Defying the Deity
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 18:15
VIEWED: 9122
PAGE 2 of 11
In retrospect, my post is probably easily misunderstood. I was actually responding to DT's comments about the kinds of internal thought processes people have.
Sometimes, I have five voice dialogues. They argue. ._. Though I also have the narrative voice.
I don't really like religion, so I'll decline to comment further on the main topic.
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"Though I also have the narrative voice." As I understand it, this is the voice one is supposed to listen to in meditative thought. This is the voice that observes, without passion and without pain.
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I don't know if I have a voice. I have my thoughts and my ideas, but a voice? I don't know, I mean, I guess I do, but if I do its only one there aren't many or many aspects to the one.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Though I also have the narrative voice." As I understand it, this is the voice one is supposed to listen to in meditative thought. This is the voice that observes, without passion and without pain.
The thoughts of the observer observing the thoughts of the observer. It's like looking into the reflection of a mirror. And that is about as close to religious belief that I get.
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Anthony, I face none of your dilemmas because I don't believe in a god/creator/holy father/universal law giver. All religions are inconsistent because they reflect they that created them - us - people. That is why you get some Christians who will say that obediance is everything, because they follow the God of Abraham, the harsh, punitive, authoritative figure who hands out punishments of death and rewards those who show blind obediance, and the Christian who believes that forgiveness and compassion are everything because they follow the teachings of Jesus. That is why you have the Muslim who believes that one must wage the holy war against the infidel and the Muslim who follows a path of peace.
All people who follow a religion or are religious cherry pick their beliefs based on their own value system, or the value system they were raised with. That is why many of the laws of the Old Testament seem outrageous to us now, they were values shared by a tough desert tribe who lived harsh lives that bear no relation to our own thousands of years ago.
I think it more truthful to say that man creates god in his own image, rather than the other way around.
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Quote:And some people like me are too lazy to create god, so we piece together a Buffet god from gods already created.
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I think it more truthful to say that man creates god in his own image, rather than the other way around.
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"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm
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HK,
Your story made me smile. My husband and I were very amused, because we go through that all the time. Story of hubby's life, actually. (Except he calls it his "gut" instead "intuition.") Thanks for sharing, cause it is good to know others have the same rational/intellectual conflicts with their intuitions as we do. And our Intuition talks the same way too, "Because I said so." Doesn't that just annoy the hell out of you? Would it kill to say why?
I also agree that you know when your god is talking and when it is something else. It is part of a relationship, knowing someone intimately. If my husband came to me and said, "I want us to stab our son," my response wouldn't be, "Wait, are you sure?" No. I would say, "Who are you, and what have you done with Hubby?"
My god would never ask me to do anything contrary to the laws he has put in my heart.
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"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm
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Hello,
Thanks to all who have chimed in with experiences and advice on this topic.
It has really helped me to solidify my feelings on this issue.
--Anthony
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"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
In retrospect, my post is probably easily misunderstood. I was actually responding to DT's comments about the kinds of internal thought processes people have.
Sometimes, I have five voice dialogues. They argue. ._. Though I also have the narrative voice.
I don't really like religion, so I'll decline to comment further on the main topic.
Could be a subconscious with a multiple personality ;) Of course, I'm actually serious. I used to think there were more, but I trimmed it be the " all speak at once" thing. Try to figure out where they're coming from, conscious, subconscious, unconscious. Do they show up in dreams as characters?
I find mine do, and they are very consistent recurrent characters. I think these people might live in my subconscious somewhere.
Another thing I read was that shrinks that lock people up or cut open their brains because they "hear voices" are themselves actually part of the 10% who hear no voices, and think that only dangerous criminals hear voices, and not 90% of the population, which is what seems to be the case.
Kiki,
I think Byte means the voice that reads or speaks her conscious thoughts, this lives in the conscious mine. The meditative voice is the one that lives in the unconscious, which is what I think Anthony is talking about, but I'm not sure.
Given my own experience, I think it's completely possible for someone to read the bible and have the entire text of the word of god enter into their unconscious mind as a character, and then have it voice back to them the word, and even make decisions for them as if that character of the christian god living inside their heads. In fact, having such a situation might provide a good moral compass.
I think it's easy to see when some random lunatic takes bad action and blames it on an internal voice, like when Chapman shot John Lennon, he said that it was the voice of Buddha that told him to do it, by which he meant an internal voice that he believed to be Buddha. What's less obvious is how many good decisions were made by such internal moral compasses, and how many bad actions were taken by those who either lack them, or ignore them.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:So, what ARE your feelings on this issue? I heard mostly questions in the first post. But now that it's more solidified, where are you standing?
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
It has really helped me to solidify my feelings on this issue.
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"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it." - Richard Lamm
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