What About God?

I do as well, and I agree with you here, you put it better than I had.

If you were raised by buddhists, what do you identify as now? I'd describe myself as an agnostic who meditates, which is one heck of a cop-out answer if I've ever heard one.

 

no, that's a bad effect. Something was stolen, and suffering is the result. That the person who did the stealing is not the person suffering the material loss is inconsequential, for two reasons:
* the person who did the stealing actually IS suffering -- because the act of stealing implies wanting, and desire for things to be other than they are IS suffering, in fact that's what all suffering arises from
* if we get more theistic about it, then actions have karmic consequences, stealing is bad for you because it's increasing your karmic burden

looking at things through this lens, you never 'get away' with anything. You are a slave to your desires and fears, and as long as you remain so, you are in hell. The enlightened state is total awareness of how things are now without any desire that they be otherwise.

 

I'm a materialistic atheist, and my parents are buddhists who have a loose belief in Chinese mythology. Buddhism is not pro-atheism and doesn't encourage it, but you can be an atheist in a much much intimate way with Buddhism than you can with other religions like Christianity and Islam. Two of the monks at my local Buddhist center are atheists. You would never see that in a church.

@Bill Bauer thats one argument but someone who believes in religious karma would argue that it would come back to you eventually, maybe in another life. (Ex: having something you value as much or more get stolen).

 

I agree. Even having grown up with some context for truly theistic Zen -- the most woo-woo stuff I saw at a Zen Center, was less extreme than a lot of stuff I've seen some Christian sects do.

Seems like we're on the same page in a lot of ways. I don't know about God, to me that word just means "the sum total of all energy in existence / the biggest number which is possible". So, that's kind of a copout, from someone who probably was a little too hard on the mind-altering chemicals in highschool and then spent 20 years learning how computers work and thinking about how that relates to my own mind. But, sitting makes me feel better, and to the extent I've had any dedication at all to the practice, it has increased my distress tolerance a lot.

The interesting thing for me is that my experiences with meditation, as well as some sort of esoteric Buddhist lucid dream work, has brought me away from the question of "is there a separate, sentient God" to the more fundamental question of "what is 'I', and in what way is the thing which believes it is 'myself' separate from the universe which contains it". If you could convince me, 100%, right now, that a typical dualist God was a real being.... it wouldn't answer any of my fundamental questions about the nature of reality.

 

@Bill Bauer , you might not get caught but according to karma ,we always pay the price for doing bad things .we might pay back in different forms or different ways .
If we don't pay for it this time , we will have to pay during next birth . I know next birth is something not many people in western world believe so this might be hard to believe ..without karma , how do we explain suffering ? What if some one is born in a very very poor family and suffer..why would that person suffer versus some one born is rich family has every thing .
I haven't read any books but I read some where that there are books written on documented cases where people were able to recall from past life at very young age and it was verified by his/her parents ( not sure how true this is ).
I personally believe in karma instead of praying all day .

 

@Sean those cases of children recalling are mostly just like stories of people going to heaven and coming back. It's either blatantly false in order to persuade people to pursue a line of religious thought or a bunch of woo. Karma is very much more logical than prayer but that doesn't make it logical.

 

I've read some of these reports, always with a big skeptic's hat on. But you know what? I, myself, in my own life, have had a number of experiences which just utterly defy my ability to understand them and explain them rationally, and I suspect most people come to that realization at some point.

This is why I'd say I'm more an "agnostic" than "atheist". I have no idea what the fundamental nature of the universe is, I have no idea if Joan of Arc was a schizophrenic or a prophet or both. But, ultimately, these questions are not that interesting to me.

We're all here, in this really weird space, and everything is mysterious and fascinating. In fact, everything is so weird, and the world so fundamentally dangerous that our brains constantly have to sort of put blinders on us to keep us focused on the immediate threats to our wellbeing.

This too I've long since decided that I am such a poor judge of the veracity of my own subjective experience, that it would truly be madness to take anyone else's report as a verified and true thing either. But, there's a conundrum in that -- it may well be that tomorrow gravity will just get turned off and my car will float away, but it would be highly impractical to cancel my doctor's appointment just in case that turns out to be true.

 

@Litani , how long were you close to Alaram ?

 

Originally you wrote "There is no way for me to explain suffering in this world except principle of karma". I was trying to make a point that we can explain it with science. Karma has no scientific basis. Science allows us to do miracles. Religion has not resulted in any miracles. So...

 

Well science can't explain all suffering . How do you explain random things that happen to us and cause eternal suffering ? Like Tinnitus ?
I am agnostic but at the same time I think there more to life than science . If you believe there is some super power or god or any energy out there ..only explanation that make sense is karma .
If you atheists than you can say every thing happens because of random chances eg . Fire alarm going off and getting T ..getting in to car accident ...going for a walk and getting hit by a car ..we are born and die just out of random chance and thats it .

 

God exists in the realm of questions that science as yet, has not answered -- so, yes, god is superstition.

However, the idea that science can remotely explain anything about the fundamental nature of reality seems like an incredible overreach to me. We don't know very much, collectively. I think we know a lot more about where the boundaries of what we understand are, than we truly understand things.

Science doesn't know what "suffering" is. Yes, we can make various reductionist models about nerve pathways and pain signaling. That is so far from a complete understanding of what it means to "be", that we may as well be in the dark ages.

 

I agree..I believe if there is god , he /she will come to us if we do good karma .god is not selfish And not hungry for our prayers .
I guess all these believes come from being raised in Buddhist /Hindu family .

 

Somebody might act stupid (or there is an accident) and as a result someone ends up with an acoustic trauma. What is there to explain?

Science has taught us that it is rewarding to only believe in things that have evidence to back them up. Just because something doesn't sound nice, doesn't mean it is not true.

 

Well there are no accidents or coincidence. All that happen to us is because of our karma .( i Believe in this almost 100% not 100%).
Btw , karma literally means action .

There are few nice lecture on this topic on you tube by this Indian guru name sadhguru ..he explained it pretty well.

Question is if every thing happens because of karma ..why work hard ? This is also explained in various ways by Indian gurus and Buddhist teachers .

 

See, for thousands of years people had beliefs similar to the beliefs above. Similar in the sense that there was no evidence to back it up. For thousands of years there had been a lot of suffering. When people stopped relying on faith and began to rely on evidence, people's lives slowly began to improve. To me, this proves that it makes sense to rely on evidence and the scientific method, and to not rely on faith.

 

Every religion in this planet (and their gods) are man-made, that's a fact. Every single piece of information of religious doctrines is just an invention of a human brain.

People that can't realize this even when seeing that the world has literally thousands of different religions/gods have a serious lack of critical thinking.

 

Actually word faith and religion exists mostly in monolithic religion like Christianity and Islam .
Eastern religions don't require any one to believe in set of check lists you have to follow . You can be atheist and still are ok ..you won't burn in hell.
Atleast for me , I rather not have check list , i don't want to worry about pleasing god or follow god rules . It's easier to follow principle of karma..do good ..be kind to others etc .
It doesn't mean following religion is bad , all i am saying it's more scientific to believe in principle of karma versus believing in any book and follow particular check list .

 

I believe and pray to God, but why on earth are we made to suffer with tinnitus? What is the reason? I can deal with hearing loss, but horrible tinnitus, come on.

 

You aren't "made" to suffer from tinnitus. Tinnitus is the result of something going wrong in your brain, that's the only reason. I don't think there are any Gods above inflicting tinnitus on people. If there is, is that God worthy of any reverence? Sounds like a spiteful immoral character to me.

 

It's obvious that ground-breakers in science have done more for mankind than the priests and prophets. There might be some things worth paying attention to in between the empirical assessments, though.

The belief in a higher purpose, of some kind, can for example originate from a strong experience of beauty. As you get a glimpse of the depth of things, the idea that existence is limited to Isaac Newton's tick-tock Universe becomes hard to take seriously. It's a notion that can be helpful at times.

 

How do I get this glimpse?

What is the alternative?

 

How do you do in order to perceive with extraordinary depth? Some people appear to be born with the talent, then there are a couple of examples of very dedicated Buddhists and parapsychologists who started out by changing the interface between brain and consciousness by using mind-altering drug.

For my humble needs, inclination combined with meditation techniques have always been sufficient.

It's not about swapping science against something else. Having experienced a sense of eternity, for example, might translate into fragments of beliefs, the eternity of the soul etc, but I'm talking about an ongoing openness rather than a model.

 

The fastest way is certain drugs.

 

Where is God in all this? same question I asked my self when Tinnitus almost made me take my life. Not only did I have unbearable tinnitus, I also had the biblical issue of blood. I was convinced God had forsaken me. When I complained in my heart, God told me to be still and know that he is God. It took a while, but God set me free. I learnt a lot of lessons through my journey in the darkest pit of life but here I am today. We may never fully grasp the reason why God lets us pass through difficult times, but when we understand that he is there with us in our suffering it makes our journey better. Ask God for strength and believe that one day you will be set free.

MercyMe - Even If (Official Lyric Video)

 

@Nike So he doesn't get rid of your tinnitus but gives you the ability to deal with it? Is that really helping? Doesn't sound very logical.

 

God is there in your suffering???? Does he also has T ??? If yes does he mask... or does he give you T but never dealt with it himself?
And what about Mohammad did he look out over us too? And what about Buddha etc etc
I get confused which one to pray to ...so many gods who want me to be there minion.
I feel like a Lemming where god is the player and sends all his lemmings to do a job and we fail 9 of the 10 times and when we succeed we go to another level and he send his endless resource of lemmings to their doom.
And these stupid Lemmings keep doing what he tells them to do. He is laughing his butt of how stupid these Lemmings are.
One Lemming has a hammer...another one can fight and one Lemming has T but oh boy what fun we have sending these lemmings tasks to follow. Loose a lemming here kill a lemming there.....it does not matter ...there are enough Lemmings to play with.

"When I complained in my heart, God told me to be still and know that he is God."
When I complained to my father ...my father said to be still and know he is my father.
I told my father that he must not change the subject when I am complaining.... what does that mean... be still and know I am your father... I am in pain and you come with riddles. So my father got angry and threw me out of the house and set me free ...just like you God.

I also learnt some lessons in my darkest pit of my life (while I have to take care of a family also) ... If God exists ...God is a selfish prick who is all knowing and all powerful but still needs us Lemmings to adore him or we burn in hell for ever and ever........ but he loves you !!! If that is not selfish ...what is.... If he is so powerfull....stop the hurricanes that destroy everything in their paths at the moment. Come on.... Mr Powerful stop that....stop bone cancer on kids...what kinds of shitty thing is that. If I am all powerful I would not give kids bone cancer. I would get rid of cancer all together and let people live in harmony and make sure everybody has enough to eat.

If he is all powerful please post something here on this forum and tell us why we need to suffer from T. But God speaks in riddles and we never fully understand him ....so he is a politician ..talk a lot but never actually do something.

If i look around what happens to this earth I think we all already are in hell but we do not want to see it.

If life is just a time period you should enjoy and at the end of the day God tells me I did good or bad....than it was better to swallow.... God does not interfere he is just a judge at the end of the day.... Good you put some text in stone which any reasonable s.o.b. should know from their heart.

1 ) You shall have no other gods before Me. ... <- Well you made me so I would not know

2) You shall not make idols. <- Well you made Michael Jackson and popstars so to much idols for me I am sorry

3) You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. <- Why not...do you have a temper or something...not liking a joke or 2?

4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. <- the what??? Oh wait the seventh day....but how about the time before jezus christ.... which calendar did we use than?

5) Honor your father and your mother. <- nope...got abused in my childhood and I do not see my parents anymore

6) You shall not murder. <- Wow....never thought of that...good one.... But eeeeh who does all the killing in the world and what about the crusades to make whole tribes turn to Christianity .....is that not... ???

7) You shall not commit adultery. <- Wellllllllllll nuff said this happens a lot so people do not know number 7 very well... but you made people so it is your own screw up. If I program an application and it has errors I cannot blame the application only myself who programmed it in the first place

8) You shall not steal. <- Really??? Good one again never thought of this I thought stealing was normal ... but still people steal and we all know it is not right even not knowing the 10 rules of life

9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.<- Well people lie ....it is in our nature...we are the only organism on earth who can lie and we all do it. Small lie, big lie... we lie everyday. But than again God made us so it is his screw up we can lie. Cats and dogs are not able to lie so why gave us the ability to do it. Oh wait you m8 us in your own image....so you lie too?

10) You shall not covet. <- Yeah right in this day and age everybody wants what they see on television etc etc If we should not covet...than stop putting commercials on TV so you program people to buy something they do not need. We envy because we can.... that is what makes us human and again... if it is a flaw than you should have programmed us better

Just me rattling so do not feel offended....it just kept my mind from T a bit ... I am not angry and bitter or what ever. T just sucks and I did not wish it on anybody so if I was God I would help everybody ....all you believers and non believers ... I would not care. I just would help everybody. Black, White , Yellow , Purple. Moslim, Christian, Jew.... I would not care in the end we are all people.

 

Where was this God when the T went over board and my ear is screaming he didn't calm it. And where was the God when my son committed suicide. Ain't one

 

Chill

 

@ Ricos, I understand and feel your pains. Like you, I have so many questions and few answers about faith and God. Yet I find peace when I choose to believe in Jesus. I may not understand why innocent people go through hardship but I choose to trust God no matter what life throws my way. I pray that the Almighty God will heal you and fill your heart with peace. Don't give up hope.

 

At some point, I thought that maybe there is no god. But I look at the world around me and see how it's so complicatedly and beautifully designed that I can't quite convince myself that everything is just by chance. Deep down in my heart, I feel that there is something greater than we all are.

But that doesn't necessarily mean there is a god in the religious sense of the word. Maybe god just designs and makes, then lets their creations be, like an author who lets their characters dictate the story. Maybe god is like a whole body and we're just parts -- like a fingernail or a hair strand -- and that our individual experiences converge into one profound consciousness after we die. Maybe god is a cosmic video game player and we're all sims.