needs usually a transcandental God to save it then make sense of it.