Is God in your church - Page 2

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If someone else's personal bias is thrown in, we are no longer free.

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Here we are, back to the crux of the matter once again. You don't know that the teachings in the Bible (the core ones) are a personal bias or not - THEREFORE - you don't know if a Christian is free or unfree.

Of free will, fear and God.

I was reading into Spinoza(first timer) today and he has an outlook on this that in some places coincides with Decius's thoughts.
What I basically understood of him is that Christianities and Abrahamism's axis is fear, they can only control the people through that. A little in vivo example of this is the thread 'you are cynical of...' the initial poster says clearly that your reply shouldn't exceed 200 words or you will be reprimanded, the majority of repliers played it right, those who didn't read the instruction (me) or those who didn't care much were 'punished' . fear makes the system work upon a desired pattern, Christianity uses the pattern that allows survival in communities (no killing, no stealing, love your enemy, message of love etc etc) it's a positive religion but the way he is presented to young minds in schools is horrific, enough to fuel paranoia, giving god a judgmental all seeing eye. Scary shit.

To understand our relation with god, Spinoza goes back to the beginning, the genesis, where adam and eve, created at the image of god, were first living in harmony and naked in their truth and thus free, the only law was not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge (of good and evil), this leads to the thought that adam and eve were only free in their state of nature, ignorant of good and evil. Doesn't the Oedipus complex work on god too? By wanting to be the equal of god and eating that fruit, adam symbolically killed God, his father. What the Christian church recapitulated of this is that free will, freedom in choice will only bring you misery and pain. But was adams choice a matter of free will? Or was he in prey of his passion to be the equal of god by knowing what he knows? What Spinoza wants to get at is to show us that religious faith is edified on illogical superstitions, fears, and wherever those are present there's no good action cause the good deed is only engendered by freedom; only a free man can do good cause his choices are based upon personal reasons and for his love of good and not his fear of the bad. This to say that goodness is in our nature, it's instinctive and spontaneous because it serves life. He also says that we were not born or were in a state of freedom, we find it through self realization. Paradise is not lost, it is to be found, here on earth while you still are in the flesh.
What I hold from this is that in order to reach freedom you got to personalize your relation with god and get to know him one step at a time through yourself, there should not be 50 or 100 of religions there should be six billion ones cause I don't think that god is to be found in a book in a strangers face but within and the only path into that is by questioning your existence, be 'self-vigilant' as Chris D's quote says. And I have the belief that if you throw a child into the wild he will eventually form an idea of god and believe in his existence. The idea of god is maybe part of our nature, we've been doing this for centuries and nothing comes ex-nihilo. And if it isn't god for an atheist it could be any other thing that you look up to: self ideals-technology-money. I used to be an agnostic now I do believe in the divine and the principles that I try to live my life upon were perceived by me but they amazingly coincide with a little bit of this and that religion's, but I refuse to follow any of them or name or give a face or voice to my own because once you do that both of you become clutched in a circular void, faith should be an evergrowing experience
I don't know how much I'm serving the topic but this came to mind.

You've brought up some interesting things here.

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Paradise is not lost, it is to be found, here on earth while you still are in the flesh.

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This is what Ive always believed. Whats with the idea that this entire existence is just some "test" to decide if we will live an eternity of agony and torture or one of pure bliss and ecstasy? And if god made us, then why not just make people worthy of living in his heaven and be done with it? Why create a hell and create people so he can throw them into it to be tortured for all time?

What if this was all there is? Wouldn't it be wise to enjoy what we have here and now? And even if you ascribe to religion, you are told to marvel at the miracle that is this world god made. Maybe in doing so you will find heaven here and now.

I like the idea that heaven is actually within us. And that all we need to find it is on this planet.

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What I hold from this is that in order to reach freedom you got to personalize your relation with god and get to know him one step at a time through yourself, there should not be 50 or 100 of religions there should be six billion ones cause I don't think that god is to be found in a book in a strangers face but within and the only path into that is by questioning your existence, be 'self-vigilant' as Chris D's quote says.

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I agree. I think that if there is a god then his relationship is between you and him. After all, he is all seeing and all knowing. So he doesn't need angels or priests or any other third party as a go between to communicate with you.

And the one place that you are truly you is in your heart.

So its best to search for god in your own life. In yourself.

And when he communicates, it will be through you, from inside you.

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And I have the belief that if you throw a child into the wild he will eventually form an idea of god and believe in his existence. The idea of god is maybe part of our nature.

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Of course it is. Its in our nature because we are complex animals. We think about things and try to work out what makes them tick. This came about in order to survive in a harsh world. By analyzing everything around us, we have become the dominant species on the planet.

And it is natural to eventually come to the point where we begin to analyze our very existence.

And it leads us to ask if there is any higher power. Any reason for our being here.

And naturally since we cannot find any evidence of a creator, we decide that if there is one its like ourselves, since we can relate to that.

Also, it is natural to want to feel safe. To feel protected and to feel no matter what horrible things in nature confront us- we have a higher power to protect us.

It is that feeling we have when we are a child, that our parents protect us, that they know all the answers. That everything you ever want to know can be explained.

Unfortunately when we become adults ourselves, we come to the horrible realization that our parents are not all seeing, all knowing, all powerful. And it leaves us feeling weak and powerless again.

I think for many adults this is too horrible to face. So they turn to religion and this gives them the all knowing all, seeing, all protecting adult figure to watch over them again.