Spiritual vs religious

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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
I don’t believe in “kingdoms” I guess. No hierachies is a goal. At least, it’s a future hope even if I don’t get to see it. It won’t happen anytime soon. I find a lot of mansplainin going on with religious fundamentalists. So I guess if it’s got to be their way because they insist they have a patent on it, I’m not interested in their kingdom. I think they are poor judges of what fairness looks like.
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To add. If God is all merciful he could just make things better. If created a world that’s unfair, and made people sacrifice life and limb in the pursuit of a just world that he planned to be cruel - then he can fix that himself without cruelty. Cruelty is a bad teacher. He didn’t need to put the world through thousands of years of violence and fighting. No, that’s not the God I believe in. That’s a human projection of who God is, coming from human cruelty.
 
As the story goes… if he put Adam and Eve in the garden with two trees and allowed the serpent to temp them, knowing they would because he wrote the story…then punishing them for the rest of human existence with more cruel games…that’s not love. That’s human cruelty projected onto the page. It’s unscrupulous. Maybe we’re supposed to see that?
 
I think the idea is that God will be a truly just King, a platonic ideal of Kingship if you like, so God's kingdom will be perfectly just and lovely in accordance with God's will. If you happen to think the God we see reflected in the Law and, worse, the faith of the church (in a general sense, not specific) is just and lovely, that is. There's the rub.
timothyu said:
Selfishness is what is behind every foul deed in this world.
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Pretty much, eh. Interesting how selfishness is such a driver in much of the organized church. Fundamentalists raising money with promises of heaven. Roman Catholics doing much the same albeit in a different way. And somehow, they are able to justify that using the same Bible where others see God calling for Love and caring for others, not raking in cash. Points up once again how much of Christian faith and thought comes back to interpretation of scripture, not easy plaititudes whose existence in scripture is dependent on one's point of view of scripture and Jesus.
 
Mendalla said:
I think the idea is that God will be a truly just King, a platonic ideal of Kingship if you like, so God's kingdom will be perfectly just and lovely in accordance with God's will. If you happen to think the God we see reflected in the Law and, worse, the faith of the church (in a general sense, not specific) is just and lovely, that is. There's the rub.

Pretty much, eh. Interesting how selfishness is such a driver in much of the organized church. Fundamentalists raising money with promises of heaven. Roman Catholics doing much the same albeit in a different way. And somehow, they are able to justify that using the same Bible where others see God calling for Love and caring for others, not raking in cash. Points up once again how much of Christian faith and thought comes back to interpretation of scripture, not easy plaititudes whose existence in scripture is dependent on one's point of view of scripture and Jesus.
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What about a Queendom lol. Actually, no guarantees that would be any fairer.

It does say there will be no “Male or female, Jew or gentile, slave or free” in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the hope is “on Earth as it is in Heaven”. It speaks of equality and inclusion of all types and not male dominated, as the hope. They just didn’t have the language for the whole world governed by universal principles other than to call it a kingdom. They hadn’t expanded their understanding and vision yet.

Didn’t Jesus’ detractors taunt him with “Heal thyself”? It’s like nobody learned after 2000 years, that that was a cruel and selfish thing to say.
 
timothyu said:
That would be nice but in order to do so we would have to give something up. We were meant to learn how to live properly with the knowledge of good and evil, not to be turned back into the family pet.
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No, as all merciful and powerful he could just “poof” make the world fair and heal everybody without making it more painful. If God is all powerful he could do that.

An earth sized asteroid would work.

I don’t believe in a cruel God. That’s not God. I believe in a better God than that. Cruelty exists in the world but it doesn’t have to.

Short of an asteroid that puts us all out of our misery at once, we need to behave more like merciful gods in a merciful god’s image and change the world that way. That doesn’t mean not pointing out injustice in the world. It just means cruelty will never fix injustice.
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
An earth sized asteroid would work.
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Slight overkill there. The one that took out 70+% of life at the end of the Cretaceous was only 10km in diameter or something like that. The Earth hitting another Earth-sized body would likely leave the sun with a new asteroid belt.:eek:
 
timothyu said:
We punish ourselves. We refuse to admit we are not capable of being top dog in this universe.
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God is starting to sound like an abusive husband or wife by your definition....if God created everything, doesn't that mean he also created evil, not us? (Isaiah 43:19) And Jesus crying out to God, why has thou forsaken me? I'm sure Jesus desired another way, but God insisted on the suffering?
How does this support that we were given free will and our bad choices are always our fault? God is Malevolent or Benelovent or both
Could God be something else? Is there a different answer for Kimmio that humans are aware of?
What about the concept of Satyagraha?
Just wondering...
I don't necessarily have the answer.
 
Waterfall said:
.if God created everything, doesn't that mean he also created evil, not us?
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Of course, as good cannot exist without evil. Two sides of one coin. But He also warned us not to mess with what we don't (and still don't) understand. We are the guilty parties of playing with what we shouldn't.
 
timothyu said:
Of course, as good cannot exist without evil. Two sides of one coin. But He also warned us not to mess with what we don't (and still don't) understand. We are the guilty parties of playing with what we shouldn't.
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As a metaphor for the beginning of humanity - Adam and Eve - actually, “What We Shouldn’t” - was playing with us. The story says God made that happen. A loving and just and merciful God wouldn’t do that. Maybe we’re supposed to evolve to a place where we think about that, change course, and project a kinder image of God. Jesus already did that and died for it. He doesn’t have to keep dying for it by proxy in order to move the world to a better place. We just have to get better at being kind, and fair - to continue what he started. It’s really a strength we were given, and always had, but need to work on, not a weakness. The opportunity to be kinder and more merciful and just to our fellow human beings was always there, the potential was and always is there as long as humanity exists.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with standing up for those principles if someone is trying to turn you away from them. Anger can be justified for that. But not returned violence.
 
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The body returns to dust, but the character we build for ourselves may be worthy of survival.
 
Is God like love ... kind of fickle in away ... off with yah saith the powers and the head departed ...

Horse story ... requires whisperers in the garden! Gosh ... what if they talk about us?

At least give them something of substance to exchange ...
 
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