Is there suffering without God?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Simple Minded

Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Simple Minded »

Endovelico wrote:And to think that we consider ourselves a rational species...
:lol:

good point.

I would add that I don't think it is possible for "we" to consider anything! An infinite number of divisions creating an unlimited number of ephemeral "us" and "them" group identities seems more the human condition.

Even those who belong to the same group identity seem to argue endlessly about the definition of the terms they use to define themselves. And that is even before money and power enter the picture. :o

Celebrate diversity! Especially with those of the same opinion! People..... they're all like that! ;)
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Parodite
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Parodite »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Yeah I'll agree with that. Repentance is supposed to make you feel free from guilt, if you still feel guilty you didn't do it right.
So you actually do love your enemies (as God ordered you to do).. those leftist secular liberals.. after you have repented, after which God absolved you from guilt, which made you feel free enough to hate them again as usual... until God visits you again ordering you to love them, followed by you repenting etc and on and on it cycles? Or is it more something like an over the counter guilt-repentance-forgiveness derivatives business cycle? :shock: ;)
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

I hate leftists the way Jesus hated Pharisees and Sadducees. Just following his example, methods and tactics.

The non Christian understanding of Christian love (being a pushover for anyone at all times) is not even wrong.
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manolo
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by manolo »

Mr. Perfect wrote: Jesus hated
Mr P,

Speaking to the wife of a visitor to Berchtesgaden, Adolph Hitler said "You must learn how to hate."

Alex.
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Well spotted ethinker.

However, you did not spot the preceding statements, where I did not claim to hate but it was attributed to me. I merely reply that if I hate then Jesus did. Read his dealings with Pharisees and Sadducees, you'll see a similarity between how he handled them and what he thought of them and how I feel and deal with leftists. The idea of Jesus as pushover is not even wrong.

I wouldn't go Godwin on this particular point.
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Doc
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Doc »

Mr. Perfect wrote:I hate leftists the way Jesus hated Pharisees and Sadducees. Just following his example, methods and tactics.

The non Christian understanding of Christian love (being a pushover for anyone at all times) is not even wrong.
You know liberals and leftists in general used to make me laugh until they started talking about persecuting and killing those that refused to drink their cool aid, or merely have different political beliefs.

A partial indexing of the liberal intolerance thread:

Seizure and destruction of property:
http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/feds-charged ... range-war/

Feds 'killing cattle' in war with rancher
Waco-style confrontation looms in Nevada
Elimination of livelihood:
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2014/0 ... t=mps&or=4
Petition urges users to demand Dropbox drop Condoleeza Rice from its board
The petition highlights all of Condoleeza Rice's activities that make her, according to the petition, ineligible for the job and calls Dropbox's decision "ethically short-sighted."
Imprisonment:
http://www.infowars.com/college-profess ... mprisoned/

Professor Calls For Climate Change ‘Deniers’ To Be Imprisoned Wants to criminalize questioning of the science on global warming
Denial of health care:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kinder.asp
My family's journey with securing our new insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) started on October 1, 2013. I have decided to write this letter to let the American people know what it has been like for us. We are a family of four, with two little boys' ages seven years old and three years old. My husband and I have had full time jobs for 6 years and 13 years respectively. We have been with the same two companies for those years. We are a middle class family; we own our three bedroom two bath house, we own two cars, and previously provided our own insurance for the four of us. We have coverage through Individual Blue from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama until 12/31/13. Our premiums have been $380.00 a month, which also included dental coverage for all four of us.

On October, 1, 2013 we received our letters like other Alabamians about our new premiums and plans for 2014 from Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Alabama. When I opened our letter to say I had sticker shock was an understatement. Our premiums for the Blue Saver Silver would now be $753.26. This included the ACA tax but did not include the additional $75.00 we would need to pay in order to keep dental for me and my husband. So we would need to pay total $828.26 to keep health and dental insurance for the four of us. This payment is roughly $64.00 less than what we pay for our mortgage each month. I was outraged that anyone thought we could afford this. Sure we have some savings, but with that price tag we would whittle it down to almost nothing very quickly. I consider savings as a rainy day fund, a start to saving for the kid’s college, our retirement, etc. I never dreamed in a million years we would need to use it to pay our insurance premiums each month — how in the world could this help the economy too?

Execution:
http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/07/maure ... publicans/

Maureen Dowd fantasizes about Games of Thrones characters murdering Republicans
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas. -- Joseph Stalin
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

The inevitable result of totalitarian leftists.
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kmich
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by kmich »

Is there suffering without God?

This, of course, entirely depends on what we mean by “God,” and that is where most of the problems in such discussions usually arise. The modern sense of that concept vary from considering God as ancient imaginings such as Zeus, Apollo, Thor, a frivolous fantasy akin to the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, or, at best, a helpful palliative for suffering people perhaps of a simple, uncritical nature. From the contemporary religious side, “God” tends to be a projection of the personal and collective egos onto conceptual creeds driven by the passions derived from ideological idolatry and group narcissism. Others will simply suspend judgment to stay comfortably above the fray.

I really have serious difficulty talking about God in a meaningful way, and whatever I say will be interpreted upon the existing conceptions of others. We moderns only respect externally demonstrated facts as truth, and we have lost the ability to meaningfully relate to meaning and myth. So, as W. H. Auden wrote, “we are lived by powers we pretend to understand;” powers that we remain mostly unconscious of. I will make an attempt to relate my understanding of “God,” with the caveat that my words are only subjective derivations from my own experience and that they may not be at all shared or understood by others.

For me, the best I can say is that God is the vessel of all meaning and the ground from which all my being arises and totally depends. In that regard, there can be suffering without God if I deny or am estranged from my own being, oblivious to my own darkness or perhaps lost in it. However, my suffering cannot be at all meaningful without God. Through the Incarnation, God took on the sufferings of His creation down to the very dregs of human despair, “Eli Eli lama sabachthani...” By my living in the Body of Christ there is reconciliation that makes my suffering meaningful and redemptive, or, as Meister Eckhart put it, "My suffering is in God, and my suffering is God." Without my faith that my suffering is held in union with God through Christ, I would find my life, sufferings, and death a pointless, existential joke.

Some might retort, well, maybe it is just that, and that “God” is no more than a helpful fantasy to live by perhaps to facilitate physical survival. I understand why people would say that, and I have believed pretty much the same thing in the past. I now see that as pretty glib, external reasoning that misses the heart of the matter.

You see, we don’t know what we are talking about when we come to the world of the spirit. Our ignorance is born of our illusions of understanding as well as from our closed hearts that are derived from our illusions of power and safety. When I see, as I have over the past month, people whose circumstances have stripped away all that they have, I see people who can have no such illusions. They faced a stark choice: either to curl up into a ball of despair and bitterness to die in body and/or soul, or to open their minds and hearts and live in faith and meaning. The latter captures the essence of their faith that has deeply inspired my own. Guilt is a petty, self-involved form of repentance. Real repentance defines our relationship to God not as sentimental self-abasement, but as spirits who can turn courageously to the ineffable beauty and terror of the numinous with our hearts completely exposed and our speech silent.

Sorry if this all sounds like preachy religious hokum. I have been in an odd place since I came back.
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Endovelico »

We often sound like 5 year olds trying to discuss quantum theory... If only we didn't take ourselves so seriously...
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Parodite »

It seems to me that religion cannot give answers to questions that arise in our frontal lobes when we are faced with the realities of life. In fact... it is a total and disastrous joke in that respect. Why death? Why suffering of type a/b/c/d/..? Why am I here? Did Jesus really die and resurrect? Should one believe those things.. or just a little bit.. or doesn't it even matter? How should one live? [begin frontal lobed theology]...endless...[end frontal lobed theology].

Most people who come out of the above mad house alive and reasonably sane... have still one thing that survived; the idea/faith that it is important to be nice to other people and other sentient beings, help them when they are in need physically and/or emotionally. Take breaks from this madhouse..to pray/meditate/reflect.. or just enjoy a free day without aims... lest thou will experience a burn out in Hell.
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Endovelico
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Endovelico »

Parodite wrote:Most people who come out of the above mad house alive and reasonably sane... have still one thing that survived; the idea/faith that it is important to be nice to other people and other sentient beings, help them when they are in need physically and/or emotionally. Take breaks from this madhouse..to pray/meditate/reflect.. or just enjoy a free day without aims... lest thou will experience a burn out in Hell.
"...it is important to be nice to other people..."

Because:

1. We feel that the group is more important than the individual;
2. We hope that will encourage other people being nice to us;
3. It improves our overall chances of survival.

That's all.
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Re: Is there suffering without God?

Post by Parodite »

Endovelico wrote:
Parodite wrote:Most people who come out of the above mad house alive and reasonably sane... have still one thing that survived; the idea/faith that it is important to be nice to other people and other sentient beings, help them when they are in need physically and/or emotionally. Take breaks from this madhouse..to pray/meditate/reflect.. or just enjoy a free day without aims... lest thou will experience a burn out in Hell.
"...it is important to be nice to other people..."

Because:

1. We feel that the group is more important than the individual;
2. We hope that will encourage other people being nice to us;
3. It improves our overall chances of survival.

That's all.
Yep, it's definitely a win-win for both society and the individual.
Deep down I'm very superficial
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