From: mirage@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dean Joseph Sanvitale)
Subject: God
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 03:54:28 GMT

Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: God
Summary: Why? 
Followup-To: Thousands of years of God talk
Distribution: world
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Keywords: God

Ok, about God.  There's a few things to get straight.

	1. We need God
	2. We can't have him
	3. We want him anyway
	4. Nobody really cares about God, beleivers and unbeleivers included


Comments

1.  God's been around a long long time.  Probably even longer than that.
    We woudln't keep God around unless we needed him.  People are good at that
    kind of thing.  If they need or want something (same thing) they will
    find it or make it out of nothing.  If they don't need something, they
    will ignore it if it exists, or fail to create it if it doesn't.

2.  God is never ther  But he WAS and he WILL BE.  History says so.  God 
    did lots of stuff in the past.  As evidence I present the innumerable
    holy books that proclaim his exploits.  Likewise, we expect God to be a 
    big factor in the future as well, with most religions claiming God as
    the guy who will facilitate the final days of existence and beyond.  
    Unfortunately, God is never around today, right now in the present.
    Never once have I heard of God doing anything contempory.  I bet that
    2000 years ago, when God was supposed to been having a heyday here on
    earth, nobody had the faintest clue that anything spiritual was going on.
    Only in hindsight were the exploits of the numero uno deity recognized.
    Porbably 2000 years from now, there will be countless books and sects
    recounting the amazing days of the 20th century when God walked the earth
    and amazing thing happened.  Guess them's the breaks.

3.  We still have a thing for God even though he is entirely absent from the
    present moment.  I think this is kinda like the grass is always greener
    on the other side thing.  God did great stuff yesterday and I just missed
    it.  So far he hasn't made a peep today, but I just bet that tommorrow
    he's gonna come out roaring and stuff is gonna get amazing!!!  That
    seems to be the prevalent spiritual mindset.


4.  When you come right down to it, God is just an excuse.  The dog ate my
    homework.  God called me to preach his word.  Same sorta thing.  The dog
    didn't eat your homework, you shoved it in his mouth and temporarily
    subsumed your knowledge of cause and effect.  Same thing with God.
    God didn't call you.  You called God.  He wasn't in and so you left a
    message on his machine, with the understanding that he'd get back to you.
    Well, he didn't, but you pretened that he did and race out into the world
    confident that God got your message and you are now his faithful disciple.
    You mighta been right too, if God had had a machine or even a number. 
    Unfortunately, you don't really care about what God thinks.  You just
    want his sanction to be yourself.  No wonder God doesn't answer his
   phone.  No one would listen to him anyway.  


Conclusion:  If God isn't, then we sure have made a mess for nothing haven't
             we.
	     
 	     If God is, then we sure have made a mess for Something haven't
	     we.

I don't know which is worse.  Maybe I should ask God.

 


Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage