From: mirage@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dean Joseph Sanvitale)
Subject: More on God (Reply to Really?)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 03:36:06 GMT

To: phoenix@cwis.unomaha.edu
Subject: Re: Really?
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Cc: 
Bcc: 

Point well taken.  You're right, of course, that God is not to be found in
the yellow pages or a cereal box.  I'm not THAT stupid.  My point was only
that to a layman trying to be objective (its probably impossible, but I'm
trying) all the CURRENT hoopla about God seems to be just about people and
not at all about some deity who's "out there."  I know that it's currently
in vogue to posit a personal "in there" God who guides and shapes our values
and ideals.  But what I'm wondering is if the God squad is willing to leave
it at that.  To relegate God to a purely personal feeling, a glorified 
conscience so to speak.  That seems to be the trend.  I read this newsgroup
and witness the kernal of a "new age."  An age in which everybody's God is
an "individual," competeing for spiritual bragging rights with every other
self-proclaimed deity.  Witness bigfoot, Buddha, Them Space People from Erp,
and Spam.  Yes, now even proccessed pork is considered seriously by some to be
the key to enlightenment.

Now, I must admit that I'm not a very religious person.  But I have always
considered "pure" faith admirable.  To have a conviction in some greater good
(and evil) than is evinced in the petty deallings of human beings is a trait
that I've never possessed.  Nevertheless, I do respect such conviction.
However, in this century God is being reduced to a Big-Brother, whose 
primary use is to provide some ideological muscle to back-up otherwise
merely "subjective" beliefs.  The simplest way to live, in fact, is to
pick a principle, personify it as God, and claim that you have found the "way"
Well, that is disturbing and more importantly one MASSIVE COP OUT.

  
It's much more difficult and rewarding to admit that your beleifs are just
that: you're beliefs (just as shaky and subjective as anybody elses).
Yes, this leaves you on rather uncertain ground.  Every day you're faced with
the possiblity that your ideas will not cut it and a new insight will creep 
in through the cracks of consciousness.  For those who are scared of
such leakage, God is the perfect caulking, insulating you from nasty new
ideas that make life a little wild and wooly sometimes.  Oh sure, you 
watch the ideas of others banging uselessly on the iron walls of your
imenentrable convictions.  But you're not vulnerable and your're not growing.
That's the crux of it.  You're not going anywhere when you laminate your 
beliefs with a coating of arrogance. And in my book, going somewhere, anywhere,
is far preferable to sitting in a castle, fearing the intrusions of a (to your
eyes) hostile world.  However, your walls are personal and cannot be 
broken from the outside.  It's up to you to free yourself from God.


P.S. Flame me all you want.  I have no truth to defend, just a world of endless
surprise to explore.  Fire away, I'll take it, heathen though I am.


Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage