Posted on 07/02/2010 6:56:08 PM PDT by Desdemona
But there is nothing compassionate about nature. Perhaps you need to look at some of the more graphic videos of animal life. Life for animals is hell. They are never safe, they can't control heat or drought, or heal their illness, or even know if they will eat and what they will eat. The way they are killed by other animals is gruesome, some of them become "meal" while they are still alive but too exhausted to run, etc. Then there are places like Culcutta (or whatever trhey call it now), Darfur, Rwanda, etc.
From the relative comfort of our homes, and out undeserved fortunes, it is easy to construct a compasisonate God, and sell him to the hopeless and the needy who are ready to grasp at anything. It's like dangling a sausage in fornt of a dog. Fear and fortune are two factors that loom prominent in these religions.
And that the cosmos is permeated with compassion, sometimes seen in how everything is part of something else which is part of something else... There's just one thing going on.
I know, "compassionate cosmos" such as supernovae, and galactic catastrophes, or just a mile or two long asteroid headed our way at ten times the speed of a bullet. It's a compassionate Russian roulette. And if there are any surviviors, the privileged willbe sure ly among them more than the ordinary folks.
I believe this from personal experience
Don't we all?
I believe it is as true as my experience of joy, beauty, sorrow, awe, and so on
If our personal experience becomes the norm than that is the reality we create. We also know that our personal experience is not to be trusted, our memory is patently unreliable, and our psychic and emotional reactions are not ecessairly reflective of the reality around us.
It's an inner world in which we reign supreme, which we can choose as our abode, just as we can lock ourselves in our house and pretend the world doesn't exist.
Okay, what is a meaningful cosmos?
I know none of this is provable, nor is it possible to transmit it through description or some magic mind meld. But it's reality to me and it is how the world works. IMHO of course. YMMV.
I have no doubt about it being your reality. It's just not necessarily the reality for others who may be less fortunate, perhaps a mother in Darfur whose babies just got hacked to death in front of her, and who may not have any food for her remaining child, who doesn't know if that child will live another day, who has no access to medical care, or who has been raped repeatedly by marauding gangs of soldiers.
We choose what we want to see or don't want to see. It may be irrelevant if it is snowing and the temperature is hitting 20 below if we sit in our warm home, snug and grateful to a compassionate God. We can ignore the world, and even find "beauty" in the snow outside, and never think for a moment if there is someone shivering under a bridge with nothing to eat and nowhere safe to sleep.
I think most of my previous reply had theodicy thrown in there. My answer to your question is: I can imagine better, but I am not sure if is possible, never mind "necessary."
No misofrutnes? You don't thank God for any misfortunes? Are misfortunes a sign of a lacking grace?
you: If there were a God, and since you discount the authority of Scripture, how would you propose He made Himself and His will known to us?
Any way he saw fit.
No, I gave you an example of how "endless" is axiomatically used in math applied to real objects. It's a theoretical concept. Therefore we can conceive of it. It doesn't mean it's real.
Does that mean you wouldn't have thought about it if it hadn't been homework?
I could think about it all I want but for naught because I doubt that I would come up with sperm and ova in my mind. The ancients thought about it as "seeds" and "fertile ground" because that something they could relate to. But just because I would not have thought about it doesn't mean that sperm entering an ovum and two sets of haploid genetic material fusing into one is not inconceivable because it is actually observable.
You may or may not have considered other colors.
Human eye can see all hues from violet to red, corresponding to a specific wavelength range of electromagnetic radiation. Unless the eye mutated and acquired sensors for extended radiation range it cannot see more colors. But, yes, seeing more colors is conceivable.
You spent time and effort correcting my typo of 's instead of 're. A thousand thanks. I can only assume how busy you must be.
At that time I wasn't very busy, except answering your questions. A typo is when I spell "do snot" unsteady of "does not" but "There's and "There are" is not a typo.
Besides, I made it as subtle as possible and didn't make a big deal of it. It was just a friendly reminder. Bad habits tend to creep into our language unintentionally.
Try considering infinity that is not a circle, but a vector extending into time and space. How does the physical world comprehend "no end?"
By assuming it is a circle. A big circle. Outside of that analogy we can't. We can give it a mathematical symbol and definition but it doesn't mean it corresponds to physical reality. It only approximates it.
What would you call it?
An unknown.
No, it's not. I'm conceiving of it right now with my mind. And the good affects of that concept are tangible in my life. They're observable and repeatable.
How do you know they are from God, that is—from the fullness of God? How are they repeatable?
annalex, I believe you were to be pinged to post 1517.
When annalex posited that the geometric center of the universe is most likely a "hole between the galaxies," I gathered he meant a wormhole and not the probability that the mathematical point would occur between galaxies.
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether [we be] Jews or Gentiles, whether [we be] bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.
If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body [were] an eye, where [were] the hearing? If the whole [were] hearing, where [were] the smelling?
But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. - I Cor 12:12-12
Ditto for conceiving of space/time being created as the universe expands. Or grasping the concepts of null v zero, infinite v finite, eternity v timelessness, form v no space, etc.
Thus rather than receiving the words of God in their full power as if a child, some I suspect filter God's words accepting them only to the extent they can rationalize them within whatever such perceptual limitations apply to them.
In effect, such a person can only accept a "god" that fits within his obviously limited ability to comprehend him. His "god" is a fabrication, an idol of his imagination.
That is unfortunate and can be spiritually perilous; we should recognize our own limitations when we meditate on Who God IS.
Man is not the measure of God.
Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25
POWERFUL POST, Quix. AMEN!
“It’s pointless to talk about things we can’t conceive. Which is why I always go back to the basic what is God question, not just “where is God not?”. We have to know what we are talking about before we can talk about where something is.”
When we talk about something we are in fact forming some sort of conception of it or already have one, that frequently is the purpose of talking about something.
“It’s pointless to talk about things we can’t conceive. Which is why I always go back to the basic what is God question, not just “where is God not?”. We have to know what we are talking about before we can talk about where something is.”
When we talk about something we are in fact forming some sort of conception of it or already have one, that frequently is the purpose of talking about something.
What makes you think that list didn’t include misfortunes?
I say He has done just that; made Himself known to the people He has chosen to give eyes to see and ears to hear.
I'll take your word for it that you are not among them.
Because these "good affects" do not come from me. I know myself well enough to know I am not capable of creating such grace. As far as I can tell, the only reason for grace is God. I don't see anything else responsible for it.
And that grace is repeatable because when I get up in the morning, it's there again.
Freely.
And as far as your correction of my grammar, I'll remember your insistence that it was a benevolent act, and return the favor next time I see one of your many typographical/grammatical/clumsy finger errors.
Usually the improvements we imagine have negative consequences to the whole.
If, for example, you remove those exploding stars, there would be nothing past the basic elements, and no earth and no us. We're composed of the result of past violent massive explosions.
If we remove mutations that result in all manner of disease, we remove the engine of speciation and all the positive results of "good" mutation. If we remove pain, we remove key information for survival. If we remove the capacity for evil, we remove the capacity for good.
It's all a package deal, the way the world works; remove a piece and the whole doesn't work, we end up with chaotic nothing. Opposites are part of the whole, both are necessary for anything to come into existence.
Humans still have the option to opt out of the who system.
Still the default for humanity is compassion. While evil and lies and ugliness exist, goodness, truth and beauty are favored by the cosmos.
The alternative is random nothingness, I can imagine that. But it would not be the best of possible world, it would mean no world possible.
The message is the same, either way. And it is powerful!
Very true. The "believe and receive" brand comes to mind.
I don't think we would grow much if everything were good all the time. It's the tragedies and suffering that are the real catalysts for growth, if we use them.
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