The Moral Superiority of God (within the confines of Christianity)

[Worlok]

We are kind of ignoring jews here because they are kind of tricky and don't agree, so we're going with the Jesus thing.

 

God is a real jerk and he causes lots of people to suffer. He kills a lot of people. He lets a lot of people get raped and tortured. But he's actually really nice and none of those things are bad. He loves you and all that terrible stuff is good for you.

 

No laws necessarily apply to god outside of logical consistency, i.e., God cannot move anything and simultaneously create things that he cannot move.He can only move what he can move and he can only create what he can create. If he can create anything, then he can create an immovable object, at which point, god cannot "do" absolutely anything, but that doesn't become relevant. I'm pointing out that anything that god can do, he can do and unless clearly stated otherwise, he can do anything. Got it? Anything means, "pretty much anything."

 

God created everything. God created morality. All laws, rules, and morality are whatever god says they are. Your perceived universe has the physics and all laws that you perceive it to have because god chose for that to be that way. All you know, think, and perceive, god allows you to. The ten commandments were laws bestowed upon men and only men. They do not apply to god. Murder is only wrong because god said that it is wrong for you to do it. Not for monkeys, not for god, for humans. Humans may not murder other humans.

 

You do not own yourself and you do not own your soul. God owns all of everything that you are. All property rights are those of god. You do not own your labor and you do not own even your own thoughts. Property of god, all rights reserved. If a person kills you or rapes you, it is not a sin against you, it is a sin against god, because it was a sin against his property. Just like if you cripple my human slave. You repay me and the slave can suck a big one. Where we apply personhood and property rights, it bypasses yourself and goes to god. All of you is an extension of him and he consents to it all.

 

Different Christian sects have varying ideas on how to get into heaven, hell, and anything in between. Basically, the only path to heaven is through Christ. Rapists... go to heaven and get there by sucking up to the boss man. So do murderers, pedophiles, and all other types of crap. Their sins, meaning all the immoral things that they did were simply immoral to them because god said it was immoral to them. They didn't necessarily do anything wrong, they simply did what they were told was wrong. The government can tell you that it is wrong to be a jew, but that doesn't make it true.

 

The soul is supposedly separate from the physical form. Any physical, mental, psychological damage is physical and does not go with the soul. In other words, all damage is temporary. Despite your feels, you will get over everything. if you don't like it, too bad because god does and your feelings are his property too. Raped? Beaten as a child? Mutilated? Oh, you'll be completely fine - better than fine.

 

Time. You are here for like 80 years. You spend eternity in heaven. Can you count to infinity? Can you comprehend it? I didn't think so. If your friend punches you in the shoulder, it hurts. Momentarily. You consented and you are fine. You forget it happened. it still hurt when it happened. it took a fraction of a second. Over the course of that 80 years, you can say that it meant nothing, had not effect on you, and was completely irrelevant. In 16 billion years, do you think that you will remember this 80? Supposing god and heaven are real, no, you won't remember it.

 

Now, please pick it apart.

 

 

[Will Torbald]

Ignoring that god doesn't exist, god can't be called moral according to the same morality he gives to humans. So how can god be morally superior to us, if he doesn't follow the same morality he wants from us? Morality has no meaning applied to god, since he is devoid of it. I don't know if you wanted to say that is morally superior to follow christian-derived morality vs non-christian or humanist or rational or deontological or etc moralities. The problem is that god is not a justified assumption, so all moralisms derived from it are chosen for the desired consequences, not for the reason it is derived from. So you want people to think murder is wrong just because, because you just want people not kill each other.

[Rventurelli]

I would say that if God exists (something I believe, but for which I cannot prove), it does not mean that any religion or group of religions is correct in the way that they depict Him.

My belief is that if there is a God we cannot judge Him because he simply has powers and knowledge beyond our comprehension and we cannot understand what is his objective or desire for His creation (us).

It is kind of a crappy comparison, but it could be that he is just playing The Sims with us. When you are playing Sims or house, it is not like you are really controlling living and breathing people. If you see an ant in the bathroom and you are naked you do not get the urge of rushing to put your clothes back on because you do not equate the importance of an ant to that of a human being.

I know this can sound (look) really crazy, however, if Sims can play The Sims in The Sims, how do you know that we are not like chess pieces in some higher power chessboard? (Please do not take it too seriously)

[Peregrine]

On 1/22/2017 at 8:52 AM, Will Torbald said:

Ignoring that god doesn't exist, god can't be called moral according to the same morality he gives to humans. So how can god be morally superior to us, if he doesn't follow the same morality he wants from us? Morality has no meaning applied to god, since he is devoid of it. I don't know if you wanted to say that is morally superior to follow christian-derived morality vs non-christian or humanist or rational or deontological or etc moralities. The problem is that god is not a justified assumption, so all moralisms derived from it are chosen for the desired consequences, not for the reason it is derived from. So you want people to think murder is wrong just because, because you just want people not kill each other.

Speaking as a Christian I've always simply assumed that God, being God, isn't obligated to obey human morals and values simply because the Godhead is not human. God can no more obey our values or conception of morality than we can obey His conception of morality and His values. For example: if you assume God exists, as I do, how can you even begin to think upon how an infinitely intelligent entity (as God is generally consider to be) thinks, draws conclusions/makes decisions, solves problems, etc.? You can't and all you're left with is a non-sequitur. The closest comparison that I can think of is in the case of ETs. If ETs have a different moral values system than humans then how can we really expect them to understand or grasp ours? Quite a brain-tickler.

There's more than a few passages in the Bible that make it quite clear that, while morality exists, God's morality is not human morality, that God's way of thinking is not the human way of thinking, etc.

'For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.' (Isaiah 55:8)

I believe Plato and his school wrestled with the idea of a source of transcendent moral order well before the emergence of Christianity and Plato's conclusions were much the same as the Christian perspective (due in no small part from copious borrowing from the Platonist by the Christians): the reason that morality exists and is therefore true is because the source of morality is, itself, of a non-human origin and is one and the same as the Creative Principle (or God). Or something like that. I haven't read from Plato's writings in a while. Cheers.

 

[Soulfire]

The sort of "morality" (I use that very loosely) attributed to God in the Bible is that It keeps Its promises to the people It chose, I guess, but I don't see genocide, homophobia, racism, envy, misogyny, and all that other shit as being justified by the whole "I protect my chosen people" thing, because, as we can see, the God of the Bible didn't protect them when the Romans destroyed the second Temple and forced them off of their ancestral land, which really wasn't the best land to begin with: rather arid and surrounded by extremely powerful empires for almost all of its history. And besides that, even the people can't exactly agree on where the boundaries are meant to be, hence the split into the northern and southern kingdoms, as well as the current conflict in Gaza. The only thing that Judaism has going for it in terms of having retained God's protection is the fact that it still exists and can call itself the forerunner of the other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Islam. But I have to say, I'm not partial to the God of the Bible, mostly for the aforementioned sins and heresies that It commits in Its own Name, which is blasphemy and hypocrisy anyway, but also in the fact that having such a God would make us separate from what God is, which is impossible. We are indivisible from God. We are God. Not God's creators, nor are we Its creation: we are one and the same thing. When things started existing, God started existing, and, upon the heat death of the Universe, God will cease to exist in this Universe, though I believe in Multiverse so that's more or less a nonissue anyway. So God is only moral insofar as we are moral. Are we doing a good job?

[Donnadogsoth]

17 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

The sort of "morality" (I use that very loosely) attributed to God in the Bible is that It keeps Its promises to the people It chose, I guess, but I don't see genocide, homophobia, racism, envy, misogyny, and all that other shit as being justified by the whole "I protect my chosen people" thing, because, as we can see, the God of the Bible didn't protect them when the Romans destroyed the second Temple and forced them off of their ancestral land, which really wasn't the best land to begin with: rather arid and surrounded by extremely powerful empires for almost all of its history. And besides that, even the people can't exactly agree on where the boundaries are meant to be, hence the split into the northern and southern kingdoms, as well as the current conflict in Gaza. The only thing that Judaism has going for it in terms of having retained God's protection is the fact that it still exists and can call itself the forerunner of the other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Islam. But I have to say, I'm not partial to the God of the Bible, mostly for the aforementioned sins and heresies that It commits in Its own Name, which is blasphemy and hypocrisy anyway, but also in the fact that having such a God would make us separate from what God is, which is impossible. We are indivisible from God. We are God. Not God's creators, nor are we Its creation: we are one and the same thing. When things started existing, God started existing, and, upon the heat death of the Universe, God will cease to exist in this Universe, though I believe in Multiverse so that's more or less a nonissue anyway. So God is only moral insofar as we are moral. Are we doing a good job?

God's a bit of a cunt, then, isn't he?

 

[Soulfire]

Nice word...  

The God of the Bible is portrayed that way, but that's only because people, throughout holy Scriptures generally, seem to put their own words into God's Mouth. The Divine has no hate, no envy, no preferences. So the whole idea of God's favour is erroneous, I think, because it's really just the favour of other people and of their own culture that these kings and warlords seek, I think.

[Donnadogsoth]

10 hours ago, Soulfire said:

Nice word...  

The God of the Bible is portrayed that way, but that's only because people, throughout holy Scriptures generally, seem to put their own words into God's Mouth. The Divine has no hate, no envy, no preferences. So the whole idea of God's favour is erroneous, I think, because it's really just the favour of other people and of their own culture that these kings and warlords seek, I think.

If God has no preferences and everything is God, then how can anything be said to be good or evil?  If nothing is good or evil in any meaningful sense, why should anyone care whether or not rape, murder, and genocide occur?

[Soulfire]

I meant no ideas in terms of people to support or not, but I honestly think that the people who are the most in touch with the Godhead are those who do good rather than evil. Look to Mr. Molyneux for the whole "universally preferable behaviour" thing, but he gets his whole system of morals from much, much older systems of law, such as the Hammurabi Code. So does the Bible, for that matter. Just follow the Golden Rule (which literally every religion has in some form): do unto others as you would have them do to you. It's honestly not that hard to be good but this can extend to everything. War? It's bullshit. Murder, rape, theft, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I don't think we should need laws and rules to tell us what to do and how to do it, but since we haven't evolved much beyond the point of our animalistic instincts, I suppose they're still needed for now. Lame. But necessary until we are ready.  

[Donnadogsoth]

30 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

I meant no ideas in terms of people to support or not, but I honestly think that the people who are the most in touch with the Godhead are those who do good rather than evil. Look to Mr. Molyneux for the whole "universally preferable behaviour" thing, but he gets his whole system of morals from much, much older systems of law, such as the Hammurabi Code. So does the Bible, for that matter. Just follow the Golden Rule (which literally every religion has in some form): do unto others as you would have them do to you. It's honestly not that hard to be good but this can extend to everything. War? It's bullshit. Murder, rape, theft, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I don't think we should need laws and rules to tell us what to do and how to do it, but since we haven't evolved much beyond the point of our animalistic instincts, I suppose they're still needed for now. Lame. But necessary until we are ready.  

You just said "God has no preferences," so, why would those who do good be more in touch with the Godhead than those who do evil?  Where are you getting your standard of good and evil from, if God has no preferences?

[Soulfire]

I said "the person" would be more in touch with the Godhead, not "the Godhead would be more in touch with the person". God does have destructive aspects, yes, embodied in such incarnations as Shiv Shankar, but He is not evil, now is He? What I was saying was that the God of the Bible, though not a false God, was falsely interpreted by people who do not understand Its workings properly, and just wanted to get rid of, say, the people of Jericho. Notice that, almost immediately after giving the Decalogue, among which is "Thou shall not kill", God orders the people to destroy everything under the sun in Jericho, down to the livestock and the infants. Now, doesn't that seem a little contradictory to you? That's because God, MY God, wouldn't give such a command as that. Things need to be destroyed for other life to prosper and such is the way of nature, but God embodies preservation and creation as well. My standard of good and evil, by the way, very much contains NOT putting words in God's Mouth for our own ends, especially when they involve mass genocide, rape, infanticide, and the like. God has no preferences in terms of people, of course, but WE have a preference as to what we want to do with our lives and whether we want to have a relationship with the Godhead, which is the same as the Higher Self, and can really only be attained through virtue and knowledge.

[Donnadogsoth]

18 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

I said "the person" would be more in touch with the Godhead, not "the Godhead would be more in touch with the person". God does have destructive aspects, yes, embodied in such incarnations as Shiv Shankar, but He is not evil, now is He? What I was saying was that the God of the Bible, though not a false God, was falsely interpreted by people who do not understand Its workings properly, and just wanted to get rid of, say, the people of Jericho. Notice that, almost immediately after giving the Decalogue, among which is "Thou shall not kill", God orders the people to destroy everything under the sun in Jericho, down to the livestock and the infants. Now, doesn't that seem a little contradictory to you? That's because God, MY God, wouldn't give such a command as that. Things need to be destroyed for other life to prosper and such is the way of nature, but God embodies preservation and creation as well. My standard of good and evil, by the way, very much contains NOT putting words in God's Mouth for our own ends, especially when they involve mass genocide, rape, infanticide, and the like. God has no preferences in terms of people, of course, but WE have a preference as to what we want to do with our lives and whether we want to have a relationship with the Godhead, which is the same as the Higher Self, and can really only be attained through virtue and knowledge.

You yourself have said that we are God, so if God has no preferences, we must have no preferences either.

[Soulfire]

Indeed! Now you understand me! Good man. We need to re-learn how NOT to have preferences. Only then can we "get off the stage", as it were.

[Donnadogsoth]

43 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

Indeed! Now you understand me! Good man. We need to re-learn how NOT to have preferences. Only then can we "get off the stage", as it were.

So, why do you care about what we "need" to do? Why does God "need" to do anything?

[_LiveFree_]

13 hours ago, Soulfire said:

Indeed! Now you understand me! Good man. We need to re-learn how NOT to have preferences. Only then can we "get off the stage", as it were.

Do you understand that "preference" is how mankind survives? I bet you have a preference for not eating human waste. Should we be rid of that preference? Or a preference for a moderate outside temperature, other humans as mating partners instead of goats, English instead of random scribblings or sounds, logic instead of illogic, people who do violence towards us vs. people who are peaceful with us. 

 

Isn't it odd to you that in order to be more godly or whatever we have to erase ourselves?
Isn't it odd to you that in order to be more patriotic we have to erase ourselves?
Isn't it odd to you that in order to honor thy mother and father when they haven't earned it we have to erase ourselves?

 

This is anti-philosophy.

[Eudaimonic]

On 1/21/2017 at 11:44 PM, Worlok said:

We are kind of ignoring jews here because they are kind of tricky and don't agree, so we're going with the Jesus thing.

 

God is a real jerk and he causes lots of people to suffer. He kills a lot of people. He lets a lot of people get raped and tortured. But he's actually really nice and none of those things are bad. He loves you and all that terrible stuff is good for you.

 

No laws necessarily apply to god outside of logical consistency, i.e., God cannot move anything and simultaneously create things that he cannot move.He can only move what he can move and he can only create what he can create. If he can create anything, then he can create an immovable object, at which point, god cannot "do" absolutely anything, but that doesn't become relevant. I'm pointing out that anything that god can do, he can do and unless clearly stated otherwise, he can do anything. Got it? Anything means, "pretty much anything."

 

God created everything. God created morality. All laws, rules, and morality are whatever god says they are. Your perceived universe has the physics and all laws that you perceive it to have because god chose for that to be that way. All you know, think, and perceive, god allows you to. The ten commandments were laws bestowed upon men and only men. They do not apply to god. Murder is only wrong because god said that it is wrong for you to do it. Not for monkeys, not for god, for humans. Humans may not murder other humans.

 

You do not own yourself and you do not own your soul. God owns all of everything that you are. All property rights are those of god. You do not own your labor and you do not own even your own thoughts. Property of god, all rights reserved. If a person kills you or rapes you, it is not a sin against you, it is a sin against god, because it was a sin against his property. Just like if you cripple my human slave. You repay me and the slave can suck a big one. Where we apply personhood and property rights, it bypasses yourself and goes to god. All of you is an extension of him and he consents to it all.

 

Different Christian sects have varying ideas on how to get into heaven, hell, and anything in between. Basically, the only path to heaven is through Christ. Rapists... go to heaven and get there by sucking up to the boss man. So do murderers, pedophiles, and all other types of crap. Their sins, meaning all the immoral things that they did were simply immoral to them because god said it was immoral to them. They didn't necessarily do anything wrong, they simply did what they were told was wrong. The government can tell you that it is wrong to be a jew, but that doesn't make it true.

 

The soul is supposedly separate from the physical form. Any physical, mental, psychological damage is physical and does not go with the soul. In other words, all damage is temporary. Despite your feels, you will get over everything. if you don't like it, too bad because god does and your feelings are his property too. Raped? Beaten as a child? Mutilated? Oh, you'll be completely fine - better than fine.

 

Time. You are here for like 80 years. You spend eternity in heaven. Can you count to infinity? Can you comprehend it? I didn't think so. If your friend punches you in the shoulder, it hurts. Momentarily. You consented and you are fine. You forget it happened. it still hurt when it happened. it took a fraction of a second. Over the course of that 80 years, you can say that it meant nothing, had not effect on you, and was completely irrelevant. In 16 billion years, do you think that you will remember this 80? Supposing god and heaven are real, no, you won't remember it.

 

Now, please pick it apart.

 

 

Not really an argument, but this sounds a lot like what a person who wants to commit or justify unspeakable evil against another person or justify unspeakable evil which was committed against them would want to believe in. Either that, or a person who wants to escape self-ownership, self-responsablity and/or pretend that his/her evil actions doesn't have consequences, aren't harmful or won't corrupt them.

God is concept which justifies abusers and pacifies the tormented abused. Essentially, one of more sicker forms of evil.

I'd rather worship Satan, if the whole concept wasn't a mythology to begin with.

Disgusting.

[Soulfire]

_LiveFree_, with respect to your views, they are, in SOME cases, erroneous. Have you ever heard of the Shramanas? They were--maybe still are: I don't know if they still exist--holy men in India who abstained from every worldly pleasure, and even from keeping themselves safe, in order to deny the body and reach Nirvana. The Buddha himself was a Shramana for around six years. He starved himself in the interest of achieving release from Samsara, and, to hold one of your examples in mind, he did eat his own waste. But the stories say that he only abandoned that path and found the Middle Way when he was so skinny that, if he put his finger in his navel, he could feel his spine on the other side. There was also, to take another one of your examples to heart, a Jain king who nearly killed himself in order to give an eagle enough meat to eat (he sliced off parts of his own flesh), rather than allowing the eagle to eat a smaller bird that would otherwise have been its prey.

As for patriarch, I have never, nor will I ever, say that God is a male. God is without gender.

Okay, secondly, dude with the cross, we only need to wake up to the realization that we are God. After that, there is nothing to do but for the sake of doing the thing itself. In essence, we are released from our Karmic consequences the moment we wake up, and so doing good by the standards of others is more of an activity or a pastime than a duty. That's why the Buddha taught the Dharma, that's why Mahavira taught the Jain path. Both were awake, but both wanted to help others wake up as well. Does that help at all?

PS: Your name is really long. Can I call you Donna? I suppose you're the CHICK with the cross, not the DUDE with the cross, silly me.

[Donnadogsoth]

12 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

_LiveFree_, with respect to your views, they are, in SOME cases, erroneous. Have you ever heard of the Shramanas? They were--maybe still are: I don't know if they still exist--holy men in India who abstained from every worldly pleasure, and even from keeping themselves safe, in order to deny the body and reach Nirvana. The Buddha himself was a Shramana for around six years. He starved himself in the interest of achieving release from Samsara, and, to hold one of your examples in mind, he did eat his own waste. But the stories say that he only abandoned that path and found the Middle Way when he was so skinny that, if he put his finger in his navel, he could feel his spine on the other side. There was also, to take another one of your examples to heart, a Jain king who nearly killed himself in order to give an eagle enough meat to eat (he sliced off parts of his own flesh), rather than allowing the eagle to eat a smaller bird that would otherwise have been its prey.

As for patriarch, I have never, nor will I ever, say that God is a male. God is without gender.

Okay, secondly, dude with the cross, we only need to wake up to the realization that we are God. After that, there is nothing to do but for the sake of doing the thing itself. In essence, we are released from our Karmic consequences the moment we wake up, and so doing good by the standards of others is more of an activity or a pastime than a duty. That's why the Buddha taught the Dharma, that's why Mahavira taught the Jain path. Both were awake, but both wanted to help others wake up as well. Does that help at all?

PS: Your name is really long. Can I call you Donna? I suppose you're the CHICK with the cross, not the DUDE with the cross, silly me.

Donna's as good as anything.

Why do we need to wake up?  I thought we were God and God has no preferences.

[_LiveFree_]

5 hours ago, Soulfire said:

_LiveFree_, with respect to your views, they are, in SOME cases, erroneous. Have you ever heard of the Shramanas? They were--maybe still are: I don't know if they still exist--holy men in India who abstained from every worldly pleasure, and even from keeping themselves safe, in order to deny the body and reach Nirvana. The Buddha himself was a Shramana for around six years. He starved himself in the interest of achieving release from Samsara, and, to hold one of your examples in mind, he did eat his own waste. But the stories say that he only abandoned that path and found the Middle Way when he was so skinny that, if he put his finger in his navel, he could feel his spine on the other side. There was also, to take another one of your examples to heart, a Jain king who nearly killed himself in order to give an eagle enough meat to eat (he sliced off parts of his own flesh), rather than allowing the eagle to eat a smaller bird that would otherwise have been its prey.

As for patriarch, I have never, nor will I ever, say that God is a male. God is without gender.

Okay, secondly, dude with the cross, we only need to wake up to the realization that we are God. After that, there is nothing to do but for the sake of doing the thing itself. In essence, we are released from our Karmic consequences the moment we wake up, and so doing good by the standards of others is more of an activity or a pastime than a duty. That's why the Buddha taught the Dharma, that's why Mahavira taught the Jain path. Both were awake, but both wanted to help others wake up as well. Does that help at all?

PS: Your name is really long. Can I call you Donna? I suppose you're the CHICK with the cross, not the DUDE with the cross, silly me.

Gautama never existed. Like Jesus, he's a fable. Proof of his existence would be in order if you are going to use him for real world examples. Nirvana doesn't exist, which means you can't use achieving Nirvana as an example of survival. Examples of holy men who do not procreate cannot be used as examples of survival. I gave you a very basic premise of "man survives because of his preferences", which is a statement based on biology, and all I got in return was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Not one argument.

Now before you accuse me of not understanding eastern thought you should know I studied it for years before finally learning real philosophy. There are great things that come out of the east, philosophy isn't one of them. 

[Soulfire]

We only need to wake up because waking up strips us of need. If once we realize we are God, then everything falls into place. You can't ACT as God or BE as God until you know that you ARE God. See what I mean?

[Soulfire]

Please define what you mean by "real" philosophy...? And if you say Aristotle, I could just as easily say "Not an argument" to you because I just don't like him. He was a misogynist. And how do we know that he even existed? We have the writings of the Buddha, and we have the writings of Aristotle. We have historical documentation supporting the fact that both men existed. We have the testimony of their students to rely on. We have their actual philosophies to rely on. You and I may actually be equal in terms of the Eastern stuff at any rate, because that's my "bread and butter", shall we say. It's what I've learned best and longest. Find me documentary proof that he didn't exist, eh? Thanks.

[Donnadogsoth]

16 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

We only need to wake up because waking up strips us of need. If once we realize we are God, then everything falls into place. You can't ACT as God or BE as God until you know that you ARE God. See what I mean?

If our true identity is God, why aren't we born this way?  Why does God play tricks on himself?

[Kohlrak]

This would end fairly quickly if he would have cited passages which point this post to be part of Christianity. Either there's some gross misinterpretation going on, or these arguments are not within the confines of Christianity. We're going down a fairly buddhist path.

 

I will admit, though, God is indeed a jerk. But, that's cool. There's a certain aspect of required humility here: a creator always has less responsibility than the created, otherwise our actions as humans in video games, as well as our removal of outdated technology would be morally wrong. At the very least, shutting down AI projects that are not working to our liking would be murder or genocide. Jesus makes God look reasonable, but Judaism makes him look fairly scary, as does Islam. Arguably, Jesus shows us that God has a purpose for us and that sin is a sign that we are too buggy (to use the analogy) to fulfill that purpose, but He argues that our runtime code can be changed on the fly. There is no reason to assume that this "purpose" is what Christians typically suggest, which is that it's to "win more people over." We're not really being told the end game, but rather only the details that are currently relevant to us.

[Soulfire]

That, in Hinduism, is called the "Leela". The word means "play", and it's used both in the sense of a stage-play and of actual play, like a game, see. So, all of this is the Leela of God. My Lord specifically, Sri Krishna, was always very playful. It's a trait of innocence which we are meant to possess, but also a trait of not taking things too seriously, because, the more seriously we take the Leela, the more trapped in it we become. Have you ever been to a movie or a play where you got so wrapped up in the plot that it could make you laugh and scream and cry and get angry and get happy accordingly? That's what this life is like. But then, there has to be a point at which the play or the movie ends, right? There are two points where this happens in life: upon death, or upon Awakening. Ostensibly, to wake up is the same as saying to yourself, "Wait, why do I care what's hiding in the basement? It's not real!"

So, us not "getting it" is God's idea of a joke, a game, a play. I rather appreciate the sense of humour, mind, but at the same time, there has to be a point at which reality hits, just like at the end of a movie or stage-play.

[Donnadogsoth]

So, you're saying God puts himself into situations of extreme terror and pain, for the sake of fun.  Technically that's called "masochism."  God is the Great Masochist.

 

But why is God masochistic if he has no preferences?  Why does he feel the need to play with himself?

[Soulfire]

It's not just great suffering, you know. It's great beauty too. There's a Yin and a Yang to everything and God is both, while at the same time experiencing both. So, God is also the Great Hedonist, you might say.

[Donnadogsoth]

19 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

It's not just great suffering, you know. It's great beauty too. There's a Yin and a Yang to everything and God is both, while at the same time experiencing both. So, God is also the Great Hedonist, you might say.

How can God be a hedonist and have no preferences at the same time?  He likes suffering and he likes "beauty" having no preference for either?

[Soulfire]

Well yes, I mean in terms of not preferring me over you, or a tulip over a daisy, or even a slug over a worm, and so forth. God isn't subjective like we are. God is the objective Truth of everything. How can objectivity have a preference? At the same time, you get God's subjective side (as God is everything) incarnated in things that DO have preferences, like us, for example. But God doesn't even care if a branch of Itself dies, because God is eternal. So, when I kick the bucket, and someone else is born after I die, then that's just God being recycled as always. Think of the Universe(s) as one giant recycling plant. It's very efficient.

[Donnadogsoth]

18 minutes ago, Soulfire said:

Well yes, I mean in terms of not preferring me over you, or a tulip over a daisy, or even a slug over a worm, and so forth. God isn't subjective like we are. God is the objective Truth of everything. How can objectivity have a preference? At the same time, you get God's subjective side (as God is everything) incarnated in things that DO have preferences, like us, for example. But God doesn't even care if a branch of Itself dies, because God is eternal. So, when I kick the bucket, and someone else is born after I die, then that's just God being recycled as always. Think of the Universe(s) as one giant recycling plant. It's very efficient.

Efficient indeed.  So, why shouldn't people do evil things to each other?  That way God gets to be the divine Masochist and the divine Sadist/Hedonist at the same time!

[Soulfire]

Well, with all respect intended, have you not noticed that people DO do terrible things to one another? Such is life, for the moment. But, as God is the Eternal Now, who knows how it will be now...now...now...now...fifty thousand "nows" from now? It all has to go with the flow, I think, but as for myself, I'm more the giver type than the taker type, so I prefer to live with the "good" side of things. Shit happens, obviously, and plenty of it has happened to me and my family over the years, of course, just like with any other, but at the same time, you'll find that normal, bland existence will always reestablish itself. What do you think the function of the "good guy" is, after all? Nothing but to reassert normalcy. Somewhat boring but such is the pattern of life. Again, for now.

[Donnadogsoth]

12 hours ago, Soulfire said:

Well, with all respect intended, have you not noticed that people DO do terrible things to one another? Such is life, for the moment. But, as God is the Eternal Now, who knows how it will be now...now...now...now...fifty thousand "nows" from now? It all has to go with the flow, I think, but as for myself, I'm more the giver type than the taker type, so I prefer to live with the "good" side of things. Shit happens, obviously, and plenty of it has happened to me and my family over the years, of course, just like with any other, but at the same time, you'll find that normal, bland existence will always reestablish itself. What do you think the function of the "good guy" is, after all? Nothing but to reassert normalcy. Somewhat boring but such is the pattern of life. Again, for now.

You have not answered the question.  Why shouldn't an evil person continue to do evil?

[Soulfire]

You know what's funny is that I hardly talk to anyone on here other than you, Miss Donna.  

To answer your question though, how about being good is just more fun, eh? For me. But I can't judge of that for others. The Daoists say there has to be that contrast, and always will be, but I can dream of utopia, eh? Philosophers have been dreaming of it for millennia, after all. But I'm also here to TRY for utopia: to bring it nearer. And the only way anyone can do that is to extend the field of consciousness just that little, little bit more until, eventually, we'll reach critical mass and then BAM! Utopia. Brilliant, eh baby?

[Donnadogsoth]

21 hours ago, Soulfire said:

You know what's funny is that I hardly talk to anyone on here other than you, Miss Donna.  

To answer your question though, how about being good is just more fun, eh? For me. But I can't judge of that for others. The Daoists say there has to be that contrast, and always will be, but I can dream of utopia, eh? Philosophers have been dreaming of it for millennia, after all. But I'm also here to TRY for utopia: to bring it nearer. And the only way anyone can do that is to extend the field of consciousness just that little, little bit more until, eventually, we'll reach critical mass and then BAM! Utopia. Brilliant, eh baby?

You have given no reason why an evil person should not continue to do evil, if they find evil to be "more fun" than good.

[Soulfire]

No, I haven't, but only because I myself, as a "good" person, see no particular reason to be evil. I wouldn't personally find that fun, and so it's more or less beyond my experience to be able to say whether it would be. However, consider the Jain parable: a king found a small bird and saved it from a swooping hawk. Animals can talk in this story, so bear with me here. The hawk said to the king that, in saving the life of the little bird, the king was denying the hawk life, in that hawks are hunters and require meat. The king offered the hawk vegetarian food from off of his own plate (Jains are STRICTEST vegetarians), but the hawk, again, being a predator, required meat. So the king said that he would give his own flesh, equal to the weight of the small bird, to the hawk as food, which he did. Note the ambivalence here, though. If the king wanted to save the bird, he would have denied the hawk life. The point, other than the fact that the good king gave his own flesh, may be to say that you can't save everyone or everything. But God dammit if I'm not going to try. But it also speaks about the ambivalence of evil: what the little bird would have seen as evil, being eaten by the hawk, the hawk would see as good, as the instinct to consume flesh is just that of a hunter. Is it evil? Not necessarily. Is it good? Not necessarily. "Good" and "evil" may just be labels, really, all depending on perspective. So, is there any point in judging the hawk? No, I don't see that. Ambivalence like that can be found in many of the stories from the East: consider the war at Kurukshetra in which my Lord Krishna instructed the Pandavas to use any means necessary to defeat the Kauravas. And the Lord is unquestionably good, so...who knows what is good or bad?

[Donnadogsoth]

9 hours ago, Soulfire said:

No, I haven't, but only because I myself, as a "good" person, see no particular reason to be evil. I wouldn't personally find that fun, and so it's more or less beyond my experience to be able to say whether it would be. However, consider the Jain parable: a king found a small bird and saved it from a swooping hawk. Animals can talk in this story, so bear with me here. The hawk said to the king that, in saving the life of the little bird, the king was denying the hawk life, in that hawks are hunters and require meat. The king offered the hawk vegetarian food from off of his own plate (Jains are STRICTEST vegetarians), but the hawk, again, being a predator, required meat. So the king said that he would give his own flesh, equal to the weight of the small bird, to the hawk as food, which he did. Note the ambivalence here, though. If the king wanted to save the bird, he would have denied the hawk life. The point, other than the fact that the good king gave his own flesh, may be to say that you can't save everyone or everything. But God dammit if I'm not going to try. But it also speaks about the ambivalence of evil: what the little bird would have seen as evil, being eaten by the hawk, the hawk would see as good, as the instinct to consume flesh is just that of a hunter. Is it evil? Not necessarily. Is it good? Not necessarily. "Good" and "evil" may just be labels, really, all depending on perspective. So, is there any point in judging the hawk? No, I don't see that. Ambivalence like that can be found in many of the stories from the East: consider the war at Kurukshetra in which my Lord Krishna instructed the Pandavas to use any means necessary to defeat the Kauravas. And the Lord is unquestionably good, so...who knows what is good or bad?

Okay, I read you.  Long story short:  evil people, keep on being evil, because it's all relative.