A divine God would seek personal responsibility in every life and wouldn't be after submission and worship

[Belinda]

I would want to be sure that it is true God that I am following and not some unfounded man made concept that is full of distortion and bias.

Wouldn't we all !

[Belinda]

what's a True God to you?

if I wanted caricatures I'd read Mad magazine again.

eternal life is supposed to be joy and peace.god would create that and punish evil.

Well, now I know where you got your concept of God.

I guess you mean that osgart got his concept of God from some preached doctrine.

I wish that osgart would widen his search for God. Preached doctrines are questionable.

[Reflex]

I don't know if it is a symptom of rationalistic shallowness or rationalistic hubris, but people watch a little TV or recall lessons from their childhood and believe they have a firm grasp on the more sophisticated concepts.

No matter how many times and no matter how many ways they are told that God is the ground of being and not a being alongside other beings, they still carry on as though the word “God” refers to a Big Daddy in the sky.

[Belinda]

Reflex wrote:

No matter how many times and no matter how many ways they are told that God is the ground of being and not a being alongside other beings, they still carry on as though the word “God” refers to a Big Daddy in the sky.

I wondered if you, like me, have a problem equating the ground of being god , with the ethics to which humans aspire .

[Reflex]

Reflex wrote:

No matter how many times and no matter how many ways they are told that God is the ground of being and not a being alongside other beings, they still carry on as though the word “God” refers to a Big Daddy in the sky.

I wondered if you, like me, have a problem equating the ground of being god , with the ethics to which humans aspire .

I'm not sure I know what you mean, but I'll pretend that I do.

When skeptics hear said that God is one, infinite, immutable and eternal, they give no thought to the rational implications. When they hear said that God is personal, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenovelent, they immediately conclude that God is like themselves, only bigger and more powerful and can therefore be held accountable for the imperfect world.

But being one, infinite, immutable and eternal, God is not -- and cannot be -- personal, or good, or powerful, or intelligent in the same sense that a human being can be said to be any of those things. The fact that the language religion is analogical rather than univocal never enters into the minds of skeptics who carry on as though the word “God” refers to a Big Daddy in the sky even as they argue they understand the language.

We don’t "see" the truth of the Pythagorean theorem in exactly the same sense in which we "see" a tree, but there is an analogy between the intellectual insight and vision that makes the use of the term appropriate in both cases. Similarly, God isn’t “good” in the sense in which a human being might be said to be good — e.g., striving to fulfill moral obligations — but is good in the sense of being the summum bonum (the supreme good from which all others proceed). It may be true that to say that humans can only positively know God in an analogical sense leaves us “in a state of genuine agnosticism about the nature of God” or the Ground of being. But this should in no way deter us from our first duty, and what should be our highest ambition: manifesting the perfection of divinity.

Someone wise said, "I hope you understand that a true god is not a big powerful supernatural Person but is a way of behaving." Finite beings cannot hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as we do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the Infinite has set before us; and when we do achieve this destiny, we will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in our sphere as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

[osgart]

well said reflex. The divine aspiration that humans may or may not aspire to.

[Belinda]

Thanks Reflex, and I agree with all that you say. Sorry but it's not quite what I meant.

The ground of being is laws of nature. Right? But laws of nature are amoral, morally neutral. Humans aspire to the good, whatever they conceive the good to be. This looks to me like there are two gods.

It's true that human reason can help us to harmonise with laws of nature . In addition to reason, humans need a vision of the good , imagination, so that we can aspire .

I know there are humans who don't aspire except to stay alive and enjoy their lives. These don't take risks and are avoiding what is there.

[Reflex]

Thanks Reflex, and I agree with all that you say. Sorry but it's not quite what I meant.

The ground of being is laws of nature. Right? But laws of nature are amoral, morally neutral. Humans aspire to the good, whatever they conceive the good to be. This looks to me like there are two gods.

It's true that human reason can help us to harmonise with laws of nature . In addition to reason, humans need a vision of the good , imagination, so that we can aspire .

I know there are humans who don't aspire except to stay alive and enjoy their lives. These don't take risks and are avoiding what is there.

I especially like your last sentence, but you may not agree with what follows.

The "laws of nature" radiate from the Ground; they are the habits of God. They are not the same thing. The laws of nature are morally neutral, but the summum bonum is not. Recall what happens in a closed system according to the second law of thermodynamics.

A human mind subservient to self is destined to become increasingly isolated and consequently suffer eventual personality extinction through entropy; mind yielded to the "infinite way" -- an open system -- is destined to become increasingly actual and ultimately achieve oneness with it and in this way attain survival in eternity.

[Reflex]

well said reflex. The divine aspiration that humans may or may not aspire to.

The Ground of being, God, never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon intelligent will creatures, but if history is any indication, people will always aspire to transcend themselves by reaching for something beyond themselves.

[Belinda]

Reflex wrote:

I know there are humans who don't aspire except to stay alive and enjoy their lives. These don't take risks and are avoiding what is there.

(Belinda)
Reflex:

I especially like your last sentence, but you may not agree with what follows.

The "laws of nature" radiate from the Ground; they are the habits of God. They are not the same thing. The laws of nature are morally neutral, but the summum bonum is not. Recall what happens in a closed system according to the second law of thermodynamics.

A human mind subservient to self is destined to become increasingly isolated and consequently suffer eventual personality extinction through entropy; mind yielded to the "infinite way" -- an open system -- is destined to become increasingly actual and ultimately achieve oneness with it and in this way attain survival in eternity.

Reminded me of the 'creative imagination' (secondary imagination)of the Romantic poets. The 'secondary imagination' includes scientific enlightenment ideas in addition to the wilder ,more intuitional, side of human nature.

E.g. the sonnet by Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge, in the early morning.

bleckblog.org/lit/node/9827

The Romantics were a group that deeply supported the imagination. Reacting to the utilitarian coldness of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, they delved into the realm of tactile imagination to draw out images that could improve their daily lives. The primal beauty of poetry acted as a meliorative against the rational intellectual coldness of their time. At its highest level, poetry was not merely a source of pleasure and entertainment, but a catalyst for realization, revelation, and revolution. However, the primary imagination alone was insufficient for a meaningful life. Man also required intellectual faculty—the capacity for rational thought. This is seen in the case of the many tracts and pamphlets published around this time, which used logical argumentation rather than poetical allegory. To dwell within the extreme of either the primary imagination or the capacity for rational thought is folly. For the Romantics, meaning and happiness is found by combining primary and secondary imagination.

I will certainly think about what you say, Reflex. At this present moment I am only at the stage of limbering up to the idea which you express..

[Reflex]

You'd have a hell of a time trying to convince my wife but I'm a Romantic. But yeah, what you said makes a lot of sense. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”