arc----if you define christian in that judeo-christian way then i wouldnt be considered christian…but if you believe that the most important message of christianity is the way you behave then i am a christian…also i am a member of a protestant church…i try to behave as a christian should…the council of niceae made a very serious mistake…the emperor constantine is not going to
decide for me what is christian…
Sha Tara–You sound like you are convinced that you know something that others don’t. Why, because you read a book containing someone’s theory and you believed it? OK. That puts you pretty much on a par with the believers of every other religion unless you have persuasive conclusive evidence that supports the theory you are espousing. At first glance it seems like sci-fi fantasy to me.
For Spinoza, at least, God was not personal in anyway by my reading. I have read quite a bit of Schweitzer but have never come across a pronouncement regarding a personal God pro or con. Likewise Fromm. Where are you getting that?
In my beliefs I would say everybody is a part of God.
This is likely why Humans often depict God as a “Superman” type figure, Human but better in every possible way.
As a Bearded Male I can see how the Classical Image of Zeus appealed to many.
But these things should be taken as symbols just as much as a Cross would there not meant to be the “full” or true Image of God. Simply our Representations of God. with the Right intent and Percepetion pretty much any image could be used as a symbol of God.
The quote I gave above is from Fromm, “To Have or To Be” (1976). Much there on Schweizer, Spinoza, Eckhart and Fromm on God as a person. This post was just a reiteration of my former post, which was a quote by Fromm about a letter from Schweitzer to Jacobi. The quote is in the book cited.
If a religion of love could exist without a diety, as Sweitzer suggests, if the relationship with God is ontological as Eckhart and Spinoza suggest, a concept of a personal God is merely an idol that can impede direct, revelatory, experiential understanding of God. Reason: personal God is is God of having, not of being.
That you have read much of Fromm and Schweitzer reminds me of an argument I had with D. at ILO. Her argument was that she had read most of Rorty; but, the article I referred to in the compilation of essays, “After Philosophy”, was one she had not read.
Thanks Ierrellus. I might have Fromm’s book on the shelf somewhere. The Schweitzer quote sounds like an argument against a monarchical God if not an argument against a personal one. Spinoza was arguing for an ontological relationship and against a personal one. I don’t see him arguing that “the God concept can be personal without God being a person” as you stated above.
No the Judo Christian God is not Omniscient, nor omnipresent, nor Omnipotent.
Prayer is a form of Evocation, one which transfers energy to a …spectral plain/Metaphysical entity/etc … which then magnifies it and if correctly done reforms the energy into physical manifestation. It has nothing to do with bending a … Metaphysical being… to your will. (unless of course that’s the desired effect which is … a different form of evocation).
The Christian Judo God, is actually a Female, multiple Females to be exact, the translation for Goddesses was taken and turned into God’s and then again turned into the singular God. This is how:
“Virtually every human civilization in the Middle East, before and through Biblical times, practiced some form of female goddess worship. Archeologists have confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language had initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the northern invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods. So why doesn’t the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times “Gods” in the Bible refers to goddesses. Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn’t even have a word for Goddess. The goddesses, sometimes, refers to the Hebrew word “Elohim” (masculine plural form) which later religionists mistranslated into the singular “God.” The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day.” “Sited from nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible2.htm”
You, should never hesitate to say what you believe. If you are shunned so be it, a Fool beith he who will not listen to the words of another. What you say has relevance, if only unto you, and another being of intelligence should at least listen with an open mind, put forth their own perception of reality and see where the lines form. The purpose of debate is to learn. There is never a winner, and all things exist and are true. Contradictions, are only contradicting, if you do not understand the meaning behind such, or the purpose of. Generally a contradiction is the fault of the reader or listener, rather then the writer.
Understand the difference between a Universal Truth, and an Individual Truth. A Universal Truth is a Truth that applies to everything in existence, and there are very very few of them. An individual Truth, is a truth which is known and created by an individuals perception of reality. God for example, while it may be a Universal truth that a metaphysical being exists which claims such (In fact there are many that do), It is an Individual truth that a “particular” one is the all great and mighty creator of all. Since Universally, none are and were all created themselves by the Universe within which they reside.
Felix,
“There is remarkable kinship of ideas of the Buddha, Eckhart, Marx and Schweitzer: their radical demand for giving up the having orientation; their insistence on complete independence; their metaphysical skepticism; their Godless religiosity, and their demand for social activity in the spirit of care and human solidarity.” Fromm 1976.
I’m currently reading Schweitzer’s letters to see if he was really the radical secular humanist Fromm describes. If so, he would probably see the personhood of God as not so important as is the personhood of us ordinary people.
Little reptile, I read what Felix wrote. I didn’t get any harshness from that - just words to draw her out - a challenge of sorts - for her to explain herself…to back up her words. And I’m pretty sure that sha tara can hold her own. Maybe if you re-read it you’ll get something different this time. Sometimes, in a particular moment, we are in a kind of mood and we project what we’re feeling onto others. I know I’m guilty of that sometimes. Most of us do that. But that’s just my humble opinion.