The God vs Placebo argument begs the question.
Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Oct 24, 2007, at 11:11 AM, new.morning wrote:
An independent view:
why is God necessarily a prerequisite, or an intermediary, to
Universal Love -- defined as loving everything intensely. (Including
Loving the homeless man you pass -- and doing something with that
Love). Can't a pure atheist experience the same intensity of
Universal Love as a Devotee? Whats God got to do with it?
--paraphrasing Tina Turner.
Universal Love is one the esteemed human virtues. If you get there
through, or after, finding God, loving God, finding enlightenment in
your own view, or by what ever means, That, Universal Love, is the
Thing. Not all of the intermediate markers, non-markers, tools,
non-tools, side-shows, non-side-shows, deep samahdi, shallow somadhi,
(or "samadhi what?") etc.
No need to posit, or believe, that God, or loving god, is the only way
to Universal Love. If loving your god brings intense universal love,
then you have a good god -- or at least a good placebo. If loving your
god brings a motivation to smite and hate others, you have a bogus god
IMO.
Is God, and Loving God, perhaps only a placebo getting one to
Universal Love. A correlation seen as causality. Same with meditation,
yoga, yogis, darshan, etc. Can you, can anyone, clearly demonstrate
that these are not simply placebos. Like Marek's and T3rinity's
symbols, my experience is that "placebos" --that is, any object -- a
rock or tree -- can evoke the same experiences as you describe from
your symbols. If you just Love it intensely.
God and Its divine symbols, and messengers. All nice. But you can make
your own placebos -- if you need one -- faster, easier, if you dare to
do so.
Really good point, one that was begging to be said.
Also, I wonder if we looked at it objectively, is belief in god or gods a good
thing overall or a bad thing? From my POV, belief in an ethocentric god or gods
is the greatest danger to sentient life on this planet. As we possibly near the
latest planetary extinction, how much danger has the injunction in the
Genesis/Bereshith, that man was given divine dominion over the earth and to
subdue it, caused?
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