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Ody
You still are not at all close to seeing the big picture. Just the fact that you are using the concept of God is the greatest sign that you can not break free from the man made concepts and ideas and really start to understand reality. You need to name and label.
Words are tools and ONLY had power if you give them power. Yes we need words to help us build society, but we need not give them more power than they should have. If you flinch because you hear the word 'Fuck' you have just given that word a whole lot of power over you. If the word God is all you need to envision some great beyond belief 'goodness', then you have just given the word God way too much power and are insulting the true ideas you claim to be all about by labeling them and limiting them.
If the only way you believe people can be good and moral and have positive values is to give power to some nonsense word or a name given by man to a concept of a higher being, then you are an insult to your own beliefs. You keep trying to claim I am pessimistic because I do not give power to such things, but instead have a deep trust in the essence of humanity. You seem to believe that humanity is meaningless unless it gives power to the ideas you agree with and the words and names you have given power to.
I feel humanity can get along fine once it grows up a little more without the need to give trivial things so much power, while you are determined to hold humanity back by claiming we can only gain certain values by given trivial things power. In that I am very optimistic about humanity, while I see a great pessimism coming from you.
A lot of it does come down to our point of views and how we each see the world. once you learn tolerance and acceptance of other's beliefs, you will start to be able to communicate better and not show this egotistical side where only your beliefs are the right path, because so far I have yet to see nay proof that your path is the only one worth following.
posted by
kooka_lives
on December 2, 2005 at 10:01 AM
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good ody
the concept is there
and I think Kooka agrees with the concept.
only you two are talking form different directions.
the concept of THE GREAT I AM is a valid one.
it is encased in the YHVH of the Old Testament, on which I have expounded in GOD AS THE UNIVERSE AS AN ORGANISM.
I will describe my god very soon in that as a follow up to the series there -- asking Christians to show that the god described is valid; then describing a god, myself, that I feel is valid -- then asking which god seems more valid to the reader. Only, Christians have not described such. One has posted in her recent religion blog (fieryloins) something in response to me i am sure (am i being egotistical?).
god is not a thing -- god just is -- and what is, is -- and those who see past the images that religion has graven begin to see a true nature there -- more than 99.99% incomplete, but clearer than that which was obscurd by the graven images of Christianity and other religions.
posted by
Xeno-x
on December 2, 2005 at 8:27 AM
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As I said, call it what you will. “I am that I am”.
And if words are tools, ajlkhjlk would be a basket, holding all that is good in the universe. And it is difficult to describe the perfection that we might imagine in ajlkhjlk because it is so difficult for us to achieve. Perfect love eludes description, which is one reason why we often approach love with poetry and metaphor. Indeed, as you say, human words are really quite pitiful attempts to describe something so magnificent.
You feel it in the love you have for your children and your passionate pastimes, but it extends even beyond that. And truly, as you say, no single name really can do it justice. As you say, “God is beyond words”.
And you also correctly imply that once God is named, the history of man has been to taint it with ill-conceived doctrines, elaborate ritual, and messy bureaucracy. On the contrary, however, it is indeed experienced most powerfully, at the very basic and primal level of passionate experience. But yet we strive to know it better. Our religions must become better adapted to experience it more broadly and intensely. And perhaps, as you say, religion would be more effective if it refrained from trying to prematurely explain things that are unexplainable. Certainly, it is in this way that doctrines and ritual have tainted religion in the past.
It is undeniable that words have great power in the world. Without words and labels for the things we see and do, we’d all be nothing but grunting beasts. The WORD exists especially for Man.
posted by
telemachus
on December 1, 2005 at 7:28 PM
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yep
when you put too much emphasis on a word
rather than the concept
then you idolize it.
posted by
Xeno-x
on December 1, 2005 at 3:09 PM
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I believe spoken words do have power
of course people needlessly and foolishly give power to words at the same time.
and labels and any attempt to quantify certain things with words are useless as well.
posted by
fieryloins
on December 1, 2005 at 1:42 PM
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The words have power
because we as people, as society, have placed a value and become attached to that value. We fear being without the word we have placed so much value in (whether it be positive or negative value) so we continue to cling and grasp on to all that we have created. Through this we end up suffering.
posted by
Darkride
on December 1, 2005 at 1:36 PM
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