Is there a God ?

[china]

Is belief necessary to find out? I think to learn is far more important than to know. Learning about belief is the end of belief. When the mind is free of belief then it can look. It is belief, or disbelief, that binds; for disbelief and belief are the same: they are the opposite sides of the same coin. So we can completely put aside positive or negative belief; the believer and the non-believer are the same. When this actually takes place then the question, "Is there a god?" has quite a different meaning. The word god with all its tradition, its memory, its intellectual and sentimental connotations - all this is not god. The word is not the real. So can the mind be free of the word? Is there a God?

 

[L Gilbert]

Nope, nope, nope, yup, and nope.

 

[china]

You sound like Dexter -LG.

 

[talloola]

NO, there is not a god

 

[L Gilbert]

You sound like Dexter -LG.

lol
Thanks, I think.

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

Yes there is. What form or shape or substance does god take I haven't the foggiest. The universe was created by something. Or something set things in motion that ended with the creation of the universe. That something is god. For lack of a better name.

 

[s_lone]

How could we invent a word for what does not exist?

What is God and what is a god?

 

[L Gilbert]

What's a widget? What's a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

 

[karrie]

What's a widget? What's a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

not to mention dragon, troll, ogre, cyclops, Klingon, Borg, tribbles.... the list goes on!

 

[s_lone]

You are both not answering the question...

 

[karrie]

You are both not answering the question...

"How could we invent a word for what does not exist?"

We do it all the time. It's called literature, imagination, creativity... we invent words for concepts, real or made up. Just because a word exists, doesn't mean the concept or thing it's describing does. Gilbert and I both just gave examples of words that were invented for things that do not exist. Simply having the word 'god', does not mean there is one.

Don't get me wrong... my gut tells me God exists (sorry Gilbert... lol), just, that's not a premise upon which I'd base any argument in favor of the concept.

 

[s_lone]

"How could we invent a word for what does not exist?"

We do it all the time. It's called literature, imagination, creativity... we invent words for concepts, real or made up. Just because a word exists, doesn't mean the concept or thing it's describing does. Gilbert and I both just gave examples of words that were invented for things that do not exist. Simply having the word 'god', does not mean there is one.

Don't get me wrong... my gut tells me God exists (sorry Gilbert... lol), just, that's not a premise upon which I'd base any argument in favor of the concept.

Are you saying that literature, imagination and creativity do not exist?

I actually agree with you that the premise shouldn't be used as an assurance of God's existence. But I can't help thinking that when we invent a word, it's because there's something to be defined. Something real...

 

[freda]

I also don't believe god exists.

 

[china]

Is there a God ?In the case of the tree the object is before our eyes, and the word refers to the tree by universal agreement. Now with the word god there is nothing to which it refers, so each man can create his own image of that for which there is no reference. The theologian does it in one way, the intellectual in another, and the believer and the non-believer in their own different ways. Hope generates this belief, and then seeking. This hope is the outcome of despair - the despair of all we see around us in the world. From despair hope is born, they also are two sides of the same coin. When there is no hope there is hell, and this fear of hell gives us the vitality of hope. Then illusion begins. So the word has led us to illusion and not to god at all. God is the illusion which we worship; and the non-believer creates the illusion of another god which he worships - the State, or some utopia, or some book which he thinks contains all truth. So the question remains , can the mind be free of the word with its illusions?

 

[El Barto]

To me belief is like a telescope , the more you believe the more closer your looking, but at ther same time the less you see the whole picture.
To me the belief in god or whatever is not important, but the action of a man is what matters.
woman, would you like youe man to tell you that he loves you or would you like him to take out the garbage, wash the bathroom, vacuum the house, wash the dishes, and do the laundry? ;lol 'o'
China , this sounds like the Yin ,Yang

 

[china]

In the very abandonment of its own limitations, the mind becomes sensitive and therefore innocent. And only the innocent mind knows what love is—not the calculating mind, not the mind that has divided love into the carnal and the spiritual. In that state there is passion and, without passion, reality will not come near you. It is only the enfeebled mind that invites reality; it is only the dull, grasping mind that pursues truth, God. But the mind that knows passion in love—to such a mind the nameless comes.

 

[Toro]

Yes.

 

[Unforgiven]

By your definition it would appear to be so.

If it is that, what you think is, then it becomes so in your belief so that you act within the constrants of a way. This isn't illusion because this in the doing becomes reality.

Is belief necessary to find out? I think to learn is far more important than to know. Learning about belief is the end of belief. When the mind is free of belief then it can look. It is belief, or disbelief, that binds; for disbelief and belief are the same: they are the opposite sides of the same coin. So we can completely put aside positive or negative belief; the believer and the non-believer are the same. When this actually takes place then the question, "Is there a god?" has quite a different meaning. The word god with all its tradition, its memory, its intellectual and sentimental connotations - all this is not god. The word is not the real. So can the mind be free of the word? Is there a God?

 

[china]

Unforgiven:

China,
The word god with all its tradition, its memory, its intellectual and sentimental connotations - all this is not god. The word is not the real.
So can the mind be free of the word? Is there a God?

Unforgiven,
By your definition it would appear to be so.
If it is that, what you think is, then it becomes so in your belief so that you act within the constrants of a way. This isn't illusion because this in the doing becomes reality.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

China , Instead of asking who or what God is why not give your whole attention and awareness to what is? Then you will find the unknown, or rather it will come to you. If you understand what is the known, you will experience that extraordinary silence which is not induced, not enforced, that creative emptiness in which alone reality can enter. It cannot come to that which is becoming, which is striving; it can only come to that which is being, which understands what is. Then you will see that reality is not in the distance; the unknown is not far off; it is in what is. As the answer to a problem is in the problem, so reality is in what is; if we can understand it, then we shall know truth.

 

[china]