[MD] God is cheese

[John Carl]

Ron, Ham and Mark and all who think discussing the reality of God a good
idea,


> Ron:
> Ham has a point here although the only discussion he will entertain
> is his own belief system as a matter of common sense.
>
> That having been said, the matter of the discussion of the "reality of
> God".
>
> The focus of the discussion lies within how Ham comprehends this notion,
> namely he contextualizes the idea within an objective framework making
> the discussion at odds from the start. Which is why this discussion has
> yielded little in the past on this particular forum.
>
>
I'd agree, Ron, and extend that agreement to all time and all forums.  I
mean, God is in his heavens and we are on this earth and how are we supposed
to say anything meaningful about something so far beyond our own contextual
frame of reference?  All we can talk about is our ideas of God, our
conceptualizations of God and any "God" obviously transcends our ideas of
Him/Her/ - his noodly goodness, as my Pastafarian friends say.

So I figure if there is a God, then it's up to Him to reveal Himself to me,
not really my job to ascend and intellectually encapsulate Him.

Second point, what we can see around us, is this creation and that's pretty
much all we can see.  Any transcendent being is only a postulate - Creation
is the only revelation of a postulated Creator that we can possibly
experience.  Therefore, why not just appreciate the Creation and leave it at
that? Pragmatically speaking and all.   Its a kind of  Pantheism that I
espouse, which is not at all the same thing as Atheism (sorry Ham).  And it
seems to me that if you believe that man is the product of unaided
evolution, then unaided evolution is what you mean by "God" and thus you and
I are in basic, pantheistic harmony.    I think when we refer to the terms
"Theist" or "Atheist", what we're really talking about is a book - the bible
- whether or not we think its an interesting, relevant collection of stories
or not.

Ron:


> I think the topic is an interesting one and may be formed around quality
> ideas
> but until
> the objective context is divorced from the dialog, there really is not much
> to
> be gained from the topic.
>


So the question is, is God a quality concept or not?  Is it more helpful for
our existence to personify DQ or not?  And is the bible a relevant
collection of stories?  I found a pretty interesting Kierkegaard quote in my
reading this past weekend:

"The matter is quite simple.  The Bible is very easy to understand.  But we
Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers.  We pretend to be unable to
understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we
are obliged to act accordingly.  Take any words in the New Testament and
forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly.  My God, you
will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined!  How would I ever get
on the in the world?  Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship.
Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself
against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians
without the Bible coming too close.  Oh priceless scholarship, what would we
do without you?  Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God.
Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."