So ya gotta riddle me this. God is all knowing and God - well nothin' goes on without God's plan

[3Hotdogs]

and permission. Actually, it goes beyond permission. Whatever goes on, God wants it to happen.

So ----

Joe gets diagnosed with cancer. What are we supposed to do? We're supposed to pray that Joe's cancer goes away. But here's the problem. God wanted Joe to get cancer or else he wouldn't have gotten it.


Now it we get to praying that Joe don't get no more cancer, aren't we also saying that God fucked up by giving Joe the cancer in the first place?

All of this comes to mind because of my cousin in California. She is being evicted for non-payment of rent. She will likely be out on the street by next month. I'm trying to tell her she needs to find another job because she got fired last week. That she needs to go through her stuff and figure out what papers she needs and secure those. Start trying to sell stuff that she won't be able to secure --- and so forth.

"I'm not worried. God will help me out. He always does."

I am tempted to point out my argument above, as it pertains to her present circumstances. But that would do no good. The point is, that this thinking causes people to avoid actually taking actions that would maybe solve some of their problems.

[msongs]

1. thank you lord for sparing me. meanwhile 200 neighbors were killed nt

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Well, I know I am dying.

I am 70, so my life is definitely limited. What I won't do is rot in some kind of end of life care. Otherwise, bring it on!

[Delmette2.0]

10. I feel the same way.

Quality of life is so important.

[applegrove]

3. It allows people to work together and dream big. No surprise some of the first American

civilians settlers were very religious. Me, personally, I follow nature. I just can't follow the supernatural. I go back to my ancestors and social anthropoligy and evolution and nature, the stars and the big bang. That is all nature. But what started it all? The big bang, if that is how the universe started, is supernatural. But I can't think that way so I just go back to science/nature things in my mind. So religious people are just those who can believe in the supernatural and they are not wrong. They are just people who can sustain belief in the supernatural. Anthropology tells me they were born with that ability and I was not. I believe in much of the Bible and that someone as decent as Jesus was a miracle as anything else. Science tells me he existed. Science also tells me the supernatural exists.... that we are all descended from the supernatural. But I can't sustain a belief in God. I was not born that way. I've prayed. I can do that. I just can't sit with God. I'm not meant to I guess.

[TeamProg]

4. Religion is supposed to deliver accountability but it does the exact OPPOSITE! nt

[LakeArenal]

5. How old is the person who is penniless and needs to be told to find a job

Send her to a church of her choice and speak to him directly. Maybe he’ll let her move in.

[Warpy]

6. The Riddle of Epicurus

Look it up, guy figured it out 300 BC or so.

It won't solve any of your cousin's problems, nor does it sound like she's in any mood to get the point.

I'm afraid the streets and homeless camps are full of people who thought god would provide.

I hope she manages to defy the odds but....

[BWdem4life]

7. God gave me free will

Which must mean God doesn't know what I"m gonna do with it
Otherwise it wouldn't be free will
Therefore God cannot be all-knowing.
And since God doesn't know what any of us will do with our free will
God can't really have much of a plan.

[Karadeniz]

8. A god overseeing human activity is a common misunderstanding, at least in Christianity. In the

parable of the prodigal son, the God/father creates an illustrative son/soul who takes his inheritance/divine spark and departs, leaving elements of the divine nature in the soul's wake. The father does not obstruct the soul's departure. The soul's relaying divine value is its purpose. The father does not seek the son out, shows no concern for its welfare, does not even attempt to help the son/soul. The father/God stays in its location, the soul being its agent. This explanation does not go into all the god system described in the parable, but it does show that the father/God does not directly interact with lower planes, much less earth.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Sounds like more gobble gook to me.

You provide no evidence of anything. You are just making unfounded assertions with no real evidence to back up anything you assert.

I am atheist because there is absolutely no evidence to convince me of the existence of a god, any god. In the last 2,000 years no one has ever proven the existence of any gods in any form.

[Karadeniz]

13. Hold on! I was giving a literary analysis of Christianity scripture. But, I admit that the portion I

discussed coincides with my own out of body experience involving an impersonal source energy of souls, reincarnation and karma. Energy is so mind boggling and easily verified in the here and now. You might find some of the videos on YouTube under "psychic detectives" interesting. Anyone who bases atheism on rejecting the reality of a mean, vengeful deity or a deity who plays favorites on a whim or a deity which is patently anthropomorphic has my full support !!!! Also, as long as you're making your life a means for helping others and rejecting material world values like race, sex, money, status, that's the only use of energy that matters !!!! Humanism is the best religion !!!

[Farmer-Rick]

16. If by humanism you mean:

"An outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems."

A basic text book definition.

I'm all for that. Especially the part of the importance of people rather than devine or supernatural matters. And the importance on solely rational ways.

Also, there is no evidence of the reality of out of body experiences. It's another state of being for the brain. I know of no one, or nothing, who claimed out of body experiences that didn't have a brain.

There were several experiments back in the 90s testing out of body experiences and they proved that no one really had the experience, it was just in their mind, or their brain.

[Karadeniz]

17. Actually, out of body experiences have been verified many times! My favorite is the woman who

Was anaesthetized for surgery and later described the event, including the colors and appearance of items used. The kicker is that she had been blind since birth! In my own experience, I could send my mind out and it could see and feel without any physical organs. Like I said, understanding with the brain... about all most religions require...
is unnecessary. The only thing that matters is that we live with compassion, generosity and helpfulness. Religion can actually get in the way of achieving this goal by convincing people that dogma and ritual are important and make their followers better than others. Of course you remember the 9/11 planes. On one, a husband told another passenger, "let's roll," before they attacked the terrorists to stop their mission. His surviving wife got a lot of air time. One reporter asked her how her faith or religion was helping her. She said she belonged to a group that met every week to determine how best they and their money could be of help to another. Humanitarianism. There are a lot of churchgoers who can't be bothered to be humane. This shouldn't be the case with Christianity, given Jesus's instructions, but it is.

[Farmer-Rick]

18. Those stories of out of body experiences are myths

They are stories with no evidence. A good experiment would include a control group. Who was their control group? Otherwise it's just another supernatural story with absolutely no evidence. The person telling the story may believe it but again that is not evidence.

I could tell you tons of ghost stories, even stories with elves and leprechauns. Stories of seeing space aliens and bigfoot are everywhere. Stories are fun but they are Not evidence of anything except an imagination.

[Karadeniz]

19. The U. of Arizona conducted years of experiments to see if the Mind continued after death. The

controls were very strict. Using psychics to communicate with the Minds and family members who had knowledge of the lives of the dearly departed, there was a way above average incidence of information from the psychics verified by the living. One that struck me was the psychic being told that the family member had given the departed person, before death, some marijuana hidden in a specific brand of a cigarette package. Energy cannot be destroyed.

[Farmer-Rick]

20. Geez, you are all over the place

I thought we were talking about out of body experiences. Why did you change to psychics and life after death?

So do you have a link to that study? I would like to study their methodology. If this was a recreatable experiment, then it would be on every news program in the world.

Life After Death Has Been Proven, would be the headline. Do you know how long religious people have been trying to prove this nonsense? At least for 2,000 years. I seriously doubt the experiment was scientifically rigorous.

There was even a standing prize of over $1 million for anyone who could prove life after death or other supernatural claims. No One has ever claimed that prize.

That saying that you can't destroy energy is based on a closed system. The real scientific theory is: "In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time."

You are making the assumption that the universe is a closed or isolated system. Many scientists would argue with that assumption.

[Ligyron]

21. Thank you.

[sanatanadharma]

9. As long as God is seen as one more thing in or out of the universe, no understanding is possible

As long as God-Divinity is seen as one more thing in or out of the universe, no understanding is possible.
"God" as a concept or reality can not be some other-ness that we can comprehend or understand like trees and molecules.

All problems of theology are overcome when Divinity is understood as that which explains everything or makes everything possible.
All problems of theology arise because we project the 'rules of the world' (measured by sciences), upon a God which is also said to be (exist) before the 'rules of the world' began.

Divinity defined as 'existence' and 'consciousness' can not be negated. The Theist-Atheist arguments on both sides fail because they both start from a place of impossibility; both posit an impossibility and claim it is God or not-God.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. You just made that up

You have redifined gods. Your explanation of gods is not the normal one. Show me a sample of this imaginary Divinity.

All you are doing is making assertions, upon assertion, upon assertion. None of that has to do with any evidence. It's just your imaginings.

And you got the atheist position wrong. Most atheist I know don't say a god does NOT exist. They say there is insufficient evidence to prove that any god exists. They can't believe in any of these magical gods because no one in the last 2,000 years have ever proven a god exists using evidence.

And let me remind you that in 100 years from now most everything alive right now will be dead. Right there your divinity as defined by existing is DEAD.

You can not re-define gods into existence.

[sanatanadharma]

14. The ancient lineage of Advaita Vendanta does say what I essentially repeat

I did not make it up but shared my understanding of the old and still taught, ancient lineage of Advaita Vendanta.
Advaita Vedanta Philosophy (not faith) does say what I tried to convey.

The many ideas of what the definition of God is compete and all fail by being definitions which distinguish one thing from another.
A God that is before creation and during the creation and, outside of time, can not be defined by contrast to another God.' like a blue lily to a yellow rose.

No one posits a God existing without 'consciousness', or not being of the nature of consciousness, as though consciousness were an option.
The reality of 'consciousness' is non-negateable, we all claim consciousness, but it can not be known by sight, sound, taste, touch or smell. Consciousness exists, is non-negateable, can't be measured, proved nor disproved by the sciences. Yet we know it.

The conscious one is there from birth to death and all the changes of body mind, memory, emotions, knowledge, desires, and abilities do not, have not, and can not change the simple-continuous-existent-consciousnesss that has been there all along as witness of the changes.

If God is understood as Existence (known in the world) and Consciousness (known in the self), then one's own being is proof of Divinity.

The idea that 'consciousness' is only as big as one body is an unproven belief.
My bodily death does not negate the reality of continuing consciousness. I do not claim that I as this body, this mind, this neural-linguistic-sensory complex continues, nor my self-identity. All that dies. My death does not kill consciousness.

I say only that "Existence" and "consciousness" are not adjectival qualities. They are the very essence of knowing-beings.

[Farmer-Rick]

15. I live because my parents had sex and

My Mom decided she wanted a child. NOT because a god is existence or consciousness or other magical superstition.

Consciousness is no more than your brain. I know of NO consciousness without a brain attached; nor do you. Consciousness dies upon the death of the brain even with animals.

It is merely a state of being and requires no magical hoo-ha to explain it.

What about all the millions of animals we slaughter every day to eat? Where do their consciousness go????? And don't tell me they don't have consciousness because the sheep, goats, chicken and dogs I have known are very conscious and very aware of what's happening around them. Why do you only give magical qualities to human consciousness?

This is ridiculous because no one has ever identified anything living beyond the death of the brain. Just ask any animal about to be killed so humans can eat it.

[Ligyron]

22. "The idea that 'consciousness' is only as big as one body is an unproven belief."

It's not even that big, it's only the size of a human brain...around 1300 cubic centimeters.

There's a lot of cool stuff happening in there for sure, but none of it is magic.