From: vanweer@ecf.toronto.edu (VANWEERDENBURG NICHOLAS JOHN)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: MY god
Date: 9 Jan 93 02:01:21 GMT
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility

In article <9300816.10375@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> tovey@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Gadget) writes:
>I would be interested to hear some 'atheists' opinions of this.
>I have, for some time, believed in little that I can not see, hear, etc.
>However, having read some of Hofstater's books, notably 'The Mind's Eye',
>especially "Is God a Taoist", Raymond Smullyan, I am quite happy to believe 
>in God as a process, the process of attaining wisdom, and the devil as the
>'unfortunate amount of time it takes'. As a practitioner of Aikido I 
>have some understanding of what the Zen masters talk about when they talk
>about the void and verything being the same, (mu). I believe that all religions
>have something to contribute to the well-being of people. It seems that the
>old (and obselete) view of Jews concerning not eating Pork is related to the
>fact the pork goes off quickly, just as the Catholic anti-prophylactic rule
>seems to encourage the manufacture of Catholics.
> However, I am not willing to discard the concept of a god out of hand. I 
>think that the concept of a god can be beneficial to a society for one
>thing (i doubt you would dispute that), but I also believe in the possiblity

I dispute it completely.  Society has a mob mentality and things take a life
of their own.  Look at all the bloody religious wars in history- I dispute
them, and I dispute the value of something that creates stuff like that.
And due to human nature, it seems to always go this way.  Your personal
god is not a god.  A god is not a process. A god, is a supernatural sentient
being.  Personally, I like Taoist and Zen stuff.  They have elements of
wisdom to them, with out negative elements of fiction and manipulation that
usually permeate religion.  A god can be good to one person, even 
if its a totally eccentric, fictitious one.  However, when considering the
social implications, I see lots and lots of problems for any type of mass
fictious belief, because of the abandonment of reason needed to perpetrate it.


>of the existence of a 'cool' god, one who sees everything because he (she)
>(it) is all, one who changes with his (etc) environment. One who does not
>affect the world directly (just as we do not affect our bodies directly) but
>works through agents (as we use hormones as the personification of our wishes
>and white blood cells as the erradicators of corruption). The concept is my
>own (I think), but relates strongly to that of Buddha.
>  Your opinions?
>
>  Gadget
>
>Matt Tovey 	       |  Commpower Engineering	|	

A cool reasonable, logical god that is more a metaphor for wisdom in life and
living than anything supernatural, is reasonable.  But then, its not a god
is it?  And further more, this is not what religions propose, and thus does
not in any way absolve them of their sickness.  Pretending that this is
what they propose is plain wrong.  However, many Christians do take their
god to be like the one you discuss.  This I can accept, and see it as a 
reasonable belief if it helps you.  However, this is not Christianity.
 
Aside: if imaginary friends are good for kids, why not for adults? But, even
kids' imaginary friends can become a harmful thing.  And what if the kid's
imaginary friend started to preach killing people?  Or if not preach it,
cause it indirectly?
 
 
-- 


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Nick Vanweerdenburg
Newsgroups: alt.atheism