Existence is strange.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

One goes back to why imagine existence into being in the first place which I suppose, only the cosmic mind can answer - perhaps thats exactly what its trying to find out.

What I remember from past reading is that there are cycles of creation and destruction - which mirror life on earth as it is. We know that in the cosmos this is true also, planetary systems can be destroyed and get sucked into black holes etc and in the very far future our sun will die and our galaxy will collide with Andromeda. It opens up the view that perhaps we are not in existence eternally?

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: Cinrad

This tells me that we have a fundamental desire to congregate for a common purpose. Is this desire legitimate, is it programming, what role does free will play in shaping the outcome? More unanswered questions to ponder.

We actually do not have free will; this is a misnomer as are Gods activists (beings existing in its relative grace/behalf) enslaved.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

There is some truth in your fiction, and some fiction in your truth ;P

It goes on to suggest - What would a universe be, if there was nothing to observe it?
What would it be there for, if it nothing could see, touch, or describe it or contemplate it?

The anthropic principle has validity in this enigma, as "The world is the way it is, because if it was not, you would not be here to observe it."

Perhaps life or the universe cannot exist without each other.

a reply to: charlyv

So we exist for the sake of the universe's existence?

a reply to: Cinrad

You think that's what Christianity is really about? You're so ignorant - sickingly so.

Well, whether I'm personally "sickly ignorant" or not all comes down to personal perspective... I suppose.

But any entity who demands to be loved and worshiped as perfect, then punishes & tortures people for simply being human and not worshiping him, sure as hell seems psychopathic to me.

From what I've read in the bible, god seems to have the same mentality and all the same personality traits as the average domestic abuser... So why would any half intelligent person worship him, or even believe in his very existence?

What a strange existence... Indeed!

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: vethumanbeing

One truth is: religion starts as experiment and ends as experience. Be an adventerer and find your own truth, free from dogmas but as unique part of the flow.

I understand the flow; and is why I swim up river fighting the current.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: charlyv

So we exist for the sake of the universe's existence?

We define it and in so doing prop its existence up. We exist for its benefit and in so doing are allowed to exist.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
From what I've read in the bible, god seems to have the same mentality and all the same personality traits as the average domestic abuser... So why would any half intelligent person worship him, or even believe in his very existence?

What a strange existence... Indeed!

Joh 3:16 God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.
Joh 3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!


Just out of curiosity, how much of the Bible have you actually read?

ETA

Some more psychopathic tyranical behaviour?
Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to be healed?"
Joh 5:7 The man answered, "Lord, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first."
Joh 5:8 Jesus told him, "Pick up your mat and walk!"
Joh 5:9 Right then the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.
Joh 5:10 When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, "This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath."
Joh 5:16 They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.
Joh 5:17 But Jesus said, "My Father has never stopped working, and that is why I keep on working."
Joh 5:18 Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.

Mat14:14 When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw the large crowd. He felt sorry for them and healed everyone who was sick.

Mat 14:36 They begged him just to let them touch his clothes, and everyone who did was healed.

Mat 15:28 Jesus answered, "Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith, and you will be given what you want." At that moment her daughter was healed.
Mat 15:30 Large crowds came and brought many people who were crippled or blind or lame or unable to talk. They placed them, and many others, in front of Jesus, and he healed them all.
Mat 15:31 Everyone was amazed at what they saw and heard. People who had never spoken could now speak. The lame were healed, the crippled could walk, and the blind were able to see. Everyone was praising the God of Israel.


Mat 14:16 Jesus replied, "They don't have to leave. Why don't you give them something to eat?"
Mat 14:17 But they said, "We have only five small loaves of bread and two fish."
Mat 14:18 Jesus asked his disciples to bring the food to him,
Mat 14:19 and he told the crowd to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up toward heaven and blessed the food. Then he broke the bread and handed it to his disciples, and they gave it to the people.
Mat 14:20 After everyone had eaten all they wanted, Jesus' disciples picked up twelve large baskets of leftovers.
Mat 14:21 There were about five thousand men who ate, not counting the women and children.

No compassion, just rules?
Mat 15:24 Then Jesus replied, "I have been sent only to the lost sheep of the people of Israel."
Mat 15:25 At this the woman came and fell at his feet. "Help me, sir!" she said.
Mat 15:26 Jesus answered, "It isn't right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
Mat 15:27 "That's true, sir," she answered, "but even the dogs eat the leftovers that fall from their masters' table."
Mat 15:28 So Jesus answered her, "You are a woman of great faith! What you want will be done for you." And at that very moment her daughter was healed.


Has to begged for mercy?
Luk 7:11 Soon afterward Jesus went to a town named Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd.
Luk 7:12 Just as he arrived at the gate of the town, a funeral procession was coming out. The dead man was the only son of a woman who was a widow, and a large crowd from the town was with her.
Luk 7:13 When the Lord saw her, his heart was filled with pity for her, and he said to her, "Don't cry."
Luk 7:14 Then he walked over and touched the coffin, and the men carrying it stopped. Jesus said, "Young man! Get up, I tell you!"
Luk 7:15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Maybe I am over simplifying.

Imagine you are God and you have all the Love you need but the power to create more Love. Although God doesn't need more Love, can you ever have too much Love?

I think our physical life is a lesson that we are supposed to pass. We must learn to Love each other before we can find the true Love and blessings from God. He could have created Love bots, but instead he created intelligent beings hoping we would choose Love.

1 John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

I don't think my answer makes existence any less strange. But I do believe that to generate more Love is the ultimate purpose. I am a firm believer that ultimately God is Love, but his Love is something we may never fully understand while stuck in these physical prisons.

Tonight there are no answers. Just silence.

silence is good.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriestExistence is strange.

Tonight there are no answers. Just silence.

The more ignorant a Perspective, the stranger everything APPEARS!
So many fill it with imaginary friends to help you pass the dark nights.
Many need their imaginary friends.
'Beliefs', the entire litany, is imagination!

ALL 'meaning', all 'value', all 'whowhatwherewhenwhy'... exists in the (vanity of the imagination/ego) eye of the beholder!
There is no 'meaning' in a rock, there is no 'meaning' in you, other than in the ego. Imaginary.
Your litany of 'beliefs' garners 'silence' because they are YOUR imaginary beliefs! You caught a 'belief infection' or three!
That is accepted, all this 'drama' exists (everything exists) in your imagination.
Insanity = 'beliefs' (that your imaginary friends are, somehow, 'more' than imagination)!
Jesus exists, in the imagination of those infected with that strain of 'belief', Mohammad exists in those who have caught a different strain.
Equally imaginary at this time, though Mo seems to have 'actually' lived.
Beliefs are an infection of the imagination, the ego! Vanity!

So, my 'silence' is my tacit acceptance that all that you claim to exist, in your imagination, does.
No argument.
Imagine unicorns!
But please do not let the insanity of your 'belief infection' cause you to, symptomatically, persecute ME anymore!
I should not be forced to eat the sh!t that YOU imagine!
The symptoms of the infection are consistent throughout the various strains! *__-

No one would (or could) ever argue with a Xtian/'theist' if they begin their religious parroting litany of beliefs with the words, "I imagine that...!"

a reply to: vethumanbeing

Exactly, because only dead fishes swim down the river...

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: charlyv

So we exist for the sake of the universe's existence?

More subtle than that. Can either exist without the other?
What is a universe if nothing can contemplate it?
What is life without a universe that creates it?

a reply to: charlyv

What is a universe if nothing can contemplate it?

Who cares?

What is life without a universe that creates it?

Very, very strange.

a reply to: namelesss

No one has forced you to eat my imagination-defication. You came here on your own accord.

I've learned more about you than I care to know. Please excuse me while I wash your septic thoughts from my mind.

a reply to: Cinrad

Just out of curiosity, how much of the Bible have you actually read?

I was raised on that nonsense, back in the day.

You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. . . . The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. Deuteronomy 28:30-31,35

Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18

When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening. Everything also on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean. Leviticus 15: 19-20

So basically, you're worshiping a hardcore misogynist, who promotes rape and gets off on tormenting his subjects. How enlightened of you!

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

hardcore misogynist, who promotes rape and gets off on tormenting his subjects

Did you even read the scriptures I quoted?

A reply to:BELIEVERpriest

Idk, someone's image of God isn't necessarily static. There are many archetypes out there people relate to. Emotionally, pure consciousness flowing from the heart makes sense to me.

On another level, i have a hunch that the Almighty would write itself into the fabric of space time itself. An image that goes beyond human ego, like some eastern philosophies get into.

Perhaps God is just expressing itself? Like an artist?

You mentioned earlier reflecting on your relationships with friends. It may be fruitful to reflect on your parents as well. Spiritually, this can be very helpful...

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: namelesss

No one has forced you to eat my imagination-defication. You came here on your own accord.

I've learned more about you than I care to know. (((Too bad you didn't learn anything of yourself in the process!))) Please excuse me while I wash your septic thoughts from my mind.

Typical response of a 'believer'; attack and call names, then run away. The ego is threatened.. Truth hurts!
Perhaps this should have been on the religion site rather than philosophy!
It appears that you cannot stand the critical thought of philosophical examination.
Go back to the bleating 'believers'...