Prayer Not prayer

[Xavier_Onassis]

I did not say that God is a jerk. I said that God as described in the Bible, which is something entirely distinct, is a jerk.
Any deity that somehow needs and feeds on constant praise is psychologically disturbed. This vision of God depicts him as like Saddam Hussein, Benito Mussolini, Nicola Ceauceascu or Henry VIII. All must feed his need for constant praise or will be punished for all eternity, not only the relatively puny punishments that any of the egomaniacs I named.

Any loving deity that would create malaria or the other dozens of horrible diseases that can only be attributed to the creator is not a loving deity at all. It serves no character building purpose for a baby to get malaria and battle it until it dies. What theists claim is that God is so inscrutable that we cannot know his purpose, but that it has to be a wonderful purpose, anyway. This is just a crock of shit.

The definition of God as eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal and the creator of everything is a human construct. There is no reason to assume that the creator and the presiding intelligence of the universe are one and the same. or that the creator is unchanging and is at present what he always was. A belief in God does not have to be a belief in the Trinity, or Jesus, or the ability to know the future. The various attributes do not have to be seen as essentially a total package.

It is the manufacturer that says you must buy the leather interior if you want a GPS. The reality is that it si possible to have one without the other. The universe does not have to be like GM or Toyota with regard to divine attributes.

There is a very clear motive for religions to claim that God actually  hears and occasionally reacts to prayers, because if he does not, then the entire bureaucracy of any religious structure of most Western religions collapses. If prayer and useless, then Muslims are only deceived lunatics muttering to themselves five times a day, nuns, priests and monks are uselessly muttering to themselves as well.

Buddhism does not deal with an unseen creator, and the meditation of Buddhist monks is a matter of personal mental hygiene that still can be sen as in some way useful.
Confucius and Taoism are similar in that they concentrate on rightful living as its own reward, not something done to please an invisible spirit for goodies in some largely unknowable existence after death.

There is an undercurrent of belief in reincarnation in some forms of Buddhism. Being as the universe tends to be cyclical in nature, this makes as much sense regarding an afterlife than the Christian/Muslim belief in life as being a straight trajectory from birth to Paradise or Perdition.


 

[Plane]

That is a really good post.

If all the points made were rotated 180 I would be proud to have written it myself.

So...

Do you think that the Creator would create intelligence , then show no interest in it?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Do you think that the Creator would create intelligence , then show no interest in it?

I used to be really, really interested in playing folk music on my 12 string guitar. Once, another teacher and I drove all the way from Washington State to Kansas City in my 1960 T Bird. We paid for the entire trip and more, buy singing at rest stops along the Interstate and soliciting money from other tourists. We left with $200 and had $324 when we got to KC, mostly in change. I used to help run a coffeehouse in Hoquiam, WA, where I met a lot of folksingers on their way along the Pacific Coast, including Judy Collins, Malvina Reynolds, and others who we offered free lodging to in the coffeehouse, which was loaned to us by the Psychic Science Church, which had services there until most of the members died, leaving only a married couple, who liked folk music.

I taught school out on the coast at Westport (Ocosta Unified School) for three years. When we got back to KC, my buddy, who taught third grade, got a drive away and drove it back to Seattle.

I really liked folk music, and considered it as a possible career.

I once sold dozens of Mexican guitars that I contracted made in Mexico, and still have a 12 string, but I have not played it since 1990.

So perhaps God just got bored. Maybe he got bored before humans even appeared. Bill Gates got his start at phone phreaking, I am sure he doesn't mess with it any more. I think that Opel and Daihatsu autos grew out of factories that made sewing machines.

The idea that an Eternal Being would always have the same interests and never get bored seems to me to be a concept created by boring old priests who found their comfy niches, and loved the attention of unquestioning parishioners. I would think it logical that any eternal or even really long lived being with a real creative streak would get bored with the same old schtick century after century.

[Plane]

  If God had made us of such durable materiel  that we never got sick or hosted a parasite or ever died , perhaps we could be made so instinctively noble that we never lied or betrayed one another. Perhaps we would feed on stuff the atmosphere just carried to us.

We would live the life of clams.


That would not be boring?

Being all knowing and in touch with everything that happens , I have no idea how boredom would work.

Our scriptures seem to describe a God that is highly interested in us, observing nature suggests that he likes beetles too.

But do beetles ask why a loving God would create birds?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't think that clams have it all that easy.

I have dug for razor clams in the sand in Washington State, and for Geoducks in the mud in Pugot  Sound.

They occasionally had bumps on their shells shells that was said to be due to some clam disease.

Only a tiny fraction of young clams survive to grow into maturity. Clams spew forth thousands of eggs and sperm.

I reject your idea that God gave us elephantiasis. leprosy and malaria  to keep us from getting bored.

[Plane]

What do you mean keep us from being bored?

I thought you were talking of his ennui.


I wonder if any geoducks  had to complain about you to God?

[Xavier_Onassis]

There are two ideas here.
First, the idea that God's mental attitude is always constant is an assumption that people seem to make that could be unjustified. If God gets bored, and who si to say that he does not, then he might just walk away and/or take up a different hobby.

Second, the idea that God afflicts people with hideous diseases so they will not get bored does not jibe with the idea that God knows everything. I thought that this was what you meant. If so, I find this rather bogus.

[Plane]

  I really know nothing about Gods motives.

    Boredom? eh maybe, but highly intellectual people don't get bored very long, they find something to do.

     I interpolate Gods intellect being extreme or infinite, he would not be bored long before he built something .

     What would make us deserve divine sacrifice , or even more than a moments divine attention, is beyond me to explain.
      It just seems evident .

[Xavier_Onassis]

but highly intellectual people don't get bored very long, they find something to do.

     I interpolate Gods intellect being extreme or infinite, he would not be bored long before he built something .

That was my point precisely. After several centuries or so, God would likely get bored with humans and move on to a new hobby.



     What would make us deserve divine sacrifice , or even more than a moments divine attention, is beyond me to explain.
      It just seems evident .

It is not that big a deal to sacrifice one's life if one is not obliged to STAY DEAD. The worst thing about death is that it is permanent.

As for divine attention. I think most of that is in our heads. Maybe all of it.

[Plane]

It is not that big a deal to sacrifice one's life if one is not obliged to STAY DEAD. The worst thing about death is that it is permanent.

This is an assumption. Death might be bad otherwise.  Jesus wept for his friend that he was minutes from resurrecting.

As for divine attention. I think most of that is in our heads. Maybe all of it.

Or everything is evidence.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It has to be hard for someone who spends a lot of time in prayer to think that all this time they have been muttering to themselves alone.

Jesus did a lot of miracles, or at least that is what they say, but resurrection was far and away the most impressive. He did not do much to exploit this to his advantage. he only returned once and not for very long, and then promised to make a second appearance soon after and failed to do so.

Imagine how much more Paul would have been to have Jesus popping in at the end of a sermon. There are few things more impressive than the Return from The Dead. Note how much we like Vampire and even Zombie movies.

And now... returning from Death and his current home at the Right Hand of God... JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY!!!!
(wow!)

I am not sure that Paul would have enjoyed being upstaged, though.
It would have certainly forced him to change his act.

[Plane]

  Paul did a lot of his act from prison.

  It doesn't ring true to say he was insincere or aggrandizing.

  Often in prayer, the feeling of Gods presence is palpable.

   No , this is not evidence I expect you to accept, I get it , so what need I prove to myself?

   I do enjoy wrestling these questions you pose , tho I don't really expect to argue you into Heaven, it is a service to me to require this sort of carefully made thought.

    I also enjoyed your short recounting of traveling as a busker.

      I would indeed like to show you the way to heaven , but it is acceptance of the deal that Jesus offers that is critical for this, not anything I may say or do.

       I think what we are doing is abrading each others wit.

       Perhaps to mutual benefit.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Paul's accounts were written by Paul himself, and probably edited later to emphasize his saintliness.  Paul's act was his performance at the various churches he founded or assisted.

[Plane]

  This leaves entirely unaddressed the issue of why Paul would do anything like this.

   

[Xavier_Onassis]

Paul was a promoter.  Have you ever met a promoter that did not think he was hot shit?
Paul even promoted his own humility.

I detest promoters. They are all scum. Not one of them is worth a damn. There is no reason to believe anything a promoter promoters.

Paul was like Reagan. He spouted his own nonsense for so long that he believed his own horseshit. That is the only true way to fake sincerity.