Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:34 am
So in other words, God is an asshole god who harms people simply because they don't kiss his ass? Why would God harm someone who was obeying human laws, didn't hurt other human beings, rather the only thing he did was hate on God for the fucked up world he created. That's an asshole god, IC. If you want to worship an asshole god who is responsible for immense human misery and suffering, then that's up to you. Don't expect the rest of us to kiss his butt.
The way I personally see life is through awareness only...which to me, is just another word for being conscious of sensation.
That consciousness that is aware of sensation has an on and off switch. When the heart is beating, awareness is on. When the heart stops beating permanently is when the awareness is switched off. This switching off can be proven through the use of anesthetics. So we know that mental awareness is not a permanent event. Pain and suffering and misery is not a permanent event to be endured forever without ever having a break. So it is that knowledge that gets me through life, the knowing that awareness of sensation is only a temporal event. That knowledge brings comfort to me when pain is present and it's really bad, knowing it will eventually pass.
The eternal life that is heaven that the religious believers believe and push for - I have absolutely no idea what that idea could even mean, so I do not subscribe to that notion at all. All I know as a living sentient being is that awareness can be either off or on, and that's what helps me get through life when it's on, knowing that it will not be on forever, and that to me is a relief.. I also believe that there is no creator, there is only nothing ( the off switch ) being everything ( the on switch ) alternating between the two switches forever without beginning nor ending...life cannot possibly know how it got off it's own starting block as any one who questions that question has no answer simply because any one who has been born to life is born into a life that already exists, so they have no idea how life got off it's own starting block, people can only make up conceptual stories about ''creators'' But they cannot know absolutely for certain what a creator is... The awareness that is temporal life forms come and go, they switch on and off, they have absolutely no control over when that switch is going to switch from one to the other.
Also, no one alive today has ever been alive before, think about that? so no one really knows anything about their life, except what they imagine about it...aka the stories they make up about themselves, stories that have no known source other than imagination which no one knows about. Life is a total mystery even to itself. Would I choose to be born knowing that to be born is to feel sensation...the answer would be NO, not a chance, but many would choose, so it's all personal preference. Each to their own.
Sorry for the long rant...