What is sin?

[Delightful Life]

i'd even say they are among the closest...

 

[chansen]

I think that many atheists are close to God.

What a useless statement. You're taking the thing you're a massive fan of, and saying the people who don't agree with you and don't even believe your crush exists, are actually really close to him!

It's a miracle!

 

[Hermann]

I think that many atheists are close to God.

Yes, of course. After all, God is an atheist.

 

[chansen]

Yes, of course. After all, God is an atheist.

My initial thought with that is that someone who doesn't believe in himself has low self-esteem. Then I think about things like the Ten Commandments and the commandments from God about worshipping God and God alone, and I think, yeah, lack of self-esteem fits.

 

[revjohn]

Then I think about things like the Ten Commandments and the commandments from God about worshipping God and God alone, and I think, yeah, lack of self-esteem fits.

And Rob Ford offering his wife to some buddies does so out of incredibly high esteem.

Or is that just drunken stupor stuff and acceptable?

God is entering into a relationship with a people. A bit different than the relationships formerly entered into between Gods and people. This God wanders about.

Meets Abram in Ur of the Chaldees and invites him to go for a protracted stroll. From there he goes with some of Abrams folk to Egypt and back.

It is a till death do us part kind of deal. Do we only enter into those out of low self-esteem?

 

[Delightful Life]

My initial thought with that is that someone who doesn't believe in himself has low self-esteem. Then I think about things like the Ten Commandments and the commandments from God about worshipping God and God alone, and I think, yeah, lack of self-esteem fits.

well, g_d's always been an underachiever...

just look at the mess she left of her creation?

poutine the national food in Canada???

 

[Neo]

I think that many atheists are close to God.

It's impossible for them not to be, in the broader sense of the term.

 

[chansen]

Are we taller? I wasn't aware.

 

[Jaebius]

well, g_d's always been an underachiever...

just look at the mess she left of her creation?

poutine the national food in Canada???

The Creation did a fine-enough job of messing things up itself.

 

[Delightful Life]

"ebola has free will!"
-- Jae

 

[revjohn]

Are we taller? I wasn't aware.

He said "broader" so I think he meant you guys are wider. You take up more space than others which would put you closer to an infinite God.

Though you aren't really that big.

By comparison.

 

[Seeler]

An atheist doesn't believe in God. So the statement that 'I think many atheists are close to God.' may be useless to many atheists (I refused to group them all together and make a statement about all or most atheists.)

But,
Many times someone (A) has been close to someone else (B) and the second person (B) has not been aware of it. If A is close to B, then B must be close to A.
I think that God is close to many atheists.
Therefore I think that many atheists are close to God.
It may be a useless statement for many atheists. I don't believe it is a useless statement for many Christians. In fact it may be important to many Christians to recognize that God's love is for everyone, and to be able to see the face of God in everyone they meet.

 

[Hermann]

It's impossible for them not to be, in the broader sense of the term.

In the broadest sense of the term, God is the self-creative and inseparable totality of being. I this sense, everyone, including atheists, is a co-creative part of God.

The self-creative totality of being, as an inseparable whole, is, of course, not a popular definition of the term "God." Most people define God in the conventional sense, as a separate, supernatural, humanoid creator ghost, who somehow had human emotions and motivations, and thought in terms of human concepts, long before there were humans, before there was anything except this humanoid God.

 

[Neo]

The idea that God is somehow separate and set apart from it's creation is a misnomer. We live and move and have our being within the body of God. That would include theists, atheists and every agnostic in between.

 

[Hermann]

The idea that God is somehow separate and set apart from it's creation is a misnomer. We live and move and have our being within the body of God. That would include theists, atheists and every agnostic in between.

Yes!

 

[revjohn]

The idea that God is somehow separate and set apart from it's creation is a misnomer.

At best it is a misconception. A misnomer is literally an error in name.

The idea that a Creator is set apart from its Creation is what leads us to speak of Creators and Creations.

Did you impregnate your mother who then gave birth to you? Do you still have the stretchmarks from when your womb grew to accommodate your developing self?

How do you know which letters on a keyboard to strike in order to communicate your ideas?

Your whole life bears testimony to distinction and separation. Particularly that part of your life spent gestating.

We live and move and have our being within the body of God.

Slight misquote here. The line is "For in you we live and move and have our being."

While Paul quotes this in his speech to the men of Athens in defence of the notion of a single solitary God, Epimenides whom he quotes was addressing Zeus. Neither would agree that they were teaching that everyone is God (in Paul's case) or Zeus (in Epimenides' case).





That would include theists, atheists and every agnostic in between.[/QUOTE]

 

[Hermann]

I think Neo meant misconception rather than misnomer. Anyway, when I agreed with him, I took it in that sense.

The distinction between opposites, such as creator and created, is, of course, at the very root of logical differentiation and of our logically thinking human intellect.

But creator and created, like any other pair of diametric opposites, necessitate and complement each other, and are connected by some kind of action, which, in case of the creator/created pair, is the action of creating. Thus, creator and created are not absolutely separate but united by the act of creating. Creator/creating/created are linked into one inseparable whole which could be called the "holy trinity" of creation.

In other words, the difference between creator and created is a matter of distinction, not of absolute separateness. Absolute separateness between creator and created is a misconception.

The leading edge of science seems to agree that the universe is in an ultimate state of inseparableness or synthesis. Although the workings of a system that is in a state of synthesis can and should be analysed, and the analysis is analytically true, the analysis gives us only the analysis of the system, not its ultimate truth. Although the analysis is analytically true, the ultimate Truth of the system is synthesis.

There appear two be two kinds of truth at work in the universe, the small t truth of analysis, and the capital T Truth of synthesis, both being equally true, with the synthesis as the primary and ultimate Truth, and the analysis secondary.

 

[Delightful Life]

The idea that God is somehow separate and set apart from it's creation is a misnomer. We live and move and have our being within the body of God. That would include theists, atheists and every agnostic in between.

the scientist IS a part of the experiment and always has to take that into account

as otherwise stated that the act of observation affects that which is observed

and OH, WHAT A BODY! just watch out for the colonwhitehole, m'kay?

 

[Hermann]

Hi Inna:

Not only does the act of observing affect the observation. By choosing his observing viewpoint, the observer chooses the truth of his observation. The truth of any observation is, in part, created by the observer. The truth is created by the observer/observing/observed triad, and is no longer purely objective.

In the realm of the cosmic analysis, there are a limitless number of possible viewpoints and truth, every one of them chosen by the observer. In the realm of the cosmic synthesis, however, there is only one Truth, and it is the experience of universal unity: the experience of the unified cosmic whole, as a unified whole. We can experience IT when we refrain from thinking and just experience reality as is. Child's play, eh?

 

[Neo]

At best it is a misconception. A misnomer is literally an error in name.

The idea that a Creator is set apart from its Creation is what leads us to speak of Creators and Creations.

Did you impregnate your mother who then gave birth to you? Do you still have the stretchmarks from when your womb grew to accommodate your developing self?

How do you know which letters on a keyboard to strike in order to communicate your ideas?

Your whole life bears testimony to distinction and separation. Particularly that part of your life spent gestating.

Slight misquote here. The line is "For in you we live and move and have our being."

While Paul quotes this in his speech to the men of Athens in defence of the notion of a single solitary God, Epimenides whom he quotes was addressing Zeus. Neither would agree that they were teaching that everyone is God (in Paul's case) or Zeus (in Epimenides' case).

That would include theists, atheists and every agnostic in between.

Yes, a "misconception" rather than a misnomer, (posting at 5:30 before going to work). Also, re the quote, I was paraphrasing without quotations marks.

I've always maintained that we part and parcel of God and not God Itself. While I may not have the stretch marks from giving birth to myself, I do contain the genetic material from my parents. I could not have come into being without them. Like The Rankin Family sing: "we rise again in the faces of our children.."

I also see myself as a child of the world, which in turn is part and parcel of the Solar System, etc. etc. Scientists tell us that every atom in our bodies originated from the super novas of stars, making us literally made of "star dust". In this way too we are physically part and parcel of the Universe.