Damn I had lot typed out in answer and must have hit the wrong button. Never-the-less, here we go agian, obvously not what I said before but shit happens.
Om by message I mean exactly that message. A message can contiane many things, the message of religoin is basicly, here is some info for you about what God is, this is what God wants you to do, this is how you reach God. Revealed truth is certianly what I speak of. I find it strange that you say you do not embrace this? How does that work? I mean of course that without such truths coming directly from God then anybody can make any claim about God, God's plans for us, etc... all of which makes it much harder to tell 'truth' from fiction. Do we kill the infidel or love our neigbour for example. Hah my dear OM I'm Lee, Lee Douglas, not Pat, I do not agree with Pat re: his view on free will. It makes much sense to me that God has granted us the freedom of choice over whether to quest for God or not. So no I would not say that we should assume that all thoughts…rational or not are to be considered. This makes no sense at all to me in fact. Is the idea that any particular 'race' has merit and value above and beyond any other particular 'race' a valid one in your opinion? I'll pre-empt your answer as a firm no, that is a basless and sensless idea(or words to that effect). So we can see that some thoughts have merit and some have not. The problem I'm having really is as simple as you say. The issue is how to glean the words of God from the words of man, and for the reasons of decideing what exactly to belive. If one person says to me God says 'love your neigbour' and another says God says 'kill the infidel', well obvously there is a contradiction here. God said one or the other or niether. How to decide that, that is the question. On 23 Feb, 12:13, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote: > Lee, if by ‘message’ you mean some linguistic directive or informative > event, the notion of such commentary by a deity transcending culture > is a strange one, no? Perhaps you mean things like “Don’t kill.” > “Treat others like you want to be treated” etc. I’m not sure. Perhaps > you could expand upon your premise here some, OK? > > Beyond revealed ‘truths’ (something I don’t embrace), perhaps we > should include the notion that life itself includes a divine spark… > shall we? If so, all sorts of results are possible. > > The issue here as I see it is inherent in the meaning of ‘theist’ > itself. . . one who believes in the existence of a god or gods. > Linguistically, the term ‘believes in’ has been interpreted in almost > countless different ways…each suited to support the sensibilities of > the interpreter. So, as interesting as analysis is, for such things, > few can find actual clarity. So, how does intuition fit into this? So > far, there seems to be a general consensus here that we all have this > ability. My guess is that even using intuition, core belief systems > can and do easily overshadow any direct application of such a rarefied > methodology. > > So, again, for me…it appears that one must clarify all core beliefs > first. Find out how/when/why they were formed…transcend any blind > beliefs with more informed ones…etc. How else do we have any hope for > knowing anything for sure? Yet, even here, difficulties abound as we > know. > > Returning to your theme here, your main issue seems to be “…how to > seperate the message of God from that of man.” A quick analysis here > may be of interest. What exactly is the difference? Do theists find > god something separate from themselves, thus requiring some sort of > objective qualifier of any ‘messages’ therefrom? One would have to > address the very nature of god here to have a chance at arriving at a > satisfactory answer it would seem. And, here again, we run into the > issue of confused beliefs that humans can come up with. So, what if we > assume that all thoughts…rational or not are to be considered? Is this > of any use? I’m sure not for some, yet it is an interesting question, > no? In such an epistemological pursuit, the subjective nature of all > concepts and language becomes readily apparent. So, back to your > question. Perhaps you wish to *know* on some deep level that which you > (or anyone) should follow as being divine will, is that more of the > issue for you? > > On Feb 23, 3:19 am, Lee <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > So you Atheists can of course get involded in this one, I really don't > > know why you should or what the interest for you would be, but do feel > > free. > > > I was thinking the other day about religion and culture. I'm somewhat > > worried about how to seperate the message of God from that of man. > > > So it suddenly struck me that any message that truely comes from God > > must trancend culture. > > > Thoughts?- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
