BS: What's Up With God These Days???

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 07:13 PM

If you know the extension of the deity you would like to reach, please press 1 now.

If you are calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line and God help help you.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 07:20 PM

That's what they told me.... you want answers? "God help you!"

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 09:57 PM

Bill D

I dreamed the Venn diagram and right outs side the perpendicular 248th dimension (which was gravity) there was the infinite outside energy vector that was God. Yep we are inside God's guts.

I will give you the link to the venn diagram

BTW do you have a 3-D computer?

IT won't help, the diagram is 248-D

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 11:27 PM

The Higher Pants of a Nutball

by J.G. Farthington Fuckwitt



One, who is young may wear diapers and a little older short pants.
One who is really old wears diapers and might smell just like Gramps

When pants are pulled higher they can go to the armpits
If they go iny higher ya open the zipper ta git to yur lips.

Iffn pants went to the sky you'd fall right out the cuff
But iffn they shrank to half size the pain would be mighty tough


Now when pants fit jus right ya don't feel a sensation
The size of your package is left to imagination.

Best of all is when they come off, to have a real good time
Which is usually watching the game which aint no crime.

You come into this world all naked and bare with no gall durn pants
so when I go ta heaven I'll prloy be naked, Oh hell I proly see Gramps

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:15 AM

Bobert, your original question was just plain silly...but you probably knew that, right? ;-)

Anyway, Amos already answered it perfectly in the 2nd post on this thread.

He said, "...ask the mirror. It won't lie to you."

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:59 AM

It's an interesting factor in spiritual evolution, don't you think? ;-) In the long run natural selection works against greed, laziness, and other forms of negativity, because they are self-destructive.


Not at all true. Selfishness is just another evolutionary move. It might bring destruction, but if it brings more destruction to the generous than the selfish, the baddies prosper. Just the way the world is.

And, LH and Amos, mirrors do lie. Perhaps you've never met an anorexic, or heard of Michael Winner.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 03:17 AM

I said "in the long run", Paul. And I am correct about that. Just look at the present dilemma of people on planet Earth and you'll see that. In the long run the greed and selfishness of humanity has put them and many other species on the planet in grave danger of survival.

In the short run, selfishness and greed appear to be a clever way to get ahead. In the long run, they prove self-defeating.

But if you want to believe the contrary, feel free to exploit all your selfishness, greed, and other such aggressive impulses to the maximum degree possible...become a very successful "baddie"...and when you finally have no friends left, when most people despise you, and you're in jail or awaiting execution for your crimes, write me with your retraction. ;-D

Furthermore, mirrors do not lie. But sometimes the people looking into the mirrors lie to themselves about what they are seeing. This is the case with the anorexic. It is also the case with the egomaniac or the naricissist, I suppose. It's also the case with people who don't respect or who even hate themselves. In any case, the problem is definitely not with the mirror, and the mirror does not lie.

But Amos's statement was not about that anyway. It wasn't about the image. It wasn't intended literally. It was about looking within yourself...not at the mere surface appearances. Surface appearances are rather trivial, but what's within you is crucial. What's within you is determined by your consciousness, your philosophy, and your general attitude.

And THAT is the crux of what most religions and philosophies are actually about when they begin: what's within you. Religions start out being about that. Then the bean counters, bureaucrats, and literal minds take over...they turn the religion into a power structure, and they use it to betray just about everything that religion stood for when it started out. (Although, there are always some honest people within a religion who continue honestly looking within themselves instead of seeking power and material gain...they aren't the ones you usually hear about, because it's the bean counters who generally end up making most of the noise and exercising most of the control.

This is also true in government, in the business world, in academia, in the military, the police force...everywhere. And that's because most people are really not that mature. They haven't reached a point where they're willing to look honestly within themselves yet. They only look outside themselves.

And they will scoff at the very idea of looking within, laugh at it, call it a weakness, because they prefer to remain exactly as they already are: ignorant, stupid, small-minded, scared, cruel, and most of all: self-satisfied.

And why not? They already have all the answers! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 11:06 AM

"You can't see your future in a rear-view mirror".

Thanx 4 the quote Wesley.
Much more succinct.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 11:24 AM

Evolution of life spirit and knowledge is a lofty and even a comfy definition of god within ourselves. Yet survival of the fittest/greediest/aggressive, will not yield to that lofty notion.

Contrary to LH's idealism, The biggest baddest Baddies will not go to jail, will not lose friends or face execution. The crimes of the greastest theft or abandonment of children or the elderly and not even for the abject killing of people via innumerable strategies that can be attributed to the most powerfully greedy, they will not be held respondsible.

You may say that is exactly why we need a new status quo, a new systemm a new raison d'etre a new spirituality. Indeed that is a lofty generous wonderful spirit and I celebrate your call for hope and change.

Cynical as it may sound my friend, even a new system will be subject to the same corruption by the fittest and the greediest.
The evolution of god or soul is subject tot he unseen hand. What I see in the irror to the Universe is that the unseen mover is dark energy and dark amatter which will continue to push the world of light to entropy in a natural process of life and death on the grandest scale there is.


That is no reason to abandon having the best time possible while we are here. But it won't change the fact that all things change and all things go away.

Little Hawk you introduced (small p ) plitics int the conversation and said it is the fault of people who have not yet looked within themselves effectively.

They do believe me, and they choose what will pay them most reliably.

Today Congressman Paul Ryan introduced his dismantling of Medicare to save 6 Trillion dollars over 10 years.
HE prefaced his remarks with "We OUGHT to have a social safety net, BUT it is old and frayed and it needs to be removed and replaced.

hoo boy People OUGHT to help the elderly to survive but it is not our fault if they have pre existing conditions.

I wonder if thehonest, poor and vunerable original Tea Party folks expected the REAL DEATH PANELS would come from the Billionaire branch of the Tea Party.

(how it will be replaced will be giving mondy to govenors to spend as they like and giving private insurance companies the competition to insure those that will be the best bets.)





but back to God.

In GOd we Trust













as far as we can throw him.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Stringsinger
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 12:57 PM

LH, having an intelligent discussion about religion (an oxymoron if there ever was one) means that definitions have to be precise so each party knows what the other is talking about. A vague "gawdy talk" has no precision, no real meaning except to one side who is promoting it.

Wesley, Steve Martin, BTW, has contributed to that change. There are others also.
Tim Minchin for example. Tom Lehrer. More each day. Stay tuned.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:04 PM

Tom Leher

If any songs are to come out of WW III, we better write them now.

The Pholsophy of George Carlin: "IT will all end in a great steaming pile of shit"

Even those who sought a better path while holding on to their faith got burned The little guy keeps tryin

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:42 PM

"LH, having an intelligent discussion about religion (an oxymoron if there ever was one) means that definitions have to be precise so each party knows what the other is talking about."

That's right, Stringsinger. ;-) But it's never going to happen here, simply because there are way too many different people all talking at (not to) each other at the same time. Too many cooks spoil the soup and obfuscate that conversation.

Were any two of us here to get together by ourselves in real 3-D life and talk at some length about religion, we could gradually get a clear picture of exactly what the other person means when he speaks of "God", "religion", "evolution", and many other things like that.

But it won't happen here, because too many people are all talking at once.

And I know it won't happen here. ;-) (shrug) I gave up a long time ago expecting that anything would EVER end up being clearly communicated on this forum so that everyone in the conversation understands clearly what the hell everyone else is talking about. It just ain't gonna happen! No effin' way.

So, the only reason I bother to talk here is:

1. I'm addicted to doing so.
2. It's something to do for a few minutes whenever I feel like it.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:46 PM

"I will give you the link to the venn diagram

BTW do you have a 3-D computer?

IT won't help, the diagram is 248-D"

Can I hook up 124 2-D computers in parallel? Or failing that, I could just have Amos put his mind to it and send me an image thru a wormhole.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 01:51 PM

Donuel, you're quite correct about those biggest "baddies" at the top of the power chain...they usually get off scot free.

However, I do not envy them the lives they have. I would not wish to change places with them.

What I was speaking about was more the collective sense of a whole humanity...and what happens to most people who behave simply according to their most selfish impulses...it usually doesn't pan out well for them in the long run. One can always find specific exceptions to such generalisations.

The high and the mighty usually die quietly in bed, surrounded by all their money and possessions. Whether they have "won the game" at that point is a matter of opinion. ;-) Is it really true that "he who dies with the most toys wins"?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I think that he who lives in the most positive and loving way wins...because what he won was each happy day that his attitude gave him while he was here.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 02:29 PM

Amos got worms?

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:04 PM

"Is it really true that "he who dies with the most toys wins"?

I am getting on.... you will know in a few years.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:08 PM

Toys = fun. It's simple arithmetic and it depends on the toys. There's a can of worms for yas.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:09 PM

The tarot cards are drained
And God's been acting strange
He gave up throwing bibles at the wall
His ministers complain
But nothing much has changed
I s'pose He's tryin' to forget about it all

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:31 PM

999... great stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:33 PM

Why, thank you gnu. I had that in a song when I was seventeen. Had a heckuva time recalling the lyrics. Nice of you to say.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:36 PM

Long-term evolution is abetted, not hindered, by altruism.

Although physically it is possible for mirrors to lie, the lie is usally imposed by the looker. And metaphorical mirrors (such as where one should look to know what is up with God) are not capable of lying.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:38 PM

999... I was gonna say cw it quick but I couldn't recall if I had heard it in one of your songs and just forgot and didn't want to embarass myself... in any case, it "sounds like you" and it's damn good stuff. It just sounds like one of your songs. Get thee to a geetar eh.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:40 PM

A... cool dude. Pass that over here eh.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:52 PM

Bill D: "That's what they told me.... you want answers? "God help you!"


.....or...just ask Him, then honestly LISTEN, and IF you get no reply, then blow it off. Problem is, to all those who won't even ask, when others are trying to tell you, that some answers come as a life changing EXPERIENCE, is like a bunch of happily married people, trying to convince some frigid bitches, that there really are orgasms!!!...but you gotta be willing to get laid!!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:55 PM

Not sure I follow your logic GfS... are you saying masturbation is the answer?

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 04:55 PM

Having the faith and discipleine to do self hypnosis in the mind set that guiding your intent with clarity and patience, your prayer will be answered is not in dispute.
IT works.

But there are millions of people adding baggage onto the process for profit , power or ego reasons, that the whole world suffers for the fighting inside and between brand names of self hypnosis. Brand names such as Christian, Islam, and even some of the on prosletizing religions.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 05:15 PM

gnu - He's saying that those who categorically refuse to look for something (because they don't "believe" in it or aren't interested) are extremely unlikely to find it. This would be true of anything one could look for, material or otherwise. If you have no interest in it, and you are unwilling to do any work to find it, then you very probably will not find it. ;-)

People who are unwilling to look within themselves, for instance, are most unlikely to find what's in them, aren't they? I've known thousands of people like that. Their attention is entirely on what's outside of them. Their criticism is entirely for what's outside of them. Their desires are entirely for what's outside of them. They (some of them) even tend to imagine a God that's entirely outside of them! They will never look within themselves...the reason, I think, being: they're afraid of what they might find. Or else they're just too distracted by the outer world to ever even think of looking within.

That's what the philosopher was referring to, I think, when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 05:22 PM

"...just ask Him, then honestly LISTEN"

and you know it's 'honest' listening how?


GfS.... as you might imagine, my personal opinion is that what one 'hears' in that process is subjective. It may be a good answer, and one 'may' even feel that it comes from some metaphysical source...and 'asking' may be something like giving ones self permission to ummmmm... 'desire' certain answers. It is really complex trying to 'run around behind yourself' and monitor your own motives, but to me that is a better metaphor than positing a 'Him' and doing this complex mental exercise as if I was 'listening' to an external source.
Some clever person...(ah..Google says it was G.E. Moore) once said: "Theology is the finding of bad reasons for things we are going to believe anyway." I have suspected for many years that most prayer follows a similar path.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how THEY should process those times when answers and/or help are needed and no obvious way of coping is evident.... but I simply don't function like that.

One more example: An old Donald Duck comic book had Donald & his nephews on a trip, and deciding where to go by flipping a coin at major intersections....they even called the practice "Flipism". What you learn from coin flipping is that, while the coin is in the air, you usually know how you hope it will land. I think it is much the same with praying.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 05:29 PM

There is no way of corroborating something like that, Bill. It can be experienced, perhaps, but it can't be proven.

Is that a problem? I don't find it a problem, I just deal with my own inner experiences myself, as best I can, and I am not in any way concerned as to whether I can prove them to anyone else...because I KNOW that I can't, and what difference would it make anyway? The experience isn't real for someone else until they HAVE it.

One's own inner experiences convince in a way that outer opinions cannot, but that doesn't mean they have to convince anyone else. That's not what they are for.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 05:52 PM

Well.. some of my most interesting "inner experiences" are dreams....and many of those I certainly HOPE are not indicative of reality. I am reasonably confident that many dreams reflect my 'frustrations' and allow me to process stresses without taking up waking energy, but the details are simply accessing memories and associations. I also suspect that conscious "inner experiences" have many of the same origins and should be ..... hmmmm... "taken with a grain of salt."

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 06:02 PM

Yes, dreams are interesting inner experiences, and they probably do have a great deal to do with processing one's various frustrations and desires, etc...

They are a real inner experience (mental activity with effects on the nervous system), but they aren't any kind of real outer experience. They can probably show you some useful stuff about your emotional and mental states, if you understand them well enough.

They do access memories and associations. The part that would interest me is "Why this memory...as opposed to millions of others? What's the connection."

I think dreams have meaning and are not just random, but there's no way of proving that.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 06:16 PM

Too deep for me. Especially when when someone else answers for others. I am gone. gightgnu.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 06:16 PM

"... have meaning and are not just random.."

Not just random. But some parts are quite random. Those little neurons can be triggered by some odd order of other little neurons firing.
Why else, when dreaming of attending some vague folk event, would I insert as I did last night, Jeri (our Jeri) remarking the she needed a cigarette and had to go outside? The basic dream I have lost the details and relevance of...but I'm SURE it wasn't 'about' Jeri OR cigarettes....my strange little neurons just added that in....randomly.
So unless you ascribe to the notion (as a friend of mine does) that nothing is truly random, it is hard to maintain that dreams **have** meaning. WE give them meaning after the fact.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 06:37 PM

Well, I think everything has meaning...at some level. I don't claim to know all the levels, though. ;-)

I tend to agree with your friend that nothing is truly random. But many things appear random, because we have very limited information to go on, and very limited means of acquiring that information.

Seems to me there are 2 general sorts of attitude out there, Bill. One is: "This all has meaning."
The other is: "This happened randomly, therefore it has only the meaning we choose to give it."

I favor the first approach. You seem to favor the second. Either one makes perfect sense within its own basic set of prior assumptions.

Religions all assume that there is an inherent meaning behind things.

Anti-religious movements seem to assert that there is not...and that we simply make up what meanings we choose to.

That is why I am essentially more in sympathy with a religious viewpoint than with a decidely anti-religious viewpoint, because I cannot sympathize with a philosophical viewpoint that asserts (at the heart of itself) that its own life has no essential meaning. That, to me, is a complete denial of whatever makes life noble, beautiful, and worth living.

You would say, I presume, that we make up the various ideals we aspire to. I think that we rise to them...if we are willing to...and that they were already there. I do not think we are an accident in a meaningless Universe nor do I think anything else is.

And I can't fathom why anyone would want to think so, why they would want to minimize their own essential value to that extent...unless it was just for the glory and satisfaction of being "right" (meaning someone else is therefore "wrong")... ;-D Small potatoes, that is....like a few crumbs on a bare, cold plate. I think a society is headed straight to the trash heap when it stops believing in anything except material gain and tactile things that can be proven. That was the Soviet theory: that man lives by bread alone. That all can be set in order that way. I think they were very wrong about that. Man craves not just bread, but nobility, beauty, love, and a higher purpose in life. Man craves meaning. Take it away, assert that we are just an accident, and that it came about randomly, and you have ripped the pschological heart out of people's lives.

All they have left then is material gain, material considerations, and intellectual pride...which delights in being "right" merely for the sake of being "right", but has no greater purpose in mind.

I am not arguing FOR organized religions, by the way. I'm arguing against the denial of there being an inherent meaning in life.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 06:39 PM

I HAD A DREAM..............................................that I woke up.

Like that, Bill?

By the way, Little Hawk seemed to get it right....he must be 'experienced'!

Meanwhile, the frigid virgins prattle on.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 08:12 PM

Well.... this is beginning to feel like my old Philosophy prof. did, who got SO frustrated when a 2-3 hour seminar was ending, because every point he made led to 2 others. He always had to just 'stop', and try to get back to the general topic next time.

"Seems to me there are 2 general sorts of attitude out there, Bill. One is: "This all has meaning."
The other is: "This happened randomly, therefore it has only the meaning we choose to give it.""

I think there are intermediate positions. 'Meaning' is a human concept, and yes, to me it is assigned BY humans, though many of the assigned meanings are almost automatic and quite obvious. What is becoming more & more obvious (thru understanding of physics and the newer branches of physics) is that life seems to be 'inevitable' given certain conditions...and once life happens, it has certain built-in characteristics....like reproduction and sustaining itself and avoiding danger & discomfort. Then, when life becomes so complex that it can engage in reflexive analysis of itself (like you & I) it sorta cannot avoid labeling its own conscious AND sub-conscious interactions with the Universe...and with whatever it has come to see AS itself. Thus, we 'discover' moral principles and at the same time can contemplate the pros & cons of ignoring them!

If you really need to believe that "life has an ...essential meaning" that we somehow can reflect on, ask yourself when we acquired this ability and comprehension? Back when 'our' ancestors were hardly different than Chongo's, was there innate 'meaning' in our primitive thoughts and reactions? (I ask traditionally religious folks this about 'souls'. Did we have souls 4-5 million years ago? If not, when in the evolutionary process did we acquire them?)
    I DO see the sense you call 'innate meaning', but this doesn't mean that I reject a certain sense of randomness. I see certain conditions called 'life' as determined, but the subjective organization of data ABOUT life being ***functionally*** random, in that 'rational' beings could...and as this discussion shows... DO assign various meanings to our own experience.
   Now if you prefer to call this process/inclination/attitude...etc. "inherent meaning", I guess I see your reasoning, but the very condition that allows you to 'choose' that interpretation also allows me to choose a different interpretation of the linguistic formulation(s).

Thus, a lot of our interminable debate on these topics is just a matter of not accepting very basic definition of terms and presuppositions. (Which I 'think' supports my general attitude better...but of course, I would)

(BTW...some of this is similar to Kant's argument that certain 'principles' are discovered and logical....and can easily be shown to agree with both of us-- up to a point)

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 09:52 PM

I'm not sure what your post meant, all the way...BUT, 'morality' is NOT the path of how you hear from God. 'Morality', is the result of hearing from Him. Because once you have a REAL experience with Him, at His choosing, everything changes..and unless that happens, there is no 'rap' than can talk you into anything as real...nor any amount of things you can do 'for' Him....as if He needs our help. Actually, the best thing is not to DO anything for Him, but get out of the way, and let Him do things THROUGH you!

GfS

P.S. Including music!

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 10:24 PM

Hear, hear!

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 10:33 PM

"'Morality', is the result of hearing from Him. "...etc...

Well.... ummm..... I kinda FEEL moral, even without your definition.

"...once you have a REAL experience with Him, at His choosing..."

I'm not sure whether to quibble with "REAL" or the idea that 'He' just hasn't bothered with me yet.

I actually never expected YOU, GfS, to move from just debating/discussing various issues to plain old preaching. What you believe in is your business, but you need to be VERY aware that there is a good reason that it is CALLED 'belief', and that what you believe is simply not obviously true to everyone.
I can 'respect' others' beliefs, but at the same time I can be quite ...... (looking for the right words..) 'resentful'?... no, more like 'insulted', that anyone would suggest that I am just ignorant, or stubborn or deluded...or whatever.. because I *think* about these things and do not just accept the admonition to "...get out of the way, and let Him do things THROUGH you!"
   That is a slippery way of saying "be quiet and let us believers tell you what WE know to be the **truth**!"

I BEGAN in a church.... I found problems with having theology spoon-fed to me, and have spent 'about' 55 years now sorting out how to approach it all...from detailed studies of comparative religion to graduate studies in Philosophy...and 12-15 years of comparing notes here at Mudcat. *wry smile*

There is only a small difference in 'flavor' between what Little Hawk expounds and what YOU just told me. Those 55 years have sensitized me to the similarities....

I often wonder where this 'sanity' is that you reside in, but I'm beginning to get an inkling of your basic neighborhood.


g'night

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 10:35 PM

"hear, hear"?? about music?

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 11:17 PM

Ain't my place to say, but that's never stopped me before. I do not get along with GfS, nor GfS with me. Point finale. I can live with that. BUT, when GfS speaks what he/she perceives to be a truth, Kant, Nietzsche, whoever, matters less than GfS's truth at the time it's said.

I respect that you are much smarter than I will ever be, Bill. However, I've been in the presence of extremely smart people before, and sometimes they have been wrong.

When people read Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" and subject it to miniscule philosophical examination, it loses some of its impact. His remark about people being turned into numbers affected me. I don't mean you haven't understood it, but I do mean we have not internalized it in the same way.

GfS accused me a few days back of being drunk or stoned or both when I posted a something to a new-found friend of his/hers. I was neither. And that's why I will have nothing to do with him or her. I can live with that also. But you, being as smart as you are should know better. I don't give a rat's ass what any of the philosophers said. They were just people like us trying to find their way. That was written as one guy to another.

BM

PS I ain't drunk or stoned now, either. But I'll fix that in a few minutes.

B

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 11:19 PM

Well, I also feel that there is something beyond me that works through me when I write really good songs and when I sing them at my best, and the better I am at surrendering to it, the better are the results. This can be seen as rendering service or it can be seen as tuning in. Whatever is working through me, I don't call it "Him", but I do recognize that it's happening. I might just as well call it "Her", but I think that it's beyond naming. Sometimes I call it the Spirit of Life. That works for me.

I began in an atheist household. Maybe that's why I'm not carrying a big chip on my shoulder against religion (as many here do). I've met too many good people on both sides of that issue to go stereotyping them just because of what side they're on.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 03:35 AM

Calling a spade a shovel isn't stereotyping. It's calling a spade a shovel.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 03:51 AM

I would say I recognize the spirit of life or god or any other name one wishes to place on the subject that may or may not cause a heretical condemnation in certain countries that would lead to stoning or beheading.

I respect the conceptual faith that you describe little hawk. In another part of the world you could get in trouble for such speech.

But being in Canada it takes no bravado or courage to speak your truth as you see fit. Think of it as a luxury that will allow you to collect and focus your imaginative energy more freely there, and how fortunate you are to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 11:55 AM

"you are much smarter than I will ever be, Bill"

good thing this is in the BS section!

"Smart" ain't the issue... I don't make that kind of comparison. I just have a different history and viewpoint. I have my reasons for approaching it like I do and have worked for those 55 to examine & refine them.
I respect YOU, Bruce ....for seeing and coping with stuff *I* never could.

Now... I will drop this. I am going to West Virginia for a musical folk weekend and no sense taking this with me....

Take care all........

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 12:31 PM

You too take care, Bill, and have a great time.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 12:40 PM

I know I'm lucky to be where I am, Donuel. If I was, however, visiting in Saudi Arabia or somewhere like that, I would not talk publicly about my spiritual ideas there, I'd just keep it quietly to myself and outwardly show respect for the local conventions, whatever they might be. That wouldn't hurt me, and it wouldn't hurt them either.

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 08:48 PM

God called me up this afternoon and asked, "What's up with Bill D these days?"

I said, "Come on....you can't be God! God's supposed to be omniscient." and I hung up on him. Or her. Whatever...

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 10:59 PM

Awwww... I thought I had disguised my voice. If I had fooled YOU, I intended to start a cult and make millions.........

Subject: RE: BS: What's Up With God These Days???
From: reggie miles
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 01:38 AM

Interesting thread. I don't feel up to joining in on the more in depth aspects of this conversation but I did want to say that I find myself including much of what was mentioned in the previous posts in some of the songs that I write. I've never gone out of my way to play or sing what some might consider "Godly" songs but the occasional obscure gems do find their way into my set list, now and then. However, I've written what I call "truth songs" (my term) for songs that relate exactly some of the ideas expressed in many of the previous posts in this thread. Then, too, I also have my fun with some of the same.