Sunday, July 21, 2002
Can You Know God?
There was an interesting if brief letter to the editor resulting from the last 2 blogs' subject matter. A gentlemen wrote in telling someone who asked how we could know god and he said, I'll send him a copy of the bible. I was confused by that as it was most likely edited for content. Did he mean the bible is the exact word of god? Or did he mean we could interpret the bible to know god's meaning as Christianity purports to do. Do you, the reader, not agree that god and religion is more of a personal experience and expression? Even those that believe the bible is the exact word of god for example. However misleading, they too are having their own personal experience of what they believe, they just believe that they are right of course and the rest are wrong. As humans, Christians et al ... we try and humanize god by giving him human qualities or a super-human quality. They would say he's all-knowing, wise, loving, holy, external ... you get the picture. But to define something is the give it limitation too which goes against the grain. Let's resort to math since I'm trying to be logical here. If being "A" has attribute "X", then being "A" has attribute "not-X". This would imply that god has limitations, an absurd notion according to religion. When this happens, and it's quite obvious from many standpoints mentioned here and elsewhere (ie... why would a benelovent god allow such atrocity to occur) the Christian falls back on, we cannot know god or his ways. So which is it, do you purport to know god or generalize what he's like or not? It's not a 2-way street.
Anyway, stay tuned if your interested in the subject matter as I hope to be a little more timely with the notes here and present more ideas on why it's absurd at best to believe in god anddddddd, the usefulness of belief anyway. Two contradictory notions but then I'm not dumb enough to believe that some don't need religion but I do think the world would be better off without it longer term.
There was an interesting if brief letter to the editor resulting from the last 2 blogs' subject matter. A gentlemen wrote in telling someone who asked how we could know god and he said, I'll send him a copy of the bible. I was confused by that as it was most likely edited for content. Did he mean the bible is the exact word of god? Or did he mean we could interpret the bible to know god's meaning as Christianity purports to do. Do you, the reader, not agree that god and religion is more of a personal experience and expression? Even those that believe the bible is the exact word of god for example. However misleading, they too are having their own personal experience of what they believe, they just believe that they are right of course and the rest are wrong. As humans, Christians et al ... we try and humanize god by giving him human qualities or a super-human quality. They would say he's all-knowing, wise, loving, holy, external ... you get the picture. But to define something is the give it limitation too which goes against the grain. Let's resort to math since I'm trying to be logical here. If being "A" has attribute "X", then being "A" has attribute "not-X". This would imply that god has limitations, an absurd notion according to religion. When this happens, and it's quite obvious from many standpoints mentioned here and elsewhere (ie... why would a benelovent god allow such atrocity to occur) the Christian falls back on, we cannot know god or his ways. So which is it, do you purport to know god or generalize what he's like or not? It's not a 2-way street.
Anyway, stay tuned if your interested in the subject matter as I hope to be a little more timely with the notes here and present more ideas on why it's absurd at best to believe in god anddddddd, the usefulness of belief anyway. Two contradictory notions but then I'm not dumb enough to believe that some don't need religion but I do think the world would be better off without it longer term.
